"Underestimate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this Strait-jacket. One must not underrate the magnificence of this long-headed idea, one must not underestimate its giant possibilities in the matter of trooping the Church solidly together and keeping it so. It squelches independent inquiry, and makes such a thing impossible, profane, criminal, it authoritatively settles ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... no assault were made upon the "reasonable" and the "real"—that is to say, upon the Philistine. The latter really does not at all mind giving himself up, from time to time, to the delightful and daring transgressions of art or of sceptical historical studies, and he does not underestimate the charm of such recreations and entertainments; but he strictly separates "the earnestness of life" (under which term he understands his calling, his business, and his wife and child) from such trivialities, and among the latter he includes ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... ahead. Besides, it's not a bad idea"—he nodded, with that shrewdness which was the great, deep-lying vein in his nature— "not at all a bad idea, to have people think you a frank, loose- mouthed, damn fool—IF you ain't. Ambition's a war. And it's a tremendous advantage to lead your enemies to underestimate you. That's one reason why I ALWAYS win...So you're going TO TRY to get me ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Bidwell did not underestimate his importance in this rush of gold-frenzied men. He was appalled by the depth and power of the streams centering upon him. For weeks he had toiled to the full stretch of his powers without sufficient sleep, and he was deathly weary, emaciated to the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... history of mankind, but it aims to impart sufficiently detailed information about the various topics discussed to make the college student feel that he is advanced a grade beyond the student in secondary school. There is too often a tendency to underestimate the intellectual capabilities of the collegian and to feed him so simple and scanty a mental pabulum that he becomes as a child and thinks as a child. Of course the author appreciates the fact that most college instructors of history ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... his letter in its personal relation to herself had not thrilled her would be to underestimate the warmth of her friendship for him; if there was more than friendship, she would not admit it. There had been a moment when, shaken and stirred by his throbbing words, she had laid down his letter and had asked herself, palpitating, "has love come to me—at last?" But she ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... of his chair. His face was chalky. Though he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased, but ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Britain to the position of a second-rate power. Either we shall emerge victorious, or for all practical purposes we shall not emerge at all. Even if we shrink from a "fight to a finish," our enemies can be relied upon to persist to the bitter end. It is for this reason only, and not because I underestimate for a moment the vast resources, the splendid organisation, the military valour of Germany, that I restrict myself in the following pages to a consideration of the possible effects of victory rather than of defeat. It would be the height of folly to anticipate victory before it is achieved; ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... connection with Cuba unquestionably evinces no slight respect and regard for Spain on the part of the American people. They in truth do not forget her connection with the discovery of the Western Hemisphere, nor do they underestimate the great qualities of the Spanish people nor fail to fully recognize their splendid patriotism and their chivalrous devotion to the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... with no admiration for the calling, and yet with no underestimate of its value to the nation, that I recount some of the achievements of those who followed it. The periods when American privateering was important were those of the Revolution and the War of 1812. During the Civil War the loss ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... He makes his own clothing, teaches his goats to dance, and wrestles in thought with the problems suggested by his Bible. Another example of the same temper may be seen in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and yet another in Wordsworth's Prelude. There is no danger that English thought will ever underestimate the value and meaning of the individual soul. The greatest English literature, it might almost be said, from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Browning's The Ring and the Book, is concerned with no other subject. The age-long satire against the ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... are commendable, but should be rational. The Negro needs the help of the Anglo-Saxon without regard to sections of country. He can advance more safely and rapidly as he walks arm in arm with his brother North and South. Far be it from me that I should, in any way, underestimate the heroic efforts of institutions wholly run by the Negro! Many of them are striking illustrations of what united effort can do; they serve a purpose which cannot be overlooked. Only in proportion as he is more a producer than a consumer, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... underestimate him gravely he is incapable of such finesse. He is a thug first, a thief afterwards. He would have killed me out of hand if it had been he who had me at his mercy, down here, in the dark. Nor would he have been able to open the safe without using an explosive. That, indeed, is why, as ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... more than the preliminary skirmish of a conflict that was not to cease until 1842. In general the Indians, mindful of the ravages of the War of 1812, did not fully commit themselves and bided their time. They were in fact so much under cover that they led the Americans to underestimate their real numbers. When the cession of Florida was formally completed, however (July 17, 1821), they were found to be on the very best spots of land in the territory. On May 20, 1822, Colonel Gad Humphreys was appointed agent to them, William P. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... jump the length of your chain. But, you see, friend Bull, if I offer you to the purchasers with the dangerous account which you give, I shall find few customers. An honest merchant should not boast his merchandise too much, no more should he underestimate it. So I shall announce your character as follows." And ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... thirty-horsepower engine. Occasional natives, waist deep and fishing, stared after us open-eyed. The Yankee ventured a guess as to how hard she would hit on a mudbank. She promptly proved his guess a rank underestimate by doing so. We fell in a heap on the bottom. The dhow bore down on us with majestic momentum. The boat boys leaned frantically on their sweeps, and managed just to avoid us. The dhow also rammed the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... were credited with the certain destruction of 34 enemy submarines; yachts, patrol craft, etc., over 3000 altogether, sank 31; whereas about 100 Allied submarines sank probably 20.[1] Since 202 submarines were destroyed, this may be an underestimate of the results accomplished by each type, but it indicates relative efficiency. Submarines kept the enemy beneath the surface, led him to stay farther away from the coast, and also, owing to the disastrous consequences that might ensue from mistaken identity, prevented the U-boats ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... doing injustice to the morality of the past, and it is important, even in order to understand the morality of the present, that we should be able to put ourselves in the place of those for whom birth control was immoral. To speak of birth control as having been immoral in the past is, indeed, to underestimate the case; it was not only immoral, it was unnatural, it was even irreligious, it was almost criminal. We must remember that throughout the Christian world the Divine Command, "Increase and Multiply," has seemed to echo down the ages from the beginning of the world. It was the authoritative ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... across the sea, is entitled to scant respect from any indications in its favour. The faulty execution of the original plan, which enabled the enemy to concentrate and to accumulate adequate means of resistance, and the subsequent underestimate of the endurance of the garrison, bear the same mark. In issuing their ultimatum, in opening the campaign, in combining against Dundee, and finally in investing Ladysmith, the Boers exceeded decisively that five minutes of delay upon which, to use ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... underestimate the gravity of the situation, or to assume that the most numerous and conservative nation on the globe has been suddenly transformed from foreign haters to foreign lovers. The world may again have occasion to realize that the momentum of countless myriads ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... which is here—viz. if you want to understand Christ you must understand sin; and whoever thinks lightly of it will think meanly of Him. An underestimate of the reality, the universality, the gravity of the fact of sin lands men in the superficial and wholly impotent conception, 'Rabbi! Thou art a Teacher sent from God.' A true knowledge of myself as a sinful man, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... we have the resource of our own will to fall back upon, we underestimate the unsurpassed horror and anguish of such moments as this in youth, when we know only the will of others, and that this will is inexorable against us. Rousseau dared not expose himself to the fulfilment of his ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... But they (on the hither bank) knew how to pay them back, not sparing nor avoiding them, nor yielding to them a foot of ground. Rather, each man struck his opponent so fiercely that there is no knight so brave but is compelled to leave the saddle. They did not underestimate the experience, skill, and bravery of their antagonists, but made their first blows count, and unhorsed thirteen of them. The report spread to the camp of the fight and of the blows that were being struck. There would soon have been a merry strife if the others had dared to stand their ground. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... great gathering. The hotels fed us, and the liveries cared for our horses. The liquid refreshments were provided by the prohibition druggists of the town and were as free as the sunlight. There was an underestimate made on the amount of liquids required, for the town was dry about thirty minutes; but a regular train was run through from Wichita ahead of time, and the embarrassment overcome. There was an opposition ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... dangerous narrowness. He treats disease as if it were an isolated process and overlooks the thousandfold connections in which the nervous system stands with the patient's whole life experience in past and future. The physician is thus too easily inclined to underestimate the good which may come in the fight against disease from the ideas and emotions which form the background of the mind of the patient. Even if the disease cannot be vanquished, the mental disturbances which result from it, the pains and discomforts, may be inhibited, as soon ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... Hamilton was sure that the other had known all along. And the quizzical eyes became malicious. If the boy was falling in love with Felicity he anticipated with glee unholy complications. Dunham's alacrity at the scene of the accident no man could underestimate. Pig-iron Dunham didn't, indiscriminately, beg young ladies to let the limousine bear them across Broadway in safety, or anywhere else, ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... story-telling habit owes much to the fact that ordinary people, quite unconsciously, rate humour very low: I mean, they underestimate the difficulty of "making humour." It would never occur to them that the thing is hard, meritorious and dignified. Because the result is gay and light, they think the process must be. Few people would realise that it is much harder to write one of Owen Seaman's "funny" poems in Punch ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... Papers, Vol. III., pp. 276, 280, 300, 333. Boon and Todd both are explicit that there were one hundred and eighty-two riflemen, all on horseback, and substantially agree as to the loss of the frontiersmen. Later reports underestimate both the numbers and loss of the whites. Boon's Narrative, written two years after the event, from memory, conflicts in one or two particulars with his earlier report. Patterson, writing long afterwards, and from memory, falls into gross errors, both as to the number of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... here advocated implies no underestimate of little things; it only condemns want of discrimination among them. Even the painstaking German scientist is no devotee to all things that are little. Carrying on his investigation with reference ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... origin, but Mr. Crawley has raised an objection which I think it is well to meet. He urges that "the history of religious phenomena exemplifies in the most striking manner the continuity of modern and primitive culture; but there is a tendency on the part of students to underestimate this continuity, and, by explaining it away on a theory of survivals, to lose the only opportunity we have of deducing the permanent ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... here. Or, perhaps, this was merely a showplace. But he drew himself up at that thought. That was one attitude the Western world couldn't afford—deprecating Soviet progress. This was the very thing that had led to such shocks as the launching of the early Sputniks. Underestimate your adversary and sooner or later you paid ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... every class of the community asking for redress of grievances, but it met with no response from the unyielding king. He had in the early summer of this year, 1828, made a tour in Belgium and had in several towns, especially in Antwerp and Ghent, met with a warm reception, which led him to underestimate the extent and seriousness of the existing discontent. At Liege, a centre of Walloon liberalism, he was annoyed by a number of petitions being presented to him; and, in a moment of irritation, he described the conduct of those who there protested ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... in which he could discuss anything and challenge all comers, with the perfect certainty of shining as he vanquished them. It is true that he could have continued them by carefully omitting Lord Henry from their midst; but he was by no means a fool, and did not underestimate the intelligence of those about him. Thus he realised the damaging effect it would be sure to have on his prestige, if he persistently manoeuvred to leave Lord Henry out; and he knew well enough how quickly women notice such things,—they who are such past-masters ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... has weathered such storms before. He waits, impassive and undismayed, for a lull in the cyclone. It comes. "Wait, wait!" he thunders. "My friend Liebknecht and I, and others like us, have a great following. You grievously underestimate that following. Some day you will realise that. Wait——" Ledebour, like Liebknecht, can no longer proceed. The House is now boiling, an indistinguishable and most undignified pandemonium. I can detect that there is considerable ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... true theory had been propounded and when he, perhaps, was the only man in the world who might have substantiated and vitalized that theory? It is easy to overestimate the influence of any single man, and, contrariwise, to underestimate the power of the Zeitgeist. But when we reflect that the doctrines of Hipparchus, as promulgated by Ptolemy, became, as it were, the last word of astronomical science for both the Eastern and Western worlds, and so continued after ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... He did not underestimate the danger of the submarines, or pretend that the Admiralty had yet discovered any sovran remedy for their attacks. Nor could he say—for reasons which seemed to satisfy the House—how many of them had already been captured or sunk. But he told us enough to convict Admiral VON ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... of all these schemes and methods to which I have already referred for helping humanity out of the slough, and making men happier, is that they underestimate the fact of sin. If a man comes to them and says, 'I have broken God's law. What am I to do? I have a power within me that impels me now to evil. How am I to get rid of it?' they have no adequate answer. There is only one remedy that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... arrangement, based upon a percentage on a circulation which is actually becoming a liability instead of an asset, we should reckon your salary on a basis of the paper's net earnings." As Banneker, sitting with thoughtful eyes fixed upon him, made no comment, he added: "To show that I do not underestimate your value to the paper, I propose to pay you fifteen per cent of the net earnings for the next three years. By the way, it won't be necessary hereafter, for you to give any time to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... virtuously happy endings. It was the spirit of Charles the Second that inspired English comedy, and inspired it most thoroughly in Congreve but a few years after Charles's death. Under changed conditions, one is apt to underestimate the influence of the Court upon the Town two hundred years ago. Well, the Georges became our defenders of the faith, and they hated 'boets and bainters.' English comedy was thrown back upon the patronage and the inspiration of average England, and up ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... the rule with missionaries, so far as I know. But a knowledge of the native systems is imperative, that we may properly present our own. Otherwise we waste time in teaching over again that which is already fully known, or we so speak that our truth takes on the form of error, or we so underestimate the thought of those whom we address, that the preaching of the wisdom of God sounds in their ears the preaching of foolishness. The adaptation of preaching to the hearers of Asiatic lands is a task that may well make us thankful for every help that ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... sceptical about "bargains" in your search. Relatively few people underestimate the value of their possessions. Perhaps they are really willing to sell at a sacrifice "because father can't stand the cold winters any more" or "because we like to feel the place is in good hands." But it would seem more reasonable that father's declining ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... self-reliance and decision of character, thousands are submerged in their first essays to make the voyage of life. Disappointed and chagrined at this, they underestimate their own capacities, and thenceforward, relying on others, they take and keep a subordinate position, from which they rise, when they rise at all, with the utmost difficulty. When a young man attains his majority, it is better for him, as a general rule, to take some ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... an inclination now to underestimate the effect of the Renaissance. The writers of that age were unsparingly contemptuous of their predecessors, and their verdict was for long accepted almost without question. The reaction against this has led to an undue extolling ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... not underestimate the power of circumstance. This Betty had learned from him. And what could practically be done with circumstance such as this? The question had begun to recur to her. What could she herself have done in the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in accord with Professor Richet's calculation, at a cost of $50,000,000 per day. Previous to this the "dry war" or "armed peace" cost only $10,000,000 per day. This is Richet's calculation in 1912, an underestimate as to expenses on the sea and in the air. These with the growing scarcity of bread and shrapnel, the equipment of automobiles, and the unparalleled ruin of cities have raised this cost to ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... he sat down in front of the grate with a comfortable feeling of complacency. He had helped Mrs. Hilbrough to launch her little bark without any untoward accident; he had secured for the Baron an honor which the latter would certainly not underestimate. Then, too, he had obliged Mrs. Gouverneur while he gratified his own inclinations in escorting Miss Callender to the reception. Whenever he came around to Phillida he found the only uncomfortable spot in his meditations. He had ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... They did not underestimate the task before them. They were taking their lives in their hands in attacking this monster of the wilds. But had he been ten times as big or ten times as savage they would not have hesitated an instant, with Bert's life as ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... six months of desperate winter on the plateau of Unaga. It was an outlook that demanded all the strength of his simple faith. He was equal to the tasks lying before him, but not for one moment did he underestimate them. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... read this editorial and thanked God for Edward Norman. At the same time he understood well enough that every other paper in Raymond was on the other side. He did not underestimate the importance and seriousness of the fight which was only just begun. It was no secret that the NEWS had lost enormously since it had been governed by the standard of "What would Jesus do?" And the question was, Would the Christian people of Raymond stand by it? Would they make it possible ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon |
