"Bias" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the financial world, gave over to the drift of events the settlement of their country's chief commercial question. We are now in a position to decide coolly; no entangling alliances with a dead-weight social system bias our plain judgment of practical pros and cons; but the opportunity for decision arrives a little too late and a little too early for action. Congress, the legitimate custodian of the Pacific Railroad, may be said to have passed the last ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... due to nature? is the true question. But to solve it, is important only theoretically, for practically we all act alike; we cannot, if we would, separate the educational from the natural moral sense; we cannot uneducate it, and then judge by it, freed from all circumstantial bias. But whether more or less indebted either to nature or education, it is to this moral and religious sense that the ultra-transcendentalist refers every question, and passes judgment according to its verdict. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... into our hearts, and consider their besetting faults. Are we indolent, or are we active; are we enthusiastic, or are we cold; zealous or indifferent, devout or reasonable; whatever the inclination, or bias of our nature be, if we follow its kindred idol, it will be magnified and grow on to our ruin; if we worship Christ, it will be pruned and chastened, and made to grow up with opposite tendencies, all alike tempered, none destroyed; none overgrowing the garden, but all filling it with ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... leaned backward in its devotion to the inductive method of accumulating inheritance data, ostensibly without prejudice for or against any particular theory but in reality with an ill-concealed bias against anything savoring of "Mendelism." The American school recognizing in Mendelism a great advance and an important instrument for the discovery of new truth, has ignored the possibility that other undiscovered laws of heredity may exist ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... statute law alone that this tendency is seen. English common law shows the same bias in favor of the classes which then controlled the state. There is no mistaking the influences which left their impress upon the development of English law at the hands of the courts. The effect of wealth and political privilege is seen here as well as in statutory enactment. ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... there is not only no necessary antagonism between the general theory of "evolution" and a Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any strong theological bias. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... were the first to move for emancipation. It appears that the infusion of Gallic blood, as well as the large influence of the Frankish nations in the production of the modern French, has given to that people a bias in favor of liberty. All the other Latin races have lagged behind; but, France foreran even Great Britain in the work of abolition. Scarcely had the great Revolution of 1789 got under way, until an act of abolition conceding freedom to all men without regard to race or ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... there is no danger of that little boat's overtaking this large ship!" exclaimed Sir George, with a vivacity that did great credit to his philanthropy, according to the opinion of Mr. Dodge at least; the latter having imbibed a singular bias in favour of persons of condition, from having travelled in an eilwagen with a German baron, from whom he had taken a model of the pipe he carried but never smoked, and from having been thrown for two days and nights into the society of a "Polish countess," as he uniformly ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... sent to Thales of Miletus, a man famous for wisdom. But he decided that Bias of Priene was wiser than he, and sent it to him. And thus it went the round of the seven wise men,—Solon among them, so we are told,—and finally came back to Thales. He refused to keep it, and placed it in the temple of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... organisation to allow of our setting down its marvels to the accumulations of fortunate accident, undirected by will, effort and intelligence. Those who examine the main facts of animal and vegetable organisation without bias will, no doubt, ere long conclude that all animals and vegetables are derived ultimately from unicellular organisms, but they will not less readily perceive that the evolution of species without the concomitance and direction of mind and effort is as inconceivable as is ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... sincerity, which it would be in vain to look for among the peasantry of any other nation. Indeed, I have uniformly observed, that when no religious or political feeling influences the heart and principles of an Irish peasant, he is singularly sincere and faithful in his attachments, and has always a bias to the generous and the disinterested. To my own knowledge, circumstances frequently occur, in which the ebullition of party spirit is, although temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... wanting to prejudice or bias you," she said. "All I want is that you should be very ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... by the Societe de l'Histoire de France) is the only real authority for her history. For English affairs we are reduced to the meagre accounts of William of Worcester, of the Continuator of the Crowland Chronicle, and of Fabyan. Fabyan is a London alderman with a strong bias in favour of the House of Lancaster, and his work is useful for London only. The Continuator is one of the best of his class; and though connected with the house of York, the date of his work, which appeared soon after Bosworth Field, makes ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... he succeeds, he is the master of his own fate. Publishers are his humble servants—waiting eagerly to snatch up his work that they may get all they can for themselves out of it,—and the public—the great public which, apart from all 'interested' critical bias, delivers its own verdict, is always ready to hearken and to applaud the writer of its choice. There is no more splendid and enviable life!—if I could only make a hundred pounds a year by it, I would rather be an author than ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... sisters' narrow opportunities was, so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her nature, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... that before in English poetry; it has the bizarrerie of a new thing in beauty. How far it is really beautiful how can I tell? How can I discount the "personal bias"? Only I know that it is unforgettable. Again ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... STATION WORK The Stations Leading in Poultry Work The Story of the "Big Coon" Important Experimental Results at the Illinois Station Experimental Bias The Egg Breeding Work at the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... His announced over-all rule is conformity to "Reason and Nature"—old words that he uses in the newer way. But he is also handily equipped with a stock of stubbornly conservative principles, reaching at times the status of bias, that serve to hold his taste in balance and effectively ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... tract. The earliest edition that has been discovered bears the date of 1691; from which our copy has been prepared for the press. This is the first book of this class that was composed upon the broad basis of Christianity, perfectly free from sectarian bias or peculiarity. It is an exhibition of scriptural truths, before which error falls without the trouble of pulling it down. It is in the world, like the ark of God in the temple of Dagon. It is alike admirably ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... she took the apron from Susie and started across the Road on her rescue mission, "a woman have got to cut her conscience kinder bias in the dealing with children. If they're stuffed full of food and kindness they will mostly forget to be bad, and oughtent to be made to remember they CAN be by being punished too long. Now, sonny, I'll get you fixed up so ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... qualities of an advocate; that in the ordinary administration of criminal justice among the English, the aggrieved party, the very last person who ought to be admitted into the jury-box, is the prosecutor; that what was wanted in a manager was, not that he should be free from bias, but that he should be able, well informed, energetic, and active. The ability and information of Francis were admitted; and the very animosity with which he was reproached, whether a virtue or a vice, was at least a pledge for his energy and activity. It seems difficult to refute these arguments. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Godwin,' remarked Oliver, simply; for the elder brother had of late been telling him fearful stories from the French Revolution, with something of an anti-popular bias. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... ought to recognise that the strong anti-feminist bias which Milton displays is exactly similar to the spirit in which you attributed the worst possible motives to Mrs. Lorimer. I'm not now entering on a discussion of the question of whether you and Milton are right or wrong in your view of women. That would take too ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... I am to advert to the disposition of my own mind as regards this matter, I cannot avoid perceiving that it has inclined to the ministerial office, for what has now become a considerable period, with a bias at first uncertain and intermittent, but which has regularly and rapidly increased in force and permanence. It has not been owing as far as I can myself discern, to the operation of any external cause whatever; nor of internal ones to any ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... cannot assent. And our chief objection might be translated into vulgar, but expressive parlance, by saying, that, in generalizing about society, the writer does not always seem able to sink the influences of the shop. We have been faintly reminded of the professional bias of Mr. Bob Sawyer, when he persuaded himself that the company in general would be better for a blood-letting. We respectfully submit that we are not quite so mad as—for the interests of science, no doubt—Dr. Ray would have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is not enough ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... and could, and did, discount the sources of error. I was on my guard against the twin fallacies of describing all savage religion as "devil worship," and of expecting to find a primitive "divine tradition". I was also on my guard against the modern bias derived from the "ghost-theory," and Mr. Spencer's works, and I kept an eye on opportunities of "borrowing".(1) I had, in fact, classified all known idola in the first edition of this work, such as the fallacy of leading questions and the chance of deliberate deception. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... do their visual organs actually become impaired, like those of captives who can see clearly only in their own dungeon's twilight, and flinch before the full glare of day? If neither of these is the case, they must sometimes sympathize with that dreary dilemma of Bias which the adust Aldrich quotes in grim irony—[Greek: Ei men kalen, exeis koinen, ei d' aischran, poinen] (Whether of the two horns impaled the sage of Priene?) Some, of course, are fully alive to the outward defects of their partners; but few are so candid as the old Berkshire squire, who, looking ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... kindest hospitality by some of those who have been rendered thus exclusive by the bad taste and worse conduct of foreigners. I feel, as I write, that any remarks I make on New York society cannot be perfectly free from bias, owing to the overwhelming kindness and glowing hospitality which I met with in that city. I found so much to enjoy in society, and so much to interest and please everywhere, that when I left New York it was with the wish that the few weeks ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Dressing and undressing, eating and drinking, bathing, washing, the putting away of toys, even going to bed, can be made matters of enthralling interest or delight, or a subject for tears and opposition, according to the bias which is given to the child's mind by the words, attitude, and ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... there was from the outset considerable difference of opinion. Mark Driver, for instance, always showed a tendency to something more than tolerance, and even Carrissima Faversham, in spite of a manifestly unfavourable bias, strove to hold the balance even. It was her brother Lawrence who took the most adverse view; insisting that Miss Rosser was neither more nor less than an adventuress—"a pretty woman on the make" was his expression, ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... important subject, and bringing a wide range of experimental work to bear upon it, I have, as far as is possible, divested my mind of bias toward any particular process, and I can honestly claim that the fact of the Van Steenbergh process showing such great superiority is due to the force of carefully obtained experimental figures, corroborated by an experienced and widely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... others as well as myself; and I found the other day from Rev. Peter Jones that the subject is engaging the attention of different parties on your side of the water. Could you not open a discussion on this question in your periodicals? But it should be free from party bias, from angry passions, from national views and partialities; indeed, the discussion of such a subject requires the highest reason, philosophy and statesmanship. If a calm head and pure patriot could be found amongst you to argue such a point, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... are in one important respect more fit to go through this examination without the help of divines than with it. A layman who seeks the truth may fall into error; but as he can have no interest to deceive himself, so he has none of profession to bias his private judgment, any more than to engage him to deceive others. Now, the clergyman lies strongly under this influence in every communion. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? Theology is become one of those sciences which ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... at war with his environment; and the stern Puritan bias of his nature refused to conform to the free and easy ways of the gay metropolis. He sighed for a sight of the sea, and longed for the fields and homely companionship that Normandy ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... There was always something satisfactory in making her the court of appeal, on any point of doubt; even though her decision might not be a favorable one, you always felt sure you were getting it straight without any affectionate bias. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... business to do; besides, their decisions necessarily aggrieved one party or the other and sometimes caused feuds and bad feelings, and were always liable to be suspected of being tinged with partiality; whereas the judges being strangers in the district would give their decisions without bias or favour. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... Sen. Stone disclaiming bias against Germany and Austria, 1175; "Seizures of American ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... a deathlike paleness, came over his face for a moment—construed by those around into a consciousness of guilt; for, where the prejudices of men become active, all appearances of change, which go not to affect the very foundation of the bias, are only additional proofs of what they have before believed. He rested his head upon his hands in deep but momentary agony. What were his feelings then? With warm, pure emotions; with a pride only limited by a true sense ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... delights in everything eccentric and licentious. It is often a turn up of a die, in the gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall turn out a great rogue or a great poet; and had not Shakespeare's mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have as daringly transcended all civil as he has all ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... tale you must be the judge. I do not wish to bias you. I have stated my belief in his innocence, but I repeat that I give no opinion myself as to who else may be guilty. Hear his account, and then take up the affair or not, as you may think fit. He would not come to you ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... exactly as if this conversation had never passed between us. Should Fanny be doubtful, and consult you, do your duty as Lawless's friend and her brother—place the advantages and disadvantages fairly before her, and then let her decide for herself, without in the slightest degree attempting to bias her. Will you ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Maecenas, who recommended Virgil and Horace to him; whose praises help'd to make him popular while he was alive, and after his death have made him precious to posterity. As for the religion of our poet, he seems to have some little bias towards the opinions of Wycliffe, after John of Ghant his patron; somewhat of which appears in the tale of Piers Plowman.[19] Yet I cannot blame him for inveighing so sharply against the vices of the clergy in his age; their pride, their ambition, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... in disposition. All my failings sprung from that. My first masters taught me to despise laymen, and inculcated the idea that the man who has not a mission in life is the scum of the earth. Thus it is that I have had a strong and unfair bias against the commercial classes. Upon the other hand, I am very fond of the people, and especially of the poor. I am the only man of my time who has understood the characters of Jesus and of Francis of Assisi. There was ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... principles among a crowd of details; and though he had a strong bias in certain directions, he had a just and catholic appreciation even of facts which told against his case. Yet his knowledge was never dry or cold; it was full to the brim of deep sentiment ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... the forefront of public affairs, no scandal had ever soiled his name. His rectitude, so said people whose memories ran back a generation, was due mainly to fine qualities inherited from his mother, for his father had been a good-natured, hearty, popular politician with no discoverable bias toward over-scrupulosity. In fact, twenty years ago there had been a great to-do touching the voting, through a plan of the elder Blake's devising, of a gang of negroes half a dozen times down in a river-front ward. But his party had rushed loyally to his rescue, and had vindicated him by ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... a morning promenade costume. A high dress of black satin, the body fitting perfectly tight; a small jacket cut on the bias, with two rows of black velvet laid on a little distance from the edge. The sleeves are rather large, and have abroad cuff turned back, which is trimmed to correspond with the jacket. The skirt is long and full; the dress ornamented up the front ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... After the bristles are ready, the next thing is to make the stemming. Take a square piece of cambric and fasten it in a stretcher, then give it a thick coating of mastic varnish, and when the varnish is dry cut the cambric on a true bias into straight strips of different widths, from an inch to two inches, and half a yard in length. Lay one of these strips on a table or some smooth surface, add another coat of varnish, then cover it with glaucous green flock, care being taken to leave a ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... shepherd Paris was tending his flocks, and to him was committed the decision. The goddesses accordingly appeared before him. Juno promised him power and riches, Minerva glory and renown in war, and Venus the fairest of women for his wife, each attempting to bias his decision in her own favor. Paris decided in favor of Venus and gave her the golden apple, thus making the two other goddesses his enemies. Under the protection of Venus, Paris sailed to Greece, and was hospitably received by Menelaus, king of Sparta. Now Helen, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... early period in his career, Edwin Chadwick became possessed by an idea. It is a great thing to be thoroughly possessed by an idea, provided its aim and end be beneficent. It gives a colour and bias to the whole of a man's life. The idea was not a new one; but being taken up by an earnest, energetic, and hard-working man, there was some hope for the practical working out of his idea in the actual life of humanity. It was neither more nor less than the Sanitary ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... indeed, to think that the surroundings of this violent imagination, with its bias towards the capricious and the terrifying, were loneliness, sorrow, enforced companionship with degradation; a life so bitter, for a long time, and made so bitter through another's fault, that Emily ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... writings numerous passages written in that essentially vicious style to which the name Johnsonese has been cruelly given; but the searcher could not fail to find many passages guiltless of this charge. The characteristics of Johnson's prose style are colossal good sense, though with a strong sceptical bias, good humour, vigorous language, and movement from point to point, which can only be compared to the measured tread of a well-drilled company of soldiers. Here is a passage from the preface ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... specially mentions Smith as one of the principal figures of the club, and says their conversation, "besides the usual subjects with young men, turned principally on literary topics, religion, morality, belles-lettres, etc., and to this conversation my mind owed its first bias towards such subjects in which they were all my superiors, I never having attended a college, and being then but a mechanic."[74] According to this account religion was not proscribed, but Professor Traill's assertion ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... "posted-up" in the local histories and sceneries of the place. He can give political information on both sides, incidents and anecdotes to match, whether you are Tory, Whig, or Radical. If you have a bias in that direction, he has or has heard some thoughts on Bishop Colenso and the Tractarians. In short, he caters to the humour and disposition of every guest with a happy facility of adaptation; and the shilling you give him at the end of a day's entertainment ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... a trace of bias or curiosity, with an unforced accent, neither indifferent nor too interested—no one could have told whether it was meant for generosity or malice. Hilary ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which combine to blind Man's erring judgment, and mislead the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules Is pride, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and Mammon, Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger, Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon, A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger, Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak, Against the wicked remnant of the week, A saving bet against his sinful bias— "Rogue that I am," he whispers to himself, "I lie—I cheat—do anything for pelf, But who on earth can say I ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... effectively swayed by that humanitarian philosophy of France which in the actions of its maturity so awfully belied the promise of its youth. We are, I think, on surer ground when, admitting a national bias towards material benevolence, and not denying some stimulus from literature and philosophy, we assign the main credit of our social regeneration to the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... be remembered that he had got most of his information concerning Paul from Madame Patoff and from Alexander, who both detested him, in the two summers when he had met the mother and son at Wiesbaden. His idea of Paul's character had therefore received a bias from the first, and was to a great extent unjust. Conceiving it possible that Patoff might be responsible for his brother's death, he therefore regarded the prospect of Paul's marriage with Hermione with the ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... foundation of splints, wicker-work, Manila braid, or whatever material of the kind may be found most convenient, fourteen inches and seven-eighths long and ten inches and a half wide, which is sloped off on the corners, and trimmed with two strips of embroidery, separated by a bias strip of blue satin, which is turned down on the edges an inch wide on the wrong side, and gathered so as to form a puff. The embroidered strips are worked on a foundation of white cloth as shown by Fig. 2. For the corn-flowers use blue silk, and work them ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a bias merely political, of an attitude reactionary and hostile to the progress o the world, is to deny sense and meaning to the greatest literature of the world. Mr Kipling's instinctive simplifying of life he shares with ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... this noted execution in Edo's annals? He wore—"a wadded coat (kosode) of fine silk from Hachijo[u] in Izu, and that of quintuple stripe. The obi (sash) was seamless and of a purple crape. Into brick coloured leggings was twisted bias white thread, and his straw sandals (waraji) matched them." The jail had given to a naturally fair colour a somewhat livid greenish tint, rendered more commanding and terrible by the piercing cold eyes. Those far off said—"How mild looking! How tranquil!" ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... refused your Supplication, for he has not seen it—you ask but justice, and that his place obliges him to give to his subjects—ay, my lord, and I will say that his natural temper doth in this hold bias with his duty." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... others not here set down, I can hardly judge this remarkable man without bias; but even his most bitter enemies could not truly say he was wholly bad. And it may be stated here that during my stay in the ravine I was treated like a prince. The best of everything was set before ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... national spirit had been developed among the people. The contrast was one which fructified in many serious results, and among them we must rank the effect which it produced on the minds of the French lawyers. Their speculative opinions and their intellectual bias were in the strongest opposition to their interests and professional habits. With the keenest sense and the fullest recognition of those perfections of jurisprudence which consist in simplicity and uniformity, they believed, or seemed to believe, that the vices which actually infested ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... others. Looking back, indeed, from the advanced point where we are now arrived through the whole of his past career, we cannot fail to observe, pervading all its apparent changes and inconsistencies, an adherence to the original bias of his nature, a general consistency in the main, however shifting and contradictory the details, which had the effect of preserving, from first to last, all his views and principles, upon the great subjects that interested ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... austerity not only cruel but almost stupid. They are too often broken outright on the Procrustean bed; they are probably always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaulay is easily spied; it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias of Carlyle. So with all writers who insist on forcing some significance from all that comes before them; and the writer of short studies is bound, by the necessity of the case, to write entirely in that spirit. What he cannot vivify ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his moustache in reflection. It was at this time the fashion in France to wear the moustache waxed. Indeed, men displayed thus their political bias to all ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... in the cool shade of the golden autumn woods. Of course, Cynthia was the most beautiful woman in the world. My brother thought so, and that was enough for us. It was true that Ward observed her from a point of view wonderfully subject to a powerful bias, but that was no business of ours. Ward said it, and there the matter ended. If Ward had said that Cynthia was ugly, a trim, splendid figure, brown hair, and a manner irresistible would not have saved Cynthia from being eternally ugly ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... some insight into the character of the individual who was the chief actor in the foregoing scenes. The Signor Gradenigo was born with all the sympathies and natural kindliness of other men, but accident, and an education which had received a strong bias from the institutions of the self-styled Republic, had made him the creature of a conventional policy. To him Venice seemed a free state, because he partook so largely of the benefits of her social system; and, though shrewd and practised in most of the affairs of the world, his faculties, on ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not speak as if he at all resented this, but in a calm, analytical manner, and with a wholly impersonal interest. I have never known another man who was so totally without individual bias, and regarded all persons and things with so little reference to his own feelings. If he had either prejudices or crotchets on any point, I never discovered them. He was, I feel assured, a scrupulously honest and virtuous gentleman, yet he never seemed to hate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... said in the preface to my first edition, I do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the poetic character. I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him "who forms the secret bias of the soul"; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains. At least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience. Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day, a day that may never ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... retreat, And see, once seen before, that ancient seat, 160 That ancient seat, where majesty display'd Her ensigns, long before the world was made! Mean narrow maxims, which enslave mankind, Ne'er from its bias warp thy settled mind: Not duped by party, nor opinion's slave, Those faculties which bounteous nature gave, Thy honest spirit into practice brings, Nor courts the smile, nor dreads the frown of kings. Let rude licentious Englishmen comply With tumult's voice, and curse—they know not why; 170 ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... and Archdeacon Henry Williams had at least this good result, that it led to the compilation of a full and authoritative life of the latter by his son-in-law, Mr. Hugh Carleton (two vols., Auckland, 1874 and 1877). When allowance is made for the personal bias of the talented author who fights both governor and bishop "with the gloves off," the book remains an ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... Ruskin, and the Queen's Hall Concerts, and some pictures by Watts, he would one day push his head out of the grey waters and see the universe. He believed in sudden conversion, a belief which may be right, but which is peculiarly attractive to a half-baked mind. It is the bias of much popular religion: in the domain of business it dominates the Stock Exchange, and becomes that "bit of luck" by which all successes and failures are explained. "If only I had a bit of luck, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... half began, Canterbury added insult to injury. Instead of booting the pigskin down the field in an honest and earnest endeavour to obtain distance, she deliberately and with malice aforethought, dribbled it on the bias, so to speak, toward the side-line. Benson, right end, should certainly have got it, but he was so perplexed that he never thought of picking it up until a Canterbury forward had performed the task for him and had raced nearly twenty yards down the field! It was an unprecedented thing ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a curious bias. And finally, I didn't like ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... various quarters to this point and that in the argument of Butler; but Mr. Arnold's criticisms, as a whole, remain wholly isolated and unsupported. It is impossible to acquit him of the charge of a carelessness implying levity, and of an ungovernable bias towards finding fault.... Mr. Arnold himself will probably suffer more from his own censures than the great Christian philosopher who is the object of them. And it is well for him that all they can do is to effect some deduction from the fame which ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... royalists of La Vendee. Santerre had undertaken this work, and had failed in it, and it was now said that he was a friend and creature of Danton's; that he was not to be trusted as a republican; that he had a royalist bias; that it would be a good thing that his head should roll, as the heads of so many false men had rolled, under the avenging guillotine. Poor Santerre, who, in the service of the Republic, had not shunned the infamy of ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... expert official leadership toward what is as yet a hazy goal of national greatness. The French national idea is democratic, but its democracy is rendered difficult by French national insecurity, and its value is limited by its equalitarian bias. The French, like the American, democracy needs above all to be thoroughly nationalized; and a condition of such a result is the loyal adoption of democracy as the national idea. Both French and American national cohesion ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... restraint of Earth's civilization? Apparently so. He had killed, and someone had informed on him, and a judge had sentenced him to Omega. He was a murderer on a criminal's planet. To live here successfully, he simply had to follow his natural bias toward murder. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... with the psychological bias informing his essay, Ogilvie tends to reduce the importance of narrative events in favor of vivid and picturesque descriptions, for the latter most immediately communicate themselves to the reader and most expressly realize the translation from thought to ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... there was no malice. He talked but for the pleasure of airing himself. He was essentially glib, as becomes the young advocate, and essentially careless of the truth, which is the mark of the young ass; and so he talked at random. There was no particular bias, but that one which is indigenous and universal, to flatter himself and to please and interest the present friend. And by thus milling air out of his mouth, he had presently built up a presentation of Archie which was known and talked of in all corners of the county. Wherever ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Accordingly, he has prejudiced his claims as a literary critic. He is not interested in Shakespeare's art for its own sake; but that he should use Shakespeare's characters as the subjects of moral disquisitions is eloquent testimony to their truth to nature. His classical bias, excusable in a Professor of Latin, is best seen in his essay "On the Faults of Shakespeare,"(30) of which the title was alone sufficient to win him the contempt of later critics. His essays are the dull effusions of a clever man. Though they are not inspiriting, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... misunderstanding, misquoting, omitting and even adding, but I have never once seen reason to suspect him of conscious misrepresentation, of knowingly giving a false impression. ... It is easy to show that Mr. Froude erred contrary to his bias on occasion, and it must never be forgotten that he did what no consciously dishonest historian could possibly do. He deposited at the British Museum copies, in the original Spanish, of the documents, very difficult of access, which he used in his History. By aid of these ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... bias this is no unfair account of Marvell's method, and it was just because this was Marvell's method that he succeeded so well in amusing the king and in pleasing the town, and that he may still be read by those who love reading with a fair measure of ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... it's quite without either political or religious bias!" she said defiantly. She had failed to keep her secret, but she went down with ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... gold plate and silver; thus, with wax-lights, wines of richest vintage, exquisite cookeries, Montijos lodges, a king everywhere, creating an Aladdin's palace everywhere; able to say, like the Sage Bias, OMNIA MEA NAECUM PORTO. These things are recorded of Montijos. What he did in the way of negotiation has escaped men's memory, as it could ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... own. It is we who are singular, not they. Quite apart from considerations of moral right or wrong, of artistic good or bad, it obviously, therefore, behooves us to try to cultivate a habit of mind free from initial bias against so large a proportion ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... says Dysart, fixing a cold gaze on him. It is so cold, so distinctly hostile, that Beauclerk grows uncomfortable beneath it. When uncomfortable his natural bias leads him towards a display ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... importance in presenting the true aspect of the insurrection; to these must be added the narrative of M. de Bezenval, who was commandant at this time with M. de Chatelet. Almost all other narratives are amplified or falsified through party bias.] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... distinguished by clarity of perception and exhaustive knowledge of the circumstances with which they were dealing, and both were entitled to their opinions by a past record that excluded all idea of bias. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... just love or greed; the people who, as in Dickens, meet every situation with the same phrase or attitude, This, too, looks like a plain falsification of human nature, because, however strong be the professional bias or however overmastering the ruling passion, real people are always more complex and many-sided, having other modifying and counteracting elements of character which prevent their speech and actions from being completely ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... inquiries, refers back to a period when, he says, "In consecrating my life anew to God, aware of the ensnaring influences of riches, and the necessity of deciding on a plan of charity before wealth should bias my judgment, I ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... chest was nearly filled with scraps of silk and satin of every shape and size, from bits not over an inch wide to the large, three-cornered pieces, of which there seemed to be a great number, left in cutting trimming-folds "on the bias," as Linda knew, for she had seen many such remnants proudly displayed by those of her girl friends who happened to be in the good graces of Miss Cranshaw, the village dressmaker. But such brocades and stripes, such "plaid" and "watered" and "figured" silks, such brilliant shades of ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... 'a poem in the old way,' I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... from a council of three, who were also elected for life. This council consisted of the governor, Heaton, and Setts. Human society has little difficulty in establishing itself on just principles, when the wants are few and interests simple. It is the bias given by these last that perverts it from the true direction. In our island community, most of its citizens were accustomed to think that education and practice gave a man certain claims to control, and, as yet, demagogueism had no place with them. A few ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... had taken place were greatly exaggerated by the Eastern papers, and lost nothing in transition. The news came by the pony express across the Plains to San Francisco, where it was still further magnified in republishing, and gained somewhat in Southern bias. I remember well that when the first reports reached us of, the battle of Bull Run—that sanguinary engagement—it was stated that each side had lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded, and none were reported missing nor as having run away. Week by week these losses grew less, until ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... nothing that can be called scientific knowledge is required or even much favored, save some geometrical and mechanical drawing and its implicates. These schools instinctively fear and repudiate plain and direct utility, or suspect its educational value or repute in the community because of this strong bias toward a few trades. This tendency also they even fear, less often because unfortunately trade-unions in this country sometimes jealously suspect it and might vote down supplies, than because the teachers in these schools were generally trained in older scholastic and even classic methods ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... of civil laws ends that of the stage begins. Where venality and corruption blind and bias justice and judgment, and intimidation perverts its ends, the stage seizes the sword and scales and pronounces a terrible verdict on vice. The fields of fancy and of history are open to the stage; great criminals of the past live over again in the drama, and thus benefit an indignant posterity. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller |
