"Theory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of exclusion; the soul of their leadership had been to cast others out; and that the campaign I planned was to be one of inclusion—even to the extent of Bohemians and well-behaved cattle-persons—-which I believed to be in the finest harmony with their North American theory of human association. It might be thought a naive theory, I said, but so long as they had chosen it I ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... was relaxed or engaged upon a novel, or his seeds, or the plan of a new house, which always excited his interest. Then, apparently suddenly, whilst in one of his day-dreams, or in a fever (as at Ternate, to recall the historical episode when the theory of Natural Selection struck him), an explanation, a theory, a discovery,[68] the plan of a new book, came to him like a flash of light, and with the plan the material, the arguments, the illustrations; the words came tumbling one over the other in his brain, and as suddenly his ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... virtue and intelligence of the people, and the latter is derived from the virtue and intelligence of the "State." But where does the virtue and intelligence of the State come from? The only answer on this theory is, from the people. So the "State" enlightens and purifies the people, and the people enlighten and purify the "State." The people support the State, the State supports the Public Schools, and they support the State. If this ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Had some one, after all, been here, and—? She shook her head suddenly with a quick, emphatic gesture of dissent. The door was still locked, she could see the key on the inside; and, besides, as a theory, it wasn't logical. They wouldn't have taken her revolver ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... By a theory, supported by some eminent men, as Clark and Wollaston, virtue was considered to depend on a conformity of the conduct to a certain sense of the fitness of things,—or the truth of things. The meaning of this, it must ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... societies during the last fifteen years, with others now printed for the first time. The two first of the series are printed without alteration, because, having gained me the reputation of being an independent originator of the theory of "natural selection," they may be considered to have some historical value. I have added to them one or two very short explanatory notes, and have given headings to subjects, to make them uniform with the rest of the book. The other essays have been carefully ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in assent and the surgeon went out through the narrow door. San Giacinto was surprised to hear the heavy key turned in the lock and withdrawn, but immediately accounted for the fact on the theory that the surgeon wished to prevent any one from finding his visitor lest the secret should be divulged. He was not a nervous man, and had no especial horror of being left alone in a mortuary chamber for a few minutes. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... perhaps, enable the reader better to follow Boswell in his narrative, and in his description of Paoli's character. I have founded it chiefly on Boswell's own account, though I have, at the same time consulted other authorities. As an historical writer, in theory at least, he would scarcely satisfy the exact school of historians that has sprung up since his day. "I confess I am not," he says in his second chapter, "for humouring an inordinate avidity for positive evidence." He is speaking, however, about the origin of nations, and ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... left home earlier than usual, and on his own account began a search for Lillian. A new theory had taken possession of him, and he started at once for the river. At the magazine gate he chatted with the sentry about the mysterious disappearance, and passed on. When he reached the shore half a mile beyond, he was surprised to find that the padlock on the door of the shed ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... monuments, twenty-four are administered by the National Parks Service, ten by the Department of Agriculture, and two by the War Department. Congress made the assignments to the Department of Agriculture on the theory that, as these monuments occurred in forests, they could be more cheaply administered by the Forest Service; but, as many of the other monuments and nearly all the national parks also occur in forests, the logic is not apparent, and these monuments suffer from disassociation with the impetus ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... came into Freddie's cheerful face. He could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now, in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it seemed ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... relief through immediate administrative action. The number of accidents which result in the death or crippling of wageworkers, in the Union at large, is simply appalling; in a very few years it runs up a total far in excess of the aggregate of the dead and wounded in any modern war. No academic theory about "freedom of contract" or "constitutional liberty to contract" should be permitted to interfere with this and similar movements. Progress in civilization has everywhere meant a limitation and regulation of contract. I call your especial attention to the bulletin of the Bureau of Labor which ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... notwithstanding its forged name Christian, it is truly subversive of the doctrine of Christ. Her grand central doctrine of the "allness" of mind and the unreality of matter is a true copy of the "fantastic idealism" of the Gnostics. Gnosticism was based on "speculative knowledge." So is Mrs. Eddy's theory. Gnosticism denied the "true humanity of the Redeemer, and made his person a mere phantom, and his work a mere illusion." So does Christian Science. Although Mrs. Eddy clamours loudly that her work ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... throwing wild gestures into the air. As Coleman looked back at the Wainwright party he saw plainly that to an ordinary eye they might easily appear as a strong advance of troops. The peculiar light would emphasize such theory. The dragoman ran to him jubilantly, but he contained now a form of intelligence which caused him to whisper; " That was one Greek. That was one Greek-what do you ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... miles away, were safety and honour. The soldiers noticed the balloon too. 'Those are our blokes,' they said. 'We ain't all finished yet,' and so they comforted themselves, and a young sergeant advanced a theory that the garrison would send out cavalry ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... everything a theory, which proclaims itself "good sense"; Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and the true; explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which, because it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom, and is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... it, company being with her, so I only invited her to come and dine with me on Sunday next, and so away home, and for saving my eyes at my chamber all the evening pricking down some things, and trying some conclusions upon my viall, in order to the inventing a better theory of musique than hath yet been abroad; and I think verily I shall do it. So to supper with my wife, who is in very good humour with her working, and so am I, and so to bed. This day at Court I do hear that Sir W. Pen do command this summer's fleete; and Mr. Progers of the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... time," said Winter, "it may very well have happened that consciously or unconsciously the papers have been made the victims of a practical joke. To-morrow is the first of April, remember. Or even apart from the joke theory, the event happened after dinner, and Mr. Bradshaw may have found it necessary to be prepared with an ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... philosophy has made Alchemy an impossible belief, but the faith in it was natural in an age when reason was seldom appealed to. The credulity which accepted witchcraft for a truth, was not likely to reject the theory of the transmutation of metals, nor strain at the dogma of perpetual youth and health; the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (however plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for "the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and it had left Greece unaided in her struggle ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... in the old way," said Grace. "Now, if I actually hadn't seen that woman cured, and known positively how she was before, nothing would have induced me to spend my time on this, although, from the first, I rather liked the theory." ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... say you have read—unless your partiality for the soft Southern tongues has chased away your Teutonic taste—that exquisite poem of Schiller's, 'Das Geheimnitz der Reminiscenz,' the happiest possible crystallization of the same theory. I recall a few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... County of Kent! Not satisfied with this conjecture, Malone suggests that she may have been an Eliza Horden—the z changed, according to Camden's rules, into s, and the aspirate sunk. Malone's foundation for this theory is, that one Thomas Horden was a contemporary of John Linde, aforesaid, and resided in the same county! Both these conjectures are absurd and unsupported by any collateral evidence. To have given them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Epicurus and Democritus. His profound belief in it is one of the most singular facts in literary history; no man ever put such poetic passion into a dogma, and no such imperious dogma was ever built upon a scientific theory of the universe. He seems to have combined two Italian types of character, which never have been united before or since,—that of the ecclesiastic, earnest and dogmatic, seeing human nature from a doctrinal platform, not working and thinking with it; and ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... one thing and marriage is another in his code. Mary's primal mistake is in assuming—(upon John's authority, I regret as his advocate to say), that the two states are one and the same. Moonlight vows and noonday action should, according to her theory, be in exact harmony. John does not deceive consciously. Wemmick's office tenets differed diametrically from those he held at Walworth where his aged parent toasted the muffins, and Miss. Skiffins made the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... that time, to say nothing of all the way along the line, but while some of the records were saved in 1906, most went up in smoke. Moreover, there's just the chance that he didn't die here. But that's going on the supposition that the man died when she left California, which don't fit our theory. I still think he died not so very long before her return to California, and that she probably came to collect a legacy he had left her. Otherwise, I should think it's about the last place she would have come to. I ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... This theory is satisfactory except that it does not account for the absence of the muff. Ah, well, there must always be a mystery somewhere! Mystery ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... of public criticism| |of the courts on the theory that there | |can be no impropriety in investigating | |any act of a public official, Judge | |Kennesaw M. Landis last night addressed | |the students of Marquette College of Law | |and many members of the Milwaukee | |bar.—Milwaukee ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... US constitutional theory and civil law system; judicial review of legislative acts; accepts compulsory ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... disciples, because all the world knew now that "miracles" did not happen. That a priori argument is surely silenced by Lourdes. "Miracles" in that sense undoubtedly do happen, if present-day evidence is worth anything whatever. What, then, is the Christian theory? ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson
... Representatives from all the suffrage associations were present and made speeches. Mrs. Walter D. Lamar and Miss Mildred Rutherford, head of the Lucy Cobb Institute of Athens, represented the Anti-Suffrage Association. Mrs. Lamar's arguments were based upon the theory that women did not have sufficient integrity to be trusted with the ballot; that long years ago when those of New Jersey had it it had to be taken from them because they were so dishonest in their use of it. She also said that women were universally the hardest taskmasters, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... is an important postulate underlying this theory. It is, that upon each planet the possibilities of development just attain to the margin of the next higher step in mental evolution. That is, that on Mercury the period of brawn develops to the possibility of the period of sense without fully exemplifying it, so in Venus the period of sense ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... assured him that the earth revolved, by placing a pan of water on his gate-post. Not a drop was spilled, not a spoonful missing, in the morning. He showed this to the astronomical neighbor as refutatory of that theory of revolution. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to Diogenes Laertius, v., 28, Aristotle put Rhetoric and Dialectic together, as aiming at persuasion, [Greek: to pithanon]; and Analytic and Philosophy as aiming at truth. Aristotle does, indeed, distinguish between (1) Logic, or Analytic, as the theory or method of arriving at true or apodeictic conclusions; and (2) Dialectic as the method of arriving at conclusions that are accepted or pass current as true, [Greek: endoxa] probabilia; conclusions in regard ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... one-sided stamp; it is, after a fashion, like that of a man who hurls himself from the top of a mountain or church steeple. The man in question has forgotten to cut off evidence, and, in order to work out a theory, has killed two persons. He has committed a murder, and yet has not known how to take possession of the pelf; what he has taken he has hidden under a stone. The anguish he experienced while hearing knocking at the door and the continued ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... held as valid, and in case of necessity the right of action was accorded to the party aggrieved if not by the law, at any rate by mercantile custom and judicial usage;(24) but the promise of a gift without due form was null alike in legal theory and in practice. In Rome, Polybius tells us, nobody gives to any one unless he must do so, and no one pays a penny before it falls due, even among near relatives. The very legislation yielded to this mercantile morality, which regarded ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... for a few moments. He could hear Rachel's passionate voice saying, "They get seven shillings a week ... in theory. There are fines ..." and he wondered why it was that she repelled him. Her sincerity was palpable ... it was clear that she was hurt by the miseries of factory girls ... but in spite of her sincerity, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... publication of Theiner's /Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum/, the /Calendars of Papal Letters/, the /Calendars of Documents (Ireland)/ and the /Annats/. If any writer, regardless of such striking evidence, should be inclined to revive such a theory he should find himself faced with the further disagreeable fact that, when the English nation and a considerable body of the Anglo-Irish nobles fell away from their obedience to Rome, the Irish people, who were supposed to be hostile to the Pope, preferred to risk everything rather than allow ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... of a continent, among a people now numbering over thirty millions, diversities of opinion inevitably exist; and rivalries, intensified at times by local interests and sectional attachments, must often occur; yet we do not doubt that the theory of our Government is the best which is possible for this nation, that the Union of the States is of vital importance, and that the Constitution, which expresses the combined wisdom of the illustrious founders of the Government, ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... altogether, or at least to confine it to the narrowest possible limits. Government and the people were antagonistic: the less government there was, the less harm would be done to the people, and so a general body of individualistic, laissez-faire theory developed, which was expressed in various Declarations of the Rights of Man, and set up against the "paternal despotism" of the ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... was one side of his passion for veracity. When it was a matter of demonstrable truth, he refused to be intimidated by great names. Already, in his Croonian lecture of 1858, "On the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull," he had challenged, and by direct morphological investigation overthrown, the theory of Oken, adopted and enlarged upon by Owen, that the adult skull is a modified vertebral column. Again, the great name of Owen, that jealous king of the anatomical ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... to tell you something," said Dan. "On the reciprocal theory I can't expect anything, but I'm lonesome and have no friends anyhow, so I'll give you a chance to say something withering and edged ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... house was reading aloud. We obtained books from the Mercantile Library of San Francisco, among which I especially remember the historical works of Francis Parkman, who was a great favourite with Mr. Stevenson. He had a theory that the not uncommon distaste among the people for that branch of literature was largely the fault of the dull style adopted by many historians, and saw no good reason why the thrilling story of the great events of the world should ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... in seven words: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' When the man who employs—and rules—uses the power that money gives him to succor his fellow man, the revolution will be indefinitely postponed. But as I say, it's only a theory." ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... moody caprice. The word comes to have this meaning from the theory of the old physiologists that four cardinal humors—blood, choler or yellow bile, phlegm, and melancholy or black bile—determine, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qualities. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... journey into this country made him acquainted both with our philosophers and with our philosophical works; and he had neither natural capacity to distinguish errors from reality, nor judgment enough to perceive that what appeared improving and charming in theory, frequently became destructive and improper when attempted to be put into practice. Returned to his own country, his acquired half-learning made him wholly dissatisfied with his Government, with his religion, and with himself. In our Revolution he thought that he saw the first approach towards ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... still fighting on foreign soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national existence into which the German people have been led under the present ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... twenty or thirty of one calling are gathered together under one roof, meeting daily at table, where artistic criticism is pungent and free, artistic assistance ungrudging, tales of artistic experience and adventure racy, the atmosphere stimulative to the spreading out of every artistic theory possible to the sane ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... in deep reflection. That Norman could treat him so was impossible except on one theory: that he believed the story which concerned him and Mrs. Wentworth. That he could believe such a story seemed absolutely impossible. He passed through every phase of regret, wounded pride, and anger. Then it came to him clearly ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a railroad officer, interest would prompt me to advocate the opposite theory about this matter, for troops constitute the most profitable, if not the only profitable, part of any transportation by railroads. But I cannot be less a citizen and patriot because ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... hands of those who from the mode of their election and the tenure of their offices would most accurately express the popular will and at the same time be most directly and speedily amenable to the people. The theory of these wise and benignant intentions is in the present case effectually defeated by the proceedings of the Senate. The members of that body represent not the people, but the States; and though they are undoubtedly responsible to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... either would not tell what he knew, or had no information to give. The latter theory was improbable. Some one made a remark to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... nightmare of repeated effort weighed upon the spirits of the household. At eleven o'clock, after tea, after dinner—three times a day—was the inexorable programme repeated, in spite of prayers and protestations. Mrs Chester's theory was that it was brutal to torture the child, and that if she were to be lame, for pity's sake let her be lame in peace. Rhoda suffered agonies of remorse and passionate revolts against the mystery of pain, but the nurse and her assistant never showed a sign of wavering. As a rule, Evie made a gallant ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... 71. At this time the emperor had in theory only the right of nominating candidates for the consulships, but it was obviously unnecessary for him to do more. The alliteration in this ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... crater. The two basins conveyed the idea of two closely contiguous vents for the subterranean fires, and the channels might very well be breaches in the sides of the crater through which the molten lava had burst its way. And this theory was confirmed by the colour of the water at the seaward extremities of the several channels, which clearly indicated the existence of reefs that might very well have been formed by the outflow. Some of these reefs, it is true, were so deeply submerged that the sea did not break over them ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Americans thereafter prosecuted more seriously the study of Coke, Milton, Locke, and Blackstone. The last of these was then read more extensively in the colonies than in Great Britain. Getting from these writers strange ideas of individual liberty and the social compact theory of man's making in a state of nature government deriving its power from the consent of the governed, the colonists contended more boldly than ever for religious freedom, industrial liberty, and political equality. Given impetus by the diffusion of these ideas, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... the Merits and Demerits of Buddhism, and of the Hold which it is likely to have on Western Minds—Its Points of Contact with Western Errors—The Fact that Modern Buddhism, like many other False Systems, Claims Christ as a Believer in its Principles—The Theory that the Life of Christ is Modelled after that of the Buddha—The Superior Authenticity of the Life of Christ—The Unreliable Character of Buddhist Legends—The Intrinsic Improbability that a Religion ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... firmly grounded, even the thinkers are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concerning the divine nature and character as is embraced in the theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin. No wise mother, though a graduate of Wellesley College, will talk to her babe about the problems ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy
... reins of government, as regent, during his minority. Law now found himself in a more favourable position. The tide in his affairs had come, which, taken at the flood, was to waft him on to fortune. The regent was his friend, already acquainted with his theory and pretensions, and inclined, moreover, to aid him in any efforts to restore the wounded credit of France, bowed down to the earth by the extravagance of the long reign ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... somewhere, lately, a new and very ingenious theory about the attitude of the Apollo Belvedere, proving, to the author's satisfaction, that the received notion about watching the arrow was all a mistake. The paper proved, at all events, one thing—namely, the statement in the text. For an attitude ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... this last trip—been doing some work on the ether, force-field theory, and other advanced stuff that I had to go to Mars and Venus to get. Just got back last week. As for solving mysteries, laugh while you can, old hyena. You and a lot of other dim bulbs think that ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... her anchor, she made no bones of announcing that she had been brought up on the Shorter Catechism and the Confession and in consequence found a place for every theory of hers, Social and Economic as well as Ethical and Religious, within the four corners of the mighty fabric of the Calvinistic system of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... furnished by a knowledge of our organization, or on those historical verifications which result from an attentive examination of the past. The law consists in this—that each of our principal conceptions, each branch of our knowledge, passes successively through three different states of theory: the theologic, or fictitious; the metaphysic, or abstract; the scientific, or positive. In other terms, the human mind, by its nature, employs successively, in each of its researches, three methods ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... square, gold links, similar to one her Captain had given her on her last birthday. Mary had frequently admired it in times past and for months Marjorie had saved a portion from her allowance with which to buy it. She had a theory that a gift to one's dearest friends should entail self-sacrifice on the part of the giver. Mary's changed attitude toward her had not counted. She was still resolved upon giving her the chain. But how was she to do ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... this theory of two Principles was the basis of all the Mysteries, and consecrated in the religious ceremonies and Mysteries of Greece. Osiris and Typhon, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Bacchus and the Titans and Giants, all represented these ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... put her daughter into the mail-coach, and gave her much parting advice. "Hold up your head when you are with them. That is all that you have to do. Among them all your blood will be the best." This theory of blood was one of which Lady Anna had never been able even to realise the meaning. "And remember this too;—that you are in truth the most wealthy. It is they that should honour you. Of course you will be courteous and gentle with them,—it ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... that the accumulation of wealth in a country was the parent of all evils, including depopulation. We need not stay here to discuss Goldsmith's position as a political economist; even although Johnson seems to sanction his theory in the four lines he contributed to the end of the poem. Nor is it worth while returning to that objection of Lord Macaulay's which has already been mentioned in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor Irish village ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... read a little on the subject, but it had never seemed to her a practical means of communicating. Calling a doctor, for instance, seemed to Lorraine rather far-fetched an application of what was at best but a debatable theory. ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... delighted Meillard. When they had the lorry down and were all out of it, the dignitary with the staff, his scarlet tablecloth over his yellow robe, began an oration, apparently with every confidence that he was being understood. In spite of his objections at lunch, the telepathy theory was ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... to argue justly, where the question at issue turns practically on the meaning of a word. Mr. Sharp would, I think, be the first to admit this; and it appears to me that, in the present case, he so formulates his theory as to satisfy his artistic conscience, and yet leave room for the recognition of that intellectual quality so peculiar to Mr. Browning's verse. But what one member of the aesthetic school may express with a certain reserve is proclaimed ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... travelling and gadding abroad, which had not some wise men about him laboured to remove, and the Queen laid in her command, he would, out of his own native propension, marred his own market; for as he was grown by reading, whereunto he was much addicted, to the theory of a soldier, so was he strongly invited by his genius, to the acquaintance of the practice of the war, which were the causes of his excursions, for he had a company in the Low Countries, from whom he came over with a noble ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... of his extraordinary theory of the deluge was more revolutionary, or scientifically incredible, than this idea that the continents would gradually emerge again, owing to internal stresses set up in the crust ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... searches had been crowned with success. They published a statement of their discovery. Their views were controverted in several critical pamphlets that followed. In the mean time, additional researches have been made. The theory then broached that his burial was in the Lower Town, and in the Recollect chapel built in 1615, has been abandoned. The Abbe Casgrain, in an able discussion of this subject, in which he cites documents hitherto unpublished, shows that Champlain was buried in a tomb within ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... professions. Johnson had a really benevolent heart, but despised and detested the affectation of a sentimental and universal philanthropy, which neglects the practical charities of home and kindred, in its wild and excursive flights after distant and romantic objects. He was no tyrant, even in theory, but he dreaded, and, therefore, sought to expose, the lurking designs of those who opposed constituted authorities, because they hated subjection; and who, when they gained power themselves, proved the well-grounded nature of the fears entertained respecting their sincerity. Johnson was a firm ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Walter's usual young men,—"brave, handsome, not too clever,"—the despair of their humorous creator. "Once you come to forty year," as Thackeray sings, "then you'll know that a lad is an ass;" and Scott had come to that age, and perhaps entertained that theory of a jeune premier when he wrote "Guy Mannering." In that novel, as always, he was most himself when dealing either with homely Scottish characters of everyday life, with exaggerated types of humorous absurdity, and with wildly adventurous banditti, who appealed to the old strain of the Border ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... science, which is already knocking at our doors, a brief sketch of its birth and development may be fittingly introduced. The celebrated French chemist Lavoisier, a very magician in the science, groping in the dark of the last century, evolved the chemical theory of combustion—the existence of a "highly respirable gas," oxygen, and the presence of metallic bases in earths and alkalies. With the latter subject we have only to do at the present moment. The metallic base was predicted, yet not identified. The French Revolution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... critic and Byron the poet were two very different men. The effects of the noble writer's theory may indeed often be traced in his practice. But his disposition led him to accommodate himself to the literary taste of the age in which he lived; and his talents would have enabled him to accommodate himself to the taste of any age. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as a United Board, one of the economists made a little speech in which he propounded the theory that "our first duty is to the ratepayers"; but I could not help suggesting that, as a legally appointed body, we were bound to obey the law beyond all other considerations, and corrected his dictum, with all respect, ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the number of their members, thirty constituting a large club; and as the subscribers were all known to one another, presented an admirable field for display of mental powers in conversation. In fact, the early clubs were nothing more than dining-societies, precisely the same in theory as our breakfasting arrangements at Oxford, which were every whit as exclusive, though not balloted for. The ballot, however, and the principle of a single black ball suffering to negative an election were not only, under such circumstances, excusable, but even necessary ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Mildred waited until they had asked all the questions they could think of and then, leaning forward in her absorption and gazing intently at one of the group, she said: "Now tell us all that you know about this Hugh Gordon. I want to know all you can tell me, because I have a theory about him." ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... the theory of desire seems to be reversed. Desire is mere wish after anything. When its gratification is sought, the form it assumes is that of determination or will. If, however, Kama be taken as the formulated desire after specific objects, then, perhaps, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... deep breaths of scented air and gazing at the sky. But nothing was further from her mind than soulful sentimentalising over the beauties of nature. She was puzzling about the young man who had left her, endeavoring to arrive at some theory of who he was and what he could be doing in Rosnacree. After awhile she turned over on her side, fumbled in her pocket and drew out two more biscuits in crumbly fragments. She munched ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... letters of his family name. In Paris he studied medicine, and began to set forth novel opinions which led him into conflict with other members of the faculty. In one of his treatises he is said to have suggested the theory of the circulation of the blood. In 1540 he went to Vienne and published anonymously his well-known work De Restitutione Christianismi. This book, when its authorship became known, brought upon him the charge of heresy, and he was cast into prison. Powerful friends enabled him to escape, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... take the field as an offensive partisan, but as an inventor. It was a condition and not a theory that confronted me. (Yes, Sir, I'm a Democrat by conviction, and that was one of the best things Grover ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... the traitors will prove to be white elephants,' said Mr. Lincoln. 'We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals,' he continued. 'We fought Great Britain for insisting, by theory and practise, on the right to do just what Captain Wilkes has just done. If Great Britain shall now protest against the act, and demand their release, we must give them up, apologize for the act as a violation of our own doctrines, and thus forever bind her over to ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... deities called the Mukhyas. The worship of Amitabha, so far as its history can be traced, goes back to Saraha, the teacher of Nagarjuna. He is said to have been a Sudra and his name seems un-Indian. This supports the theory that this worship was foreign ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... work by their aid. For instance, a singer will know from trials and experience just the proper position of the tongue and larynx to produce most effectively a certain note on the scale, yet he will have come by this knowledge not by theory and reasoning, but simply oft repeated attempts, and the knowledge he has come by will be valuable to him only, for somebody else would produce the same note equally well, but in ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... the rapid changes of those spots. The escape of such a vast quantity of gas from the interior of the body of the sun would, he observes, as it surrounds that luminary, produce that bright and dazzling appearance which is the atmosphere of the sun. This theory may not accord with the opinions of others who have made observations on the subject; but the writer, at any rate, entertains the strongest belief of its truth. With the same instrument, which is but just finished, he has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... reply that they were Redskins and so do not count. Be it so! Though the theory of inferior races has very grave consequences from the standpoint ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin's theory to an absurdity. Nothing could be further from my intention, and few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin; but I must own that I have myself to thank for the misconception, for I felt sure ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... of the ordinary principles of optics on the part of the reader is assumed, for there are plenty of books on the theory of lenses, and, in any case, it is my intention to treat of the art rather than of the science of the subject. By far the best short statement of the principles involved which I have seen is Lord Rayleigh's article on ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... splendid poetry contained in the Sonnets must be sundered or broken, or the apparent reality of its message doubted or denied, or that its message is mysterious or inexplicable—we should carefully inquire whether there is not some view or theory which will avoid the difficulties which ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... and visible organization, consisting of those who had received, through a long line of apostolical succession, some mystic power for administering rites and conferring absolution, together with those who came beneath the touch of their priestly hands. That theory has notoriously broken down. But the truth of which it is a grotesque travesty is presented in our Lord's conception of the vine, deeply planted in the dark grave of Joseph's garden, which had reached down its branches through the ages, and in which every believing ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... human being is a possible beneficiary of the Atonement. For him too—as the theological phrase is—Christ died upon the cross. But in Christianity too we find that the idea of brotherhood, of equal worth, universal as it is in theory, in practice came to be considerably restricted. It did not really extend to all human beings as such; it did not extend to those who refused to be the beneficiaries of the act of atonement. In reality, it applied only to Christians or to those who were not averse to receiving the Christian faith. ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... to earn money, little woman. Miss Egerton has kept me in shackles. I've worn them patiently, but now I burst the bonds. Daisy, I have formed a little theory. I believe girls are sent into the world with a strong bias in a particular direction. You see, it always did seem to be meant that dear Primrose was to be a companion, or secretary, of some sort; for Mrs. Ellsworthy wanted her to be Mr. Ellsworthy's secretary, and ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... something more than a conjecture, when we extend our view to the diversified breeds of those animals which men have domesticated, and have transferred with themselves from one climate to another. Considered in this point of view, it acquires, perhaps, the character of a legitimate theory, supported by adequate evidence, and by an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... application; not so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... on Etna,' Synge answered, 'It is a curious thing that "The Riders to the Sea" succeeds with an English but not with an Irish audience, and "The Shadow of the Glen" which is not liked by an English audience is always liked in Ireland, though it is disliked there in theory.' Since then 'The Riders to the Sea' has grown into great popularity in Dublin, partly because with the tactical instinct of an Irish mob, the demonstrators against 'The Playboy' both in the press and in the theatre, where it began the evening, selected it for applause. ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... progress of a fresh canal that is being made on our estate in Goshen. The officer who is superintending it has doubts whether, when the sluices are opened, it will altogether fulfill its purpose, and I fear that some mistake must have been made in the levels. I have already taught you the theory of the work; it is well that you should gain some practical experience in it; for there is no more useful or honorable profession than that of carrying out works by which the floods of the Nile are conveyed ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... took at least six months to make a soldier,—in fact had been told that one could not be turned out who would be ten per cent efficient in less than that time. That old theory is all wrong. Modern warfare changes so fast that the only thing that can be taught a man is the basic principles of discipline, bombing, trench warfare, and musketry. Give him those things, a well-conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... snowshoes, he dug busily at the base of a tree until he found the roots running into the iron ground. Circling the trunk, he at last found the growth of moss he was hunting. He compared it with the pointing tufts of shrub-growth, and found that his theory had been proven. For moss only grows on the shady side of trees, and in the far northland this is the north side, the sun rising almost directly in the south, ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... "The theory is good; may the practice prove the same! I should be sorry to be against you in any case you undertake. In the present matter I am wholly with you, so far as I understand what it is. Still, Flamborough is a place of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope |
