"Competently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conviction that the mastery of words is a good thing, not a bad. We are therefore unwilling to take the vow of linguistic poverty. If we lack the ability to bend words to our use, it is from laziness, not from scruple. We desire to speak competently, but without affectation. We know that if our diction rises to this dual standard, it silently distinguishes us from the sluggard, the weakling, and the upstart. For such diction is not to be had on sudden notice, like a ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... being given assuredly to understand that the way is not less open to the most ignorant than to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which lead to heaven are above our comprehension, I did not presume to subject them to the impotency of my reason; and I thought that in order competently to undertake their examination, there was need of some special help from heaven, and of ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... safe to consider that it is no libel upon the sixth century to suppose them to have been in practice in that day also. One is quite justified in inferring that whatever one of these laws or customs was lacking in that remote time, its place was competently ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Swiftly and competently his fingers moved over instruments of science which only a completely sane man would have known how to manipulate. It was an acid test of his sanity and he knew as he worked that his reasoning faculties at least had suffered ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... really a very simple matter. You see, I have decided to have this fire—and those other occurrences—investigated, competently investigated, and their perpetrator punished to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, the local police are utterly incompetent to handle a case of this kind, and I don't think much more of the County officials. It finally struck me that a private detective agency might do the trick. But I don't ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... said Gymnast, he doth not resemble the foxes; for of the capons, hens, and pullets which they carry away they never eat the white. Why? said the monk. Because, said Gymnast, they have no cooks to dress them; and, if they be not competently made ready, they remain red and not white; the redness of meats being a token that they have not got enough of the fire, whether by boiling, roasting, or otherwise, except the shrimps, lobsters, crabs, and crayfishes, which are cardinalized with boiling. By God's feast-gazers, said the monk, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... consideration for; which is, when his own Corn is ripe, a bushel and an half for a bushel that is, at the rate of Fifty per Cent. Which manner of lending Corn is a means that doth maintain many strangers and others. For they who have got a small stock of Corn by that Profit may competently live upon it. Which was the means that Almighty God prepared for ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... spread before the gladdened vision of the newly arrived, and his to pick and choose from, was a boundless expanse of new foodstuffs—birds, beasts and fishes, fruits, vegetables and berries, roots, herbs and sprouts. He furnished the demand and the soil was there competently with ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... of Napoleon has been written by many pens, in our own day most competently by Dr. Holland Rose (2 vols. Bell); but a good account of the Emperor, indispensable for some particulars and an undoubted classic, is that by de Bourrienne, Napoleon's private secretary, published in an English translation, in 4 ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... unnecessary difficulties," said Gregory. "I don't think that any of my requests can be called unreasonable. You know enough of me to be able to say that I should discharge any duty I undertook thoroughly and competently." "Yes, I know," I said; "but one cannot force people's hands in these matters." "I don't ask you to force their hands," said Gregory; "I merely ask you to give me these introductions, and to write a perfectly truthful account of me." Perhaps I ought to have been more firm; but ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thoughtfulness. He had a feeling for music and when he led the carol rehearsals in the parish house hall before Christmas and Easter, the boys and girls responded whole-heartedly. He took charge in a firm manner; in fact no bronco was ever more competently restrained than his youngsters. The chorus of boys and girls sang softly or loudly at his will, and enjoyed it, and when he left the platform, they did not growl an adieu, ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... said. Either he or Kenny Ballalou could have taken over as competently, but they were as capable of taking orders as giving them, a desirable trait in ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... language) 74%, Tamil (national language) 18% note: English is commonly used in government and is spoken competently by about 10% of ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... trained, half clad, half armed, according to pessimistic report, fared forth across the narrow Channel and did strangely competent things—this being man's way when in dire moments needs must be. Riff-raff exalted itself and also died competently enough. The apparently aimless male offspring of the so-called useless rich and great died competently enough with the rest. The Roll of Honour raked fore and aft. The youngsters who had tangoed best and had shone in cabarets were swept away ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... would go on as before. Throughout the 'seventies the landlord class was in undisturbed supremacy. Country gentlemen still talked in good set phrase about "the robbery of the Church"; in actual fact they were very complacently and competently helping to administer its new constitution. Agriculture was prosperous and rents went high, though the harsh and overbearing landlord was condemned by his fellows. This, however, was poor consolation to the tenants. In the county where I was brought up, ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... old agony of rage and pity! The sufferings of the poor, because they were poor—these things often, still, darkened earth and heaven for her. That wretch would have been quite capable, no doubt, of conducting himself decently and even competently, if he had been called to some supposed lady in one of the well-to-do squares which made the centre of this ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
