"Shortsighted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shown into the drawing-room, where the real lady of the house sat at a dainty writing-table, scratching away at a letter that was no doubt as affectionate as the one which my mother had received. She was shortsighted, which seemed to be the case also with most of the other ladies in the room; this, perhaps, was why they stared so hard at us, and then went on with the elaborate pieces of needlework on which all of them were ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Bible is inspired was transmuted into the question whether it teaches that every single part of every single book is inspired. It might seem that rulings, of which the actual product in the way of doctrinal propositions was so small, were hardly subjects for any keen interest. But it would be shortsighted to regard the matter in this way. In the first place, whatever may have happened as yet, it is manifestly a serious thing for Church of England doctrine to have been thrown, on a scale which is quite new, into the domain of a court of law, to lie at ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... "If the Essjays get away with this stunt, what kind of life will your family be leading, ten years from now? It's not simply that we'll be high-class peons in the Belt. But tied hand and foot to a shortsighted government, how much progress will we be able to make? Other countries have colonies out here too, remember, and some of them are already giving their people a freer hand than we've got. Do you want the Asians, or the Russians, ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... you once begin this sort of thing, there's no end to it. It's so insidious. The more they have, the more they want; and all the time they're losing fighting power. I've thought pretty deeply about this. It's shortsighted; it really ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... must get up again and look down from her foothold of sunshine, down and away at the patterned, level earth, with its villages and its smoke and its energy. So shortsighted the train seemed, running to the distance, so terrifying in their littleness the villages, with such pettiness ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... confinement. A general stampede of the inhabitants immediately followed, the majority finding refuge in the bar of the recently constructed Hotel Columbia, Mayor MADDERLEY and his amiable consort were, however, not so fortunate. The Mayor, being shortsighted, mistook the two denizens of the jungle for a couple of performing poodles, to whose training he had devoted much of his leisure, and who, as it happened, were at that precise moment expected on their return from the post-office, with the Mayor's mail in their mouths—a trick which ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... weeks' grubstake for a man and his wife. They wanted to get out, and they couldn't. I gave 'em the grub, and told 'em it was worth the price of it to me not to own the land. Yes, sir—and I meant it. I was that shortsighted. So were others. We thought the country would never fill up, just as we thought the buffalo would never be killed out, and we kept on drifting. When I woke up, the cheap lands were about gone. And then, ten years late, I made my grab for a piece ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... don't know,' said the Bishop mildly, putting on his spectacles and gazing down. 'I am a little shortsighted, you know. It is the size of ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... Germany manufactures so well at home, she diminishes her imports from France and England year by year. She has not only become their rival in manufactured goods in Asia and in Africa, but also in London and in Paris. Shortsighted people in France may cry out against the Frankfort Treaty; English manufacturers may explain German competition by little differences in railway tariffs; they may linger on the petty side of questions, and neglect great historical ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... blackberry vines, masses of wild flowers beneath them, and a bird for every bush. Some of the neighbours thought that to drive two rails every so often, lay up the fences straight, and grub out the shrubs was the way, but father said they were vastly mistaken. He said that was such a shortsighted proceeding, he would be ashamed to indulge in it. You did get more land, but if you left no place for the birds, the worms and insects devoured your crops, and you didn't raise half so much as if you furnished the birds shelter and food. So he left ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... father had uttered before his death, and that she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his features, and then she saw his ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... means feels assured. The vulgar—among whom I would not be understood to mean merely the rabble—the vulgar I say (between ourselves) extend their influence far around, and unfortunately—set the fashion. Too shortsighted to reach my full meaning, too narrow-minded to comprehend the largeness of my views, too disingenuous to admit my moral aim—they will, I fear, almost frustrate my good intentions, and pretend to discover in my work an apology for ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... first objects of all manufacturers to produce stuffs not only beautiful and quaint in design, but also adapted for every-day service, and decorous in humble and secluded life. And you must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. If, in shortsighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand—if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... of the victors, while a Helot feeling, compounded of awe and hatred, is but too often discernible in the children of the vanquished. Neither of the hostile castes can justly be absolved from blame; but the chief blame is due to that shortsighted and headstrong prince who, placed in a situation in which he might have reconciled them, employed all his power to inflame their animosity, and at length forced them to close in a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a tall angular man, with a long neck and slightly drooping head. He had thin wiry brown hair, and a plain face, with shortsighted kind brown eyes. In character he was mild and reserved, too conscientious to allow himself the luxury of either favourites or aversions among the boys, all of whom in his secret soul he probably disliked about equally, though he neither said nor did ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... distorting spectacles; not see beyond one's nose; dare pondus fumo[Lat]; get the wrong sow by the ear &c. (blunder) 699. give a bias, give a twist; bias, warp, twist; prejudice, prepossess. Adj. misjudging &c. v.; ill-judging, wrong-headed; prejudiced &c. v.; jaundiced; shortsighted, purblind; partial, one-sided, superficial. narrow-minded, narrow-souled[obs3]; mean-spirited; confined, illiberal, intolerant, besotted, infatuated, fanatical, entete[Fr], positive, dogmatic, conceited; opinative, opiniative[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... shortsighted now, mother. I tell you, you would manage him better if you just put on your old grey shawl and one of your bonny white mutches, and went in half smiling and half timid and said, "I am the mother of him that writes ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the Danes and pursued them; but that was not easy, for the ships lay so thick together that they scarcely could move. Earl Fin Arnason would not flee; and being also shortsighted, was taken prisoner. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... aid of Conrade of Montserrat and the military orders of the Temple and of Saint John, who, though they were sworn to wage battle against the Saracens, were at least equally jealous of any European monarch achieving the conquest of Palestine, where, with shortsighted and selfish policy, they proposed to establish ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... situation of the empire at that period; it was this—"To enrich the soldiery at any price, and to regard the rest of their subjects as so many ciphers." But, as a critical historian remarks, this was a shortsighted and self-destroying policy; since in no way is the subsistence of the soldier made more insecure, than by diminishing the general security of rights and property to those who are not soldiers, from whom, after ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... attacks, they are the result of used-up matter returning into the circulation, and reaching even the brain and central parts of the nervous system. The cure is gained when the defective organs are brought to act well. It is shortsighted action to deal with the kidneys alone in this trouble. They often fail because they are overloaded through the failure of lungs and skin to do their part. First, it is well to act on the lungs by gentle rubbing with hot olive oil between the shoulders and over all the back—done best in ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... only take the greatest interest in you, charming young lady, and in your country, but I have an orderly mind and would be really pleased to see those corners straightened out. Use your influence, which I am sure must be great, with that shortsighted body ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... be scanned?" Ans.—On internal evidence, we question whether the lines are MILTON's. In the absence of our Poet, who is out for a holiday, we can only reply, that if shortsighted, you can scan them by the aid of a powerful glass—of your ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... Pray don't apologise, Mr. CULCHARD; not the least harm done! You must forgive me for not recognising you before, but you know of old how provokingly shortsighted I am, and I've forgotten ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... Brohl," he said to himself. "Let us see the game through. After all she is very shortsighted, and you may have changed in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Cocked Hat said he did not think the previous speaker had mentioned the real cause of their fallen fortunes—their clothes were right enough; they had to thank their own shortsighted policy for their present position—yes, he was there to speak plainly, as Guy to Guy, and he told them that it was nothing short of social suicide for a Guy to carry about a placard, such as he saw too many of them wearing that evening, inscribed with the name of a recent murderer ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... this time Fulton wrote ordering an engine from Boulton and Watt to be transported to America. The order was at first refused, as it was then the shortsighted policy of the British Government to maintain a monopoly of mechanical contrivances. Permission to export was given the next year, however, and the engine was shipped in 1805. It lay for some time in the New York Customs House. Meanwhile Fulton had studied ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... enough in the palii of Siena. He was more than common tall, with broad shoulders, and very active. In colour dark, though he was not handsome, his face had a sort of dignity that compelled respect, but he was shortsighted too, and his nose was rather broad and flat. If he lacked the comeliness of outward form, he loved all beauteous things, and was in many ways the most extraordinary man of his age; his verse, for instance, has just that touch of genius which ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February 15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... do not hate the Belgians. They simply pity them, that they were so shortsighted as not to accept German gold for right of passage through the country. The German hate is reserved entirely for the English above all people on the surface of the globe. In Belgium 200 marks reward is offered for the capture of any Englishman found ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... the eighteenth century shows a curious contrast between the political stagnancy and the great industrial activity. The great constitutional questions seemed to be settled; and the statesmen, occupied mainly in sharing power and place, took a very shortsighted view (not for the first time in history) of the great problems that were beginning to present themselves. The British empire in the East was not won by a towering ambition so much as forced upon a reluctant commercial company by the necessities ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... fertilization, therefore, consists of supplying any or all of these elements in which the soil is deficient. The aim of fertilization, as a rule, is merely to increase crop production. But this may prove to be not merely shortsighted, it may turn out to be a social crime. It is criminal, indeed, as a great many diseases are directly traceable to incomplete ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... trees to produce food for man and beast as well as producing many other useful products, and much of the work of your Association seems to be along the same line. I am sure we can live easier and better on this earth when we learn to use the trees in their proper place. Man often acts in a shortsighted way by depending largely on annual crops for the main source of food for himself and his animals and neglects the long lived trees which may not have to be planted but once in a lifetime and which, if given a little intelligent management, will improve instead of deplete his land ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... forward to make room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious of the warmth of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... authorities toward their unwilling subjects of the Trentino was characterized by a vindictiveness as savage as it was shortsighted. Like the Germans in Alsace, they made the mistake of thinking that they could secure the loyalty of the people by awing and terrorizing them, whereas these methods had the effect of hardening the determination of the Trentini to rid themselves of Austrian rule. Caesare Battisti ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... part with their daughter, preferring their own happiness to hers. Others are so silly as to think no ordinary man good enough for her, and therefore, if they had their own way, would have her to become an old maid. Fortunately, such shortsighted people are not ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... used to say, wagging her head like a profound and thoughtful bird; "this is all very foolish and shortsighted on my part. Five years from now that gutter-godling of yours will be doing work that will make people forget poor little me and my ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... all advertisements—a dissatisfied customer. There was something more than a tendency in the early days of the automobile to regard the selling of a machine as the real accomplishment and that thereafter it did not matter what happened to the buyer. That is the shortsighted salesman-on-commission attitude. If a salesman is paid only for what he sells, it is not to be expected that he is going to exert any great effort on a customer out of whom no more commission is to be made. And it is right on this point that we later made ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... hand, extravagance was systematically encouraged everywhere by the shortsighted measures which the authorities adopted and maintained as well as by the wanton waste promoted or tolerated by the incapacity of their representatives. In France the moratorium and immunity from taxation gave a fillip to recklessness. People who had hoarded ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that argument: but shortsighted more than enough. It is of a piece with the wisdom which shrinks from telling children that God is love, lest they should not be sufficiently afraid of Him; which forbids their young hearts to expand freely towards their fellow-creatures: which puts into their mouths the ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... would be better if my plan could be brought forward, in the first place, by the Chamber of Deputies. As, in the event of the new Civil List being discussed, I was particularly anxious to avoid the question of the continuation of the court theatre being treated in the ignorant and shortsighted radical fashion, which was to be feared above all, I did not despair of making the acquaintance of some of the most influential among the new members of parliament. In this wise I found myself suddenly plunged into quite a new and strange world, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... mammas, were driven to despair; but at last they hit upon a remedy. They would be distinguished by hook or by crook, and the only way left now was always to go on foot. So they walked the pavement—wet or dry, nothing could induce them to enter the door of a carriage. Item: they gave up being shortsighted; the few who for reasons distinct from fashion could not resign the habit concealed it, as if it was a defect ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... to England to study carpet-weaving in the English looms, supposing that all arts were generously open for the instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the machinery and watching the processes by a shortsighted jealousy. He immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently unraveling it thread by thread, combined and calculated till he invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and the New World are woven. No pains which ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... It was doubtless shortsighted and ungrateful in these nobles to attempt to deprive Caesar of his laurels and his promised consulship. He had earned them by grand services, both as a general and a statesman. But their jealousy and hatred ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... said the boy—"of all the miserable, shortsighted, thick-headed, addle-pated duffers and asses we are the worst! We took pains to find a way into a fiendish maze of tunnels, pits, and caverns, occupied by vampires and enveloped in darkness, in search of a thing that ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville |
