"In theory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In theory, we all despise money; in fact, we find it of wondrous potency. Behold this hotelkeeper mentally taking his feet from his desk and removing his hat when he learned that one of these hermits had unlimited credit at the bank. Mr. Willing's cashier ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... most limited monarchy," as he says truly the "King is represented in law books, as in theory an absolute sovereign." "Even now," says Mr. Gladstone, "after three centuries of progress toward democratic sway, the Crown has prerogatives by acting upon which, within their strict and unquestioned bounds, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... and boil coffee; saddle-up, and march off at 5.15. We go on marching till about 9.30 or 10, when we off-saddle and lie up for the heat of the day, during which the horses are grazed, with a guard to look after them, and we go a-breakfasting, bathing, and in theory writing and sketching, but in practice sleeping, at least so far as the flies will allow. At 3.30 saddle-up and march till 5.30; off-saddle and supper; then we march on again, as far as necessary, in the cool hours ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... his distinctions, of that inalienable affinity between land and people; the solidarity of a nation, its very right of existing as a political entity, he derived from homogeneity as to origin, language, custom, habitat. The validity of this view is now generally accepted in theory, while its practical application to science must necessarily depend upon the growth of special knowledge. In The Palatine People Riehl presented a standard treatise upon one of the ethnic types of the German race, an illustration as it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... law is not a money-making profession, either in theory or practise, the young lawyer should begin by charging every cent his services are worth. It is not only degrading, but reveals a base attitude of mind and character, to charge a little fee in the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... favour with your own countrymen, which would now make that pardon so popular, if it were known that the representative of your name were debased by your daughter's alliance with an English adventurer,—a clerk in a public office. Oh, sage in theory, why are you such ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... state of the masses) in theory, governed by the populace through local councils; ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... custom of wringing unanimous verdicts from a jury of temporary impressions, inclined her to imagine him a lover that had not to be so very much condoled with, and a politician less alarming in practice than in theory:—somewhat a gentleman of domestic tirades on politics: as it is observed of your generous young Radical of birth and fortune, that he will become on the old high road to a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a popular man among his acquaintances. In matters of trade and business he was notoriously dishonest, and in the moral and social relations of life, selfish, uncandid, and treacherous. The sergeant, on the other hand, though an out-spoken and flaming anti-Papist in theory, was, in point of fact, a good friend to his Roman Catholic neighbors, who used to say of him that his bark was ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... determining precedence and dignity in that kingdom. The sovereign is the 'fountain of honour,' whose word ennobles. Observe the merciful accuracy of the language. The breach of the commandments either in theory or in practice does not exclude from the kingdom, for it is, while realised on earth, a kingdom of sinful men aiming after holiness; but the smallest deflection from the law of right, in theory or in practice, does lower ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... high spirits. From the road between Anzy to Sancerre, a glorious landscape frequently comes into view, of the noble stretches of the Loire, looking like a lake, and it was got over very pleasantly, for Dinah was happy in finding herself well understood. Love was discussed in theory, a subject allowing lovers in petto to take the measure, as it were, of each other's heart. The journalist took a tone of refined corruption to prove that love obeys no law, that the character of the lovers gives infinite variety to its incidents, that the circumstances ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... jaw-bone fish-hooks, and feather cloaks, and capes and helmets, and stone adzes, and poi-pounders of phallic design. When he and Kapiolani made their royal progresses around the islands, their hosts had to hide away their personal relics. For to the king, in theory, belongs all property of his people; and with Kalakaua, when it came to the old things, theory and practice ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... "natural" manures as they are often called, and fertilizers there is a very important difference which should never be lost sight of. In theory, and as a chemical fact too, a bag of fertilizer may contain twice the available plant food of a ton of well rotted manure; but out of a hundred practical gardeners ninety- nine—and probably one more—would ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... but must be paid for by a certain loss of stability, are to be found here. Straight lines are the inflexible rule. The few arches that may be discovered in the interior exercise no thrust, surrounded as they are on every side by weighty masses. In theory the equilibrium is perfect; and if, as the event has proved, the conditions of stability, or at least of duration, were less favourable than in the pyramids at Memphis or in the temples at Thebes, the fault ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... subsequent years, promulgated decree after decree vetoing everything in the nature of needless expenditures. It fared with his attempt as it always does with such legislation. People admired the vetoes in theory but paid little attention ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... I am willing to discover my Ambitious aim herein, which is to let the World know who are my Friends, and what Names may give Honour to mine. I know, that several very considerable Members of that great Society, to which you so nearly relate, have already, both in Theory and Practise, acquainted the World with very remarkable things of this nature; and whether what is here published, will in the least, either elucidate or add to those already taught, and done by those very knowing persons, I neither ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... glimmering of the truth into his mind, that he may have faintly perceived how disgusted I was with his narrative; but such is the perversion of feeling among a portion of the colonists, that they cannot conceive how anyone can sympathize with the black race as their fellow men. In theory and practice they regard them as wild beasts whom it is lawful to extirpate. There are of course honourable exceptions, although such is a very common sentiment. As an instance, I may mention that a friend of mine, who was once travelling ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... in theory which are impossible in practice. It often requires a great deal of courage to carry out projects which a fine, florid speech may persuade the hearers ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... wantonly outraged by the blundering stupidity of James. If a large fraction of the English Church held aloof from the new order on technical grounds, the commercial classes gave it their warm support; and many who doubted in theory submitted in practice. All at least were conscious that ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... be used to create turmoil. The population of the continent was confined to the staffs of research-bases established during the International Geophysical Year. In theory the bases were an object-lesson in co-operation for a constructive purpose, which splendid spirit of mutual trust and confidence must spread through the world and some day lead to an era of ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... Nearly every able-bodied man in Richmond was; enrolled in some sort of an organization, and armed, and drilled regularly. Even the members of the Confederate Congress were uniformed and attached, in theory at ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... sharing of food with every stranger and visitor that comes along is dignified with the name of ancient Hawaiian hospitality. I now tell you it is not true hospitality. Can that hospitality be correct in theory or practice which sends old men and sick men to work under a hot sun, whilst lusty young people lie in ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... of Russia is the undisputed head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Queen Victoria occupies, by the British Constitution, almost exactly the same position towards the Anglican Church. In practice, though certainly not in theory, it is the evident purpose of the young German Emperor, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, to create for himself the same dominant pontifical position in regard to the Churches of the German Empire. It seems somewhat unjust, therefore, that the Popes, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... diverse theories, whose connected thread it is not easy to discover when it is searched for logically, but appears quite distinctly when not reason, but reasons, are demanded. The reasons are found in the need of justifying in theory the economic and military imperialism, born as we have seen from conditions of fact and from ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... days went on a variance developed between the excellence of his plan in theory and in practical application. For one thing, Marian herself seemed less grateful in her acceptance of it than he had anticipated. He sometimes felt, from a subtle hint of her manner, that her confidence in her own adroitness and savoir faire needed no ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... one another to admiration on all the essential points of passion. We had laid it down as an axiom at the very outset, that in theory and practice there was no such piece of driveling nonsense in this world as a certificate of birth; that plenty of women were younger at forty than many a girl of twenty; and, to come to the point, that a woman is no ...
— The Message • Honore de Balzac
... spinnakers," she said, "in theory. I don't suppose that there's a single thing known about them that I don't know. But they're beastly confusing things when you come to deal with them in practical life. Lots of other things are like that. It's exactly the same with algebra. I expect I've told you that I ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... ignored the misery of the wretched negroes he sold to West Indian planters. Pluck and daring were the only qualities he showed consistently from first to last. His zeal in slave-hunting, repulsive to us, is excused by Froude on the ground that 'negro slavery in theory was an invention of philanthropy.' Labourers were a necessity for the Spanish colonist, 'the proud and melancholy Indian pined like an eagle in captivity, refused to accept his servitude, and died; the more tractable negro would domesticate ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... man for the Sabbath." There was nothing Puritanical about the Master, and in view of His attitude regarding this matter it is surprising to witness the attitude of some in our own time who, wearing His livery, oppose these teachings of His in theory and practice. ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... a laugh. "But I dare say you are quite right in theory, only practice is so awfully different, you know. And a woman doesn't thank a man for pretending to ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... sympathy and in condemnation of Austria and Russia. The opening resolution was in these words: "Resolved, That every nation has the right to adopt such form of government as may seem to it best calculated to advance those ends for which all governments are in theory established." Can this resolution command an endorsement at the beginning of ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... is not quite despotic," observed Paul, who felt bound to defend his country. "We have laws, and the laws are respected. The Czar would not think of acting against the established law, even though in theory he might." ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... his neighbors and associates. He preferred to devote his leisure hours to reading and intellectual pursuits and to the society of those of kindred tastes, especially interesting himself in the education of his large family of children. He was, in theory and practice, a moral and religious man, a church attendant, though never a member of any church, yet one year before his death (1849), at his own request, he was baptized in Mad River, by Rev. John Gano Reeder, of the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... through the thousand channels of life. It should not be so difficult; the machinery is ready, both to find your men and to use them. In theory, at least, every parish has its pastor, and the state of every soul is or ought to be known. We know not what turn things may take, or what silent changes are rushing on below us. Even while the present ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... when I first visited them at Beaconsfield was that it was properly to be called Beckonsfield: that it was not named for Disraeli but that he, impertinently, had chosen to be named for it. Gilbert often spelt it Bekonsfield to impress his point. Both in theory and practice he had a lot of local patriotism and a little of that special pride taken by all men in houses built by themselves. But most of his pride went out to the fact that his home was intensely English. He quoted a lover of Sussex who said among the beech ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... help thinking that I perceived a little derision of countenance on his face as he said this, nevertheless I sunk dumb before such a man, aroused myself to the task, seeing he would not have it deferred. I approved of it in theory, but my spirit stood aloof from the practice. I saw and was convinced that the elect of God would be happier, and purer, were the wicked and unbelievers all cut off from troubling and misleading them, but if it had not been the instigations of this illustrious ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... of the base slipping; at the foot of the second, the nobles; and at the foot of the third, the people. On the summit of this tripod was raised the machine of state. This was found to be a capital invention in theory, though practice, as practice is very apt to do, subjected it to some essential modifications. The king, having his stick all his own way, gave a great deal of trouble to the two other sets of stick-holders; and, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Sound in theory and in a practical point of view. The courses of reading laid down are made of good books, and in general, of the ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... shapely neck would turn itself now and then from side to side, as though in dread of some familiar face. And there were little pin-pricks all over her of irritation and mortified self-love. "A thing is all very well in theory, but it may be tough in practice," she said to herself. And she felt an irresistible desire to return the offending dress to that odious Trimmings and tell her she would have nothing to do with her,—"a disagreeable old cat," I am afraid Phillis ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Monday, May 17th.—In theory the business of a Second Chamber is to revise calmly and dispassionately the legislation which has been scamped by the First. In practice what happens in our Parliament is that the Peers, after killing time with academic debates for two or three months, are suddenly called upon, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... occasion arose, which occasion did with lightning rapidity, to whack the whirlpools with the flat of our paddles, to break their force. Cook crouched in the stern concentrating his mind on steering only. A most excellent arrangement in theory and the safest practical one no doubt, but it did not work out what you might call brilliantly well; though each department did its best. We dashed full tilt towards high rocks, things twenty to fifty feet above water. Midship backed and flapped like fury; M'bo ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... right, which is possible in theory and impossible in practice,—results proving contrary to premises,—and he related the intrigues and the injustices of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... trying to discuss remedies, it will be well to locate responsibility. Are our basic educational principles unsound, or merely our educational practises unsatisfactory? Are the educational leaders of the country all wrong in theory? Have their heads been so high among the clouds that they have not seen the real boy and his homely task? Or have they seen clearly and mapt out wisely, whereas the public, relatively unthinking upon technical matters and always slow to act in ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... shall the 92nd Division of Negro fighters and the greater hosts of black war workers overseas, return to America with honor in theory, but not pursued in fact to its logical finality? Shall these black bulwarks of the business of world war find the door of the business world of peace slammed in their faces? Shall these black survivors of terrific struggle for world democracy return home only to be declared unfit to vote an American ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... French Church from early times, these two great forces were arrayed, marching toward the same great end,—but never marching together. It is claimed they were, and are, inimical. In theory, in ideal, nothing could be further from truth. They were in fact sometimes unfriendly; and more often than not mutually suspicious. For the great Abbot inevitably lived in a Bishop's See; and with human tempers beneath their churchly garb, Abbot and Bishop ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... equally forward in altering the principles which were wont to regulate the intercourse of the sexes. The doctrines of chivalry had established, in theory at least, a system in which Beauty was the governing and remunerating divinity—Valour, her slave, who caught his courage from her eye and gave his life for her slightest service. It is true, the system here, as in ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Charlton, the student passenger, was a little offended with the liberty the driver had taken in rebuking his theories. He was full of "idees," and his fundamental idea was of course his belief in the equality and universal brotherhood of men. In theory he recognized no social distinctions. But the most democratic of democrats in theory is just a little bit of an aristocrat in feeling—he doesn't like to be patted on the back by the hostler; much less does he like to be reprimanded by a stage-driver. And Charlton was ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... want to hold a cabinet meeting before he issued orders for the destruction of a space-ship that was only technically and not actually an enemy. Kandar had received an ultimatum from Mekin. An answer was required when a Mekinese fleet arrived off Kandar. Until that moment there was, in theory, no war. But, in fact, Kandar was already conquered in every respect except the landing of Mekinese on its surface. King Humphrey, however, would want to observe all the rules. And there ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... cause is just, you are a united nation, a people convinced, glad, selfless, with hearts heroic and clean. And then war takes hold of it, and it all changes under your eyes; you see the heart of your people becoming fouled, getting hard, self-righteous, revengeful. Your cause remains, in theory, what it was at the beginning; but it all goes to the Devil. And the Devil makes on it a pile that he can make no otherwise—because of the virtue that is in it, the love, the beauty, the heroism, the giving-up of ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... the consideration of the different modes of distributing the produce of land and labor, which have been adopted in practice, or may be conceived in theory. Among these, our attention is first claimed by that primary and fundamental institution, on which, unless in some exceptional and very limited cases, the economical arrangements of society have always rested, though in its secondary features it has varied, and is liable to vary. I mean, of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... as these laws were in theory, they did not for long enough prove to be so bad in practice, for the simple reason that they were very easy to evade and not very easy to enforce. The colonists met what many of them regarded as an elaborate system for the restriction of colonial trade by a no less elaborate system of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of service was soon manifest. As to the method of election, opinions oscillated back and forth for several weeks. Wilson said "he was almost unwilling to declare the mode which he wished to take place, being apprehensive that it might appear chimerical. He would say, however, at least, that in theory he was for an election by the people. Experience, particularly in New York and Massachusetts, showed that an election of the first magistrate by the people at large was both a convenient and a successful mode. The objects of choice in such cases must be persons whose merits have general notoriety." ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... "Paradise Regained" the most perfect of Milton's works in point of execution, the proof is afforded that perfect execution is not the chief test of poetic excellence. Whatever these great men may have propounded in theory, it cannot be believed that they would not have rather written the first two books of "Paradise Lost" than ten such poems as "Paradise Regained," and yet they affirm that Milton's power is even more advantageously exhibited in the latter ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... In theory she knew her way about. The migratory systems of domestic experience said nothing to her, nor, thus far, had the charts of matrimony either. In the sphere of life to which a walk-up leads, the charts were dotted with but the postman and the corner druggist. Men and plenty of them she had met, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... in theory, but there's mighty little practical sense about it. A blanket is the camper's best friend of a cool night; and even if he is lucky enough to shoot enough game to satisfy his wants, he'll get sick of one diet ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... among her fellow townspeople there was a great desire that the Count should not win this race, which in its own fashion was the event of the year, whereas, if she appeared as his companion it would be supposed that she was anxious for his success. Lastly—and this was the chiefest sore—although in theory the competitors had a right to ask any one to whom they took a fancy to travel in their sledges, in practise they only sought the company of young women with whom they were on the best of terms, and who were already warned ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... by women, were made to represent Faith, Hope, and Charity, respectively; and in the ceremony of dedicating the Grange hall these three stood always beside the altar while the chaplain read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. Not only in theory but in practice did the order proclaim its devotion to charitable work. It was not uncommon for members of a local Grange to foregather and harvest the crops for a sick brother or help rebuild a house destroyed by fire or tornado. In times of drought or plague both state and national Granges were ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... Labori, for the Grande Revue in December, 1901. It is called "Torpeur Republicaine," and begins with the observation that English Radicals are tempted to think French Republicans more reactionary than any English Tories, for the reason that all English parties had practically, if not in theory, accepted municipal Socialism. "In France," he said, "the electors of certain cities return Socialist municipal councils. They are all but absolutely powerless. We, on the other hand, elect Tory or Whig municipalities, and they do the best of Socialist work."] But, notwithstanding ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... attractors, your repellers, your object-compass, your zone of force—all these things are simply a few of the many hundreds of wave-bands of the fourth order, all of which you doubtless would have worked out for yourselves in time. Very little is known, even in theory, of the rays of the fifth order, although they have ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... to Science exhibits a very just as well as striking picture: for however exalted in theory the Platonic doctrines may appear, it is certain that Platonism and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... is so firmly established. It is the act of a superior, who protests to himself, while he commits it, that he is superior still, and that he is doing nothing else but an act of grace towards those on whose level, in theory, he is placing himself. And this is the nearest idea which the philosopher can form of the virtue of self-abasement; to do more than this is to his mind a meanness or an hypocrisy, and at once excites his suspicion and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... obtain either Arnold Lunn's books, or those of Vivien Caulfield, and concentrate on the theory of turns. I have known two or three novices who, though they had never even seen Skis before, by dint of studying the technique in theory before they came out, were able immediately to apply it in practice. Most beginners find, however, that the moment the Skis start sliding, all theory is thrown to the winds. Instinct of self-preservation prevails and they sit down. Kind friends looking on say, "That was because ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... In theory, "hall" and "college" have much in common; one Cambridge college indeed has retained the name of "hall," and two of the women's colleges in Oxford have preferred to keep the old style. In practice, their difference ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... organization of the members be not abolished; so long as it exists, by a constitutional necessity, for local purposes; though it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority of the union, it would still be, in fact and in theory, an association of states, or a confederacy. The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... the heart of every man, principles which readily prepare him for republican doctrines, and after a few years some of the speculative politicians began to think that the free, simple, and equal government which was suited to the tastes and habits of our people, was also the best in theory. The great body of the people were partial to the form of government to which they had been accustomed and wished for none other, though the leading statesmen differed upon this point. Some preferred the republican form in theory and believed ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... with a gloved hand clasped over a purse. (But sometimes the purse lay safe under the coverlet of a perambulator.) These purses made all the ladies equal, for their contents were absolutely secret from all save the owners. All the ladies were spending, and the delight of spending was theirs. And in theory every purse was inexhaustible. At any rate, it was impossible to conceive a purse empty. The system wore the face of the ideal. Manners were proper to the utmost degree; they neatly marked the equality ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... pendulum, it tended to oscillate in a manner destructive of all stability. A more satisfactory system, especially for lateral balance, was that of arranging the wings in the shape of a broad V, to form a dihedral angle, with the center low and the wing-tips elevated. In theory this was an automatic system, but in practice it had two serious defects: first, it tended to keep the machine oscillating; and second, its usefulness was restricted to ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... Toby went on to say, reflectively, "that we'll be able to put a flier on the ice this coming winter that will have everything beaten a mile. It works out all right in theory anyway." ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... anticipated by Roger Bacon; for the ideas of that wonderful thinker had fallen dead in an age which was not ripe for them. But the direct interrogation of nature was already recognised both in practice and in theory in the sixteenth century. What Bacon did was to insist upon the principle more strongly and explicitly, and to formulate it more precisely. He clarified and explained the progressive ideas which inspired the scientific thought of the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... worthy the searching study that he gives it. Ralph Touchet, Roderick Hudson, Isabel Archer, and Miss Light are sufficient to prove the tremendous power possessed by James to present the emotional side of life. Both in theory and practice, however, he usually prefers to remain the disinterested, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... subordinate. Moreover, there must be a sentiment connected with this creed, or capable of being invoked by it, sufficiently powerful to give it in fact, the authority over human conduct to which it lays claim in theory. It is a great advantage (though not absolutely indispensable) that this sentiment should crystallize, as it were, round a concrete object; if possible a really existing one, though, in all the more important cases, only ideally present. Such an object Theism and Christianity offer to ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... I have just alluded, opened a new principle. And here properly began the second period of the policy of this country with regard to the colonies, by which the scheme of a regular plantation Parliamentary revenue was adopted in theory and settled in practice: a revenue not substituted in the place of, but superadded to, a monopoly; which monopoly was enforced at the same time with additional strictness, and the execution put into ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... proportionate to vegetative vigor. There are several methods of diminishing the vigor of the vine; as, withholding water and fertilizers, stopping tillage, the method of training and by pruning. Pruning is used to decrease the vigor of the vine, in theory at least, for the practice is not always so successful, by pruning the roots or by ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... on the text that "The weakest goes to the Wall," showing how this proverb has been for many years directly contradicted, not only in theory but in practice during the Foot-ball time; it being at Eton the strongest who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... the second class are always better in theory than in practice; for with them zeal ever runs before knowledge. They will delight in telling how a thing should be done, but will find it very difficult to do it themselves. A blacksmith of this class will tell with great exactness how a horse should be shod, ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... slave was his brother in Christ, and then by working together with economic forces for its abolition. By complex and partly obscure causes, personal slavery—the outright ownership of man—was abolished throughout Christendom. Less inhuman in theory, less heartless in practice, though inhuman and harsh enough, was the serfdom which succeeded slavery and rested on Europe for a thousand years; till by slow evolution, by occasional bloody revolt, by steady advance in the intelligence ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... in the Park refused to admit all this. Pete was forced indeed to admit it in theory, but he was resolved to prove it or disprove it on his own account. He had studied Thunder Mountain from the ridge above the ranch house all that day of Sunnysides' escape, and the next. And he remembered now that a period ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... you will; take from him his immense official patronage; base senatorship upon population, not upon State sovereignty through legislative gift; limit the power of the judiciary: these steps must come; make of the people in reality what they now are in theory—sovereigns, not first of States, or the Nation, but of themselves, possessing in themselves all rights, all powers, whose exercise is only delegated to the Nation as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... American revolutions—such relative comfort with its attendant opportunities for discussion was not the least of many causes which made France the vanguard in the great revolution which had already triumphed in theory throughout the continent and was eventually to transform the social ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... for him, a journey into this country made him acquainted both with our philosophers and with our philosophical works; and he had neither natural capacity to distinguish errors from reality, nor judgment enough to perceive that what appeared improving and charming in theory, frequently became destructive and improper when attempted to be put into practice. Returned to his own country, his acquired half-learning made him wholly dissatisfied with his Government, with his religion, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... methods of painting, the resort to past modes of representation; it does not mean the adoption of the artistic forms, traditions, or rules of the old painters; it does not mean the seeking of inspiration from the works of any other men; but, in theory at least, it means the pursuit of Art in that spirit which the painters before Raphael possessed, the spirit which united Art with Religion; it means the pursuit of Art with the humility of learners, with the faith of apostles. It does not mean the reproduction of the quaintnesses, and awkwardnesses, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... was over Maclachlan insisted on paying for it, and bestowed a shilling on the loaf-thrower. In theory, I found, the clansmen paid for what they had, and Donald, being quartermaster to the party, was very busy discharging his obligations up and down the village. The only cause of dissatisfaction, but that not a slight one, was his Scots mode of reckoning, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... principle, liberally interpreted by those interested, excuses all intrigues; in theory it is capable of accommodating itself to all cases, and in the practice of the Hindoos it does thus accommodate itself. It is based on the belief that the souls of men who die of ungratified desires flit about a long time ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... when we made our voyage, his knowledge of nautical affairs was very scanty. My elder sons had learnt more. Ernest, who had a great thirst for knowledge of every kind, had questioned the pilot on all he had seen him do. He had learned a great deal in theory, but of practical knowledge he had none. The mechanical genius of Fritz had drawn conclusions from what he saw; this would have induced me to place much trust in him in case of that danger which I prayed Heaven might be averted. ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... indulgence must be shown for the expectations which such persons have been encouraged to form. But even in these instances it will be necessary that the right of enforcing these regulations should be distinctly maintained, in practice as well as in theory, as often as the public good may clearly demand the enforcement of them. It may not be unadvisable to compensate any such officers for their disappointment, even by pecuniary grants, when it may appear ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... many ways the more lenient of the two; yet in principle the Act of 1881 was thoroughly vicious, whilst in principle the Act of 1882 was, as regards its most effective sections, thoroughly sound. The Act of 1881 in effect gave the Irish executive an unlimited power of arrest: it established in theory despotic government. The Act of 1882 was in principle an Act for increasing the stringency of criminal procedure. The one could not be made permanent, and applied to the whole United Kingdom, without depriving every citizen of security for his ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... the world; from one shell comes forth a warrior, from another a philosopher, from a third a divine, from a fourth a lawyer, from a fifth a farmer, from a sixth a clown, etc., etc., and all of them immediately begin to perfect themselves by practicing what they before knew only in theory. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... miracle was an adaptation of the cathode tube, whose rays are identical with the beta rays of the atom and consist of a stream of negatively charged particles moving at the velocity of light—186,000 miles a second. These rays, in theory, have the power to combine with the positively charged alpha rays of the atom and drag them from their electrons, causing them to discharge their full quanta of energy at once, in the form of complete disintegration—and it was this theory the ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... author of a delightful and instructive account of that achievement. He was born in Athens about 443 B.C., and at an early age became the pupil of Socrates, to whose principles he strictly adhered through life, in practice as well as in theory. Seemingly on account of his philosophical views he was banished by the Athenians, before his return from the expedition into Asia; but the Spartans, with whom he fought against Athens at Coronea, gave him an estate at Scil'lus, in Elis, and here he lived, engaging in literary ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... meaning, or tendencies that offered any promise, by no felicities of intrigue could it ever be revived. Whether we erred in the philosophy of our anticipations, cannot now be known; for, whether wrong or right in theory, in practice our expectation has been abruptly cut short. A deus ex machina has descended amongst us abruptly, and intercepted the natural evolution of the plot: the executive Government has summarily effected the peripetteia ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... declaration. It rigidly forbids a husband or wife to marry again during the lifetime of either party. The Law of the Church remains the Law of the Church, overridden—but not repealed. This has led to a conflict between Church and State in a country where they are, in theory though not in fact, united. But this is the fault of the State, not of the Church. It is a case in which a junior partner has acted without the consent of, or rather in direct opposition to, the senior partner. Historically and chronologically speaking, the Church (the senior ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... life out. In spite of this 'hidden worm i' th' bud,' Betty was to all appearance strong, alert, and flourishing. She was the one crook in Miss Eyre's lot, who was otherwise so happy in having met with a suitable well-paid employment just when she needed it most. But Betty, though agreeing in theory with her master when he told her of the necessity of having a governess for his little daughter, was vehemently opposed to any division of her authority and influence over the child who had been her charge, her plague, and her delight ever since Mrs. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Catholics the right to exercise their religion in the free States on equal terms with those of the reformed faith. "Anyone," said his enemies, "could smell what that meant who had not a wooden nose." In brief, he was a liberal Christian, both in theory and practice, and he nobly confronted in consequence the wrath of bigots on both sides. At a later period the most zealous Calvinists called him Pope John, and the opinions to which he was to owe such appellations had already been formed in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... too, was retained upon the crown owing to a series of disputed successions to the throne. The Anglo-Saxon monarchy had always been in theory elective, and William had been careful to observe the form. His son, William II, had to obtain election in order to secure the throne against the claims of his elder brother Robert, and Henry I followed his example for similar reasons. Each had to make election promises ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... your air castle," said Tom; "but for the life of me I can't see how it will work. Of course, in theory, if you could revolve a big-bladed propeller in very dense, or in liquid, air, there would be more resistance than in the rarefied atmosphere of the upper regions. And, if this could be done, I grant you that you could use slower motors and smaller ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... domestication on the action of the reproductive system, selection is indispensable to form races; and when carefully applied, wonderfully numerous and diverse races can be formed. Selection, though so simple in theory, is and has been important to a degree which can hardly be overrated. It requires extreme skill, the results of long practice, in detecting the slightest difference in the forms of animals, and it implies some distinct object in view; with these requisites and patience, the breeder has simply ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... in theory, and if I was going to put up a steam chimney, a government building, or anything else that must be done in the best way, regardless of expense, I should go for it. For cheap, common work, 't isn't worth while to be ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... More. A still simpler method of preventing the attacks of these little pests, is one which I have lately discovered myself;—in theory only—I have not yet put it into practice. On feeling the bite of the flea, thrust the part bitten immediately into boiling water. The heat of the water destroys the insect and instantly removes the pain of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... a tone of protest in her voice that Coxeter felt called upon to defend himself. "I daresay the thing's all right in theory," he said quickly, "and I believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts; it's quite true, I mean, that they drown more people than they save: but that's only because people don't know how to put them on. This thing's a toy—not practical at all." He spoke more irritably than ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... University. He had imbibed sentiments harmless in theory, but inimical to practical policies of Russian civics. Having no intention of posing as factional disturber of the public peace, his indiscreet utterances reach ear of vigilant official. Not fascinated with prospect of indefinite Siberian ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... the advantage given by this destitution of knowledge, operated to the destruction of the true morality, both in theory and practice, must have had a fatal augmentation of its power in that part especially of this ignorance which respected hereafter. The doctrine of a future existence and retribution did not, in any rational and salutary form, interfere in the adjustment ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Earth had decided that it should work in theory. They had built the drive—a small machine, as drives go—but they had never dared to try it, close to a planet. To do so, said their theory, would usually—seven point three four times out of 10—destroy the ship, and everything ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher
... form the primitive village-community (or rather, the spot inhabited by it) is known as the Mark,—that is, a place defined by a boundary-line. One characteristic of the mark-community is that all its free members are in theory supposed to be related to each other through descent from a common progenitor; and in this respect the mark-community agrees with the gens, [Greek: ginos], or clan. The earliest form of political union in the world is one which rests, not upon territorial contiguity, but upon I blood-relationship, ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... ceased to elect freely; the crown had absorbed the entire functions of presentation, sometimes appointing foreigners,[682] sometimes allowing the great ecclesiastical ministers to nominate themselves;[683] while the rights of the chapters, though existing in theory, were not officially recognised either by the pope or by the crown. The king affected to accept the names of the prelates-elect, when returned to him from Rome, as nominations by the pope; and the pope, in communicating with the chapters, presented them with their ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... three others, "Don Juan," "Drache," and "Prinz Eugen," had flung themselves on Faa di Bruno's ships in the centre. Von Petz coming up with the wooden ships gallantly attacked Ribotti's rearward division, any one of which should in theory have been able to dispose of his entire force. The gunboats hung on the margin of the fight, which had now become a confused melee. And while the Austrian wooden ships were thus risking themselves in close action, Albini's Italian division of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the growth of monarchy, while freedom of investigation led to an inquiry about the rights of the people; hence, the seeds of popular liberty were growing at the time monarchy was making its greatest assumption. The people never yielded, in theory at least, their ancient rights to the absolute control of royalty. Kingship in England was developed through service, and while the English were strong for monarchy because it expressed a unity of the nation, they expected the king to consider the rights of the people, which gave rise ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... seemed to be fairly inaugurated. Jenkins' idea, excellent in theory, was extremely difficult, almost impracticable, in practice. And yet God knows that the affair had been carried through with an excess of zeal as to every detail, even the most trifling, and that all the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... copied. The most interesting peculiarity is the Cape method of forming the smaller House. In England the Upper House is composed of hereditary members; in the Canadian confederation, of members nominated for life—both of them methods which are quite indefensible in theory. Here, however, we find the same plan as that which prevails in the States of the North American Union, all of which have senates elected on the same franchise, and for the same term, as the larger ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... the transactions in his lives." Such are the vague ideas floating in the air. Upon any individual's acts or plans for the future, the idea of transmigration seems to have no bearing whatever beyond a numbing of the will.[117] For in theory, the Hindu's fate is just. In strict logic no doubt the same numbing effect might be alleged about the Christian doctrine of predestination. Even when misfortune has overtaken an educated Hindu, I think I am justified in saying that the more frequent thought with him is now ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... is not to be expected that men of affairs will always be ready to respond to social invitations, or to pay all the calls of civility which fashion decrees shall be paid during the hours usually devoted to business. In theory, each man and woman in society is supposed to attend to his or her own social duties. While it is expected that a man will make all reasonable effort to do this, and that he will not altogether neglect it, still, so long as he occasionally appears ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... at least only in theory!" June declared. "It's not Raymond Ashton she really cares for, but some wonderful person she thinks he is. She is looking at ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... are the two sides—one moral, the other mental—of that unique process of self-conquest which Ruysbroeck calls "the gathering of the forces of the soul into the unity of the spirit": the welding together of all your powers, the focussing of them upon one point. Hence they should never, either in theory or practice, be separated. Only the act of recollection, the constantly renewed retreat to the quiet centre of the spirit, gives that assurance of a Reality, a calmer and more valid life attainable by us, which supports ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... that Mr. Mencken's audacious disregard of English grammar in theory has not impaired the clearness of his point of view and of his own style. If dead authors could write after the manner in which Mr. Andrew Lang has written to them, I should like to read Herbert Spencer's opinions of Mr. Mencken's volumes. If Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... X-flyers of the Anti-War Department, and seeing it in operation with its technical details explained to me. But since it is so important a Government secret, I cannot set it down here. The principles involved are complex: the postulates employed, and the mathematical formulae developing them in theory, are far too intricate for my understanding. Yet the practical workings are simple indeed. Some of them were understood as far back as 1920 and '30, when that pioneer of modern astrophysics, Albert Einstein, first proved that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... pledge their substance to repay an obligation that they cannot disclaim. Let one more attempt to supply literature with a parallel be quoted from the works of a writer on style, whose high merit it is that he never loses sight, either in theory or in practice, of the fundamental conditions proper to the craft of letters. Robert Louis Stevenson, pondering words long and lovingly, was impressed by their crabbed individuality, and sought to elucidate the laws of their arrangement by ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... the fame of Mackenzie, when he alludes to his "half-forgotten name." In 1689, he retired to Oxford, to indulge the luxuries of study in the Bodleian Library, and to practise that solitude which so delighted him in theory; but three years afterwards he fixed himself in London. Evelyn, who wrote in favour of public employment being preferable to solitude, passed his days in the tranquillity of his studies, and wrote against the habits which ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the United States, both in theory and practice, is so utterly broken down by the influence and effects of slavery, so imbecile for the highest good of the nation, and so powerful for evil, that I can give no voluntary assistance in holding it up ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... position carefully. If he climbed this tree,—hm-m-m.... Kind of the city-planners of Walden to use trees so lavishly—if he climbed this tree he could look into the garden where Nedda in theory waited in tears. He climbed it. He sat astride a thick limb in scented darkness and considered further. Presently he brought out his five-watt projector. There was deepest darkness hereabouts. Trees and shrubbery were merely ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... in India; but I should, at the same time, have rendered our rule and character odious to the people of India, and so far have injured our permanent interest in the country. I mention all this merely to show that my opposition to the doctrines of this school is not new, nor in theory only, but of long standing and practice, as far as my influence has extended. I deem them to be dangerous to our rule in India, and prejudicial to the best interests of the country. The people see that these annexations and confiscations go on, and that rewards and ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... that the restrictions were enforced, and there the use of licences, to which I have referred above, made an enormous breach in the regulations. As for Italy, Germany and the Adriatic provinces, although the continental system was established by imperial decree, it was only implemented in theory, partly because of the extent of the coastline, and partly because of connivance and lack of surveillance by those responsible for the administration of these vast areas. So the Russian Emperor replied to the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... interest, but also a bulwark against the rising tide of democracy. The new Federalism or rather new Nationalism is not in any way inimical to democracy. On the contrary, not only does Mr. Roosevelt believe himself to be an unimpeachable democrat in theory, but he has given his fellow-countrymen a useful example of the way in which a college-bred and a well-to-do man can become by somewhat forcible means a good practical democrat. The whole tendency of his programme is to give a democratic meaning and purpose to the Hamiltonian ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... connection it's no wonder that we couldn't handle our super-ship. We had some good ideas, but they were wrongly applied. However, things look quite promising now. We have that transformation of iron all worked out in theory, and as soon as we get a generator going we can straighten out everything else in short order. And think what that unlimited power means! All the power we want—power enough even to try out such hitherto purely theoretical possibilities ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... both yesterday and to-morrow, it soon makes every event as if it had never happened from lack of memory. For as those in the schools, who deny the growth of our bodies by reason of the continual flux of substance, make each of us in theory different from himself and another man, so those who do not keep or recall to their memory former things, but let them drift, actually empty themselves daily, and hang upon the morrow, as if what happened a year ago, or even yesterday and the day before yesterday, had nothing to do with them, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... however right we are in theory, it is plain that in practice we adhere to the wrong side of the question. We make provisions for this life as though it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... taken over, ex post facto, by Sir Robert Peel, as the person who consented, on the call of the King, to take Lord Melbourne's office. Thus, though the act was rash, and hard to justify, the doctrine of personal immunity was in no way endangered. And here we may notice, that in theory an absolute personal immunity implies a correlative limitation of power, greater than is always found in practice. It can hardly be said that the King's initiative left to Sir R. Peel a freedom perfectly unimpaired. And, most certainly, it was a very real exercise ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... dangerous, insinuating things in the world. Everybody knows in theory the right way to treat them. Everybody knows that the man who is content not to try to score more than a single cannot get out to them. Yet nearly everybody ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... this all socialist and communists and other potential manipulators of democracy would have taken and will continue to take note. Once the hidden combination can manage to invest all the different, in theory opponent, parties with their own men, an eternal control by a hidden mafia can now ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than those that are naked, that, in theory, their condensations should greatly exceed those that are stripped of their leaves; but, as the former imbibe also a great quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say which drip most: but this I know, that deciduous trees that are entwined with much ivy seem to ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... character and an artificial balance and co-ordination among human pursuits. When ideals are hypostasised into powers alleged to provide for their own expression, the Life of Reason cannot be conceived; in theory its field of operation is pre-empted and its function gone, while in practice its inner impulses are turned awry by artificial stimulation ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... its organization, and in much of its consequent esprit du corps, it is as different from an American college as an Odd-Fellows' lodge is from a country academy. The difference is also of precisely the same sort. The man or the boy who connects himself with an English college is, in theory, still the student of a thousand years ago, who came on foot to Oxford or Cambridge, because he had heard, in the wilds of Mercia or of Wessex, that there were some books at those places,—and that some Alfred or Ethelred or Eldred had given some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... What it is, it always has been, and will be to the end. Every age has its political and social nostrums, my dear young man, and fancies them infallible; and the next generation arises to curse them as failures in practice, and superstitious in theory, and try some new nostrum ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... yoke, in which, under the circumstances of the time, the resurrection of colonial bondage was fairly to be discerned. "Sailors' Rights" expressed not only the right of the American seaman to personal liberty of action,—in theory not contested, but in practice continually violated by the British,—but the right of all seamen under the American flag to its protection in the voluntary engagements which they were then fulfilling. It voiced the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... to the loss which others, exposed to the direction of this motion, must and do sustain; and it is likely that it does gain upon the whole. But the nature of my work obliges me to be more attentive to effects than causes, and to record facts though they should clash with systems the most just in theory, and most respectable in ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Bengali Hindu, whose family is among the most distinguished in India, writes:—"There are no dogmas in Hinduism. You may believe in any doctrine you choose, even in atheism, without ceasing to be a Hindu. You, as a Hindu, must in theory accept the Vedas as the revealed religion, but you may put your own interpretation on the Vedic texts. This leaves a loophole for you to escape from the thraldom of dogmatism. It is the adherence to certain practices—rites and ceremonies—that Hinduism imperatively ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... against so many. It is impossible not to sympathize with his attempts to escape. Perhaps, if one lived close to a prison, in a cottage, say, whose tenant was invariably called upon by any escaping prisoner and made to exchange clothes with the help of a crow-bar, one might feel differently. But in theory we are all of us inclined to applaud the man who fights successfully such a lone battle against such tremendous odds; yes, even if it was the blackest of crimes which sent ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... pardon," he answered; "you have no right to speak in such a tone about a lady in Miss Barton's position. Miss Barton has conscientious scruples about the marriage-tie, which in theory I share with her; she was unwilling to enter into any relations with me except ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... There has been a tendency to exaggerate its irresponsibility. A better case is to be made against it for what I will call, using the word in its least offensive sense, its venality. By venality I mean the fact, a legacy from the now happily vanishing age of individualism, that in theory and law at least anyone may own a newspaper and sell it publicly or secretly to anyone, that its circulation and advertisement receipts may be kept secret or not as the proprietors choose, and that the proprietor is accountable to ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... matter of weight-sustaining capacity. A machine that travels one-third faster than another can get along with one-half the surface area of the latter without affecting the load. See the closing paragraph of this chapter on this point. In theory the construction is also the simplest, but this is not always found to be so in practice. The designing and carrying into execution of plans for an extensive area like that of a monoplane involves great skill and cleverness ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... serve the purpose of a modern Utopia. Time was when a mountain valley or an island seemed to promise sufficient isolation for a polity to maintain itself intact from outward force; the Republic of Plato stood armed ready for defensive war, and the New Atlantis and the Utopia of More in theory, like China and Japan through many centuries of effectual practice, held themselves isolated from intruders. Such late instances as Butler's satirical "Erewhon," and Mr. Stead's queendom of inverted sexual conditions in Central Africa, found the Tibetan method of slaughtering the inquiring visitor ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this he did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so he was, though he had his faults; but his faults were ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... "for the sake of euphony"(!). It is just this lengthened close of each strophe that gives the Nibelungenlied its peculiar metrical character and contributes not a little to the avoidance of monotony in a poem of over two thousand strophes. In theory the form of the fourth line as it stands in the original is no more foreign to the genius of the English language than to that of modern German, and few of the many Germans giving a modernized version ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... Galen. Not only did they not add anything new to this, but they even lost sight of much that was important in the older authors. The Arabs were much more interested in physiology; they could study this by giving thought to it without soiling their hands. They delighted in theory, rather than in observation." ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... to the radius of the bore, having only a tendency to twist the barrel in order to straighten the grooves,—a tendency which the barrel meets in the direction of its greatest stability. We may see, then, that, in theory at least, there is no way of rifling so secure as that in which the walls of the grooves are parts of radii of the bore. They should be numerous, that the hold of the lands (the projection left between the grooves) may divide ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... new system, the system of leaning on the government, is spreading like a blight over England and America, and everywhere we suffer from it. Government, that in theory represents a union of effort and a saving of force, sprawls like an octopus over the land. It has become like a dead weight upon us. Wherever it touches industry it cripples it. It runs railways and makes a heavy deficit: it builds ships and loses money on them: it operates ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... material progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons and of dinner-parties, of senatorial majorities and electoral corruption. The highest offices of state were open in theory to the meanest citizen; they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms. Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... undoubtedly true that during the past two decades the Old Testament has in fact, if not in theory, been assigned to a secondary place in the life and thought of Christendom. This is not due to the fact that the Christ has been exalted to his rightful position of commanding authority and prestige. All that truly exalts him ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... fear, that although all this will be readily admitted in theory, it will be found somewhat difficult to adopt it in practice. The reason of this will be obvious when we reflect on the deep interest which the best and most philanthropic individuals in society take in this science. The other sciences ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... conception afterwards recalled with amusement. What the reality was may be gathered from a letter she wrote later to Mr. Stevenson: "I have never felt much at home with our new conditions, and feared the result of the Union in its detail, though I most heartily approved of it in theory and fact. No! I shall not be afraid of you. Both Miss Crawford and yourself have been a revelation to me, and I am ashamed of my former fancies and fears, and I shall ever think of, and pray for the secretaries with a very warm ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived as long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which we requite them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for appreciating the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold |
