"Unlearn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beheld the Puny Fox beside him, who took up the word and spoke, smiling as a man in great glee: "O maiden of the Rose, I am Hallblithe's thrall, and his scholar, to unlearn the craft of lying, whereby I have done amiss towards both him and thee. Whereof I will tell thee all the tale soon. But now I will say that it is true that we depart to-morrow for Cleveland by the Sea, thou and he, and I in company. Now I would ask thee, Hallblithe, if ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... their laws and way of living Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language, And learn the lovely speech of Antioch. Where hast thou been to-day? Thou ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity: their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearn'd, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learn'd. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are several men, and distinguished from each other, as much as the mincing Lady ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... furiously attacking his old opponents. This so exasperated the chief men of the Court, that they persuaded the Duke to recall Frischlin; but instead of finding a welcome from his old patron, he was cast into prison, in order that he might unlearn his presumption, and acquire the useful knowledge that modesty is the chief ornament of a learned man. But Frischlin did not agree ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crowned by deliberate, and, we rejoice to think, by continually growing, public favour. He has after all, and it is not the least nor lowest item in his praise, been the severest of his own critics, and has not been too proud either to learn or to unlearn in the work of maturing his genius and building up ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to learn and not to unlearn. You will kindly allow me to tell you that the pronunciation of that word 'scevra' with a v, and not 'sceura' with a u, because it is a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... purposes these differences are unimportant, but to the painter they are all-important: the painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear. Here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... with tender care, have been made to contend with the savage. By imitating his arts, they have learned, like him, to traverse the forest; and, in every season, to subsist in the desert. They have, perhaps, recovered a lesson, which it has cost civilized nations many ages to unlearn, that the fortune of a man is entire while he remains ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the European species, which always foists its egg upon other birds; or whether on the other hand it be not mending its manners in this respect. It has but little to unlearn or forget in the one case, but great progress to make in the other. How far is its rudimentary nest—a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds—from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... he was dashing down the Gorse happy as a king, with the wild hail driving in his face, and a break of stormy sunshine just welcoming the gallant few who were landed at the death, as twilight fell? Was it likely that he could unlearn all the lessons of his life, and realize in how near a neighborhood he stood to ruin when he was drinking Regency sherry out of his gold flask as he crossed the saddle of his second horse, or, smoking, rode slowly homeward; chatting with the Seraph through ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... whence the Ignorantest Persons of these as well as the more knowing, are usually far less conversant in the plain Doctrines of Jesus Christ, than in St. Pauls difficult Epistles; which, as heretofore, many who are unlearn'd wrest to their own Destruction, tho' their needs, I think, no skill but that of Attention to what the Apostle is speaking of, to see that he teaches none of those Doctrines which many are taught to believe he delivers to the prejudice of Morality, or good ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... corroborate with many a juvenile reminiscence) must by this time be prepared for our moral; and it is very briefly this:—Is it not time to consider the budding brain as entitled to fair play? We, the dear middle-aged people, must surely remember that it has taken us much toil and trouble to unlearn many things. We know, that, when we pen anything for our coevals, it is with due attention to such facts as we can command,—that we have a wholesome fear of criticism,—that, if we make blunders in our seamanship, even though professedly land-lubbers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Heaven! can it be that these most rueful, loathly things have loved, and hoped, and labored through all their days for such an end as this! Escape from death! ... alas, there is no escape, . . 'tis evident we all must die, . . die, and with dust-quenched eyes unlearn our knowledge of the sun, the stars, the marvels of the universe,—for us no more shall the flowers bloom or the sweet birds sing; the poem of the world will write itself anew in every roseate flushing of the dawn,—but we,—we who have joyed therein,—we who have sung ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... too kind. I must unlearn you a little of your kindness. You are mine, now, darling; and I want all of ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... quiet, simple manner. She said her husband was a house-paperer in a small way, and when he was out of employment she used to go out in the evening and see what her singing would bring her. Poor thing! it was impossible to do anything for her; she was too old to learn or unlearn anything. No training could have corrected the low cockney vulgarity and coarse, ignorant indistinctness and incorrectness of her enunciation. And so in after years, as I returned repeatedly to England, after longer or shorter intervals of time, and always inhabited the same ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... for girls, and one for infants—were erected about six years ago, and are still maintained at the expense of the Messrs Vivian. At the time of our visit, there were 600 of the rising population of the place doing their utmost to unlearn the Welsh idiom, and to acquire the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety. We regret that we cannot dwell on this the most gratifying circumstance of our visit. Messrs Vivian & Sons are unquestionably great copper-smelters, but, in our humble ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... defective. It is susceptible of much improvement. How shall we effect this improvement? The old are too old to learn, or, rather, to unlearn what have been the habits of their lives. The young cannot learn as they ought to learn, and as the public interests require, because they have no suitable school for their instruction. We have no place where they can learn the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the mountains above. At the same time every beginner should be content to devote two or three of his first days to the Nursery slopes, learning the elements of good Ski-ing before dashing off on an excursion. As I know from painful experience, there is much to unlearn in what one has picked up by the light of Nature. Scrambling down a run, crashing and sitting on one's Skis, may be great fun the first day, but is tiring and humiliating as time goes on. It is infinitely preferable to learn the knack ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... applying for relief. They were found to have an income of $20.00 a week. "Well," said the visitor, "that is very little money on which to raise a family." The agent felt that this visitor had not only a great deal to learn, but a great deal to unlearn. ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... one to whom the words 'can't' and 'impossible' really and literally had no meaning; and those who worked with her had to 'unlearn' them, and they did. It did, indeed, seem 'impossible' to leave for India at ten days' notice to carry on negotiations for the Scottish Women's Hospitals and raise an Indian fund, especially when one had been in no way officially or intimately connected ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... it is, that I have naturally a horror for most vices. The answer of Antisthenes to him who asked him, which was the best apprenticeship "to unlearn evil," seems to point at this. I have them in horror, I say, with a detestation so natural, and so much my own, that the same instinct and impression I brought of them with me from my nurse, I yet retain, and no temptation whatever has had the power to make me alter it. Not so much ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... is now being made to Christianize the Australian blacks. It seems to prosper if the blacks can be kept away from the debasing influence of bad whites. They have no serious vices of their own, very little to unlearn, and are docile enough. In some cases black children educated at the mission schools are turning out very well. But, on the other hand, there are many instances of these children conforming to the habits of civilization for some years and then suddenly feeling "the call of the wild," and running ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... with infinite care and pains, she set herself to unlearn the lessons of her life. For wealth she had poverty; for ease and luxury, privation and toil; but in all her troubles her strong will and pride sustained her; and though she suffered, and Heaven only knew how she suffered! she ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays, Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head —Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said— Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife? Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life! See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's—hold but out my breath— When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath, No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet All yesterday ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... rendered him as indifferent as King Hal to the number of those who fed at his cost. But it was plain my presence or absence would be of as little importance in his eyes as that of one of his blue-coated serving-men. My cousins were mere cubs, in whose company I might, if I liked it, unlearn whatever decent manners, or elegant accomplishments, I had acquired, but where I could attain no information beyond what regarded worming dogs, rowelling horses, and following foxes. I could only imagine one reason, which was probably the true one. My father considered the life which was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to unlearn it, Pollyanna, for never, never will I give my consent to your marrying ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... was but little aware how much I had to learn, and unlearn, or of the opposition I should meet from my own prejudices, as well as from those of the world. But dangers never imagined are never feared, and my leading characteristic was the most sanguine hope. Were all the dangers of life to present themselves to the imagination in a body, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... to it; and now she usually defended herself with "Papa says—" or "Mary says—" and though she really thought she spoke the truth, she made them say such odd things, that it was no wonder Lady Barbara thought they had very queer notions of education, and that her niece had nothing to do but to unlearn ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... donkey as not a good weapon, say so. Give a child a chance. If you think a man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so, it won't make them any worse. Be honest—that is all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years and years to unlearn; tell them facts—it is just as easy. It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history—it is as easy to find out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about,* and where a child knows what the name of a flower is when it sees it, the name ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... is paid to these primary principles and to correct articulation, a large majority of students will graduate from our common schools prepared to advance in the art of elocution or of singing without being obliged first to unlearn a vast amount of error and to correct a long list of ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... about two out of six-and-twenty. It's particular attention that's been paid to your education, I perceive; you've nothing to unlearn anyhow, that's something. Now, sir, do you think that a classical scholar and a gentleman born, like me, is to demane myself by hearing you puzzle at the alphabet? You're quite mistaken, Mr Keene, you must gain your first elements second-hand; so where's Thimothy Ruddel? ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty." With strong religious tendencies and convictions, he contemplated taking orders in the Church; but his father saw things differently,—and thus, with academic prejudices which most graduates have to unlearn, he went abroad in 1832 to complete the education of an English gentleman, spending most of his time in Italy and Sicily, those eternally interesting countries to the scholar and the artist, whose wonders can scarcely be exaggerated,—affording a perpetual charm and study ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... been so long hidden from them. A bold and eloquent preacher would be no where listened to with more freedom than in this State, nor with more firmness of mind. They might need a preparatory discourse on the text of 'Prove all things, hold fast that which is good,' in order to unlearn the lesson that reason is an unlawful guide in religion. They might startle on being first awaked from the dreams of the night, but they would rub their eyes at once, and look the spectres boldly in the face. The preacher might be excluded by our hierophants from their churches and meeting-houses, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... from Mrs. Markham. She, good lady, was the wife of an English clergyman by the name of Penrose, and she wrote English history as such a person might be supposed to write it. With every intention to be honest, her book has many facts and opinions which boys and girls will have to take more time to unlearn than they spent in learning, unless they intend to be ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... ahead, and is to-day one of the half-dozen leaders: I shall have a good deal to say about him in a later part of this book. Vlaminck a few years ago had the misfortune to learn a recipe for making attractive and sparkling pictures; he is now, I understand, in retirement trying to unlearn it. Rouault is a very interesting artist of whom we see little; from what I have seen I should be inclined to fear that a taste for romance and drama is too often suffered to smother his remarkable gift for painting. Marquet, with gifts equal to almost anything, is content, it seems, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... power, the course of moral life takes a higher turn; that in proportion as men are true to themselves and the powers of their own being, they ascend in the scale of moral perfection. We think that to teach a man to look without him for assistance is to cripple half his powers, to make him unlearn the grand gospel of self-reliance, to loosen the fibres of his moral being, and thereby ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... they must unlearn certain things the schools had taught them: preoccupation with the relative merits of Gothic and Classic—tweedledum and tweedledee. Furthermore, they must learn certain neglected lessons from the engineer, lessons that they will be able immeasurably to better, for although ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... Palaeozoic age. For many years I myself adopted the latter of these two views, and associated the Carboniferous epoch with the Palaeozoic age. But it is the misfortune of progress that one is forced not only to unlearn a great deal, but, if one has been in the habit of communicating his ideas to others, to destroy much of his own work. I now find myself in this predicament; and after teaching my students for years that the Carboniferous epoch belongs to the Palaeozoic or Primary age, I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reconcile yourself now to living like an ordinary man; you will give up your extravagant haughty hopes and put yourself on a level with the commonalty; if you are sensible, you will not be ashamed to unlearn in your old age, and change your course for ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... ill-founded confidence, founded rather upon a certain dexterity than upon a habit of thought; they are like the improvisatori in poetry; and most commonly, as Metastasio acknowledged of himself, had much to unlearn, to acquire a habit of thinking with selection. To be able to draw and to design with rapidity, is, indeed, to be master of the grammar of art; but in the completion, and in the final settlement of the design, the portfolio must again and again have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... thus be said to consist in leading the mind of the pupil over certain lines of thought till it becomes "natural" or spontaneous for him to go by that road. Much time is wasted in schools where the pupil's mind is not led aright at first, for then he has to unlearn habits of thought which are already formed. The work of the teacher is to impress good methods of studying and thinking upon the minds of his pupils, rather than ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... pleasure of pitching it in their faces." He looked past her out of the window, and his light gray eyes filled with an indescribable bitterness. "And to have the editorship," he thought out loud, "I must unlearn everything that I know about writing, and deliberately learn to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the shelf; I am a shuttlecock myself The world knocks to and fro;— My archery is all unlearn'd, And grief against myself has turn'd My ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... instance, that the world was not planned by a sentimental landscape gardener. If Marian ever learns that—which she may, although I am neither able nor willing to teach it to her—she will not thank those who gave her so much falsehood to unlearn. Until then, she will, I am afraid, do little else than lay up a store of regrets ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... spreading of Judaism. "Even," says he, "if you yourself remain true to your religion through the influence of the excellent instruction of your parents, yet there is no small danger that your children by such a marriage may be beguiled away by bad customs to unlearn the true religion of the one only God."[299] Throughout, Philo is true to the mission of Israel in its highest sense. That mission is not assimilation, and it is to be brought about by no easy method of mixing with the surrounding people. ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... to pass current for genuine English, diminishes instead of increasing the power that our pupils should possess over their native language. By getting marks at school and college for construing good Greek and Latin into bad English, our pupils systematically unlearn what they may have been allowed to pick up from Milton ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... crouched, looking upwards; then he cried: "Master, I cannot give that message, I am a poor unlearn'd man. And if I should go to England and cry aloud, they would say, 'Who is this, who comes preaching to a great people? Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was not his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?' and they would laugh me to scorn. ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... much trouble. 'It occupies me day and night,' says the man who composed with such incredible facility, when his heart was in the work. 'What is harder than to write with aversion; what is more useless than to write something by which we unlearn good writing?' It must be acknowledged that he really flattered as sparingly as possible; the practice was so repulsive to him that in his preface he roundly owned that, to tell the truth, this whole class of composition was not to ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... copied from book to book, and conveyed to new-comers by word of mouth, and their often mistaken impressions of many simple things are partly caused by the erroneous expressions and descriptions which they have heard or read. It takes the first several years of a residence in India to gradually unlearn the things which have been wrongly learnt. The stray visitor does not stay long enough to get his view straightened out, and when he returns to write his book about India he repeats ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... was ordered to appear before the court and, on his refusal, was declared an outlaw. His eldest son was captured at the University of Louvain and sent to the Spanish court that he might unlearn the principles in which ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... of these primitive ideas which has caused surgeons and gynaecologists to dread operations during the catamenial period. Such, at all events, is the opinion of a distinguished authority, Dr. William Goodell, who wrote in 1891[372]: "I have learned to unlearn the teaching that women must not be subjected to a surgical operation during the monthly flux. Our forefathers, from time immemorial, have thought and taught that the presence of a menstruating woman would pollute solemn religious rites, would ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I think, my dear,' said Lady Kenton, greatly touched. 'You have nothing to unlearn, and there is nothing needful to the position but what any person of moderate ability and good sense can acquire, and I am quite sure that Lord Northmoor would be far less happy without you, even in the long-run, besides ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Well, our living problem is solved for us, anyway. Now I must study my new part. It is to be a sort of society drama, and will be put on in a few days. Mr. Pertell gave me some instructions. I shall have to unlearn many things that are traditional with those who have played all their parts in a real theatre. It is like teaching an old dog new tricks, but I dare say I shall ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... knows nothing at all about any of it. I don't know that I am sorry. She will have all the pleasure of learning all she needs to know, and she won't have anything to unlearn. I wish I could forget some things as completely as she seems to have done. I hope a good many of them will never come back to her ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... placed in dread array, Fierce as the lion roaring for his prey, Or lioness of royal whelps foredone; In peace, as mild as the departing sun, A general blessing wheresoe'er he turn'd, Patron of learning, nor himself unlearn'd; 250 Ever awake at Pity's tender call, A father of the poor, a friend to all; Recall such times, and from the grave bring back A worth like this, my heart shall bend, or crack, My stubborn pride give way, my tongue proclaim, And every Muse conspire ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... producer of pictures before he has trained his power to see. He becomes a student of pictures rather than a student of nature, and when in doubt will go to art rather than to nature for help and suggestion. Could anything be more fatal? Consider the things that student will have to unlearn before he can think a picture in terms of nature—the only healthy, the only prolific way of thinking. He sees always through other people's eyes, and thinks with other people's brains, and feels other people's emotions; that is not creation; that is the attitude for the spectator, not for ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... devout kind. He was sorry. He believed they were a narrow and prejudiced sort of people, given to laying down the law and erecting barricades across other people's paths. He was sorry this fair girl was one of them. But she was a lovely specimen. Could she unlearn these ways, perhaps? But now, what was she going to bring forth to him out of the Bible? He watched the fingers that turned the leaves; pretty fingers enough, and delicate, but not very white. Gardening probably was not conducive ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... establish a character that will serve you all your life. As habit strengthens with age, and character becomes formed, and turning into a new path becomes more and more difficult. Hence, it is often harder to unlearn that to learn; and for this reason the Grecian flute-player was justified who charged double fees to those pupils who had been taught by an inferior master. To uproot and old habit is sometimes a more painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench out ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... psychological moment for such instruction, of course, is the first day or the first week. New men learn much more readily than those who have become habituated to certain methods or tasks; not having had time or opportunity to experi- ment and learn wrong methods, they have nothing to unlearn in acquiring the right. They fall into line at once and adopt the stride and the manner of work ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just as the same as any other lady—and you shall; and you will be very much admired, I can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn all your odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I will take care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and I know ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Chesterton cries out, like the Cyclops in the play, against those who complicate the life of man, and tells us to eat 'caviare on impulse,' instead of 'grape nuts on principle.'[59] But since we cannot unlearn our knowledge, Mr. Chesterton is only telling us to eat caviare on principle. The physician, when he knows the part which mental suggestion plays in the cure of disease, may hate and fear his knowledge, but he cannot divest himself of it. He finds himself watching the ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... describes as the first stirrings of intellectual life within him. 'Hitherto I have had no mind, properly so-called, merely a boy's intelligence, receptive of anything I read or heard. I now awoke to the new idea of finding the reason of things; I began to suspect that I might have much to unlearn, as well as to learn, and that I must clear my mind of much current opinion which had lodged there. The principle of rationalism was born in me, and once born it was sure to grow, and to become the master idea of the whole ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... any other. Yes, I will cling to the stylobate of thy temple, I will be a stylites on thy columns, my cell shall be upon thy architrave and, what is more difficult still, for thy sake I will endeavour to be intolerant and prejudiced. I will love thee alone. I will learn thy tongue, and unlearn all others. I will be unjust for all that concerns not thee; I will be the servant of the least of thy children. I will exalt and natter the present inhabitants of the earth which thou gavest to Erechthea. I will endeavour to like their very defects; ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... age,—though no woman, I hope, was ever the worse for my harmless lovemaking. But Thelma is different from most women,—she has a strange nature,—moreover, she has a heart and a memory,—if she once learns the meaning of love, she will never unlearn the lesson. Now, I thought, that like most young men of your type, you might, without meaning any actual evil, trifle with ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... match the rest of her—shouldn't be thrust into any general menagerie-cage, but be kept for the dovecote and the garden, kept where we may still hear her coo. That's what, at college, they'll make her unlearn; she'll learn to roar and snarl with the other animals. Think of the vocal sounds with which she may come back to us!" Mother appeared to think, but asked me, after a moment, as a result of it, in which of the cages of the New York Art League menagerie, and among what sort of sounds, I had ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... rule of the Empire, the melancholy book of Austrian dominion in Italy might be fairly said to be closed forever. A new era was dawning for the House of Hapsburg, which was to show that, unlike the Bourbons, it could learn and unlearn. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... incidentally created a unified internal market which made mass-production of articles of common consumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russian capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than relying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government was loath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to the capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... inductive research; although, when we had fairly recovered our composure, and bad leisurely excogitated the matter, we might have come to conclude that the new doctrine was better than the old one, after all, at least for those who had nothing to unlearn. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... than upon strangers. The American has always seen the connexion of public order and public prosperity, intimately united as they are, go on before his eyes; he does not conceive that one can subsist without the other; he has therefore nothing to forget: nor has he, like so many Europeans, to unlearn the lessons of his ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... by some lexicographer as a "cooking animal." I think it would be more appropriate to call him a learning animal, for man does not always cook, but he never ceases to learn—also to unlearn. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... thence to Merchant Taylor's, where he received his first taste of letters; for he always reckoned that time which he spent at the former school as lost, since he had only contracted bad habits, and was obliged to unlearn what ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... sought for was the simple truth, uncrushed by human traditions, unmingled with human dogmas, untrammelled by human interpretations, unadulterated by human systems. He found that he had a vast amount to unlearn, and saw clearly that if he fearlessly pursued his inquiries they would lead him so far from the belief of popular ignorance, as very probably to bar all worldly success in the sacred profession which he had chosen. But he knew that the profession was ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... a great lot to tell," Benton responded. "I'm just beginning to get on my feet. A raw, untried youngster has a lot to learn and unlearn when he hits this tall timber. I've been out here five years, and I'm just beginning to realize what I'm equal to and what I'm not. I'm crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if the governor hadn't come to grief the way he did. He was going to put in some money this fall. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... at hearing my brother doubt the authenticity of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and then, as it appeared to him, she tried to make him violate the duties of examination and candour which he had learnt too thoroughly to unlearn. Thereon came pain and an estrangement which was none the less profound for being mutually concealed. It seemed to my mother that he would not give up the wilfulness of his own opinions for her and for his Redeemer's sake. To him it seemed that he was ready ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... practice, which, to the eyes of common observers, has the air of a learned composition, and bears a sort of superficial resemblance to the manner of the great men who went before them. I know this perfectly well; but I know likewise, that a man looking for real and lasting reputation must unlearn much of the common-place method so observable in the works of the artists whom I have named. For my own part, I confess, I take more interest in and am more captivated with the powerful impression of nature, which Gainsborough exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... full length Preparatory encroaches on the Antique. Sometimes they even let you put in backgrounds here, but it don't matter much: when the instructor in the Antique gets hold of you he makes you unlearn everything you've learnt in the ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... mean," he explained, seeing the amused wonder in the girl's now wide eyes, "you kind o' need eddicatin' to git married. Y'see, when you get fixed that way you sort of, in a manner of speakin', got to unlearn things you never learnt, an' learn them things what can't never be taught. What I mean is, marriage is a sort of eddication of itself, wot don't learn you nuthin' till ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... abundantly detestable. For me, I think I speak as I was taught; 265 I always see the garden and God there A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned, The value and significance of flesh, I can't unlearn ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... benefit. He always said no respectable human voice could be judged there—it seems the acoustics is wrong. But it is an exceptionally fine voice, nevertheless, and so pure and unspoiled. She had nothing to unlearn, literally, and her acting, Madame says, is superb. She can memorise anything, and in such ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... painter in the city. This painter, bad as he was, was struck with the original grace of certain of Watteau's figures, and solicited the honor of being his master. In the studio of this worthy man, Watteau did not unlearn all that he had acquired, although he painted for pedlers, male and female saints by the dozen. From this studio he passed to another, which was more profane and more to his taste. Mythology was the great book of the place. Instead of St. Peter, with his eternal keys, or the Magdalen, with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the Pope is speaking,—not always as orators speak, it is true, but gravely, at least, and with that indefinable air of dignity which the habit of command seldom fails to impart. The language is sonorous, and if you have had the good sense to unlearn your barbarous application of English sounds—cunningly devised by Nature herself to keep damp fogs and cold winds out of the mouth—to Italian vowels, which the same judicious mother framed with equal cunning to let ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... real estate agent!" reflected Croyden. "The man who, according to our way of thinking, is the acme of hustle and bustle and business, and schemes to trap the unwary. Truly, the Eastern Shore has much to learn—or we have much to unlearn! Well, I have tried the one—and failed. Now, I'm going to try the other. It seems to promise ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... that nations can learn and unlearn a language. The Irish, adopting the language of their English conquerors, is one of many examples of the same sort in history. What effects upon language took place, prior to recorded history, from the mingling of tribes and peoples, it is impossible ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... thoroughly but not so much, the former is to be preferred, for the children will, in the long run, improve most by learning much." Rav Deimi of Nehardaa, however, thinks the latter is to be preferred, for a mistake or an error once learned is difficult to unlearn; as it is written in 1 Kings xi. 16, "For six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he cut off every male in Edom." When David asked Joab why he killed only the males and not the females, he replied, "Because it is written in Deut. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... graver thing than it sometimes appears to the young people to engage in such compacts. They have much to learn and unlearn in the years that follow their first promises. They are not unfrequently greatly mistaken in each other, and their after discoveries are not always pleasing ones; and yet their entire lives are greatly moulded, being hindered or helped to a very important extent, by the choice which they make in ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... be remarkable. Consequently, however modest your beginning on the stage, however short the part you may be called upon to play, you should find immediately the benefit of your training. You may have to unlearn a certain amount, or rather to mould and shape what you have learnt to your new conditions, but if you have been well grounded in the essential elements of an actor's education, you will stand with an enormous advantage over such of your ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... about my having done you good surprises me. Whatever treasure God has in me is hidden in an earthen vessel and unseen by my own eyes.... I feel every day how much there is to learn, how much to unlearn, and that no genuine experience is to be despised. Some people roundly berate Christians for want of faith in God's word, when it is want of faith in their own private interpretation of His word. I think that when the very best and wisest of mankind get to heaven, they'll get a standard of holiness ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... conferring with the wise Harriet Martineau as to whether a certain dress should be dyed to match a certain shawl? Well! why not? Because women learn the use of the quill, are they to ignore "featherses "? Because they learn science, must they unlearn the arts, and, above all, the art of being beautiful? If men have lost it, they have reason to regret the loss. Let women hold to it, while ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... grown up, mainly, since I began my medical studies. I never saw a compound microscope during my years of study in Paris. Individuals had begun to use the instrument, but I never heard it alluded to by either Professors or students. In descriptive anatomy I have found little to unlearn, and not a great deal that was both new and important to learn. Trifling additions are made from year to year, not to be despised and not to be overvalued. Some of the older anatomical works are still admirable, some of the newer ones very much the contrary. I have had ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the mistake. He should have been sent to some planet which had been under Imperial rule for some time, where the Proconsulate ran itself in a well-worn groove, and where he could at leisure learn the procedures and unlearn some of the unrealisms absorbed at the University from professors too well insulated ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... view for the Chinaman to take when first brought really face to face with the West; and such is the view that in spite of modern educational progress is still very widely held. The people of a country do not unlearn in a day the long lessons of the past. He was quite a friendly mandarin, taking a practical view of national dress, who said in conversation: "I can't think why you foreigners wear your clothes so tight; it must be very ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... every Individuall Man, and Woman, Learn'd, or unlearn'd, Honest, or Dishonest: In the ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma
... suppose; but it is hard to unlearn so much old schooling and to accept of new teachings. Did your faith support you when you were perplexed and disappointed—when friends were unfaithful, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... a good plan to learn a thing and then unlearn it. Or is this a test of my feelings? But why are you returning so quickly? Were you delayed by bad omens, or is it the weather detains you, that you have not gone away to the army, as you spoke of doing ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... himself." The world will have taught us that to make money, and to be successful, are the highest aims possible. And there are many similar lessons which are being daily learnt in the world school. Now, when we become scholars of Christ, we have to unlearn a great deal of this. Instead of finding the text, "every man for himself," placed conspicuously before us, we see another, and quite opposite command—"No man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself." We were taught in that other school ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... things, preachers formerly said very little, but urged the necessity of puerile and useless works, such as certain holy-days, fasts, brotherhoods, pilgrimages, worship of saints, rosaries, monastic vows, &c. These useless things, our adversaries, having been admonished, now unlearn, and no longer teach as formerly. Moreover, they now begin to make mention of faith, about which they formerly observed a marvellous [sic] silence. They now teach, that we are not justified by works alone, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... Morality,' quoth he, 'I must e'en unlearn some of the tricks of my trade. Od's feet, man, if ye object to me, what the henker would ye think of some whom I have known? However, let that pass. It is time that we were at the wars, for our good swords will not bide ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knowledge, all from grace. Study and pains were now no more their care; Texts were explain'd by fasting and by prayer: This was the fruit the private spirit brought; Occasion'd by great zeal and little thought. While crowds unlearn'd, with rude devotion warm, About the sacred viands buzz and swarm. The fly-blown text creates a crawling brood, And turns to maggots what was meant for food. 420 A thousand daily sects rise up and die; A thousand more the perish'd race supply; So all we make of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; 325 Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile. Unlucky, as Fungoso in the play, } These sparks with awkward vanity display } What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; } 330 And but so mimic ancient wits at best, As apes our grandsires, in ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... mortals to unlearn Beliefs bred in the marrow of their bones! How hard it is for mortals to discern The truth that preaches from the silent stones, The silent hills, the silent universe, While Error cries in sanctimonious tones That all the light of life and God is hers! Lo in the midst ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... unlearn my native trade. Thy cook—why not thy butler too? The Sultan, He knows me better, ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... learned in law being sent to preside over the business of equity, of which he knew nothing, and the man learned in equity being entrusted with the direction of law of which he knew worse than nothing; being obliged to unlearn all he had previously learnt, before he began to learn his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... "To unlearn, you mean," said Mr. D—-. "To tell you the truth, Mrs. Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods. Eddication spoils man or woman for that location. So, widow (turning to our hostess), you are not tired of living ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... with occasional vociferations of "long life to the beggars." These party cries were instantly and sharply rebuked by Orange, who expressed, in Brederode's presence, the determination that he would make men unlearn that mischievous watchword. He had, moreover, little relish at that time for the tumultuous demonstrations of attachment to his person, which were too fervid to be censured, but too unseasonable to be approved. When the crowd had at last been made to understand that their huzzas were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the sages, must learn to forget. If it neither learns the new nor forgets the old, it is fated, even if it has been royal for thirty generations. To unlearn is to learn; and also it is sometimes needful to learn again the forgotten. The antics of fools make the current follies more palpable, as fashions are shown to be absurd by caricatures, which so lead to their ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... too sad to upraise In hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways! Our mournful moods lay we away, And prank our thoughts in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with us this burthen, For ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... of visiting Foreign Parts, is to look into their Customs and Policies, and observe in what Particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some odd Peculiarities in our Manners, and wear off such awkward Stiffnesses and Affectations in our Behaviour, as may possibly have been contracted from constantly associating with one Nation of Men, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... inheriting no strife, Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,[116] Stranger to civil and religious rage, The good man walk'd innoxious through his age. No courts he saw, no suits would ever try, Nor dared an oath,[117] nor hazarded a lie. Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language but the language of the heart. By nature honest, by experience wise, 400 Healthy by temperance, and by exercise; His life, though long, to sickness pass'd unknown, His death was instant, and ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... that." Stanton stared into space for a moment, then nodded his head. "Of course. It would take too long to teach them. It wouldn't be worth all the trouble it would take to make them unlearn their fallacies and learn the new facts. It would take generations to do it unless this hypothetical other race killed off all the adult Nipes and started the little ones off fresh. And that didn't happen, because if it had, the ritual-taboo system would have died ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... student who supposed classifications to be matters of moment, and who laboriously learned to label the animals and birds of his acquaintance with an authoritative Latin name, was perpetually obliged to unlearn what he had acquired, as a new classifier brought new resources of hair-splitting pursuit of a supposed type or ideal to bear on the subject. Where, for example, our great ornithologists of the early part of the century, such as Wilson and Audubon, had ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... when monasticism was in the young vigour of its life. St. Bede or St. Cuthbert might have found himself in the house of the London Carthusians, and he would have had few questions to ask, and no duties to learn or to unlearn. The form of the buildings would have seemed more elaborate; the notes of the organ would have added richer solemnity to the services; but the salient features of the scene would have been all familiar. He would have lived in a cell ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... tenderness and humility not only most touching, but to me most embarrassing, that "It might be so; what was he to judge of other men; he was old, and things were now looked at very differently; that he knew he had many things to unlearn and learn afresh; and that I must not mind what he had said, for that in truth belief in the heroes of his youth had become part of him." I am afraid these are my words, and not his; and I cannot ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... mother, "do keep straight down there. She's a commonplace girl, with lots of mannerisms to unlearn, but she's pretty and ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... making an ugly swish in the air just above our heads. It was that Chinese hip-shot which is practised with jingal and matchlock in the native hunting, and which these Northern Chinese can with difficulty unlearn. As that swish reached us we pressed forward even more eagerly, and soon had debouched once more on the long Customs Street—this time many hundreds of yards higher up than we had ever been before. Flattening ourselves on the ground, and barricading our ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... historical progress. Other costs will come, if we are worthy; other lessons there will be to learn. I anticipate a place for brave and wise restrictions,—for I am no Red Republican,—as well as for brave and generous expansions. Lessons to learn, errors to unlearn, there will surely be; tasks to attempt, and disciplines to practise; but once place the nation in the condition of health, once get it at one with its own heart, once get it out of these aimless eddies into clear sea, out of these accursed "doldrums," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... dismay into the heart, presenting only frightful pictures and examples of God's anger, filling the heart with this kind of knowledge to the exclusion of every other thought or perception. Thus recognition of God's wrath is learned only too well, for it becomes bitterly hard for man to unlearn it, to forget it in the knowledge of Christ. Again, the wicked world eagerly contributes its share of hindrance, its bitter hatred and venomous outcry against Christians as people of the worst type, outcast, condemned enemies of God. Moreover, by its example it causes the ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... sacred enough for such a purpose. He did not, indeed, think of 'the Lord' as a local deity of Israel, as his ample confession of faith in verse 15 proves; but neither had he reached the point of feeling that the Being worshipped makes the altar sacred. No wonder that he did not unlearn in an hour his whole way of thinking of religion! The reliance on externals is too natural to us all, even with all our training in a better faith, to allow of our wondering at or severely blaming him. A sackful ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... rapidly developing characteristics. But it must grow up on our own soil; exotics never flourish long under strange skies. We think that many things point to this country as the place where music will achieve new triumphs. We are not bound by old traditions, we have few prejudices to unlearn, and we are able to see merit in more than one school. The same audience that becomes almost intoxicated with the excitement of the Italian opera will listen with the fullest, serenest pleasure to the majestic symphonies of Beethoven or to the sublime choruses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... he has only to modify the action of neuro-muscular mechanisms, not associate new mechanisms together to the same extent as in the formation of a habit of a widely different kind, as rowing a boat. At the same time, one must always unlearn something—break up old habits, to some extent. An opera singer often makes a failure of oratorio at first. The sets of reflexes or the habits, bodily and mental, which he has found valuable for the ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... learned," he continues presently, in a low voice, that, by a great effort, he succeeds in making calm and steady, "I cannot again unlearn! I would not if I could!—I have no desire to live in a fool's paradise! I tried hard this morning—God knows what constraint I had to put upon myself—to induce you to tell me of your own accord—to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... a good Irishman makes the best officer, while perhaps the least teachable is the Londoner. A countryman is fresh clay to the potter's hands, the Londoner has much to unlearn before he ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... law, the deep trod foot-marks Of ancient custom, are all necessary To keep him in the road of faith and duty. The authority intrusted to this man Was unexampled and unnatural, It placed him on a level with his Emperor, Till the proud soul unlearn'd submission. Woe is me! I mourn for him! for where he fell, I deem Might none stand firm. Alas! dear General, We in our lucky mediocrity Have ne'er experienced, cannot calculate, What dangerous wishes such a height may breed In the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the people should either demand a share of office for their countrymen, or make up their minds to go without; they ought not first to demand office for Irishmen, and then call every Irishman a traitor and self-seeker who took it. In a very short time he told me that he found he had much to unlearn as well as learn: that many things of which he had been most sure now turned out to be mistakes, and many very plain matters to be exceedingly complicated; but that the one thing about which there could be no mistake was, that, in such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most part to read such a thesis is to realise how full the world is of unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to unlearn, when he wakes. If ever ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... withal, the Piece is crude in parts, and far enough from perfect. Our good painter has yet several things to learn, and to unlearn. His brush is not always of the finest; and dashes about, sometimes, in a recognizably sprawling way: but it hits many a feature with decisive accuracy and felicity; and on the palette, as usual, lie the richest colors. A grand merit, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... lawyers coming from the common-law States, have ever been able to succeed in Louisiana, especially after having practised in other States for any length of time. They have not only to learn the civil law, but to unlearn the common. Some, who did not know the extraordinary powers of Prentiss's mind, feared he, like many others who had made the attempt, would fail; but, almost from the moment of his advent at the New Orleans bar, his success was complete. To realize the expectations ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... expertness and coolness of veterans. Making war in any other way, we shall be raw and awkward recruits. To turn us into soldiers like those of Cromwell and Turenne would be the business of years: and we have not even weeks to spare. We have time enough to unlearn our own discipline, but not time enough to learn yours." Dundee, with high compliments to Lochiel, declared himself convinced, and perhaps was convinced: for the reasonings of the wise old chief were by ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she set herself the task of learning ten new words a day; but Miss Martin says that she sometimes had to unlearn several of them, owing to the fondness of her fellow students for slang. However, she was persevering, and in time learned to use the language easily. One of the teachers, who had returned a plate to her with an orange ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton |
