|
|
|
More "Overrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overrate my influence, and underrate the Prince's judgment, if you imagine aught save personal merit would weigh with him. Your son shall have every opportunity of deserving his notice, but whether it be favourable or not must depend ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... protestations, no matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud, independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities, but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, and render them useful; ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... weakness is not our ignorance; we know the good, but lack the will and purpose to live it out. And this is because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength of feeling as that of some lower gratification. We cannot perhaps overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of emotion and feeling. "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth." It does not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a hero. We ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... to overrate the value of the services rendered to the exposition by the special commissioner for history, Miss Florence Hayward, who not only secured the special exhibit of the Queen's jubilee presents, but also the exhibits ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... said enough, Alice," said Julian, with sparkling eyes; "you have said enough in deprecating my urgency, and I will press you no farther. But you overrate the impediments which lie betwixt us—they ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... silk hat, no middle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman "Sir," and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he despises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined to overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much noisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less restrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his will. The serf still bulks large in him. The whole ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... do that," answered the girl steadily. "Whatever your power over Maurice may be, it is not strong enough for that; you overrate it." ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... happens to be a successful writer, his friends who become then proud of his acquaintance, flatter him, and by soothing his vanity teach him to overrate his importance, and while he grasps at universal fame, he loses by too vigorous an effort, what he had acquired by diligence and application: If he pleases too little, that is, if his works are not read, he is in a fair way of being a great loser by his attempt to please. Mr. Steele ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Cuthbert," Sir Baldwin said, "that you overrate the chivalry of our master's enemies. Had we been thrown on the shores of France, Philip perhaps would hesitate to lay hands upon the king; but these petty German princelings have no idea of the observances of true chivalry. They are coarse ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... in driving the mental screw, to be careful how you allow it to dwell too constantly upon any one topic. If you allow yourself to think too much of any subject, you will get a partial craze upon that; you will come to vastly overrate its importance. You will make yourself uncomfortable about it. There once was a man who mused long upon the notorious fact that almost all human beings stoop consider ably. Few hold themselves as upright as they ought. And this notion took such hold upon the poor ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... to disparage the appearance of that fellow. Probably community of language rather than of blood accounts for our sense of kinship, for a common means of expression cannot but mould thought and feeling into some kind of unity. One can hardly overrate the intimacy which a common literature brings. The lives of great Americans, Washington and Franklin, Lincoln and Lee and Grant, are unsealed for us, just as to Americans are the lives of Marlborough and Nelson, Pitt and Gladstone and Gordon. Longfellow and ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... and St. Peter's, were taken on the same scale, and looked at with the same magnifying power, we should compare them without the possibility of being misled by those partialities which might tend to make us overrate the indigenous vegetable and the dome of our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... for you, and you treated him skilfully and left him in a fair way to recovery. That's all that we really know about it. Yes, I know," the officer continued as I made signs of disagreement, "you think that a crime is possibly going to be committed and that we ought to prevent it. But you overrate our powers. We can only act on evidence that a crime has actually been committed or is actually being attempted. Now we have no such evidence. Look at your statement, and tell me what you can ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... eyes: his is a healthy rapture, a torch lighted by the feelings, but which the reason holds upright and steady. His native favorites he enjoys as no Englishman or German could, but he does not overrate them. Nor does he overrate Voltaire, whom he calls "the Frenchman par excellence," and of whom he is proud as the literary sovereign of his age. At the same time, in articles directly devoted to Joubert, as well as by frequent ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... 'fanciful' girl. She afterwards becomes the Christian type of the Bride, in the 'Song of Solomon,' involved with an ideal of all that is purest in the life of a nun, and brightest in the death of a martyr. It is scarcely possible to overrate the influence of the conceptions formed of her, in ennobling the sentiments of Christian women of the higher orders;—to their practical common sense, as the mistresses of a household or a nation, her example ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... Christianity, and his Pastoral Care, which contains instruction in conduct and doctrine for all bishops, was a work that Alfred could not afford to leave untranslated. For this translation Alfred wrote a Preface, the historical value of which it would be hard to overrate. In it he describes vividly the intellectual ruin that the Danes had wrought, and develops at the same time his plan ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... afraid you overrate my abilities. I have no consciousness of any such resources as you suppose me ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... clothed in fine fancies any incident or scene presented, however nakedly, to his view, accounts in part for his notorious tendency to overrate the work of other writers, especially those who wrote stories in any form. This explanation was hinted at by Sir Walter himself, and formulated by Lockhart; it seems a fairly reasonable way of accounting ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... No, no, no, I did not overrate it. I can no longer attempt to conceal from myself that this woman has conceived a passion for me. It is monstrous, but it is true. Again, tonight, I awoke from the mesmeric trance to find my hand in hers, and to suffer that odious feeling which ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the world; here Madame de Sevigne brought her bright, incisive wit, trebly commended by stainless reputation, unwithering beauty, and charming address, in the woman who wielded it. The noblest blood of France added the decoration and inspiration of their presence. It is not easy to overrate the diffusive beneficent influence that hence went forth to change the fashion of literature, and to change the fashion of society, for the better. The Hotel de Rambouillet proper lasted two generations only; but it had a virtual succession, which, though sometimes interrupted, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Altmuehl, all of which conduct an invader to the regions east of Ulm. Indeed, it passes belief how even the Aulic Council could have ignored the dangers of that position. Possibly the fact that Ulm had been stoutly held by Kray in 1796 now induced them to overrate its present importance; but at that time the fortified camp of Ulm was the central knot of vast operations, whereas now it was but an advanced outpost.[24] If Francis and his advisers were swayed by historical reminiscences it is strange that they forgot ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... "Have I not a friend here who is only too much inclined to overrate the little I am able to do? Lenore, you have permitted me to draw nearer to you than would have been possible under ordinary circumstances. Do you reckon it nothing that I should have won some of a brother's privileges with ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping philosophers. It was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Tristrams burst into a peal of merry laughter. "Oh Mags!" they cried, "we never did think before that you were conceited. You certainly overrate even your powers when you imagine that you will get Mr. Cardew ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... "You overrate the matter altogether, Bertha. The man shot me by mistake. The fellow he took me for richly deserved shooting. When he found it was a mistake, the poor fellow was bitterly sorry for it. Surely, there was nothing more ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... early erected, and bore witness to a more advanced civilization. We meet with them again, however, in Palestine, but we must traverse many miles before we find other examples at Peshawur and in the valley of Cabul. It is difficult to overrate the importance of these facts, or to explain these gaps. Are they, however, so complete as has been supposed? The few travellers who have crossed Afghanistan and Daghestan have seen tumuli which may have served as points of union ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... was abstemious in her living, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, that her mind had a noble prospect: her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance, than can be found below. This made her not overrate the honors of her station, or the learning of the schools, of which she was an excellent judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion's sake, remarked to her, that 'it was too great an honor for him, that a visitant of her ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... readers who are not gluttons, but epicures, in literature, whether they do not wish to see the bill of fare? I appeal to monthly critics, whether a preface that gives a view of the pretensions of the writer is not a good thing? The author may overvalue his subject, and very naturally may overrate the manner in which it is treated; but still he will explain his views, and facilitate the useful and necessary art which the French call reading with the thumb. We call this hunting a book, a term certainly invented by a sportsman. I leave the reader to ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... protested, 'I fear you overrate my poor ability. It is quite true that if I had been called in on the night of the robbery, my chances of success would have been infinitely ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... had set myself, I wish, of course, that I could have performed it more to my own satisfaction and that of my readers. This is a feeling which almost every one must have at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... "Overrate him, sir? That is impossible. I love him so well that I hope he will solve this mystery himself, unaided and alone, and that in going back to Chicago he will be smashed to pieces in a railway accident, so that we can have him here ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... eldest, very early gave unequivocal signs of his future destiny. His countrymen still remember a large picture painted by him at Amsterdam when only twelve years old, indicating extraordinary talent, even at that early age. His mother did not, however, overrate this boyish success, as stamping him a prodigy, but regarded it only as a motive for giving him a thorough artistic education. He went, accordingly, to Paris, and entered the atelier of Guerin, the teacher then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... infirmities are, however, at most only calculated to excite a smile; there is no turpitude in them, and they merit notice but as indications of the humour of character. It was his Lordship's foible to overrate his rank, to grudge his deformity beyond reason, and to exaggerate the condition of his family and circumstances. But the alloy of such small vanities, his caprice and feline temper, were as vapour compared with the mass of rich and rare ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... friend was rendered, by her age and inexperience, if not by sex, more helpless and dependent than I; but had I not been prone to overrate the difficulties which I should encounter? Had I not deemed unjustly of her constancy and force of mind? Marriage would render her property joint, and would not compel me to take up my abode in the woods, to abide forever ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... be called up in the night, if her lights were sighted, and he returned somewhat disconsolately to the hotel. Again he bethought him that if he told the Countess he had passed the day in the steamer office she would overrate his anxiety and so increase ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... although from a feeling of pride and patriotism naturally disposed to overrate the productions of their own literature, are far from being deficient in critical judgment or in exalted ideas on the theory of the beautiful. The count Stanislaus Potocki and Ossolinski, L. Osinski, Golanski, and others, maintain a high rank ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... the Zapotecs appears to have presented a close parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom, with absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in which he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon. He profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his foot. The officers who bore his palanquin on their shoulders were members ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... while they attempted its imitation in practice. The fabrication of imposing and lovely facades at Orvieto, at Siena, at Cremona, and at Crema, glorious screens which masked the poverty of the edifice, and corresponded in no point to the organism of the structure, taught them to overrate mere surface-beauty. Their wonderful creativeness in all the arts which can be subordinated to architectural effect seduced them further. Nothing, for instance, taken by itself alone, can be more satisfactory than the facade of the Certosa ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... skill and patience and beauty in expression,—these are the riper qualities to which "Enoch Arden" testifies. They are qualities whose attainment and retention are singularly rare, and whose value we cannot easily overrate. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... shaking it a little out of its stupid refuges of lies and ignominious wrappages, and of intimating to it afar off that there is still a Veracity in Things, and a Mendacity in Sham Things,' and so forth, in the well-known strain.[17] It is impossible to overrate the truly supreme importance of the violent break-up of Europe which followed the death of the Emperor Charles VI., and in many respects 1740 is as important a date in the history of Western societies ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... to misunderstand you, sir," I answered; "and I sincerely congratulate you that matters are no worse; though you greatly overrate the danger. I doubt if even a lion would have the heart to hurt Miss Mordaunt, were she ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... relations between the prime minister and his predecessor had been growing less and less cordial. Throughout the year 1801 Pitt was still the friend and informal adviser of the ministry, and it is difficult to overrate the value of his support as a ground of confidence in an administration, personally popular, but known to be deficient in intellectual brilliance. In 1802 he generally stood aloof, and though in ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... next year, on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them. But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend upon it, your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered. You don't know what a ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... to indicate profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected, Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery certainly did not overrate William's sufferings. No minutes in his life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself entirely and fundamentally other than ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Blanco White's sonnet difficult to overrate in thought—probably in this respect unsurpassable, but easy to overrate as regards its workmanship. Of course there is ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,—barred with brightness ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... diligence alongside of a count-colonel of hussars,[4323] can appreciate his companion or his interlocutor, weigh his ideas, test his merit and esteem him at his correct value, and I am sure that he does not overrate him.—Now that the nobles have lost their special capacities and the Third-Estate have acquired general competence, and as they are on the same level in education and competence, the inequality which separates ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... heavenly spirit? marry, the prophet. But it was not so. The man, his vision cloyed with sin, saw nought. The poor despised creature saw all. Nor is this recorded as miraculous. Poor proud things, we overrate ourselves. The angel had slain the prophet and spared the ass, but for that creature's clearer vision of essences divine. He said so, methinks. But in sooth I read it many years agone. Why did God spare repentant Nineveh? Because ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... say much about what is before you. You have been sending despatchers' orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter. Remember you are working with green trainmen ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... elegances that distinguish (no matter what the rank) the refined from the low, better than if she had been brought up under the hundred-handed Briareus of fashionable education. Lady Vargrave, indeed, like most persons of modest pretensions and imperfect cultivation, was rather inclined to overrate the advantages to be derived from book-knowledge; and she was never better pleased than when she saw Evelyn opening the monthly parcel from London, and delightedly poring over volumes which Lady Vargrave innocently believed to be ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mission,—first at Smyrna, and then at Constantinople,—were mainly through the press, in which he was eminently useful. He had a clear conviction, in devoting his life to giving the Armenians an evangelical literature, that he was doing the work to which his Master called him. Nor did he overrate the importance of this branch of the work. His missionary experience in another field was of much value in guarding him against mistakes. At Pera, in addition to his literary labors, he preached statedly in modern Greek to ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... war of the French and English, Braddock's defeat, the heroism of Washington, the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada and the northwestern territory to Great Britain. It is impossible to overrate the importance of these events upon the future of America. The result was that the region east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River was the property of Great Britain and the inheritance ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... indeed were I to dwell exclusively on science as lending interest and charm to our leisure hours. Far from this, it would be impossible to overrate the importance of scientific training on ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... a grain of truth in what you say, although you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor even a little one, but I have always observed much and painted a good deal myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an artist's career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian princes, and am merely a plebeian German, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... upon this income, often get into a fatally unsettled state of mind, in which my sanguine temperament is apt to suggest to me that the royalties to be expected are nearer than they really are. By that means I overrate my immediate income, and consequently spend considerably more than I possess. By the occasional and illusory character of these theatrical royalties and by my certainly indefensible liking for ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... feel, and therefore, to become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office, which I trust they will faithfully perform, long after we (that is, all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves. I am well aware how far it would seem to many I overrate my own exertions, when I speak in this way, in direct connexion with the volume I have just ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... said simply; "I am proud. Me you overrate, but my wishes and my hopes you do not overrate. Only,—" and she hesitated, "why to-night; ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... instance, simplicity and symmetry were kept before the eyes of a society whose influence on mankind was destined to be prodigious from other causes, as the characteristics of an ideal and absolutely perfect law. It is impossible to overrate the importance to a nation or profession of having a distinct object to aim at in the pursuit of improvement. The secret of Bentham's immense influence in England during the past thirty years is his success in placing such an object before the country. He gave us a ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... masses, must, therefore, not reduce the altitude which blind admiration has assigned, nor cut away the foreign lace, nor tear the ornaments, with which excited parties have bedaubed their images of clay. And, yet, so prone are men to overrate their leaders, that no estimate of a prominent man can be just, without ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... place not only long before the pollen-tubes have reached the ovules, but even before the placentae and ovules have been formed; so that with these orchids the pollen acts directly on the ovarium. On the other hand, we must not overrate the efficacy of pollen in the case of hybridised plants, for an embryo may be formed and its influence excite the surrounding tissues of the mother- plant, and then perish at a very early age and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... You overrate my power, which is a pageant. This Cap is not the Monarch's crown; these robes Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags; Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these But lent to the poor puppet, who must play Its part with all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... thou. My strength I do not rashly overrate. Slave am I here, at any rate, If thine, or whose, it ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Mr. Monday felt any very profound spiritual relief from the reading of Captain Truck, we should both overrate the manner of the honest sailor, and the intelligence of the dying man. Still the solemn language of praise and admiration had an effect, and, for the first time since childhood, the soul of the latter was moved. God and judgment passed before his imagination, and he gasped for breath in a way that ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... dear, kind friend," said Haldane cheerily to Mrs. Arnot while Laura was writing; "you overrate the danger. I feel that I shall return again, and if I do not, there are many ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... make yourself miserable for nothing. You expect too much. She is a petted, pampered, feted young lady of fortune, the daughter of a Croesus; do you think she can always think of you? Who are you that she should spare you so much time? You overrate yourself; you—you idiot." People stopped in the streets to look at the old man, who was walking so rapidly and gesticulating so excitedly. When Von Barwig saw that he was observed, he calmed down. "It's all right," he said. "To-morrow! I shall ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... your kindness leads you to overrate my importance," Austen replied, with mingled feelings. Victoria's confidence in her father made the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... executioners, to see what an advance he had already made upon any previous painting. (I limit, of course, this assertion to painting only, for in sculpture Donatello had years before given free gesture and perfect anatomy to his statues.) It would be impossible to overrate the excellence and beauty of drawing in the splendid swing of the bodies, the flexibility of the limbs, the sinewy elasticity of the leg muscles, and above all, the subtle suggestion of muscular movement under the loose skin of ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... "No, I do not overrate you," was the elector's reply. "I appreciate you—that is all; and I want you for a counsellor. You know how a reigning prince is surrounded by flatterers; how his follies are heralded to the world as virtues; and, above all, you know how many snares are spread for such a gilded butterfly by artful ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... command been given to any, save knights of long experience; and now, for the third time, the councillors of one of the greatest of Italian cities are about to do you honour. It is good to be modest, Sir Gervaise, and it is better to underestimate than to overrate one's own merits, but it is not well to carry the feeling to an extreme. I am quite sure that in your case your disclaimer is wholly sincere and unaffected; but take my advice, accept the honours the world may pay you as not undeserved, determining only in your mind ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... various directions lie next to the pituitary. If, in its expansion, it moves sufficiently outward, it may press upon, irritate them or paralyze, and so evolve various eye disturbances in association with the headache. No one can overrate this conception of migraine, for a number of men of genius have suffered from ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... will, that no army in Europe could compare with the troops of the States. As to the famous regiments of Sicily, and the ancient legions of Naples and Milan, a distinguished Venetian envoy, who had seen all the camps and courts of Christendom, and was certainly not disposed to overrate the Hollanders at the expense of the Italians, if any rivalry between them had been possible, declared that every private soldier in the republic was fit to be a captain in any Italian army; while, on the other hand, there was scarcely an Italian captain who ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... consider our behaviour to our inferiors, in which condescension can never be too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... heavens, not for purposes of divination, but prompted by a scientific spirit as an intellectual discipline that might help them to solve the mysteries of the universe." It is possible, however, to overrate the "scientific spirit" of the Greeks, who, like the Japanese in our own day, were accomplished borrowers from other civilizations. That astronomy had humble beginnings in Greece as elsewhere is highly probable. The late Mr. Andrew Lang wrote in this connection: "The very oddest example of the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... there, and that is, like the village he lives near, of credit enough. It answers certain purposes every now and then to send people to represent particular interests to England; and, in nearly all these cases, John Bull receives them with open arms, and, with his national gullibility, is often apt to overrate them. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... arguments and his remonstrances were of no avail, he withdrew from the Congress altogether and left the members of the Holy Alliance to take on themselves the full responsibility of their own policy. Now it would be hardly possible to overrate the importance of the step thus taken by England at a great crisis in the public affairs of Europe. The reign of George the Fourth would be memorable in history if it had been consecrated by nothing but this event. The utter ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... for me caused him to overrate the progress that I made and the aptitude I showed; it may even be that what he said was no more than the good-natured flattery of one who loved me and would have me take pleasure in myself. And yet when I look back at the lad I was, I incline ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... best, 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 ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... whether they do not wish to see the bill of fare? I appeal to monthly critics, whether a preface that gives a view of the pretensions of the writer is not a good thing? The author may overvalue his subject, and very naturally may overrate the manner in which it is treated; but still he will explain his views, and facilitate the useful and necessary art which the French call reading with the thumb. We call this hunting a book, a term certainly invented by ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... predicted by a less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... love of her youth—unless, indeed, he was simply an old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could get him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... opposite system. What is it, that they could seriously promise themselves, from the conservative virtue of all the ignorance, that can henceforward be retained among the people of this part of the world? It is true, the remaining ignorance is so great that they cannot well overrate its general amount; but how can they fail to perceive the importance of those particulars in which its dominion has been broken up? There is indeed a hemisphere of "gross darkness over the people;" ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... everyone by yourself, count," Fergus said slowly. "You overrate my qualities, and forget the fact that I am, after all, but a ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... which extends from the great Augustans down to Statius and Quintilian? Even if we set aside Juvenal and Suetonius as a rhetorician and a gossipmonger, that only makes the weight Tacitus has to sustain more overwhelming. It is hardly possible to overrate the effect of a single work of great genius; but the more we study works of great genius the more certain does it appear that they are all founded on real, though it may be transcendental, truth. Systems, like persons, are to be known by their ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... "Do not overrate my influence," said Valentine. "You must learn to look your life boldly in the face. Candidly and honestly I think that, from mistaken notions of honor and chivalry, you have done wrong. A man must be brave. Perhaps one of the hardest lessons in life is to bear unflinchingly ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... others, and in judging of chances and probability, we must not expect our pupils to proceed very rapidly. There is more danger that they should overrate, than that they should undervalue, the evidence of others; because, as we formerly stated, we take it for granted, that they have had little experience of falsehood. We should, to preserve them from credulity, excite them in all cases where it can be obtained, never to rest satisfied without ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... is impossible to overrate the value of the services rendered to the exposition by the special commissioner for history, Miss Florence Hayward, who not only secured the special exhibit of the Queen's jubilee presents, but also the exhibits of the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... as a statement of more than the truth; and I do not think it would be easy to overrate, either the value of the period or the excellence of the response to the demand it made upon them. The only dissatisfied folk were the publicans and the theatre and music-hall lessees. The special journals ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... will not take my disadvantages for more, or my advantages for less, than they are honestly worth. At Carbury Park you often said that you would never marry; and I have said the same myself. So, as we neither of us overrate the possibilities of happiness in marriage, perhaps we might, if you would be a little forbearing with me, succeed in proving that we have greatly underrated them. As for the prudence of the step, I ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... been living in Germany during the war I would have felt a powerful tendency to defend the cause of the Allies, to excuse their misdeeds, to overrate their ability, while being highly critical and censorious of every ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... girl. She afterwards becomes the Christian type of the Bride, in the 'Song of Solomon,' involved with an ideal of all that is purest in the life of a nun, and brightest in the death of a martyr. It is scarcely possible to overrate the influence of the conceptions formed of her, in ennobling the sentiments of Christian women of the higher orders;—to their practical common sense, as the mistresses of a household or a nation, her example ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... your fault, and not Mr. Sandford's," said her mother; "though I rather think you overrate ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sentiment and feeling. Unless a change to a very considerable extent be affected in the public mind, I think a dissolution would rather strengthen than weaken the ex-Council party. I am confident I do not overrate their strength—and it is a dangerous, though common error, to underrate the strength of an adversary. They are likewise organizing their party, and exciting the public mind to such a degree as to prevent any sentiments or measures ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of frontier warfare, though he had never yet been called on to raise his hand in anger against a fellow-creature. He saw that Hurry did not overrate the strength of this position in a military point of view, since it would not be easy to attack it without exposing the assailants to the fire of the besieged. A good deal of art had also been manifested in the disposition ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and protestations, no matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud, independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities, but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally helpless. We may value these our faithful ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... made this singular address and eulogium was the celebrated dancer, Mr. Slingsby His testimony proves that my father did not overrate his powers as a dancer; but it was not to boast of a frivolous excellence that he told this anecdote to his children; it was to express his satisfaction at having, after the first effervescence of boyish spirits had subsided, cultivated his understanding, turned his inventive powers to useful ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the Fine Arts State of the Common People; Agricultural Wages Wages of Manufacturers Labour of Children in Factories Wages of different Classes of Artisans Number of Paupers Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of Civilisation Delusion which leads Men to overrate the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Wesley that his preaching rarely affected the rich and the educated. It was over the ignorant and the credulous that it exercised its most appalling power, and it is difficult to overrate the mental anguish it must sometimes have produced. Timid and desponding natures unable to convince themselves that they had undergone a supernatural change, gentle and affectionate natures who believed that those who were dearest to them were descending into everlasting fire, must have often ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... what he had said to Langdon, there was little doubt in Crane's mind but that the son of Hanover was a better horse than Lucretia. A sanguine owner—even Porter was one at times—was so apt to overrate everything in his own stable, especially if he had bred the animal himself, as Porter had Lucretia. To buy The Dutchman and back him on such short ownership to beat Lucretia would have been the policy of a very ordinary mind indeed; he would ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... said; "and though I fear you overrate the hidden powers of activity in my people, you have made me still more anxious for a direct answer to my question—what would ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... dear fellow; you ought to talk about it—it will do you good. And really, I'm not at all sure, after all, that we have not both of us had a fortunate escape. One is very apt to—er—overrate the fascinations of persons one meets abroad. Now, neither of those ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... pioneers, has survived generations of intense absorption in material progress and the distractions that modern life offers to the possessors of newly-acquired wealth; the pride of the people in their independence, and their natural tendency to overrate it in comparison; with the conditions of other countries; the contrasts furnished by a society fond of reproducing European habits, yet retaining a simplicity and freshness of its own: these and other features ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... been denounced by King: but before we examine his statements, let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony; lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... may create for yourselves[257]." I entreat you to do nothing of the kind. Whatever advantages may result to an advanced student from adopting this practice, to you it must be fraught with unmingled evil. You will be tempted to overrate the importance of everything you discover which suits your present purpose: you will disregard all that looks in a different direction: you will be disappointed if you meet with nothing ad rem: you will get a habit ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... savoured of the bombast of a man who had no desire to serve me, but who, not daring to break his word, used all his wits to twist and overrate the little he could not hinder himself from saying. This letter was simply for Grimaldo, as the letter of M. le Duc d'Orleans was simply for the King of Spain. The last was even weaker than the first. It was like a design in pencil nearly effaced by the rain, and in which nothing, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... astronomical laws with the earth, which is), or which is known to be, not, indeed, its cause or its effect, but either one of a set of conditions, which together are its cause, or an occasional effect of its cause. Now, persons (usually from poverty, not from luxuriance, of imagination) often overrate the weight of true analogies; but the fallacy specially consists in inferring resemblance in one point from resemblance in another, when the evidence is not only not in favour of, but even positively against the connection of the two by way of causation. It is so in ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... money-changers, his enlarged and accomplished mind sought in Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences and the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of losing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it goes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this particular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little circle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may retain his place among them as preacher or teacher, he is willing to forego his birthright of free explanation; he consents ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... the King, the answer was, "Have you spoken to my Lord President?" One bold man ventured to say that the Lord President got all the money of the court. "Well," replied His Majesty "he deserves it all." [460] We shall scarcely overrate the amount of the minister's gains, if we put them at thirty thousand pounds a year: and it must be remembered that fortunes of thirty thousand pounds a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... between the "teachers" of the Board Schools and the "masters" of the public schools. Too much is put in, not enough drawn out from the child's own mind. The teacher cannot think much of individual natures, when faced with a class of sixty. Yet it would be difficult to overrate the service of the Board Schools as training grounds for manners, and anyone who has known the change in our army within twenty-five years will understand what I mean. At fourteen the boy has often reached his highest mental and spiritual development. When he leaves school, shades ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Plucky as a mastiff, high-blooded as a racer, enterprising but reflective, cool, keen, and as composed as daring. Few men talk less; few by manner and conduct suggest more. One fault you will pardon, a tendency to overrate the writer ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... body would have been utterly ruined. The very meaning of compromise is that each party gives up his chance of complete success, in order to be secured against the chance of utter failure. And, as men of sanguine minds always overrate the chances in their own favour, every fair compromise is sure to be severely censured on both sides. I conceive that, in a case so dark and complicated as this, the compromise which we recommend is sufficiently vindicated, if it cannot ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... conscious of standing above the crowd, but without a guess that he derived the advantage from anything better than accident. His father had the good fortune to be rich. For himself—well, Dicky was born with one of those simple natures that incline rather to distrust than to overrate their own merits. None the less he desired and loved greatness—thus early, and throughout his life—and it came as a tremendous, a magnificent shock to him that he enjoyed it as a birthright. The repetition of "great"—"he was my great-great-grandfather;" "you can add ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is possible to overrate the hardness of the first close struggle with any natural passion," said my aunt earnestly; "but indeed the easiness of after-steps is often quite beyond one's expectations. The free gift of grace with which GOD perfects our efforts ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... pressed on her heart as she spoke, and Albinia exclaimed, 'You shall not see it; you overrate your strength; it is my ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... words flame with a tempered enthusiasm. But he throws no dust in his own eyes: his is a healthy rapture, a torch lighted by the feelings, but which the reason holds upright and steady. His native favorites he enjoys as no Englishman or German could, but he does not overrate them. Nor does he overrate Voltaire, whom he calls "the Frenchman par excellence," and of whom he is proud as the literary sovereign of his age. At the same time, in articles directly devoted to Joubert, as well as by ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... with an amused smile. People in love do so overrate trifles; but she was really of opinion that he should go ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... at least overrate the influence which love produces on men. A little resentment and a little absence will soon cure my cousin of an ill-placed and ill-requited attachment. You do not think how ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... half free. He believed that the South, appealing to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice the Union before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace he begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to 1852. History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him that the war on the Union was postponed to a date when ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... or that of our children, when the manufacturer shall find that it no longer pays to make needles, what value will attach to individual specimens! If they were only to be found in occasional bric-a-brac shops or in the collections of some far-seeing hoarder of rarities, it would be difficult to overrate the interest which might attach to them. How, from the prodigal disregard of ages and the mysteries of the past, would emerge, one after another, recovered specimens, to be examined and judged ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... world-languages be? If one has regard only to its extension during the nineteenth century one may easily incline to overrate the probabilities of English becoming the chief of these. But a great part of the vast extension of English that has occurred has been due to the rapid reproduction of originally English-speaking peoples, the emigration of foreigners into English-speaking ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... interest. Our naturalized citizens, shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal school, the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... can she have read?' cried I. 'It does not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you certainly overrate her merit.'—'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the savage; and I am now employed in reading the controversy ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... the History of Mental and Physical culture, we much overrate the influence, though we cannot overrate the power, of the men by whom the change seems to have been effected. We cannot overrate their power,—for the greatest men of any age, those who become its leaders when there is ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... there appeared an edict degrading the prince in the name of the two regent-empresses. The charge made against him was of having grown arrogant and assumed privileges to which he had no right. He was at first "diligent and circumspect," but he has now become disposed "to overrate his own importance." In consequence, he was deprived of all his appointments and dismissed from the scene of public affairs. Five weeks after his fall, however, Prince Kung was reinstated, on May 8, in all his offices, with the exception ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... figure in life, his having been Senior Wrangler or University scholar is never mentioned but with derision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge in those of a later date. I hope that I do not overrate my own place in the estimation of society. Such as it is, I would not give a halfpenny to add to the consideration which I enjoy, all the consideration that I should derive from having been Senior Wrangler. But I often regret, and even acutely, my want of a Senior Wrangler's ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... services of religion, naturally blunts the delicacy of the senses, by requiring reverence to be paid to ugliness, and familiarizing the eye to it in moments of strong and pure feeling; I do not think we can overrate the probable evil results of this enforced discordance between ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... on the completion of each issue. To place a man in permanent absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger, It is almost inevitable that he should come to overrate the importance of those opinions, to take himself with far too much seriousness, and in the end adopt the dogma of his own infallibility. The liberty to summon this or that man-of-letters to a supposititious bar of justice ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... no!" said Aldous, drily. "He does it with intention. Nobody supposes him to be the mere toady. All the same I think he may very well overrate the importance of the class he is trying to make use of, and its influence. Have you been following the ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and military, of the Greeks and Romans, will readily be allowed to have been at least equal to those of any modern nation. Our prejudice is perhaps rather to overrate them. But except in what related to military exercises, the state seems to have been at no pains to form those great abilities; for I cannot be induced to believe that the musical education of the Greeks could be of much consequence in forming them. Masters, however, had been found, it seems, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... brush up my literary ideas, and do the best I can, very gladly," said Van Berg. "But you greatly underrate yourself and overrate my ability. I am still but on the edge of this wilderness of knowledge myself, and in crossing a wilderness ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... capital observer you are! and how well you have worked the primulas. All your facts are new to me. It is likely that I overrate the interest of the subject; but it seems to me that you ought to publish a paper on the subject. It would, however, greatly add to the value if you were to cover up any of the forms having pistil and anther of the same height, and prove that they were fully self-fertile. The occurrence of dimorphic ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... carry this, and who, he would answer for it, were ready to make the concession. Lord John, however, was too wise to listen to such impudent nonsense, and, though very reluctantly, it was settled that the Commons should give way. Both parties probably overrate the value of the disputed clauses, and it is to be regretted that the two Houses will not part amicably. Government takes the Bill under a sort of engagement to consider it as an instalment, and that they shall try and get the difference next year. This ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... not overrate the bravery of their troops or the abilities of their generals, but they did underrate the difficulties in conquering a population scattered over a vast extent of territory. They did not take into consideration the protecting ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... it is, you must know, with all the rights of one,—older far than Rome, being founded by the Euganeans who gave their name to the adjoining hills. 'Fortified' is was once, assuredly, and the walls still surround it most picturesquely though mainly in utter ruin, and you even overrate the population, which does not now much exceed 900 souls—in the city Proper, that is—for the territory below and around contains some 10,000. But we are at the very top of things, garlanded about, as it were, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... and resource. In all time to come he can cause them to continue to exceed breadth after breadth. Oh, who can conceive how great his mental being is able to become? Who can comprehend how elevated a life it is possible for him to live? Who can be liable to overrate the vastness of the destiny for ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... of course, that I could have performed it more to my own satisfaction and that of my readers. This is a feeling which almost every one must have at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the "great elm" and the Cowthorpe oak, if the State-House and St. Peter's, were taken on the same scale, and looked at with the same magnifying power, we should compare them without the possibility of being misled by those partialities which might tend to make us overrate the indigenous vegetable and the dome of our native ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... were, the innumerable habitues who, according to their different degrees of intimacy, or the accidents of their social habits, made Holland House their regular and constant resort. It is impossible to overrate the privation, the blank, which it will make to the old friends and associates, political and personal, to whom Holland House has always been open like a home, and there cannot be a sadder sight ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... refuge of transcendental idealism. The two extreme parties, the Broad Church and the Sacerdotalists, were at bitter feud with each other; yet they both denounced the common enemy. Arnold 'agreed with Carlyle that the Liberals greatly overrate Bentham, and the political economists generally; the summum bonum of their science is not identical with human life ... and the economical good is often, from the neglect of other points, a social evil.' Newman held that to allow the right ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... recovery. That's all that we really know about it. Yes, I know," the officer continued as I made signs of disagreement, "you think that a crime is possibly going to be committed and that we ought to prevent it. But you overrate our powers. We can only act on evidence that a crime has actually been committed or is actually being attempted. Now we have no such evidence. Look at your statement, and tell me ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... "I'm afraid you overrate my capabilities," said Anstice rather cynically. "Miss Wayne has certainly never given me the slightest reason to suppose she would be ready to listen to me, did I overstep the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... I not a friend here who is only too much inclined to overrate the little I am able to do? Lenore, you have permitted me to draw nearer to you than would have been possible under ordinary circumstances. Do you reckon it nothing that I should have won some of a brother's privileges with ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... true interest, would be strenuous: but how inadequate are its provisions for the needs of the country! and how much is it to be regretted that, while its zealous friends yield to alarms on account of the hostility of Dissent, they should so much overrate the danger to be apprehended from that quarter, and almost overlook the fact that hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen, though formally and nominally of the Church of England, never enter ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... want reasons, here they are!" exclaims Caroline. "I am your wife: you don't seem to care to please me any more. And as to the expenses, you greatly overrate ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... rest of the critics who named Quintilian as a candidate for the honour of this elegant composition. Can it be imagined that a writer of fair integrity, would in his great work speak of Bassus as he deserved, and in the Dialogue overrate him beyond all proportion? Duplicity was not a part ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly of little value; not merely because they sometimes overrate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what florists style the BREAKING of a seedling tulip into what ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... however, not to overrate the points of resemblance which the deep-sea investigations have placed in a strong light. They have been supposed by some naturalists to warrant a conclusion expressed in these words: "We are still living in the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... and one enriched equally with a tragic and comic vein; but he ought to be cited as a proof, how dangerous it is to rely on these advantages alone for attaining an excellence in the finer arts.[*] And there may even remain a suspicion, that we overrate, if possible, the greatness of his genius; in the same manner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account of their being disproportioned and misshapen. He died in 1616, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... on the eve of an election the importance of which it would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct, by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration in the strenuous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... We all overrate our own acquirements. I dare say that even I am not as good a seaman as ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Main, the Neckar, and the Altmuehl, all of which conduct an invader to the regions east of Ulm. Indeed, it passes belief how even the Aulic Council could have ignored the dangers of that position. Possibly the fact that Ulm had been stoutly held by Kray in 1796 now induced them to overrate its present importance; but at that time the fortified camp of Ulm was the central knot of vast operations, whereas now it was but an advanced outpost.[24] If Francis and his advisers were swayed by historical reminiscences it is strange that they forgot ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... mild sunshine of the early morning. Anxieties soon arose—gentle doubts expressing themselves in soft sighs, which were so endeared by the love from which they sprang that she would not have banished them if she could—anxieties lest she should be insufficient for Philip's happiness, lest he should overrate the peace of home, which she now knew was not to be looked for in full measure there, any more than in other scenes of human probation. Gentle questionings like these there were; but they tended rather to preserve than to disturb ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... that, just as the long-faced Boer horse soon evolved in the mountains of Basutoland into a round-headed pony, so it is in a few generations with human mountaineers, irrespective of their breed. This is almost certainly to overrate the effects of environment. At the same time, in the present state of our knowledge, it would be premature either to affirm or deny that in the very long run round-headedness goes with ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... advantages of commerce are surpassed in importance by those of its effects which are intellectual and moral. It is hardly possible to overrate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Dave. You always overrate my services, and forget that they are but the consequence of the kindness that you have shown to me. But I have no intention of going. It was but a passing thought. I have but one friend who could procure me a berth as a volunteer, ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... whose body we presently found. For we found a newly drowned man who had just chanced to miss this great dawn in which we rejoiced. We found him lying in a pool of water, among brown weeds in the dark shadow of the timberings. You must not overrate the horrors of the former days; in those days it was scarcely more common to see death in England than it would be to-day. This dead man was a sailor from the Rother Adler, the great German battleship that—had we ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... refined cultivation; a genuine product of the soil, a respectable man in every sense of the word. Proud of his country, and doubly proud of the wealth he had acquired by honest industry. A little vain and pompous, perhaps, but most self-made men are so: they are apt to overrate the talents which have lifted them out of obscurity, and to fancy that the world estimates their worth and importance by the same standard as ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... abstemious in her living, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, that her mind had a noble prospect: her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance, than can be found below. This made her not overrate the honors of her station, or the learning of the schools, of which she was an excellent judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion's sake, remarked to her, that 'it was too great an honor for him, that ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... their contents from what takes place in the bodies to which they are referred—from words and actions. Moreover, we know that a knowledge of the outer world and of other minds is built up gradually, and we never think of an infant as knowing what a man knows, much as we are inclined to overrate the minds of infants. ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... forty-seven years old, and owing both to seniority and to the distinguished positions he had held, he ranked as the most illustrious member of the Administration. His correspondence at this period shows that he was fully aware of the importance of the crisis, and he did not overrate it when he wrote to James Monroe, June 20, 1790, that, unless the measures of the Administration were successful, "our credit will burst and vanish, and the States separate to take care everyone of itself." ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... of his essays, Carlyle has warned us against giving too much weight to genealogy: but all his biographies, from the sketch of the Riquetti kindred to his full-length Friedrich, prefaced by two volumes of ancestry, recognise, if they do not overrate, inherited influences; and similarly his fragments of autobiography abound in suggestive reference. His family portraits are to be accepted with the deductions due to the family fever that was the earliest form of his hero-worship. Carlyle, says the Athenaeum ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... dogmatism. The marvellous development of philosophy in Greece, particularly in ancient Greece, was chiefly due, I believe, to the absence of an established religion and an influential priesthood; and it is impossible to overrate the blessing which the fresh, pure, invigorating, and elevating air of that ancient Greek philosophy has conferred on all ages, not excepting our own. I shudder at the thought of what the world would have been without Plato and Aristotle, and I tremble at the idea ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and the world loses in me, what? ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of African travellers, seems to be of opinion that untravelled men are prone to overrate the lion, both as to his appearance and courage. From him we learn that when a lion is met with in the day-time—a circumstance by no means uncommon in Africa—the traveller will be disappointed with the appearance of the animal which they had been accustomed ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... derived from classical models. The work is essentially original. It is also essentially popular. Indeed, it is something of a party pamphlet; and in one place we see the Emperor and his cabinet doing duty as a conclave of the damned. It would be easy to overrate the artistic value of the Chloudof Psalter, but as a document it is of the highest importance, because it brings out clearly the opposition between the official art of the iconoclasts that leaned on the Hellenistic tradition and borrowed ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... coat and silk hat, no middle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman "Sir," and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he despises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined to overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much noisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less restrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his will. The serf still bulks large ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Merton pensive, and not disposed to overrate human nature. 'But there can't be many fellows like Jephson,' he said. 'I wonder how much the six figures run to?' But that question was never ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... bold. They wanted to arm and they wanted to educate, but the habit of immediate necessity made them far more eager to arm than to educate, and their experience of heterogeneous controls made them overrate the need for obedience in a homogeneous country. They didn't understand raw men, ill-trained men, uncertain minds, and intelligent women; and these are the things that matter in England.... There were also the great ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... weakening. Even this fine position could not be held against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons, the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it. The artillery supported the attack admirably. 'They did nobly,' said one who led the advance. 'It is impossible to overrate the value of their support. They ceased also exactly at the right moment. One more shell would have hit us.' Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried. The British losses on this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed and twenty-five ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. She's quite ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... would be impossible to overrate the gain that might follow if we had about us only what gave pleasure to the maker of it and gives pleasure to its user, that being the simplest of all rules about decoration. One thing, at least, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... as many old poems that have been preserved with more care; and, under that feeling, I was tempted to send them, thinking they might find a corner from oblivion in your entertaining literary paper, the 'Iris;' but if my judgment has misled me to overrate their merit, you will excuse the freedom I have taken, and the trouble I have given you in the perusal; for, after all, it is but an erring opinion, that may have little less than the love ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... year was 1,994,365 dollars. In 1834, the value of the imports is stated at 3,088,811 dollars: the exports for the same year at 6,270,197 dollars. For the current year, I am credibly assured that an addition of one-third to these last amounts will not much overrate the enormous increase to which, should peace continue, each year must add for many seasons to come, since the influx of planters to Alabama is clearing the cane-brake with a rapidity unprecedented even in this country: the Indian reserves are all coming into ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... shook his head. "You overrate my powers," he insisted suavely. "I have met Captain Miller as one meets any visitor to this cosmopolitan city. My acquaintance extends no further than our meeting at Miss Grey's dinner at the Chevy Chase ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... cause. To ensure the harmonious working of the different parts of the machine, the central authority should endeavour, so far as is possible, to realise the circumstances attendant on the government of the dependency; whilst the local agent should be constantly on the watch lest he should overrate the importance of some local issue, or fail to appreciate fully the difficulties which beset the action of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... events had produced an immense sum of misery to private citizens. The Northern invaders had brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural that a man who lived in times like these should overrate the importance of those measures by which a nation is rendered formidable to its neighbours, and undervalue those which make it prosperous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 61.—"This prince," says Lord Herbert, who was not disposed to overrate the talents, any more than the virtues, of Ferdinand, "was thought the most active and politique of his time. No man knew better how to serve his turn on everybody, or to make their ends conduce to his." Life of Henry VIII., ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... you make yourself miserable for nothing. You expect too much. She is a petted, pampered, feted young lady of fortune, the daughter of a Croesus; do you think she can always think of you? Who are you that she should spare you so much time? You overrate yourself; you—you idiot." People stopped in the streets to look at the old man, who was walking so rapidly and gesticulating so excitedly. When Von Barwig saw that he was observed, he calmed down. "It's all right," he said. "To-morrow! I shall ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... case of slow-breeding animals, which unite for each birth, we must not overrate the effects of intercrosses in retarding natural selection; for I can bring a considerable catalogue of facts, showing that within the same area, varieties of the same animal can long remain distinct, from haunting ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... servant, no black coat and silk hat, no middle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman "Sir," and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he despises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined to overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much noisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less restrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his will. The serf still bulks large in him. ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... It is hard to overrate the consequences of the fall of New Orleans. The commercial city and port of the whole South-west—its depot and granary—the key to communication with the trans-Mississippi, and the sentinel over vast tracts of rich and productive territory—her loss was the most ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and not disposed to overrate human nature. 'But there can't be many fellows like Jephson,' he said. 'I wonder how much the six figures run to?' But that question was ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... have been everywhere received with the utmost kindness and cordiality. To the people of the city of New York, who have extended to us the hand of a generous fraternity, it is impossible to overrate our obligation at this most ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... convincingly," he said; "and though I fear you overrate the hidden powers of activity in my people, you have made me still more anxious for a direct answer to my question—what would you ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... in the superlative, and his addresses full of wondering interjections. His object is more to please than to speak the truth. His art is nothing but delightful trickery by means of smoothing words and complacent looks. He would make men fools by teaching them to overrate their abilities. Those who walk in the vale of humility amid the modest flowers of virtue and favoured with the presence of the Holy One, he would lift into the Utopian heights of vanity and pride, that they might fall into the ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... that of "Royal Canal of Babylon." From this canal innumerable branches carried the fertilizing waters through the country. It was and remained the greatest work of the kind, and was, fifteen centuries later, the wonder of the foreigners who visited Babylon. Its constructor did not overrate the benefit he had conferred when he wrote in an inscription which can scarcely be called boastful: "I have caused to be dug the Nahr-Hammurabi, a benediction for the people of Shumir and Accad. I have directed the waters of its branches over the ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... hand tightly pressed on her heart as she spoke, and Albinia exclaimed, 'You shall not see it; you overrate your strength; it is my ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... People; Agricultural Wages Wages of Manufacturers Labour of Children in Factories Wages of different Classes of Artisans Number of Paupers Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of Civilisation Delusion which leads Men to overrate the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... working of the different parts of the machine, the central authority should endeavour, so far as is possible, to realise the circumstances attendant on the government of the dependency; whilst the local agent should be constantly on the watch lest he should overrate the importance of some local issue, or fail to appreciate fully the difficulties which beset the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... it is possible to overrate the hardness of the first close struggle with any natural passion," said my aunt earnestly; "but indeed the easiness of after-steps is often quite beyond one's expectations. The free gift of grace with which GOD perfects our efforts may come in many ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... secrets of the more deadly herbs; thou knowest those which arrest life, which burn and scorch the soul from out her citadel, or freeze the channels of young blood into that ice which no sun can melt. Do I overrate thy ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... still congratulating themselves upon their overthrow of the power of the Church, and of the other ancient tyrannies which were a bar to their progress as a modern nation. But the tendency—though growing less as time goes on—is to overrate this. They pride themselves on being "modern," and congratulate themselves on every occasion upon having destroyed past traditions. But it is easy, in wiping away the evils of the past with too vigorous a hand, to destroy at the same time much that is of good ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... every one was in raptures over it. Even the glory of Pushkin's "Evgeny Onyegin," which appeared at about the same time, did not overshadow Griboyedoff's glory. Strange to say, Pushkin, who had magnified Delvig, Baratynsky, and Yazykoff far above their merits, and in general, was accustomed to overrate all talent, whether it belonged to his own friends or to strangers, was extremely severe on Griboyedoff's comedy, and detected many ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... wishes to have trained. She is poor, so I came to ask you if you would give her one of your musical scholarships. I understand her name has already been suggested to you, with a recommendation from her teacher. I do not know what he has said of her voice, but I do know he could hardly overrate it. If you send her abroad for training, you ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... are, however, at most only calculated to excite a smile; there is no turpitude in them, and they merit notice but as indications of the humour of character. It was his Lordship's foible to overrate his rank, to grudge his deformity beyond reason, and to exaggerate the condition of his family and circumstances. But the alloy of such small vanities, his caprice and feline temper, were as vapour compared with the mass of rich and rare ore which constituted ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... afraid your kindness leads you to overrate my importance," Austen replied, with mingled feelings. Victoria's confidence in her father made the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... much about what is before you. You have been sending despatchers' orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter. Remember ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... in praise of Matisse or Picasso. The artist who even appears to have discovered or rediscovered an instrument of expression or to have extended by one semitone the gamut of aesthetic experience is bound to turn the best heads of his age. Were it possible to overrate Cezanne, not to do so would be a mark of insensibility. I was never much impressed by those superior persons of an earlier age who from the first saw through Wagner; there was a time when to dislike Wagner was, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a sign not of superiority but of stupidity. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... out of its stupid refuges of lies and ignominious wrappages, and of intimating to it afar off that there is still a Veracity in Things, and a Mendacity in Sham Things,' and so forth, in the well-known strain.[17] It is impossible to overrate the truly supreme importance of the violent break-up of Europe which followed the death of the Emperor Charles VI., and in many respects 1740 is as important a date in the history of Western societies as 1789. Most of us would ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... theoretical knowledge of frontier warfare, though he had never yet been called on to raise his hand in anger against a fellow-creature. He saw that Hurry did not overrate the strength of this position in a military point of view, since it would not be easy to attack it without exposing the assailants to the fire of the besieged. A good deal of art had also been manifested in the disposition of the timber ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... one source, quaintness, must have worn in the days of their construction a very commonplace air. This is, of course, no argument against the poems now—we mean it only as against the poets then. There is a growing desire to overrate them. The old English muse was frank, guileless, sincere and although very learned, still learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley metaphysical in the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... know. A sense of honour? (Hadria suppressed a smile.) Could one, after all, expect of six what one did not always get at six and twenty? Morals altogether seemed a good deal to ask of irresponsible youth. Henriette could not overrate the importance of early familiarity with the difference between right and wrong. Certainly it was important, but Hadria shrank from an extreme view. One must not rush ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and on the homeward voyage sighted two islands, on which, after taking possession of them, he hoisted the Venetian as well as the English flag. "He calls himself the grand admiral, walks abroad in silk attire, and Englishmen run after him like madmen."[9] It is easy to overrate the reliability of such letters as those of Pasqualigo and Raimondo, and Pasqualigo's statement that Cabot sailed from Bristol to this new land, coasted for 300 leagues along it, and returned within a period of three months, is impossible ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... you overrate the danger. Depend upon it, your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered. You don't know what a constitution ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... could not endure half slave and half free. He believed that the South, appealing to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice the Union before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace he begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to 1852. History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him that the war on the Union was postponed to a date when ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... "I think you overrate those advantages. You are substantially a well educated man; and you can now command leisure to add to your information. If you should be in want of any books which it may not be convenient for you to purchase, it will ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... It is impossible to overrate the difference between such a condition of mind, and that of the modern artist, who either does not know his business at all, or knows it only to recognize his own inferiority to ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... in her living, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, that her mind had a noble prospect: her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance, than can be found below. This made her not overrate the honors of her station, or the learning of the schools, of which she was an excellent judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion's sake, remarked to her, that 'it was too great an honor for him, that a visitant ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... said Haldane cheerily to Mrs. Arnot while Laura was writing; "you overrate the danger. I feel that I shall return again, and if I do not, there are ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... to a man's powers are very commonly of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... modesty forbids me to believe that you could mean these pleasant things that you say to a—such its I am—and therefore I allowed myself to fancy that you overrate or, as it ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... greatly obliged to you, for your kind and friendly letter. You overrate, I am sure, the value of my speech, it was quite unpremeditated and its merit, if any, consists I presume in its directness and brevity. It mortified me to see that some of the newspaper writers speak of it as the "taking ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... I should call that extravagant. But it is permitted to flatter the sick—it is kind. Me you overrate, I fear; but you do well to honor music. Ay, I, who lie here wounded and broken-hearted, do thank God for music. Our bodies are soon crushed, our loves decay or turn to hate, but ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... her with exaggerated timidity, it became more and more evident that her personal fears were due simply to that nervous susceptibility which even men of reputed courage have often displayed in situations of sudden and wholly unfamiliar peril. Her tendency to overrate all dangers, not merely as they affected herself, but as they might involve others, and above all her husband, I ascribed to the ideas and habits of thought now for so many centuries hereditary among a people in whom the fear ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... actually sat crying in an arm-chair, and I could hardly get him to speak coherently. It was his suggestion that I should come round to you, and of course I at once saw the propriety of it, for certainly the incident is a very singular one, though he appears to completely overrate its importance. If you would only come back with me in my brougham, you would at least be able to soothe him, though I can hardly hope that you will be able to explain this ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... time ago you wished to marry a young lady without fortune. You thought that I had a large one; and you expected me to supply all deficiencies. You did not overrate my parental feeling, but you did my means. I would have done this for you, and with pleasure, but for my own coming misfortunes. As it was, I said 'No,' and when you demanded, somewhat peremptorily, my reasons, I said ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... careful, however, not to overrate the points of resemblance which the deep-sea investigations have placed in a strong light. They have been supposed by some naturalists to warrant a conclusion expressed in these words: "We are still living in the Cretaceous ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... insupportable. I felt that it was wiser not to dwell on it, and yet I could not cast it from me. My only, my great resource was prayer—great and supporting it was. Let any one, placed as I was, try it, and they will find that I in no way overrate it. Whenever I felt the miserable depressing feeling coming on, I fled instantly to that great source of comfort, of all true happiness, and it ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favourite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... the eve of an election the importance of which it would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct, by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that Administration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... can scarcely overrate the influence of Phoenician maritime enterprise upon the distribution of the arts and the spread of culture among the early peoples of the Mediterranean area. "Egypt and Assyria," says Lenormant, "were the birthplace of material civilization; the Canaanites [Phoenicians] were ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... with all contemporary notorieties. In all free governments, especially, it is the habit to overrate the dramatis personae of the hour. How empty to us are now the names of the great politicians of the last generation, as Crawford and Lowndes!—yet it is but a few years since these men filled in the public ear as large a space as Clay or Calhoun afterwards, and when they died, the race ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... old poems that have been preserved with more care; and, under that feeling, I was tempted to send them, thinking they might find a corner from oblivion in your entertaining literary paper, the 'Iris;' but if my judgment has misled me to overrate their merit, you will excuse the freedom I have taken, and the trouble I have given you in the perusal; for, after all, it is but an erring opinion, that may have little less than the love of ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... said, gently and hurriedly, "may it not be that you overrate the obligations of honor? I know that many a noble-hearted man has inexorably condemned himself to a severity of rule that a dispassionate judge of his life might deem very exaggerated, very unnecessary. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... a man does at Cambridge is, in itself, nothing. If he makes a poor figure in life, his having been Senior Wrangler or University scholar is never mentioned but with derision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge in those of a later date. I hope that I do not overrate my own place in the estimation of society. Such as it is, I would not give a halfpenny to add to the consideration which I enjoy, all the consideration that I should derive from having been Senior Wrangler. But I often regret, and even acutely, my want of a Senior Wrangler's knowledge of physics ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... indicate profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected, Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery certainly did not overrate William's sufferings. No minutes in his life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself entirely and fundamentally ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... by her age and inexperience, if not by sex, more helpless and dependent than I; but had I not been prone to overrate the difficulties which I should encounter? Had I not deemed unjustly of her constancy and force of mind? Marriage would render her property joint, and would not compel me to take up my abode in the woods, to abide forever in one spot, to shackle my curiosity, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... state of public sentiment and feeling. Unless a change to a very considerable extent be affected in the public mind, I think a dissolution would rather strengthen than weaken the ex-Council party. I am confident I do not overrate their strength—and it is a dangerous, though common error, to underrate the strength of an adversary. They are likewise organizing their party, and exciting the public mind to such a degree as to prevent any sentiments or measures ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... hypocritical. It is the natural product of the political spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences and the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of losing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it goes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this particular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little circle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may retain his place among them as preacher or ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... such knowledge without conformity? Our real weakness is not our ignorance; we know the good, but lack the will and purpose to live it out. And this is because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength of feeling as that of some lower gratification. We cannot perhaps overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of emotion and feeling. "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth." It does not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a hero. We slander the emotions by calling people emotional because they are always talking about ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... of honesty; and it is too rare a gift to be trifled 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 ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud, independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities, but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... in Germany during the war I would have felt a powerful tendency to defend the cause of the Allies, to excuse their misdeeds, to overrate their ability, while being highly critical and censorious of ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
