"Apt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from that of the other fire-festivals by the privacy and domesticity which characterize it; but, as we have already seen, this distinction may well be due simply to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to render a public assembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any moment to defeat the object of the assembly by extinguishing the all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... now, but wait till a man comes along. You're just getting to the age, Jan, when a woman is most apt to make a fool of herself over a man. And, remember this, I'd much rather my children were brought up simply with my people in Guernsey than that they should grow up with all sorts of false ideas ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... London: he observed, that a man stored his mind better there, than any where else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate, from want of exercise and competition. No place, (he said,) cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for as no man was either great or good per se, but as compared with others not so good or great, he was ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... include the man who sent them to a woman he afterwards killed, for the simple purpose of marrying an accomplished lady of means, who is also a listener with him at the recital. It is one of the rules in reading aloud second-hand love-letters, never to have these conditions present, for they are apt to induce distress in both parties. Had I been consulted with full details presented for my consideration, I know I should have advised ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... earth," he had said. Was that true? And if it were, might not Fraser push us over the wall? But instantly logic came to my rescue. Fraser had brought us here, and he could have brought us for but one thing: to question us. Would he be apt to do us harm before those questions were asked? And besides, would Fraser's brilliantly subtle mind stoop so low as to destroy enemies by pushing them over ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... I forget the furious passion into which this too apt quotation threw my unprincipled applicant. She lifted up her voice and cursed me, using some of the big oaths temporarily discarded for conscience sake. And so she left me, and I never ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... remained for three years in Europe, his stay having been prolonged by political excitement in his own State of South Carolina. Commerce is apt to knock the insularity out of people; distance from one's own distinctive locality gives a wider range to the vision, and the retired merchant foresaw ruin in his State's politics, and from the viewpoint of all Europe ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... thing." So, she now adopted a manner that was if anything too kindly. Her pose, her mask, behind which she was concealing her swollen and still swelling pride and sense of superiority, as yet fitted badly. She "overacted," as youth is apt to do. She would have given a shrewd observer—one not dazzled by her wealth beyond the power of clear sight—the impression that she was pitying the rest of mankind, much as we all pity and ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... each other, together with their total inoffensiveness as regarded the outside world; and we are delighted to say this, for we see so many of the multitudinous sides of human nature dark and depraved, that we are apt to think there is no bright side at all. Nor shall we let slip the opportunity of saying, at the risk of being considered very simple, that of all the gifts of felicity bestowed, as the Pagan Homer tells, upon mankind by the gods, no one is so perfect and beautiful as ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... The world is apt to judge of everything by the success; and whoever has ill fortune will hardly be allowed a good name. This, My Lord, was my unhappiness in my late expedition in the Roebuck, which foundered through perfect age ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... think with you that there is an excess of romantic sentiment in his character; and that kind of thing is apt to become exaggerated into eccentricity or foolishness. I suppose he can't help it, living so much within ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... enterprise. He had been in such a state of mental excitement since he had first thought of the scheme, that it was almost an impossibility for him to get along ten minutes without speaking of it to some one; and when he told the story he was more apt to speak of the theatre as he hoped they could arrange it than as it would probably be. But it must not be supposed that either Ben or Paul were indifferent to the matter; they were almost as much excited about it as Johnny was, though they were not as eager ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... the preceding article that the dependence of the nations goes back a good deal further than we are apt to think; that long before the period of fully developed intercommunication, all nations owed their civilization to foreigners. It was to their traffic with Gaul and the visits of the Phoenician traders that the early ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... together in a party. The suggestion, by the way, that people should give up "partisanship" often comes from people who do not by any means intend to give up their own partisanship,—they wish other folk to come over to their own way of thinking. We are all apt to wish that others would only be reasonable enough to agree ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... that they should be afraid of speaking their thoughts, nor lovesick romanticists, apt to be swayed wholly by sentiment, and she could trust Alec to see the folly of rushing into a union that might imperil his career. In the depths of her heart she confessed herself proud and happy at the prospect of ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... flower sprang up from the blood, of the same colour {with it}, such as the pomegranates are wont to bear, which conceal their seeds beneath their tough rind. Yet the enjoyment of it is but short-lived; for the same winds[66] which give it a name, beat it down, as it has but a slender hold, and is apt to fall by reason ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... in the same proportion as the density of the steam. In all pumps a good deal of the effect is lost from the imperfect action of the valves; and in engines travelling at a high rate of speed, in particular, a large part of the water is apt to return, through the suction valve of the pump, especially if much lift be permitted to that valve. In steam vessels moreover, where the boiler is fed with salt water, and where a certain quantity of supersalted water has to be blown out of the boiler from time to time, to prevent ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... largely the thought of Lise, the spectacle of Lise—often perhaps unconsciously present that dominated her conduct; yet reinforcing such an ancestral sentiment was another, environmental and more complicated, the result in our modern atmosphere of an undefined feminism apt to reveal itself in many undesirable ways, but which in reality is a logical projection of the American tradition of liberty. To submit was not only to lose her liberty, to become a dependent, but also and inevitably, she thought, to lose ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are apt to make the best construction of it; you see I did adventure upon it, remembering that they were my ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... spirit of acquisition than of economy; you would rather make new things than patch the old. Your continuity is not large enough. You find it at times difficult to bring the whole strength of your mind to bear upon a subject and hold it there patiently in writing or speaking. You are apt to seize upon fugitive thoughts and wander, unless it be a subject on which you have so drilled your intellect as to become master ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... portico. "This is the country of complexions," the Baroness continued, addressing herself to Mr. Wentworth. "I am convinced they are more delicate. There are very good ones in England—in Holland; but they are very apt to be coarse. ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... to the painfully refined, whose sentiments become articles of faith. The spirit in which he could write that he was 'much revived by having an opportunity of abusing Whistler to a knot of his special admirers,' is a spirit apt to be misconstrued. He was not a dogmatist, even about Whistler. 'The house is full of pretty things,' he wrote, when on a visit; 'but Mrs. -'s taste in pretty things has one very bad fault: it is not my taste.' And that was the true attitude of his mind; but these eternal differences ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There is hardly a branch of human learning to which he did not at one time or another give his eager attention, and he was engrossed in turn by the study of architecture—the foundation-stone of all true art—sculpture, mathematics, engineering and music. His versatility was unbounded, and we are apt to regret that this many-sided genius did not realise that it is by developing his power within certain limits that the great master is revealed. Leonardo may be described as the most Universal Genius of Christian times-perhaps ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell
... so familiar that we are apt to overlook the strangeness of them in the history of religious evolution. The cult of ancestral spirits begins in the lowest barbarism, just above the level of the Australian tribes, who, among the Dieri, show some traces of the practice, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... complain? If the worthy gentlemen cheat occasionally, can we reasonably be angry? But in travelling through these countries, English people, who don't take into consideration the miserable poverty and scanty resources of their country, and are apt to brag and be proud of it, have their vanity hurt by seeing the representatives of every nation but their own well and decently maintained, and feel ashamed at sitting down under the shabby protection ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... given me many a ride upon his wagon Among the dusty scents of sun and hay. He showed me how to snare the bulky trout That lurked under the bank of yonder brook. Indeed, he taught me many a country craft, For I was apt to learn, and, as I learnt, I loved the teacher of that homely lore. Deep in my boyish heart he shared the glad Influence of the suns and winds and waves, Giving my childhood what it hungered for— The rude ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... pleasure to exchange pistol-shots with him. But with this hatred there was mixed a certain degree of fear. Always victorious wherever he fought, the remarkable person whom Wildrake was now approaching had acquired that influence over the minds of his enemies, which constant success is so apt to inspire—they dreaded while they hated him—and joined to these feelings, was a restless meddling curiosity, which made a particular feature in Wildrake's character, who, having long had little business of his own, and caring nothing about that which he had, was easily ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... space of a minute, assume first the appearance of a lofty peak, then swell out at the top, and resemble a mighty mushroom, next split into several parts, and finally settle down into a flat tableland. Occasionally, though not very often that semblance of water is produced which Europeans are are apt to suppose the usual effect of mirage. The images of objects are reflected at their base in an inverted position; the desert seems converted into a vast lake; and the thirsty traveller, advancing towards it, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... points out some of the evils to which a well-educated boy, on first going to service, is exposed from the profligacy of his fellow-servants; "The Mimic," the drawback of vulgar acquaintances; "Barring Out," the errors to which a high spirit and the love of party are apt to lead, and so forth. In the final paragraph stress is laid upon what every fresh reader must at once recognise as the supreme merit of the stories, namely, their dramatic faculty, or (in the actual words of the "Preface"), their art of "keeping alive hope and fear and curiosity, by ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... dollars to go on, Harry and Nelly, of course, had to look about for more capital; and that was why they chose me to go in with them. I didn't have any capital except a rich father, but I suppose they thought that was the same thing. People are so apt to—though I never found it the same thing at all. Then, too, Nelly and I were bosom friends, and they naturally wanted to give me the first chance. Their original plan had been to have the bubble held in four equal shares, taking in Morty Truslow as the fourth. ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... was not a good man, but apt opportunity led him farther astray than, in the depths of his heart, he ever intended to go. His feet were treading the paths of his own domains. His ancestral home, Dean Tower, raised its dark red walls before him. Some of the bitterness was gone from his thoughts. Visions of the wealth, ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... saw him with her own eyes. You must ask Mr. Cunliffe about all that; my memory is apt to be treacherous about details. I know Leah saw him with his hand in his brother's desk, and though Eric vowed it was only to put a letter there,—a very impertinent letter that he had written to his brother,—still the cheque was gone, and, as they heard afterwards, cashed ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... wished to do so, but that he had disallowed it, and he easily convinced me that this improvisation would have been the ruin of her fine talent. I also agreed with him when he said that he had warned her against making impromptus too frequently, as such hasty verses are apt to sacrifice wit ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the members of the aristocracy made it impossible for any clique to control again the electoral machinery. As the sheriffs and justices were no longer so closely allied with the executive as they had been in the Restoration period, false returns of Burgesses and other electoral frauds were apt to be of less ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... your bag by seeing after it myself, Meredith," he began. "Remembered the mistakes Sally's brother is apt to make, you know, Madge; and thought he might demand the post bag, or something of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Blot in the 'Scutcheon' to 'The Ring and the Book' is not so marked as is the mauvais pas that lies between 'Amos Barton' and 'Daniel Deronda.' But difficulty is not obscurity. One task is more difficult than another. The angles at the base of the isosceles triangles are apt to get mixed, and to confuse us all—man and woman alike. 'Prince Hohenstiel' something or another is a very difficult poem, not only to pronounce but to read; but if a poet chooses as his subject Napoleon III.—in whom the cad, the coward, the idealist, and the sensualist ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of a placid and easy, perhaps lazy, disposition; but his placidity rested like the ice of a mountain lake on deep and dangerous water. It was hard to ruffle him or even to move him; but when moved he was apt not to return to the position he had left, nor to be quite natural to the ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... especially, Good Sense, because where you do not go yourself, you do not object to another's going, if he will. You are really liberal. You, Old Church, are of use, by keeping unforgot the effigies of old religion, and reviving the tone of pure Spenserian sentiment, which this time is apt to stifle in its childish haste. But you are very faulty in censuring and wishing to limit others by your own standard. You, Self-Poise, fill a priestly office. Could but a larger intelligence of the vocations ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... impose a fine of one dollar for killing song-birds for food as it is to provide for a fine of three hundred dollars. A fine that is too small fails to impress the prisoner, and it begets contempt for the law and the courts! A fine that is altogether too high is apt to be set aside by the court as "excessive." In my opinion, the best fines for wild life slaughter ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... themselves to any country; producing a numerous progeny both from roots and seeds, and by no means nice as to soil or situation; it is not long before it becomes a weed in the garden, from whence it is apt like the Hyacinthus racemosus, already figured, to pass into the ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... objection to your being friends with him," conceded Ellen, "but it musn't go beyond friendship, remember. I'm always suspicious of widowers. They are not given to romantic ideas about friendship. They're apt to mean business. As for this Presbyterian man, what do they call him shy for? He's not a bit shy, though he may be absent-minded—so absent-minded that he forgot to say goodnight to ME when you started ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all I ask. Your story is apt to run away with you. Up hill and down dale you go, through Scythia and Machlyene, off again to Bosphorus, then back to Scythia, till ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... for an hour, as quiet folk are wont to do. I trembled to think of the ruined purses this day's performances might result in. I could not help reflecting bodingly upon the intemperate zeal with which middle-aged men are apt to surfeit themselves upon a seductive folly which they have tasted for the first time. And yet I did not feel that I had a right to be surprised at the state of things which was giving me so much concern. These men had been taught from infancy to revere, almost to worship, the holy places whereon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... took, with a most reverential expression, a long, deep draught each. The next part of the ceremony with them was somewhat curious; but the rapt expression of the worshippers took away the effect which such an evolution would be apt to produce on a fastidious stomach if connected with an uninterested head. In short, these dignitaries, without moving a muscle of the face, or a joint of the body, after a few seconds, and with great solemnity, ejected what had been swallowed upon the ground. It seemed as if given forth in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... intolerable, and especially in the holy month of Ramadan. Even in ordinary times, when swine enter the city, the Moslems gather up their robes, turn their backs and shout, "hub hub," "hub hub," and if the hogs do not hasten along, the "hub hub," is very apt to become a hubbub. On the 28th of that holy month, a large herd entered Beirut on the Damascus road. The Moslems saw them, and forthwith a crowd of Moslem young men and boys hastened to the fray. A few days before, the Maronite ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... all were prominent men and all of them mental workers of high caliber. That didn't appear peculiar because it is the man of high mentality who is most apt to crack." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... as yet," he rejoined, unable to control his voice as completely as his hand. "And the proof of it is the impunity with which her agents deceive her—in this case, for instance, of Dillon's injury. Dr. Disbrow, who is Mr. Truscomb's brother-in-law, and apt to be influenced by his views, assures you that the man will get off with the loss of a finger; but some one equally competent to speak told me last night that he would lose not only ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... their stock in the life of the race all funded in the individual. Being a man of letters, Byles Gridley naturally rather undervalued the literary acquirements of the good people of the rural district where he resided, and, having known much of college and something of city life, was apt to smile at the importance they attached to their little local concerns. He was, of course, quite as much an object of rough satire to the natural observers and humorists, who are never wanting in a New England village,—perhaps ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... war one with another. As in the twelfth century, we read of Coeur de Lion in Palestine, and in the thirteenth, of St. Louis in Egypt, so in the fourteenth do we read the sad tale of Poitiers and Cressy, and in the fifteenth of Agincourt. People are apt to ask what good came of the prowess shown at Ascalon or Damietta; forgetting that they should rather ask themselves what good came of the conquests of our Edwards and Henries, of which they are so proud. If Richard's prowess ended in his imprisonment in Germany, and St. Louis died in Africa, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... from the seat into which he had rather fallen than thrown himself, he ran out of the room with a precipitation of step which he was apt to use upon occasions of irritable feeling, and which was certainly more eager than dignified, especially as he muttered while he ran, and seemed as if he were keeping up his own passion, by recounting over and over the offence ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Cabinets since Italy entered the war, and President Wilson was burning to associate his name and also that of his country with the vastest and noblest enterprise inscribed in the annals of history. And each one moved over his own favorite route toward his own goal. It was an apt illustration of the Russian fable of the swan, the crab, and the pike being harnessed together in order to remove a load. The swan flew upward, the crab crawled backward, the pike made with all haste for the water, and the load remained where ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... has been taken by the world to mean sanctimoniousness and not sanctity, and is a term of contempt rather than of admiration on their lips. And even those of us, who have got beyond thinking that it is a title of honour belonging only to the aristocracy of Christ's Kingdom, are too apt to mistake what it really does mean. It may be useful to say a word about the Scriptural use and true meaning of that much-abused term. The root idea of sanctity or holiness is not moral character, goodness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... flattery in the compliments I beg to offer to Mr. JAMES FORBES for a very diverting evening. Perhaps the last Act dragged a little, but in any case after the orgy he had given us we were ripe for reaction. With most imported plays one is apt to doubt whether the humour is novel in its essence or merely a matter of unfamiliar form, common enough in its place of origin. But the humour of Mr. FORBES, or at least the best of it, is something more than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... foot-lights. In operatic performances, however, the words are of very inferior importance to the music; the composer quite eclipses the author. A musician has been known to call a libretto the "verbiage" of his opera. The term was not perhaps altogether inappropriate. Even actors are apt to underrate the importance of the speeches they are called upon to deliver, laying the greater stress upon the "business" they propose to originate, or the scenic effects that are to be introduced into the play. They sometimes describe the words of their parts as "cackle." ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... organization that made them leaders in boyish pastimes and sports. If there was any perceptible difference between the two, it was that Elwood Brandon was a little more daring and impetuous than his companion; he was apt to follow out his first impulses and venture upon schemes without deliberating fully enough. Both were generous, unselfish, and either would have willingly risked his ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... cautiously, not sending the lever quite home, so as to avoid a click, and nodded. Then we slipped our knife-sheaths round to the hip—for a shot in the dark is apt to wound only and cause a red-mouthed charge—and then ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... nor the images of any thing without the mind 44 This more fully explained 45 In what sense we must be understood to see distance and external things 46 Distance, and things placed at a distance, not otherwise perceived by the eye than by the ear 47 The IDEAS of sight more apt to be confounded with the IDEAS of touch than those of hearing are 48 How this comes to pass 49 Strictly speaking, we never see and feel the same thing 50 Objects of SIGHT twofold, mediate and immediate 51 These hard to separate in our thoughts 52 The received accounts ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... "my good neighbour, that this custom is at least idle, and may be prejudicial if it leads to excess in the use of liquor, which is apt enough to take place without such conversation. But I think, when it hath not this consequence, it is a thing indifferent, affords a unanimous mode of expressing our good wishes to our friends, and our ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... he said very gently, "putting down your pistol? Those things are so apt to go off unexpectedly, and at the moment you appear to be aiming at my uncle's ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... thing, however, is, that individuals will attempt assassination—of Representatives of the People. Representative Collot, Member even of Salut, returning home, 'about one in the morning,' probably touched with liquor, as he is apt to be, meets on the stairs, the cry "Scelerat!" and also the snap of a pistol: which latter flashes in the pan; disclosing to him, momentarily, a pair of truculent saucer-eyes, swart grim-clenched countenance; recognisable as that ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and the troop of children at present in the Hall nursery were quite beyond the powers of any grown-up brother to recognise or identify. It was vaguely understood that "the girls" knew all the small fry by head and name, but even the Squire himself was apt to get puzzled. With such a household, and with an heir impending over his head like Jack, it may be supposed that Mr Wentworth's anxiety to get his younger boys disposed of was great. Cuthbert and Guy were arrows in the hand of the giant, but he had his quiver so full that the best thing he could ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... of his first schools, and the lessons obtained from it were widely useful. They suggested the difficulties that had to be overcome, wherever the alphabet was spread before the Aborigine. Children made bright pupils, but, as they grew up, were apt to go back on what they had learned. The reason was not far to seek. An educated native found himself out of touch with his uneducated fellows; education made a barrier. He was not the equal of the Europeans, and could form no ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... convinced that the "manifestations" were a fraud, wrote to Mrs Browning for an expression of her opinion. The reply, as might be expected, declared the writer's belief in the genuine character of the phenomena; such manifestations, she admitted, in the undeveloped state of the subject were "apt to be low"; but they were, she was assured, "the beginning of access from a spiritual world, of which we shall presently learn more perhaps." A letter volunteered by Browning accompanied that of his wife. He had, he said, to overcome a real repugnance ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his marshals, nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who described the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... good effects from your journey, that of the 19th, which I have just received, together with Mr. Oswald's conversation, has very much revived me. I send away the messenger, for fear of the delays which Cabinets are so apt to cause; but I hope you will hear from us again very soon, with authority to offer the Independence as unconditionally as you can wish. Mr. Oswald says that Dr. Franklin is much inclined to confide in you; if so, ask him at once in what manner we ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... here, where, I do think, she must hatch out tories, same as a hen does chickens, they are so thick about there. Then there's Josh Rose courting that up and a coming sort of girl you saw at Howard's t'other day, when you called with Harry for a drink of water. Now wouldn't the fellow be apt to let out secrets there that we could get hold of, and put us on some good scent? Ah! that's it; so now up the river for Howard's, as a ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... reported by the inhabitants; but I do not consider that, in these cases, the proofs of a pure previous vaccine disease have been satisfactorily established; when vaccination has been carried on for some time, from the same stock of lymph, the disease is apt to degenerate and become spurious, from which cause we require a frequent renewal of lymph from England, in order to keep it in continuous and successful operation; the spurious disease, on the fifth day, generally shews itself in the form of a small ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... are ready to believe that because they have made money in the stock market all can do likewise. Most superstitions arise through generalization from too few instances: those who have several times met misfortune on the thirteenth day of the month are apt to say that the thirteenth is always an unlucky day. Such reasoning as this shows the weakness of inductive argument: a conclusion is worthless if it is drawn from ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... overcome Miss Alicia's prejudices and dislike; or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a cruel injury by marrying Sir Michael Audley. The truth was that Lady Audley had, in becoming the wife of Sir Michael, made one of those apparently advantageous matches which are apt to draw upon a woman the envy and hatred of her sex. She had come into the neighborhood as a governess in the family of a surgeon in the village near Audley Court. No one knew anything of her, except that she came in answer to an advertisement ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... are apt to deceive themselves in regard to their own emptiness, because, unconsciously, they make more out of man than is consistent with their assumptions. "They presuppose a spiritual atmosphere as a setting for our ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... imitation. As matter of fact, imitation of ends, as distinct from imitation of means which help to reach ends, is a superficial and transitory affair which leaves little effect upon disposition. Idiots are especially apt at this kind of imitation; it affects outward acts but not the meaning of their performance. When we find children engaging in this sort of mimicry, instead of encouraging them (as we would do if it were an important means of social control) we are more likely to rebuke them as apes, monkeys, ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... times as much as a photograph can show as regards planetary detail. This, though not generally known, is perfectly true, and it may be explained thus: We know that in terrestrial photography the camera will reveal many details which the eye is apt to overlook; and, by very long exposures, even celestial photography will give a similar result. In planetary photography, however, exposures must be very short, and the picture obtained is so very tiny that it cannot ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... to say about pigs requiring air, let us hope to some purpose. Certainly, departmental professors have an uphill task before them in out-of-the-way regions. These poor people are said to be extremely frugal as a rule, but too apt to squander their years' savings at a paternal fte, wedding or any other festivity. Generations must elapse ere they are raised to the level of the typical French peasant. On the score of health they may compare favourably with any ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... great in many ways—great as an orator, musician, philosopher, politician, financier, and great and wise as a practical leader. Lovers of beauty are apt to be dreamers, but this man had the ability to plan, devise, lay out work and carry it through to a successful conclusion. He infused others with his own animation, and managed to set a whole cityful of lazy people building a temple grander far in its rich simplicity than the world ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... afternoon, so that you can go home and practice such necessary things as entering or leaving a room correctly. Most young men are extremely careless in this particular, and unless you rehearse yourself thoroughly in the proper procedure you are apt to find later on to your dismay that you have made your exit through a window onto the fire-escape instead of ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... purposes, but is also very useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labor. If men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plow, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch and perform the other numerous ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... tell, that he had often designed to leave the University, and decline all study, which he thought did impair his health; for he had a body apt to a consumption, and to fevers, and other infirmities, which he judged were increased by his studies; for he would often say, "He had too thoughtful a wit; a wit like a penknife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp for his body." But his Mother would by no means allow him to leave the University, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... pity we have no larger vessel to bring our water from the spring," said Hector, looking at the tin pot; "one is so apt to stumble among stones and tangled underwood. If we had only one of our old bark dishes we could get a good supply ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... town for any one to think of attacking her. But in the absolute isolation in which of her own choice she lived, in her state of exhaustion and nervous excitement brought on by several weeks of sleepless nights and moral suffering, her imagination was apt to welcome the most unreasoning terrors. She exaggerated the animosity of those who did not like her. She told herself that suspicion was on her track: the veriest trifle was enough to ruin her: and there was nothing ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... at home in Sunday-school, Nor yet a social tea, And on the day he gets his pay He's apt to spend it free; He ain't no temperance advocate, He likes to fill the can, He's kind of rough, and, maybe, tough, The Regular Army man; The r'aring, tearing, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... he was never tired nor sleepy, as people are apt to be who dance all night; but before the summer was ended Fairyfoot found out the reason. One night, when the moon was full, and the last of the ripe corn rustling in the fields, Robin Goodfellow came for him as usual, and away they went to the flowery ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... exclusively occupied our attention throughout the foregoing chapter admits of apt and powerful illustration. Its vast importance will be a sufficient apology for the particular disquisition which follows, and might have been spared, but for the plain challenge of the famous Critic to ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... bullets. Such a feat to my knowledge had never been done before, and on that particular morning I felt a very 'tall man of my hands' indeed. The only thing I feared was, that should I ever come to tell the story nobody would believe it, for when a strange tale is told by a hunter, people are apt to think it is necessarily a lie, instead of ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... overcome. "She will never get over it, I fear," he sighed, the tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks. "One bereavement is apt to tread closely upon the heels of another, and she will probably soon follow her sister. But oh if I only knew that she had been washed from her sins in the precious blood of Christ, that she had accepted His invitation, 'Come unto me,' so that death would be but falling asleep ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... allowance for the faults of this my present work, but those which are given of course to human frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness of time in which I writ it, or the several intervals of sickness. They who think too well of their own performances, are apt to boast in their prefaces how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of more importance interfered; but the reader will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a longer time to make ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... We are apt to judge the culture of a people by the skill they display in works of arts. The article on which the Mound Builder lavished most of his skill was the pipe. This would show that with them, as with the modern ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... would choose to marry, of yourself. It is not, indeed, to be supposed that you would wish to marry any one till you were asked: a girl's affections should never be won unsought. But when they are sought—when the citadel of the heart is fairly besieged—it is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved, unless she be extremely careful and discreet. Now, I want ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... He was apt; he was a high-school graduate who only needed to apply himself to produce results. And Forsythe produced them. As he had promised, he took a meridian observation that day, and in half an hour announced the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... Dryads to select A region thus supremely fair! So apt were mortals to erect In such a place ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... articles of commerce the diamond is the least liable to depreciation. Panics that shake empires and topple trade into the dust seldom lower the cost of this king of precious stones; and there is no personal property that is so apt to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... substituted for it to make good an earlier loss I shall now never know. I put it into my pocket, wondering what I should do with it; the question what you shall do with counterfeit money in Italy is one which is apt to recur as I have hinted, and in despair of solving it at the moment I threw the false franc out of the car-window; it was the false franc I have ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... going to drink any more," said Mr. Gerzson at last, "for it is apt to make me sleepy and I don't want to sleep to-night. About midnight the coachman will arrive with the fresh relay of horses. Won't your ladyship rest a little ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... visitors. That it should be so regarded is no doubt a proof of national inferiority, and perhaps immorality; but while the general sentiments of the nation continue as at present, an instance of this kind cannot be considered as a proof of individual baseness. An Englishman is apt to pronounce every man a scoundrel, who, in making a bargain, attempts to take him in; but he will often find, on a closer and more impartial examination, that the judgment formed by this circumstance alone in France, is quite erroneous. One of our ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... a dangerous trade or a foreign clime. Again, take the case of the introduction of a giant Cephalopod or fish amongst a population of Molluscs and Crustacea. The toughest, the speediest, the most alert, the most retiring, or the least conspicuous, will be the most apt to survive and breed. In hundreds or thousands of generations there will be an enormous improvement in the armour, the speed, the sensitiveness, the hiding practices, and the protective colours, of the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... was the name of a young gentleman who was a devoted admirer of Miss Burgoyne. Miss Burgoyne had, indeed, on one occasion introduced the young man to him; but he had paid little heed; most likely he regarded him with the sort of half-humorous contempt with which the professional actor is apt to look upon the moon-struck youths who bring bouquets into the stalls and languish about stage-doors. However, he told the house-porter to ask the gentleman to ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... strawberries should be one of the very hardest products to can with good results. The canning itself is simple—all berries are quickly and easily canned—but strawberries always shrink, are apt to turn a little brown, and, what distresses us most of all, they float to the top ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... bidden reveal to mankind. Conversing thus, they reach the second stream, of whose waters Beatrice bids her friend drink, and after that renovating draught Dante realizes he has now been made pure and "apt for ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... like you," said he, returning the pressure of his hand. "There is something about you that fills a long vacant place in my heart. I will do all I can to teach you the Russian language, but at the same time, if I find you apt, I will teach you even more than that, for there is much more to be ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... apt treat the complaints of such patients lightly, making no effort to allay their anxiety—a course which often leads them to apply for aid in illegitimate quarters, and to become ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... ball young men and women keep very much to their own particular small circle and are not apt to meet outsiders at all. Under these circumstances a gentleman should be very careful not to introduce a youth whom he knows nothing about to a lady of his acquaintance—or at least he should ask her first. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... sheltered the waifs. Decidedly, murder will out, and there come times when the left and right hands of a man are forced into confession to each other about their most secret actions. A political campaign is apt to bring such a situation into the lives of the aspiring candidates. The little coons set up a musical wail that passed for a cheer and marched away munching the contents of a huge box of candy that Polly had sent ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... execute discipline rigorously according to the formula, on the principle, Be rid of the tares at all hazards; never mind the wheat. This course was naturally favored by some of the minor Presbyterian sects, and was apt to be vigorously urged by zealous people living at a distance and not well acquainted with details of fact. (2) To attempt to provide for all cases by stated exceptions and saving clauses. This course was entered on by the Methodist Church, but without ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... to go his own way. The old bear told him it wouldn't do to jump over a precipice, but, somehow, he couldn't believe it and jumped. 'Twas the last thing he ever did. It's often so with the young. Their own way is apt to be rather steep and to end suddenly. There are laws everywhere,—we couldn't live without them,—laws of nature, God, and man. Until we learn the law and how to obey it, we must go carefully and take the advice of older heads. We couldn't run a school without laws in it—laws that ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... freely own to you, that I think it a most amazing thing, that the Ladies (at least those who make any Pretensions to Virtue and Goodness) should ever be seen at the last of these Places; where they find themselves so scandalously treated. I am apt to think, that very few of 'em have read Mr. Collier's 'View of the Stage'; if they had, they would there see the Corruptions of the Plays set in so clear a Light, that one would believe, they should never after be Tempted to appear in a Place where Lewdness and Obscenity ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous |
