"Criterion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there until his end was still less calculated to redound to his good fortune. He gave much to France, and Paris did little during his life to pay off the debt. The charm exercised upon every stranger by Babylon on the Seine, wrought havoc in his character and his work, and gives us the sole criterion for the rest of his days. Yet, despite his devotion to Paris, home-sickness, yearning for Germany, was henceforth the dominant note of his works. At that time Heine considered Judaism "a long lost cause." Of the God ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... familiar with his habit of repeating lines and even entire passages, when necessary. All such repetitions Kirchhoff seizes upon as signs of different authorship; the poet must have used the one, some redactor or imitator the other. To be sure we ought to have a criterion by which we can tell which is the original and which is the derived; but such a criterion Kirchhoff fails to furnish, we must accept his judgment as imperial and final. Once or twice, indeed, he seems to feel the faultiness of his procedure, and tries to bolster it, but as a rule he speaks ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... early appreciation of certain poets. A few unexpectedly favorable notices, such as the Monthly Review's critique of Browning's Sordello, are printed because they appear to be unique. The chief criterion in selecting these reviews (apart from the effort to represent most of the periodicals and the principal poets between Gray and Browning) has been that of interest to the modern reader. In most cases, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... sentimentalism of Rousseau; Crabbe's Village is a protest against the embodiment of the same spirit in Goldsmith. He is determined to see things as they are, with no rose-coloured mist. Crabbe replies to critics that if his realism was unpoetical, the criterion suggested would condemn much of Dryden and Pope as equally unpoetical. He was not renouncing but carrying on the tradition, and was admired by Byron in his rather wayward mood of Pope-worship as the last representative of the legitimate school. The position is significant. Crabbe condemns ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... effectiveness that is worth anything is unintentional effectiveness. I believe that a man or woman who is humble and sincere, who loves and is loved, is higher on the steps of heaven than the adroitest lobbyist; but it may be that the world's criterion of what it admires and respects is the right one; and indeed it is hard to see how so strong an instinct is implanted in the human race, the instinct to value strength and success above everything, unless it is put ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... The criterion of the personal morality of the individual "rests in the last resort on the question whether he has recognized and developed his own nature to the highest attainable degree of perfection." [H] If the same standard is applied to the State, then ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... Teutonic extraction speak any of the Keltic dialects as their mother-tongue, the converse is exceedingly common; and numerous Kelts know no other language but the English. Speech, then, is only prima facie evidence of descent; nevertheless, it is the most convenient criterion ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... his r's, especially when he said "the moral sense," that of itself almost carried conviction. His wife smiled as she heard him, and her smile was not altogether pleasant. Perhaps she wondered by what criterion of excellence he measured his own "moral sense," or whether, despite his education and culture, he had any "moral sense" at all, higher than that of the pig, who eats to be eaten! But Alwyn spoke, and she ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... It was taken for granted that the children of good, honorable, Christian people, who strove to train their children to obedience and a conscientious life, would be suitable companions for us; and this criterion in nearly every instance proved to be a true one. In only one instance, indeed, did it fail; and I well remember the shock it gave a whole circle of young people, when a young companion, the son of an eminent ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... the interdependence of all life is giving a new standard of action and attainment, and a new standard of estimate. Jesus' criterion is coming into more universal appreciation: He that is greatest among you shall be as he who serves. Through this fundamental law of life there are responsibilities that cannot be evaded or shirked—and of him to whom much is given ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... "A very poor criterion," interrupted Miss Leigh; "I draw my inferences from a higher source." And turning to Flora, she inquired, in a kind, friendly tone, "if she were going all the way to Edinburgh, the age of the baby, and how both ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... discovered, and it does not very much matter, whether these images have any close resemblance to the lost originals; it may be that some artists in some periods saw far more clearly than in others. The true criterion for estimating the true value of romantic fiction, of tales of action and adventure, must be always its artistic and intellectual qualities, the question whether it succeeds in filling a broad canvas, in dealing with masculine sentiment and stirring action, in ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... even to a Creator's, and to judge of the origin of Nature as we judge of the origin of inventions and utilities ascribable to man. This explains why the argument of design has enjoyed such universal popularity. But that such popularity is no criterion of the argument's worth, and that, indeed, it is no evidence of anything save of an unhappy weakness in man's mental constitution, is abundantly proved by the explanation itself." Well, the constitution and condition of man being ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate .. the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. In old times, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... best, perhaps overstraining itself, and overstating its idea, might really be regulated. But they are few who consider so closely, fewer perhaps they who have the heart to cut out their own fine or refined things. Again, our author suggests another criterion. We are, as in Lamb's phrase, "to write for antiquity," with the souls of poets dead and gone for our judges. But we are also to write for the future, asking with what feelings posterity will read us—if it reads us ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... primitive propositions. (Frege would perhaps say that we should then no longer have an immediately self-evident primitive proposition. But it is remarkable that a thinker as rigorous as Frege appealed to the degree of self-evidence as the criterion of a ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... of the world': in which case one might suppose Homer and Shakespear to be ranked as the first and second. But it may be regarded as tolerably clear that Shelley is here thinking only of epic poets; and that he ranges the epic poets according to a criterion of his own, which is thus expressed in his Defence of Poetry (written in the same year as Adonais, 1821): 'Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet; that is, the second poet the series of whose creations bore ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... was expected. Every proprietor began to fear the ambition of the Minister, who undertook impossibilities. The being bound for the debts of an individual, and justifying bail in a court of law in commercial matters, affords no criterion for judging of, or regulating, the pecuniary difficulties of a nation. Necker's conduct in this case was, in my humble opinion, as impolitic as that of a man who, after telling his friends that he is ruined past redemption, asks for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... worth, Dr. Withrow says:—A very good criterion of a man's character is: How does he get on with his colleagues? Does the familiarity of daily intercourse, year after year, increase or lessen their esteem? Few men will bear this test as well as Dr. Ryerson. The more one saw of him the more one loved him. Those who knew him best loved him ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... sometimes marry for Wealth. They have been educated to regard this as the criterion of excellence. A man's "worth" is reckoned, not in moral attainments, but in dollars and cents. He, therefore, who is poor, is set down as beneath much consideration. From her earliest days, the girl has, perhaps, heard her parents ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... may be made from the results of this experiment, that may partially explain the difficulties encountered heretofore in propagating chestnuts. Using the take of buds as a criterion it can be stated that in this experiment the five lots of seedlings from known parents differed in their performance as stocks. Moreover, the five parent trees used as a source of budwood differed among themselves in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... English gossip which are not important enough for inclusion in the laconic cable despatches posted daily on the club bulletin-board and which the two-months-old newspapers seldom mention. They insisted that I repeat the jokes which were being cracked by the comedians at the Criterion and the Shaftesbury. They wanted to know if toppers and tailcoats were again being worn in The Row. They pleaded for the gossip of the clubs in Pall Mall and Piccadilly. They begged me to tell them about the latest books and plays and songs. ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of rent, and enjoyed some honourable distinctions, and, when the heir was in any manner incapacitated, a relation was appointed to act for him. The representations of the other Zemindars or farmers in the same gram, were usually considered as the most just criterion of this incapacity. Besides the judicial powers and the magistracy of his territory, the Pradhan kept an account of the other tenants, and of their payments and debts to government, and, receiving what was due, transmitted ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... Their constitutionality has been maintained, however, by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and they are therefore the law of the land by the concurrent act of the legislative, the executive, and the judicial departments of the Government. Regarded as affording a criterion of what is navigable water, and as such subject to the maritime jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and of Congress, these acts are objectionable in this, that the rule of navigability is an arbitrary one, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... was lifting and showing one street-lamp to another. Elfrida in her attic had been sitting above the fog all night; her single candle had not been obscured by it. The cab had been paid and the andirons were being disturbed by Mr. Golightly Ticke, returned from the Criterion Restaurant, where he had been supping with the leading lady of the Sparkle Company, at the leading, lady's expense. She could afford it better than he could, she told him, and that was extremely true, for Mr. Ticke had his capacities for light comedy still largely to prove, ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... citizenship, the test of educating all of its people to their political and social responsibilities. Whether these tests will be met successfully is for the future to decide, but if the past is any criterion, the American republic will not fail. National structures have risen to a certain height and then fallen, because they were not built on the solid foundations of mutual confidence, co-operation, and loyalty. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... happiness, upon the whole, follows in a higher degree from constant integrity, than from the closest attention to self-interest. Now happiness is one of those consequences which Paley meant by final or remotest. But we could never use this idea as an exponent of integrity, or interchangeable criterion, because happiness cannot be ascertained or appreciated except upon long tracts of time, whereas the particular act of integrity depends continually upon the election of the moment. No man, therefore, could venture to lay down ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Germans, Italians, or Frenchmen. This is conspicuously so at New York. Delmonico's has a worldwide reputation, and is undoubtedly a good restaurant; but it may well be questioned whether the New York estimate of its merits is not somewhat excessive. If price be the criterion, it has certainly few superiors. The a la carte restaurants are, indeed, all apt to be expensive for the single traveller, who will find that he can easily spend eight to twelve shillings on a by no means sumptuous meal. The French ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... relative value of money at that time is considered, and the other particulars above named taken into account, it will be allowed that he was faithful and wise in caring for the wife of his youth and the companion of his long life. There is no better criterion of the good sense and good feeling of a person than his last will and testament. The result of a quite extensive examination is a conviction that the application of this test to the early inhabitants of Salem Village is ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the remarks which I have already made in the former part of my sermon may suggest to us, along with this utterance of the prophet's, that one indispensable characteristic and certain criterion of a true message and gospel from God is that it pierces the conscience and kindles the sense of sin. My dear brethren, there is a great deal of so-called Christian teaching, both from pulpits and books in this day, which, to my mind, is altogether ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the Christmas card. He would find us clinging desperately to what we have been taught to believe was picturesque and jolly, and afraid to assert that the things of to-day are comely too. Even on the basis of discomfort (an acknowledged criterion of picturesqueness) surely a trolley car jammed with parcel-laden passengers is just as satisfying a spectacle as any stage coach? Surely the steam radiator, if not so lovely as a flame-gilded hearth, is more real to most of us? And instead of the customary picture of shivering subjects ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... "The true criterion, the true test of the absence or presence of insanity, I take to be the absence or presence of what, used in a certain sense of it, is comprisable in a single term, namely, delusion.... In short, I look ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... to consider—I mean the act of retaliation against the aggressor: unless indeed, they intend to argue that, so long as Philip keeps away from Attica and the Peiraeus, he does the city no wrong and is not committing acts of war. {8} But if this is their criterion of right and wrong, if this is their definition of peace, then, although what they say is iniquitous, intolerable, and inconsistent with your security, as all must see, at the same time these very statements are ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... sense is, therefore, the foundation upon which all concerted action rests; and this, permeating the character and winning conformity in the life, produces a social order which is at once the criterion of civilization and the source ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... other hand, it can be taken as a criterion that those living in hotels are not invalids, then the visitor contingent of Pau must consist principally of healthy people, who prefer a good climate and lively society to the attractions that England and America have to ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... are a well-known brand and a 'gold-top.' Moet's or Roederer's carte d'or is the party-goer's criterion of the success of the entertainment. As soon as he sees the label, he swallows the wine, good or bad—more probably bad, for most champagnes, like all other wines, are 'specially prepared for the Australian market,' and you know what that ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... recognises the importance of some of Mill's practical arguments, though he disputes their position in the theory. The objections to making men moral by legislation are, according to him, sufficiently recognised by the Benthamite criterion condemning inadequate or excessively costly means. The criminal law is necessarily a harsh and rough instrument. To try to regulate the finer relations of life by law, or even by public opinion, is 'like trying to pull an eyelash out of a man's eye with a pair of tongs: they may pull out the eye, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... STEPHENSON ("B.C." makes him quite a classic—date uncertain, so his plot may have been done in collaboration, with PLAUTUS or TERENCE) has reproduced from the French a neatly-constructed One-Act piece, in which are all the possibilities of a Three-Act Criterion or Palais Royal Farcical Comedy. So rapid is the action, all over in about forty-five minutes, and so much to the point of the plot is the dialogue, that an inattentive auditor would soon lose the thread of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... but her understanding and principles were left to the imperfection of nature corrupted by custom. Religion was thought too serious a thing for so young a person. The opinion of the world was always represented to her as the true criterion by which to judge of everything, and fashion supplied the place of every more material consideration. With a mind thus formed, she entered the world at sixteen, surrounded with pomp and splendour, with every gratification at her command that an affluent fortune ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... deserted for Chantilly, where the trials of two-year-olds take place—the first criterion for horses, the second criterion for fillies—the distance in these two races being eight hundred metres, or half a mile. The Grand Criterion, for colts and fillies, has a distance of double this, or one mile (sixteen hundred metres). Since their debuts in August ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... possible to apply a test whereby a true species may be known from a mere variety? Is there no criterion of species? Great authorities affirm that there is—that the unions of members of the same species are always fertile, while those of distinct species are either sterile, or their offspring, called hybrids, are so. It is affirmed not only that this is an experimental fact, but that it is a provision ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... to be distinguished by his equals is perhaps a criterion of talent. At that moment of life, with no flattery on the one side, and no artifice on the other, all emotion and no reflection, the boy who has obtained a predominance has acquired this merely by native ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... pounds. It is doubtful if any of the higher rated motors have greater efficiency. As an 8-cylinder motor requires more fuel to operate than a 4-cylinder, it naturally follows that it is more expensive to run than the smaller motor, and a normal increase in capacity, taking actual performances as a criterion, is lacking. In other words, what is the sense of using an 8-cylinder motor when one ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... Palestine, recorded by writers whose very name and age are admitted by every scholar to be unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their fate, but, even at this day, are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilised world as the authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of the justice of scientific conclusions, in all that relates to the origin of things, and, among them, of species. In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn of modern physical science, the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... could hardly be distinguished from others of similar composition, which had been deposited as sediment. As lavas are sometimes laminated in their upper parts even horizontal lines, appearing like those of aqueous deposition, could not in all cases be relied on as a criterion of sedimentary origin. From these considerations it is not surprising that formerly many geologists believed in real transitions from aqueous deposits, ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... in God, and he had enough to eat and he had the gift of composing poetry.... To divide men into the successful and the unsuccessful is to look at human nature from a narrow, preconceived point of view. Are you a success or not? Am I? Was Napoleon? Is your servant Vassily? What is the criterion? One must be a god to be able to tell successes from ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of the cosmos. None so stupid but regards himself as the oracle of the times. And they scurry along without a glance at one another, each innately convinced that his ideas, his prejudices, his ambitions, his tastes are the Great Standard, the Normal Criterion. Puritan, paranoiac, sybarite, katatoniac, hardhead, dreamer, coward, desperado, beaten ones, striving ones, successful ones—all flaunt their umbrellas in the rain, all unfurl their invisible umbrellas to the world. Let it rain, let it rain—calamities and ecstasies tipped with ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... to lay Constantinople under their guns, was a splendid conception worthy the military imagination of the daring ages when the British Empire was built and the days of the Spanish Main, but the only criterion in the ghastly business of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... task-work was adopted, and the effectives, 143 in number, earned L.665, 19s. 10d. We are informed that task-work has been contrived to allow each man to do 1-1/4 to 1-1/2-days' work per diem, and to obtain credit for the extra amount earned. Were we, however, to take the above figures as a criterion, we should conclude that less, rather than more, was proportionately earned during the month of task-work; yet this conclusion would not be fair, for doubtless many modifying circumstances require to be taken into consideration—such ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... now only in drops through its courses; and the heart that I had of old stirs feebly and heavily within me." The prisoner paused a moment, and resumed in an altered tone: "Leaving, then, my own character to the ordeal of report, I cannot perhaps do better than leave to the same criterion that of the witness against me. I will candidly own that under other circumstances it might have been otherwise. I will candidly avow that I might have then used such means as your law awards me ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Gospel to you: I Paul say to you, If you submit to circumcision Christ will profit you nothing." Paul emphatically declares that for the Galatians to be circumcised would mean for them to lose the benefits of Christ's suffering and death. This passage may well serve as a criterion for all the religions. To teach that besides faith in Christ other devices like works, or the observance of rules, traditions, or ceremonies are necessary for the attainment of righteousness and everlasting life, is ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... but to cling to them, and make them a part of himself, and by daily meditation upon them to bring himself into such a state of mind, that these wholesome maxims occur to him of their own accord, that wherever he may be, they may straightway be ready for use when required, and that the criterion of right and wrong may present itself to him without delay. Let him know that nothing is evil except what is base, and nothing good except what is honourable: let him guide his life by this rule: let him both act and expect others to act in accordance with this law, and ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... events. They are not achieved by armies, or enacted by senates. They are sanctioned by no treaties, and recorded in no archives. They are carried on in every school, in every church, behind ten thousand counters, at ten thousand firesides. The upper current of society presents no certain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows. We read of defeats and victories. But we know that nations may be miserable amidst victories and prosperous amidst defeats. We read of the fall of wise ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thus have always before his mind all the organic, psychic, and moral characteristics of human society and will see the differences from, and the resemblances to, those of the school-organism. In so far will he have an example, a law, a criterion, a form to follow in the direction of the little human society entrusted to him, with its beautiful and its ugly side, its good and its bad, its vices and its virtues. This idea of the school as an organism, however much it seems destined to overturn ideas of the past, will be the crucible ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the difference between life and nonlife. Did you know that, Fenwick? The capacity to make decisions without pre-programming. The lathe is not alive because it must be pre-programmed by the operator. We used to say that reproduction was the criterion of life, but the lathe could be pre-programmed to build a duplicate of itself, complete with existing memories, if that were desired, but that would not make it a ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... as calamitous in Ireland as in other countries. No country can progress under such circumstances. The test of government is the condition of the people governed. Judged by this criterion, it is no exaggeration to say that Ireland as a whole went backward for at least seventy years after the Union. Even Protestant North-East Ulster, with its saving custom of tenant-right, its linen industry, and all the special advantages derived from a century of privilege, though it escaped ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... moral or the immoral, which are standards of human conduct, and the duty of the naturalist is to point out what goes on in Nature. There can now be scarcely a doubt that even in highly organized human communities the death-rate is selective, and physical fitness is the criterion for survival. To assert the existence of this selection and measure its intensity must be distinguished from an advocacy of high infant mortality as a factor of racial efficiency. This reminder is the more needful as there ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Professor Wyvern misinterpreted the lack of enthusiasm. "When I was a medical student," he said, "I failed dozens of times in my final examination—dozens. It's no criterion of knowledge, you know: it is just luck. Never let examination failure dishearten you. Go along happily, George, and take your chance when ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... all times, since Christianity came into the world, an open contest has been going on between religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age where the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little doubt on ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... the "whole heaven was a harmony of number." The Pythagoreans taught that all comes from one, but that the odd number is finite, the even infinite; that ten was a perfect number. They sought for a criterion of truth in the relation of numbers. Nothing could exist or be formed without harmony, and this harmony depended upon number, that is, upon the union of contrary elements. The musical octave was their best ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... criterion of the superiority of the schoolboy will be found in his mode of answering a casual question proposed by the master. The majority will be wholly at fault, will shew that they do not understand the question, and will return an answer altogether from the purpose. One in a hundred perhaps, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud: they laud the virtues very highly, and exhibit them as estimable far above anything on earth; but they give us no adequate criterion of virtue, and frequently that which they designate with so fine a name is but apathy, or pride, ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... now begun, the enemy firing at us from a strongly fortified fort near the town. Their target practice was no criterion of their shooting when being shot at, as not one of us was even wounded. While the battle was in progress we had a repetition of the race at Fredericksburg when there dashed from the Federal fort three artillery horses, which ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... the Commonwealth by senators and representatives that are priceless. For the searching out of great principles on which legislation is based there is no adequate compensation. If value for services were the criterion, there would be 280 different salaries. When membership is sought as a means of livelihood, legislation will pass from a public function to a private enterprise. Men do not serve here for pay. They seek work and places of ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... the road, to amuse themselves by looking at the coach as it changed horses, while he ran into the tavern and went through the leg-stretching process at the bar. After some minutes, he returned, with his legs thoroughly stretched, if the hue of his nose and a short hiccup afforded any criterion; and at the same time there came out of the yard a rusty pony-chaise, and a cart, driven by ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... there is a criterion of morphological truth, and a sure test of all homologies. Our lobster has not always been what we see it; it was once an egg, a semifluid mass of yolk, not so big as a pin's head, contained in a transparent membrane, and ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... characters of the great rivals, Wood and Waithman, I will, if possible, divest myself of prejudice, and do them both justice. The result of the last general election for the city not only speaks the sense of the livery, but it is a pretty fair criterion by which the public may estimate the value of each of these characters. The inestimable conduct of Mr. Alderman Wood, with regard to the affairs of the Queen, has placed him upon that eminence to which his honesty and public spirit so eminently ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... San Michele is inevitably the soldier saint of Christendom. It must not be inferred that the success of plastic, skill less that of pictorial, art depends upon the accuracy or vividness with which the presentment "tells its story." Under such a criterion the most popular work of art would necessarily bear the palm of supremacy. But there should be some relation between the statue and the subject-matter. Nobody knew this better than Donatello: he seldom incurred ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... thus ignored matters so much that other things matter only in so far as they affect it. As I have elsewhere maintained, the eugenic criterion is the first and last of every measure of reform or reaction that can be proposed or imagined. Will it make a better race? Will the consequence be that more of the better stocks, of both sexes, contribute to the composition of future generations? In other words, the very first ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Franks!' her head shook: 'and Rose, Rose is, simply self-willed; a "she will" or "she won't" sort of little person. No criterion! Henceforth the world is against us. We have to struggle with it: it does ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... References to the Old Testament and to the New; The power of Prediction not confined to those bred in the Schools; Race of false Prophets; Their Malignity and Deceit; Micaiah and Ahab; Charge against Jeremiah the Prophet; Criterion to distinguish True from False Prophets; The Canonical Writings of the Prophets; Literature of Prophets; Sublime Nature of their Compositions; Examples from Psalms and Prophetical Writings; Humane and liberal Spirit; Care ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... and eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while. But the tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader, cannot make the change so quietly, and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort of criterion of the style of living, a sort of scale to the plan, a sort of key to the tune; this is the thing to banish first of all; because all the rest follow, and come down to their proper level in a short time. The accursed decanter cries footman or waiting maid, puts bells to the ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... of allegiance is no criterion of characters, nor the want of a certificate thereof an evidence of a person's being disaffected. Uniform character is the best rule to judge. Send up under guard all women who stroll to New-York without leave. But cause them to be well searched by ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Etonian system." The student was now safe from the ordeal of examinations, and that the higher classes, including ten senior collegers and ten senior oppidans, contained some of the very worst scholars. "A boy's place on the general roll was no more a criterion of his acquirements and his industry than would be the 'year' of a young man at Oxford or Cambridge." The collegers, however, were required to pass some kind of examination, in accordance with which their ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... was remarked that Mozart's "Zauberflote" was the oldest German opera in the current American repertory. Accepting the lists of the last two decades as a criterion, "Don Giovanni" is the oldest Italian opera, save one. That one is "Le Nozze di Figaro," and it may, therefore, be said that Mozart's operas mark the beginning of the repertory as it exists at the present time in ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... ever prided himself on his truth-fronting intellect, and had freely uttered his scorn of the credulous mob! He who was his own criterion of moral right and wrong! No wonder he felt like a whipped cur. It was the ancestral vice in his blood, brought out by over-tempting circumstance. The long line of base-born predecessors, the grovelling hinds and mechanics of his genealogy, were responsible for this. Oh for a name ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... physical strength; but chivalry was the disseminator of culture, leaving ecclesiastical culture, which hitherto had been synonymous with civilisation, a very long way behind. "Mezura," "masze" (the [Greek: mphstoes] of the Platonic Greeks) was the new criterion, as compared with the barbarian's ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... boots for the soldiers and the quarrymen, small shot for specimens, and so forth. I had carried out my idea of a Dragoman with two servants; and the result had been a model failure, especially in the most important department. The true "Desert cook" is a man sui generis; he would utterly fail at the Criterion, and even at Shepheard's; but in the wilderness he will serve coffee within fifteen minutes, and dish the best of dinners within ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... having fathomed to its very depths the power of mere existence, without any reference to those conventional aids which civilization has the folly to think necessary to the performance of that agreeable duty, was any criterion, I certainly fancied that I had a right to brag of having taken a full view of that most piquant specimen of the brute creation, the California "elephant." But it seems that I was mistaken, and that we miners have been dwelling in perfect ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... politics. The majority have the same confidence that the case is finally decided in their favour; and there is the same exultation over the defeated party, as if their being in the minority were a clear proof that they were also in the wrong. But this is no criterion, and time may sternly reverse the victory of the moment. Even in the Church the side of the false prophets may be the growing and the winning side, while Jeremiah is left ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... A criterion of the extent and success of our participation and of the thoroughness with which our exhibits were organized is seen in the awards granted to American exhibitors by the international jury, namely, grand prizes, 240; ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... to the length of time the lands have been in market, without reference to any other circumstances. The certainty that the efflux of time would not always in such cases, and perhaps not even generally, furnish a true criterion of value, and the probability that persons residing in the vicinity, as the period for the reduction of prices approached, would postpone purchases they would otherwise make, for the purpose of availing themselves of the lower price, with other considerations ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which an article can be afforded, always augments the consumption: and though we have no criterion to go by in judging of the prices in former times, yet it is certain they must have been very great. At the time when silk was sold for its weight in gold, that metal was compared with common labour of six times the value ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... mind cannot fathom the will of God. Which is an irrational statement for it is a well established fact, and indeed, a criterion of insanity, that when the deranged are confronted with facts which are conclusive and with creations of the imagination, they cannot differentiate fact from fancy, and maintain, instead, that fancy is the real fact. The religionists are guilty ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... with some correspondence relating thereto, has historical interest. Planck's theory was suggested by thermodynamical considerations. In the paper now to be quoted the matter was approached from the standpoint of a criterion for determining the identity of two portions of matter or of energy. The paper is ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being thrown, let the horse do what it likes; never enters their head. Their criterion of a good rider is, a man who can manage an untamed colt, or who, if his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform other such exploits. I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse down twenty times, and that nineteen times ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... "The criterion of social justice in every civilized community," he writes, "is, and always has been, not how large or how intense is the misery of the social debtor class, but what is done with the social surplus ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... rule external appearance is an unsatisfactory criterion of age, still, other things equal, a large amount and good height of standing wall may be taken to indicate in a general way a more recent period of occupancy than wall lines much obliterated and merged into the surrounding ground level. ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... is not always a criterion of its permeability; a very fine grained marble, containing about 0.6 per cent. cell space, transmitted water and oil more freely than a shale that would hold 4 per cent. of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... that if charm were once admitted as the criterion, smartness and capability must go to the wall; and she hated—with a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called charm seemed to disturb all calculations—the subtle seductiveness which she could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wrinkles on his cheek would not have anything to do with his age, for time was powerless against the richness of his blood. He would still be a boy when he was dying of old age; but if protestations, kisses and homage were any criterion then the fact that he loved his wife was fixed beyond any kind ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the number of veterans receiving financial aid or by the number of dollars we spend. History will judge us not by the money we spend, but by the further contribution we enable our veterans to make to their country. In considering any additional legislation, that must be our criterion. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... be 24s. per lb.?-Yes; but the number of ounces is not a criterion, because the less the weight the higher the price. We have given as high as 7d. per cut for worsted, and that should weigh 14 cuts of 100 threads to the ounce. That would be 8s. 2d. per ounce, or ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... interwoven in the scenes of innocent childhood and succeeding girlhood. The tender, sensitive girl loved her brother too deeply to believe that any could supplant his place in the love of Lady Rosamond. Her true criterion was the pure, innocent, and ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... host of friends through his earlier volumes, but we think he will do still better work in his new field if the present volume is a criterion."—N. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... were far from being appeased. That portion of the Committee that remained with me, thought there was danger yet; and so, indeed, there was, judging hideous noises, bitter curses and ruffianly demonstrations, to be any proper criterion. They still cried, "bring him out" and "kill him." The Committee thought the safety of the house required that I should be removed at once; so I having gotten together my hat, valise and other effects, they took me ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... nor her beauty, nor her wisdom; simply her power of making me a better man. A selfish criterion, you will say. Be it so.... What a noble horse ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... growing very hungry; but that was no criterion, for they had eaten no lunch. Time is bound to drag by very slowly when people are thrust into such a position as this; it might not be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... a full century ago by Herschel that the variations in the number of sun-spots had a direct effect upon terrestrial weather, and he attempted to demonstrate it by using the price of wheat as a criterion of climatic conditions, meantime making careful observation of the sun-spots. Nothing very definite came of his efforts in this direction, the subject being far too complex to be determined without long periods of observation. Latterly, however, meteorologists, particularly ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... sacrificing flavour. On the contrary, there has been a distinct and welcome advance in all the special characteristics which have won for this vegetable its popular position, and so highly is the crop esteemed that it is usually regarded as a criterion by which the general management of ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... population, who, though they paid taxes and shared the commercial and social advantages of the city had no voice in its administration. Citizenship was hereditary in those families by whom it had been once acquired, each republic having its own criterion of the right, and guarding it jealously against the encroachments of non-qualified persons. In Florence, for example, the burgher must belong to one of the Arts.[1] In Venice his name must be inscribed ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... expectant holiday state had now come up from Margate, Mr. Brumley went in succession to the Hippodrome, to Peter Pan and to an exhibition at Olympia, assisted at an afternoon display of the kinemacolor at La Scala Theatre, visited Hamley's and lunched George Edmund once at the Criterion and twice at the Climax Club, while thinking of nothing in all the world but the incalculable strangeness of women. George Edmund thought him a very passive leadable parent indeed, less querulous about money ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Marlborough, and Eugene, he would have succeeded. Politically he did not achieve his aim; but under him France became the unchallenged leader of literary and artistic culture and taste, the universal criterion. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee |
