"Generality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... devolved upon a young prince, who, though heir-apparent to the crown, and already arrived at years of maturity, had never been admitted to any share of the administration, nor made acquainted with any schemes or secrets of state. The real character of the new king was very little known to the generality of the nation. They dreaded an abrupt change of measures, which might have rendered useless all the advantages obtained in the course of the war. As they were ignorant of his connexions, they dreaded a revolution in the ministry, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... results, obtained with a great variety of subjects, justify the conviction that the minimum proteid requirements of the healthy man, under ordinary conditions of life, are far below the generally accepted dietary standards, and far below the amounts called for by the acquired taste of the generality of mankind. Body weight, health, strength, mental and physical vigour and endurance can be maintained with at least one-half of the proteid ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... thin,' said the hairdresser; 'but then so are the generality of our young citizens. Do not make yourself unhappy about it, mademoiselle; I shall see her again, probably, and shall endeavour to find out every circumstance respecting her.' With these words, M. Lagnier respectfully took leave, having by one more expressive ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... in a historical manner, we are obliged to have recourse to much tenderness. That they differ from the generality of protestants in some of the capital points of religion cannot be denied, and yet, as protestant dissenters, they are included under the description of the toleration act. It is not our business to inquire whether people of similar sentiments ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... ain't much difference between us, except that there are very few of them who know how to use their hands. Well, anyhow, I shall be glad to have done with the French, though I will say for them that the lot that uses my place is a good deal better than the generality. For the most part they dress as English; that is to say they get their clothes made by English tailors, but lor' bless you, it ain't no use. They can't wear them when they have got them, not to look easy and comfortable ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... — N. mean, average; median, mode; balance, medium, mediocrity, generality; golden mean &c (mid-course) 628; middle &c 68; compromise &c 774; middle course, middle state; neutrality. mediocrity, least common denominator. V. split the difference; take the average &c n.; reduce to a mean &c n.; strike a balance, pair off. Adj. mean, intermediate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... overspreads even the rocks where it can get the least hold; it is commonly impenetrable, and on the south and west sides of the islands assumes a depressed, creeping form, strongly indicative of the strength and generality of the winds from those quarters. Many of the sandy parts are covered with the hassocks of wiry grass, which constitute the favourite retreat of the sooty petrel; and at the back of the shores, there is frequently some extent of ground where the creeping, salt ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... "And they were all scattered abroad;" but the term "all" is not, I think, to be taken strictly as denoting more than the generality; in like manner as in Acts ix. 35: "And all that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him, and turned to the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... should I be taken away. I found great relief, one day, while listening to a conversation between father and grandfather, as to what age children were responsible to their Creator. Father gave his opinion that ten years, in the generality of children, is the age that God would call them to an account for sin. Grandfather said that was about the age he thought children were accountable, and all children that die previous to that age are happily saved ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Oeta, the surviving ghost which he derived from his mother descends to Hades, but the purified soul inherited from his father has the proper nature and rank of a deity, and is received into the Olympian synod.5 Of course no blessed life in heaven for the generality of men is here implied. Herakles, being a son and favorite of Zeus, has a corresponding destiny exceptional from ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... present in a state of tolerable discipline. We cannot go so far as Dr Clarke in praise of their cleanliness, but we often observed their native easy courtesy of manner; and there can be no doubt, as he observes, of their being a much handsomer race than the generality of Russians. Their figures are more graceful, and their features are higher, and approach often to the Roman style of countenance. One troop of the Cossacks of the guards, composed of those from the Black Sea, attracted our particular admiration; and the noble manly figures of the men, the elegant ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... figures are small, with a well indicated outline. How pretty are the little subjects at the foot of each month of the Calendar! And how totally different from the common-place stiffness, and notorious dullness, of the generality of Flemish pieces of this character! This book has no superior of its kind in Europe; and is worthy, on a small scale, of what we see in the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... from our elders, and they men who had been brought up in the same way as ourselves, we were debarred from any real interest in philosophy, history, art, literature and music, or any advancing notions in social life or politics. I speak of the generality, not of the few black swans among us. We were reactionaries almost to a boy. I remember one summer term Gladstone came down to speak to us, and we repaired to the Speech Room with white collars and dark hearts, muttering what we would do to that Grand Old Man if we ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... Dublin in 1731, says: 'As for the generality of people that I meet with here, they are much the same as in England—a mixture of good and bad. All that I have met with behave themselves very decently according to their rank; now and then an oddity breaks out, but never so extraordinary ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Weakness, an infallible Poison which he found Means to have given her, worked at the very Instant that he went to perform his Commission. As she was soon violently seiz'd with the Approaches of Death, it was believed by the Generality, who had no Notion of foul Play, that Lenertoula had been overcome by an Excess of Joy, which is always more forcible than that of Grief, especially in Women. Upon this Notion, a Kofiran Wit made four Verses, which may ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... have been easy to select a more historical statement of facts respecting Kelly; but the following tale, the events of one day only, will, we hope, be more interesting to the generality of readers. It exhibits a curious display of the intrigues and devices by which these impostors acquired an almost unlimited power over the minds of their fellow-men. Human credulity once within their grasp, they could wield this tremendous engine at their will, directing it either ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Of the generality of the critics of that day it would probably be well within the mark to aver that their equipment was more solid, and their competence more assured than that of their successors; {30} it would be safe to assert that their self-sufficiency was also decidedly more pronounced. Now for ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... of religious worship in Great Britain, and the fact that phallic worship prevailed there, Forlong writes: "The generality of our countrymen have no conception of the overruling prevalence of this faith, and the number of its lingham gods throughout our Islands." These symbols were always in the form of an obelisk or tower, thereby indicating the worship ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... foregoing lines from me, so the sense I had of the folly of mankind, in misspending the little time allowed them in evil ways and vain sports, led me more particularly to trace the several courses wherein the generality of men run unprofitably at best, if not to their hurt and ruin, which I introduced with that axiom of ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... perhaps a cholera doctor. In a short time the conversation turned upon early and late education, and Lord Holland said he had always remarked that self-educated men were peculiarly conceited and arrogant, and apt to look down upon the generality of mankind, from their being ignorant of how much other people knew; not having been at public schools, they are uninformed of the course of general education. My neighbour observed that he thought the most remarkable example of self-education was that of Alfieri, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... alienated from the men of Ulster by all the striving of their enemies to brand them as rebels. Constitutional authorities may, as Mr. Churchill says, "measure their censures according to their political opinions," but the generality of men, who are not constitutional authorities, whose political opinions, if they have any, are fluctuating, and who care little for "juridical niceties," will measure their censures according to their instinctive sympathies. And the sound instinct of ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... in ten thousand would be capable of writing the life of that poet as it should be written,—even supposing the biographer were one of his intimate friends. Shelley went entirely away from the ranks of society,—farther away than Byron, and was a man harder to be understood by the generality of men. An autobiography of such a man was more needed than that of any other; but we could not expect an autobiography from Shelley. He felt nothing but pain and sorrow in the retrospect of his life, and, like Byron, shrank ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... preponderating influence of this province in the Union can be easily understood. The forces of the republic that were distributed in the several provinces received their pay from the provinces, but those maintained by the Council, as troops of the State, were paid by monies received from the Generality lands, i.e. lands such as the conquered portions of Brabant and Flanders, governed by the States-General, but without representation in that body. The Council of State, though its political powers were curtailed and absorbed by the States-General, continued to ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... which is a new species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of the officers, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer. This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in so doing this, the obligation was absolute, and the authority indisputable, that Rodney's course was professionally meritorious. In such case his action would have risen little above that obedience to orders, in which, as Nelson said, the generality find "all perfection." The risk was real, not only to his station, but to the possible plans of his superiors at home; the authority was his own only, read by himself into his orders—at most their spirit, not their letter. Consequently, he took grave ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... constitution or temper, but arise from the manner used in training him, and the bad treatment he receives. We are the rather led to this assertion, from having lately seen one which experiences a very different kind of treatment from his master than is the fate of the generality of asses. The humane owner of this individual is an old man, whose employment is the selling of vegetables, which he conveys from door to door on the back of his ass. He is constantly baiting the poor creature with handfuls of hay, pieces ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... condition of its acting at all. The laws of physical nature then are, strictly speaking, never violated, although the course of nature is occasionally altered by supernatural interference, and continually by free human volition. But the laws of physical nature, in the highest generality, are identified with the moral law. The one Eternal Law embraces all the laws of creation. It has a physical and a moral side. On the former it effects, on the latter it obliges, but on both sides it is imperative; and though in moral matters ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the outskirts of the town, and was neater than the generality of houses, and the garden was a mass of flowers. They dismounted, handed over the mules to their owner, and walked to the door. An Indian of some five- and-forty years came ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... knowledge are possible to the intellect of man. Our knowledge is what we are obliged to think and assert regarding experience; but the universality of experience is not explained merely by the common nature and general laws of Intelligence, but depends also on the generality of the laws under which ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... over, when I entreated upon that subject with the person I have mentioned, who answered me thus: "Consider, first," said he, "the place where we are; and, secondly, the condition we are in; especially," said he, "the generality of the people who are banished hither. We are surrounded," said he, "with stronger things than bars and bolts: on the north side is an unnavigable ocean, where ship never sailed, and boat never swam; neither, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... elegant and accomplished above the generality of her birth and station; and some say she is ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Whigs have something odd and particular about them. On making the same sort of remark to Argent, who, by the way, is a high ministerial man, he observed, the thing was not to be wondered at, considering that the Whigs are exceptions to the generality of mankind, which naturally accounts for their being always in the minority. Mr. T—-, the saddler's son, who overheard us, said slyly, "That it might be so; but if it be true that the wise are few compared to the multitude of the foolish, things would be better managed ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... they make any effort to reduce those various principles to one first principle, or common ground of obligation. They either assume the ordinary precepts of morals as of a priori authority, or they lay down as the common groundwork of those maxims, some generality much less obviously authoritative than the maxims themselves, and which has never succeeded in gaining popular acceptance. Yet to support their pretensions there ought either to be some one fundamental principle ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... hear this account you give me," said the stranger, in a sympathising tone; "though I congratulate you on your narrow escape,—I may call it miraculous. You are far more fortunate than the generality of people who fall into the hands of those gentry, I should think. I was in hopes that our countrymen, since the commencement of the glorious struggle to throw off the foul Turkish yoke, had abandoned all their malpractices, and had joined heart and hand in the great cause against ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... a melancholy truth, that moral training is yet, to a very limited extent, estimated, and this is mainly owing to its not being understood by the generality of those selected for the office of teachers of infants, nor can it be expected that persons of sufficient intellect and talent to comprehend and carry out this great object, can be procured, until a sufficient remuneration is held out to them, to make ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... these futile syllogisms; perhaps, also, it is the fear of human mystery. The biographer used to see "the finger of God" pat in the history of a man; he insists now that he shall at any rate see the finger of a law, or rather of a rule, a custom, a generality. Law I will not call it; there is no intelligible law that, for example, a true poet should be an unhappy man; but the observer thinks he has noticed a custom or habit to that effect, and Blake, who lived and died in bliss, is named at ignorant random, ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... face; and granted the honor of two triumphs, before he had a place in the senate." Hereupon they were reconciled and laid down their office. Crassus resumed the manner of life which he had always pursued before; but Pompey in the great generality of causes for judgment declined appearing on either side, and by degrees withdrew himself totally from the forum, showing himself but seldom in public; and whenever he did, it was with a great train after him. Neither was it easy to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... these somewhat nebulous beginnings, four settlements arose—Portsmouth (Masonian and Anglican), Dover (Anglican and Puritan), Exeter and Hampton (both Puritan), each with its civil compact and each an independent town. The inhabitants were few in number, and "the generality, of mean and low estates," and little disposed to union among themselves. But in 1638-1639, when Massachusetts discovered that one interpretation of her charter would carry her northern boundary to a point above them, she took them under ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... signifies a complex, this can be seen from an indeterminateness in the propositions in which it occurs. In such cases we know that the proposition leaves something undetermined. (In fact the notation for generality contains a prototype.) The contraction of a symbol for a complex into a simple symbol can be expressed ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... that in this country, as in America, the term "liberty" enjoys much popularity. Sir John Seeley has remarked that just as "its unlimited generality" makes it "delightful to poets," so its harmonious sound is so grateful to the ears of the public at large that "if a political speech did not frequently mention liberty," no one would "know what to make of it or where to applaud."[25] Matthew Arnold goes so far as to speak of "our worship of freedom," ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... their actual midst; certain condensed "planetary" nebulae are scarcely to be distinguished from stars of the gaseous type; and recently the photographic film has shown the presence of nebulous matter about stars that to telescopic vision differ in no respect from the generality of their fellows in the galaxy. The familiar stars of the Pleiades cluster, for example, appear on the negative immersed in a hazy blur of light. All in all, the accumulated impressions of the photographic film reveal ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... a negro wearing a straw hat with a very broad brim, came out of the shop, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat. He bowed with even more deference than the generality of the people. The strangers were not elegantly or genteelly dressed, but they wore good clothes, and would have passed for masters of vessels, so far as their ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... believe, to the witch Melancholy." By the way, when will our volume come out? Don't delay it till you have written a new Joan of Arc. Send what letters you please by me, & in any way you choose, single or double. The India Co. is better adapted to answer the cost than the generality of my friend's correspondents,—such poor & honest dogs as John Thelwall, particularly. I cannot say I know Colson, at least intimately. I once supped with him & Allen. I think his manners very pleasing. I will not tell you what ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... wisdom flourished not only in Judah, but also at the same time in Edom; it had the universalistic tendency which is natural to reflection. The Proverbs of Solomon would scarcely claim attention had they arisen on Greek or Arabian soil; they are remarkable in their pale generality only because they are of Jewish origin. In the Book of Job, a problem of faith is treated by Syrians and Arabians just as if they were Jews. In Ecclesiastes religion abandons the theocratic ground altogether, and becomes a kind of philosophy in ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... I have heard, and have so often attempted to refute, are, that the generality of missionaries are a fanatical class of men, who are more anxious to inculcate the peculiar tenets of their own sects and denominations than the religion of our Saviour; that most of them are uneducated and vulgar ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the generality of readers, I have reduced the time from the nautical to the civil computation, so that whenever the terms A.M. and P.M. are used, the former signifies the forenoon, and the latter the afternoon ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Bill. But look there," said I, pointing to a man whose skin was of a much lighter colour than the generality of the natives. "I've seen a few of these light-skinned fellows among the Feejeeans. They seem to me to be of ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... complexity of symbols; it condescends not to any particular problems; it is an all embracing theory, which gives an intellectual grasp of the most appropriate method for discovering the result of the application of force to matter. It is the very generality of this doctrine which has somewhat impeded the applications of which it is susceptible. The exigencies of examinations are partly responsible for the fact that the method has not become more familiar to students of the higher mathematics. An eminent professor has complained that Hamilton's ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... organized religion begins to wane—the rise of the merchant spells the decline of the priest. A sordid change, from masses and mysteries to sugar and shoes, this is often said to be, but it should be noted that the epochs of greatest economic activity have been those during which the generality of mankind have lived fuller and freer lives, and above all that in such eras the finest intellects and the grandest ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... keeping of them, and keeping within the sphere of our own activity and station, inconsistent and impossible, and such things as whereof we now have no occasion, and the like; which is a loud call to us, or any that retain other thoughts of their nature and ends, than the generality do, to speak for them; which cannot be done more fitly, honorably, nor conspicuously any other way, than by renewing and observing them. 5th, The practice of the godly in such a juncture of time, as what ours appears to ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... myself. The part applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but, although I have long done every thing in my power to suppress the circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret the wantonness or generality of many of its attacks. If Coleridge writes his promised tragedy, Drury Lane will be set up." Though harassed with pecuniary difficulties of all kinds, Byron contrived to help Coleridge, who he had heard was ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... she said, suddenly descending from the uncertain heights of generality. "You may be quite sure of that. If that is what ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... sarcasm and insult. To interrogate a glittering generality is to slur its projector; she wished her hearers to be dazzled, not moved to the impertinence of cross-examination. "I think you understand me," ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... descriptive power, supposing it to have been exercised as a disciple of the noted Mr Puff, who took a double first in those arts, had the translator kindly omitted an outline of a picture by Poelemburg—The Adoration of the Shepherds. It is certainly well described in generality and detail; but never was any thing more like Mr Puff's style than the following:—"Poelemburg has here surpassed himself by the exactness of the design, and the fine form of the figures. He has carried to the highest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... born after 1784—the date of the adoption of the Constitution—were equally free and independent. In other words, it brought about gradual emancipation. In Virginia, it was simply a glittering generality—it had ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... unfortunate smoker had left a rich widow. Far behind in the race for Miss Halkett, and uncertain of a settled advantage in his other rivalry with Beauchamp, he fixed his mind on the widow, and as Beauchamp did not stand in his way, but on the contrary might help him—for she, like the generality of women, admired Nevil Beauchamp in spite of her feminine good sense and conservatism—Cecil began to regard the man he felt less opposed to with some recognition of his merits. The two nephews accompanied Lord Avonley to London, and slept at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... soldierly qualities of a majority of his troops. "We are now," he wrote, "encamped with the main body of the army on the Heights of Harlem, where I should hope the enemy would meet with a defeat in case of an attack, if the generality of our troops would behave with tolerable bravery. But experience, to my extreme affliction, has convinced me that this is rather to be wished for than expected. However, I trust that there are many who will ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... the meeting with pistols on the following morning; and the combatants proceeded to the spot fixed on, some five or six miles, I think, from the Baths. Plowden, who, as a sedate business man was less intimate with the generality of the young men at the Baths, was accompanied only by his second; his adversary was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances—really far more after the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or some other party of pleasure, than in the usual guise of men bent ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... determined not to return till I had purchased something. It was not my first attempt. I went into one bookseller's shop after another. I found plenty of fairy tales and such nonsense, fit for the generality of children of nine or ten years old. "These," said I, "will never do. Her understanding begins to be above such things;" but I could see nothing that I would offer with pleasure to an intelligent, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... removal of the mistake: it seems as if something was to be made amends for, and we eagerly give in to every office of friendship, to atone for the injury of the error. But, perhaps, there is something in the extent of countries, which, among the generality of people, insensibly communicates extension of the mind. The soul of an islander, in its native state, seems bounded by the foggy confines of the water's edge, and all beyond affords to him matters only for profit or curiosity, not for friendship. His ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... our country are not found bowing down to numberless idols, as the inhabitants of many countries are: they worship what they call 'the Great Spirit,' with a deep reverence, humbling themselves before him, and undergoing self-imposed torments, to gain his good will, which the generality of Christians, in the manifestation of their faith, would find it hard to endure. They believe also in an Evil Spirit, as well as in a future state; and that they shall be happy or unhappy, just as they have ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... wins credit for a great truth, is always a creature that deserves our veneration. It may happen that such an one falls a victim to prejudice and the laws; but there are two sorts of laws, the one of an equity and generality that is absolute, the other of an incongruous kind, which owe all their sanction to the blindness or exigency of circumstance. The latter only cover the culprit who infringes them with passing ignominy, an ignominy that time pours back on the judges and the nations, there to ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... respect, but she detested the French, and liked, as she observed, to pull down their pride, to make them feel their inferiority, and let them know that the English were their masters. Madame Fournier, however, was of a class superior to the generality of persons who let lodgings in England; she was possessed of an independent property, her eldest daughter was married to a Colonel, and her son a lieutenant in the navy, but like many of the French, having a house considerably larger ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... believed than otherwise. As they constitute a class, and those whom I have to do with are chiefly the exceptions, I will forbear to dwell on stereotyped specimens, and turn to one so unlike the generality of her tribe, so utterly lawless, so completely at variance with all her surroundings, that I must beg leave to introduce her precisely as she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... what to do sometimes," she said, indulging in a generality that might be mollifying, ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... having again raised an outcry against this noble science, from the apparent absence of any benefit likely to arise from it, beyond converting human beings into pincushions and galvanic dummies. We, who look deeper into things than the generality of the world, hail it as an inestimable boon to mankind, and proceed at once to answer the numerous enquirers as to the cui bono of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... fancy it will have the effect of reducing prices. Fortunately, the merchants possess rather an accurate knowledge of such customers, and in consequence they lose nothing. One would as soon believe the generality of Boers, as walk into the shaft of a coal mine. He has a reputation for lying, and he never brings discredit upon that reputation. When he lies, which, on an average, is every alternate time he opens his mouth, he does so with great enthusiasm, and the while ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... to the perusal of the critical reader; as in fact, they contain merely the hasty observations suggested by the scenes he visited in the course of his Tour, together with a few occasional remarks, which he thought might be acceptable to the generality of readers: since notwithstanding the late increase of travellers, the numbers are still very great, who, being prevented by business, or deterred by the inconveniences of travelling, from visiting the Continent, might be disposed to pardon some inaccuracies, ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces; and for greater Certainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing Terms of this Section, it is hereby declared that (notwithstanding anything in this Act) the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter ...
— The British North America Act, 1867 • Anonymous
... to the question of what happens to a service officer when he becomes ridden by debt and plagued by his creditors, it is a fair statement that the generality of higher commanders are not unsympathetic, that they know that shrewdness and thrift are quite often the product of a broadened experience, and that their natural disposition is to temper the wind to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... had better success in his speculations than perhaps he ever expected to have. We need not inform the generality of our readers that the sect called Darbyites were founded by him, and have been called after him to the present day, sometimes ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... constitute man's highest excellence, his first interest, his chief good. Few, indeed, even among those who possess taste, if they have not accustomed themselves to investigate its principles, will readily conceive that they are thus deeply rooted in the mental frame. Indeed, the generality of mankind seem rather to think that taste has no principles at all, or, if any, that they begin and end with the prevailing mode, fashion, &c. of the times; a notion which, though in the highest degree absurd, corroborates my opinion, that the universal ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... usually sent to a distance from the ship to look out for whales, and whether fortunate or otherwise, they would always have a pretty hard day's work before they returned. They were, however, well fed, being apparently even better dieted than the generality of merchant-ships; the bread was of a better quality, and the allowance of butter, cheese, beans, and other little luxuries much more liberal. In the Mississippi the crew were generally young men, and with few exceptions all were complete novices at sea; this I was told ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... mother, more prudent than the generality of their neighbours, went to the house of a relation, at some miles' distance from Vesuvius, and carried with them all ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... had not been so bad as some people's malice reported him to be, he hoped he should have near as much merit in his repentance, as if he had never erred.—A fine rakish notion and hope! And too much encouraged, I doubt, my dear, by the generality of our sex! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... shiners are valuable; they belong to my friend who has just gone out. Casting no reflections on the generality of people in this room, there are, nevertheless, half a dozen "crooks" among us whom my friend wishes to avoid. Now, no honest man here will object to giving the buyer of that there trinket five clear minutes in which to get away. It's only the "crooks" ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... picture of the thousand abuses and miserable inefficiencies of the practice of corvees, and his piece illustrates that vigorous discussion of social subjects which the Encyclopaedia stimulated. It is worth remarking that this writer was a sub-engineer of roads and bridges in the generality of Tours. The case is one example among others of the importance of the Encyclopaedia as a centre, to which active-minded men of all kinds might bring the fruits of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... confided to his sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his misanthropically laconic manner that this supper in the woods had been nearly "the death of him." This is not surprising. What surprises me is that the story was ever heard of; for granduncle Nicholas differed in this from the generality of military men of Napoleon's time (and perhaps of all time) that he did not like to talk of his campaigns, which began at Friedland and ended some where in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc. His admiration of the great Emperor was ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... our West India possessions must have often been amused with the humour and cunning which occasionally appear in a negro more endowed than the generality of his race, particularly when the master also happens to be a humourist. The swarthy servitor seems to reflect his patron's absurdities; and having thoroughly studied his character, ascertains how far he can venture to take liberties without ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... illustration of the same fact, a fact whose assertion, it must be allowed, may appear somewhat paradoxical even to those who are acquainted, though superficially, with Hibernian composition. The rhymes are, it must be granted, in the generality of such productions, very latitudinarian indeed, and as a veteran votary of the muse once assured me, depend wholly upon the wowls (vowels), as may be seen in the following stanza of ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... are ready at all times to submit to the Law and the People's will, and to bow to their demands, but we cannot and must not be asked to place our calling, our duty, and our honour beneath the irresponsible rule of an arbitrary autocrat, however sympathetic with the generality he may chance to be!" Then, we would ask: "Sirs, did you ever hear of that great saying: 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you!'" For it is but fair presumption that the Dramatists, whom our Legislators have placed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... opinions on religious subjects as he pleases, without being held accountable for the same to any human authority. Hence, as might be expected, they hold a diversity of opinions on many points of belief upon which agreement is considered essential by the generality of professing Christians. Amongst other subjects upon which they differ is that of the authority of the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments, some among them holding the prevailing belief of their divine inspiration, whilst others regard them ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... as little get hold of Chopin as, to use L. Enault's expression, of the scaly back of a siren. Only after reading his letters to the few confidants to whom he freely gave his whole self do we know how little of himself he gave to the generality of his friends, whom he pays off with affectionateness and playfulness, and who, perhaps, never suspected, or only suspected, what lay beneath that smooth surface. This kind of reserve is a feature of the Slavonic character, which in Chopin's ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... by several bakers, on whose testimony I can rely, that the small profit attached to the bakers' trade, and the bad quality of the flour, induces the generality of the London bakers to use alum in the ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... crossing of the Harinoki toge implied a generality of performances that carried conviction. If he who read might not run, he had, at least, every assurance given him that he would be able to walk. That the writer might not only have been the first to cross, but the last, as well, was not evident from the text. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... regular in his goings and comings as the generality of business men in the Five Towns; no doubt because he was not by nature a business man at all, but an adventurous spirit who happened to be in a business which was much too good to leave. He was continually, as they say there, "up to something" that caused changes in daily habits. Moreover, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... said he had no care about his children, but to feed and clothe them. "Then you only treat your children as a man does his dogs and pigs." He replied, that "such treatment was good enough." This is a common sentiment; for the generality of parents have no further care about their children than to feed and clothe them. Such persons are not perhaps aware how nearly they come to that dreadful state of mind and heart, of which this ungrateful Gipsy so ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... had been! Archie began to feel his heart quite tender towards her; perhaps she was a little severe and exacting with the girls, but they none of them understood her in the least, "for her bark was always worse than her bite," thought Archie; and girls, at least the generality of them, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... not concerning small or base matters. For having in his Third Book of Substance related that some such things befall honest and good men, he says: "May it not be that some things are not regarded, as in great families some bran—yea, and some grains of corn also—are scattered, the generality being nevertheless well ordered; or maybe there are evil Genii set over those things in which there are real and faulty negligence?" And he also affirms that there is much necessity intermixed. I let pass, how inconsiderate it is ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... benches. There were but very few there, as every one had left it after the business of the day had been concluded; some of those who were in town and had heard that the jury were at last unanimous, had hurried down; but the generality of the strangers who were still remaining in Carrick, preferred the warmth of the hotel fires to paddling down through the rain, dirt, and dark, even to hear the verdict in a case in which every one was ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... always to resist the temptations held out to them, are in general an honest and simple-hearted set, though with little education, and sometimes rather rough in their manners. The extent of my education when I took to the water—and in this respect I was not, perhaps, much inferior to the generality of my brother watermen—was to read with no great fluency, and to sign my name; nor did I ever learn much more than this till my residence in Washington ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... the air of good writing, without being really so. For to the vulgar eye the specious is more striking than the genuine. The best writing is apt to be too plain, too simple, too unaffected, and too delicate to stir the callous organs of the generality of critics, who see nothing but the tawdry glare of tinsel; and are deaf to every thing but what is shockingly noisy to a true ear. They are struck with the fierce glaring colours of old Frank; with attitudes and expressions ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... righteousness. Israel was fortunate in possessing what other nations had not in the same degree, a succession of specially inspired men, teachers of moral and spiritual truth called prophets. The best of these—for no doubt the generality of them spoke only the language of their time—earnestly protested against material ideas of sacrifice and inadequate notions about God. They declared that God and the moral ideal were one and that the best way to serve the former was to be true to the latter. True ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... not in the habit of seeing the Household Words regularly; but a friend, who lately sent me some of the back numbers, recommended me to read "all the papers relating to the Detective and Protective Police," which I accordingly did—not as the generality of readers have done, as they appeared week by week, or with pauses between, but consecutively, as a popular history of the Metropolitan Police; and, as I suppose it may also be considered, a history of the police force in every large town in England. ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... loves but once," said Mr. Tristram to himself, in an attitude of attention, his fine eyes fixed decorously on a pillar in front of him. Some of us would be as helpless without a Bowdlerized generality or a platitude to sustain our minds as the invalid would ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... The totally physical atmosphere, the selfish, material countenances surrounding us, weighed upon our spirit until our nerves gave way, and we wondered which were on the broad road to insanity, our companions or ourselves. We examined narrowly, and found (in the generality of cases) that the angels within the bodies of those men and women had had their wings cut away until nothing remained but the senses and the limited knowledge they are capable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... star-depths has had its charm for the mathematician as well as for the poet; for the exact observer as for the most fruitful theoriser; nay, for the man of business as for him whose life is passed in communing with nature. If we analyse the interest with which the generality of men inquire into astronomical matters apparently not connected with the question of life in other worlds, we find in every case that it has been out of this question alone or chiefly that that ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... The generality of people throughout the world are of the opinion that gamblers are the worst people on the face of the earth. They are wrong, for I tell you there is ten times more rascality among men outside of the class they call gamblers ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... may emphasize the tendency to suppress development of individuality, and insist on regimentation in thought and action—an ideal proclaimed with increasing generality in Germany from Hegel down[2] there may be on the part of both individuals and groups the tendency to promote individuality as itself a social good. In such a case the social structure and educational systems and methods will be designed to promote individuality ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... now laid against him, into which no less than sixty senators entered. They were still the more formidable, as the generality of them were of his own party; and, having been raised above other citizens, felt more strongly the weight of ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... like nature, open a volume large as life itself—embracing a circuit of human existence! This state of the mind has even a reality in it for the generality of persons. In a romance or a drama, tears are often seen in the eyes of the reader or the spectator, who, before they have time to recollect that the whole is fictitious, have been surprised for a moment by a strong conception of a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... objections I have ever heard urged (the only plausible ones, he must mean, I think), is the notion of its inadequacy to the sustenance of the body. But this is merely a strong prejudice into which the generality of mankind have fallen, owing to their ignorance of the laws of life and health. Agility and constant vigor of body are the effect of health, which is much better preserved by a herbaceous, aqueous, and sparing tender diet, than by one which is fleshy, vinous, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... "The generality of readers when they look into the records of antient times, are forcibly struck by the seeming lowness of the prices of every article of common demand, when compared with the modern prices. When they find that an ox was formerly ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... us not forget the great generality, which is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of Teufelsdroeckh under so much outward shifting? Does Legion still lurk in him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We can answer ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... them—that diminutive specimen of mortality in the three-cornered pink satin hat with black feathers. The two men in the blue coats and drab trousers, who are walking up and down, smoking their pipes, are their husbands. The party in the opposite box are a pretty fair specimen of the generality of the visitors. These are the father and mother, and old grandmother: a young man and woman, and an individual addressed by the euphonious title of 'Uncle Bill,' who is evidently the wit of the party. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... been distinguished by different sorts of particular errors and vices, the deplorable distinction of ours," (he said,) "is an avowed scorn of Religion in some, and a growing disregard to it in the generality." "It is impossible for me, my brethren,"—(Butler is still addressing the clergy of his Diocese, 1761,)—"to forbear lamenting with you the general decay of Religion in this nation; which is now observed by every one, and has been for some time the complaint ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... improve all the advantages which the combination of so many branches of business constantly affords; the spirit of commerce, which is the simple art of a reciprocal supply of wants, is well understood here by everybody. They possess, like the generality of Americans, a large share of native penetration, activity, and good sense, which lead them to a variety of other secondary schemes too tedious to mention: they are well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring lumber ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... had now been working at his discoveries for twelve years, with little approbation from the generality of persons; the discovery of these islands, Porto Santo and Madeira, serving to whet his appetite for further enterprise, but not winning the common voice in favor of prosecuting discoveries on the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Patagonia),—as evidenced by the level surface of the ground on both sides of great faults and dislocations,—by inland lines of escarpments, by outliers, and numberless other facts, and by that argument of high generality advanced by Mr. Lyell, namely, that every SEDIMENTARY formation, whatever its thickness may be, and over however many hundred square miles it may extend, is the result and the measure of an equal amount of wear and tear of pre-existing formations; considering these facts, ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... business being long, and many of the brethren gone, we could not make a church act of advice in the case; therefore it was left to another time." At a meeting on the 22d of April, the Salem Church advised the minority "to submit to the generality for the present;" but, when a church should be formed there, "then they might choose him or any other." This advice does not appear to have satisfied either party; and the quarrel went on with renewed vehemence on both ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... material conquests of civilization would serve thenceforward only to hasten the decomposition of the social body. The pure idea of God is the true cause of the great progress of the modern era; religion, in its generality, is, as Plutarch has told us, the necessary condition to the very existence of society. This is what remains for ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... meanness and oppression. I am not going to attempt to draw a portrait of him. Men of genius are different from what we suppose them to be. They have greater pleasures and greater pains, greater affections and greater temptations, than the generality of mankind, and they can never be altogether understood by their fellow men. . . . But we feel that a light has gone out, that the world is darker to us, when they depart. There are so very few of them that we cannot ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... himself at no higher level than his neighbor, he was always calmly and scrupulously just. Though a learned, he was not exactly a clever man: probably his sermons, preached every Sunday for the last ten years in Cairnforth Kirk, were neither better nor worse than the generality of country sermons; but that matters little. He was a wise man and a good man, and all his parishioners, scattered over a parish of fourteen Scotch miles, ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Notwithstanding the generality and importance of these results, it still remained to be determined whether the forces resided in the centres of the planets or belonged to each individual particle of which they were composed. Newton ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... book did not shock the generality of readers; art at that time was full of contrasts, and life of contradictions, and the thing was so usual that it went unnoticed. Saints prayed on the threshold of churches, and gargoyles laughed at ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand |
