"Minimise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, sir," Germain returned stiffly. "You minimise the damage done. A written retraction is due me, to exhibit in those quarters where I have been so deeply injured, and without which I can never ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... disappeared. Nejdanov himself was not in the least repulsive or disgusting to her; she was only sorry for him. She knew quite well that he was not a debauchee, a drunkard, and was wondering what she would say to him when he woke up; something friendly and affectionate to minimise the first sting of conscience and shame. "I must try and get him to tell me himself how it ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... to Darwin's theory apply, solely, to the particular means by which the change of species has been brought about, not to the fact of that change. The objectors seek to minimise the agency of natural selection and to subordinate it to laws of variation, of use and disuse, of intelligence, and of heredity. These views and objections are urged with much force and more confidence, and for the most part ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... protecting ships from mines. The great majority of these suggestions may be classified in two groups: (1) Those which sought to deflect the mine from the pathway of the ship; and (2) those which sought to minimise the result of the explosion. One method from each of these groups was adopted with various modifications to suit different ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... wisteria; not as late as he had intended by half an hour—but a singular restlessness had driven him to her door. He reflected, however, that Mrs. Struthers's Sunday evenings were not like a ball, and that her guests, as if to minimise their ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Chretien's use of his sources. The tendency of some critics has been to minimise the French poet's originality by pointing out striking analogies in classic and Celtic fable. Attention has been especially directed to the defence of the fountain and the service of a fairy mistress in "Yvain", to the captivity of Arthur's subjects in the kingdom of Gorre, as narrated in "Lancelot", ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... countries, is a mechanistic logic, which proceeds in terms of matter-of-fact strains, masses, velocities, and the like, instead of the "skill, dexterity and judgment" of personal agents. The new industry does not dispense with the personal agencies, nor can it even be said to minimise the need of skill, dexterity and judgment in the personal agents employed, but it does take them and their attributes for granted as in some sort a foregone premise to its main argument. The logic of the handicraft system took the impersonal agencies for granted; the ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... great exigency would ever have induced Rome to accept such an utterly foreign cult; and when the nightmare of the war was past, the Senate awoke to the realisation that a very serious act had been committed. To their credit be it said that they did what they could to minimise the evil. The goddess had brought her own priests with her, the cult was in their hands, and there the law decreed it must stay, and no Roman citizen could become a priest. That this law was really enforced is shown by several cases where punishment, ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... hunting boot which would release the foot in the event of a safety bar failing to act, or of a safety or other stirrup being crushed in a fall. A thin pliable sole and plenty of room over the instep to allow of the left foot being easily pulled through the boot, would greatly minimise the danger in question. We seldom hear of a jockey being dragged, although flat races are ridden in saddles that have no releasing bars, and even steeplechases are often ridden in these saddles, when a rider has a difficulty in getting down to the weight; but all jockeys wear boots which have thin, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... concerning it". Both parties were content with mutual protestations. Edward was so friendly to Alexander that he allowed him to appoint Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, his proxy in professing fealty, so as to minimise the king's feeling of humiliation. The King of Scots went home loaded with presents, and for the rest of his life his relations with ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the legislative attack on the gilds, that broke what little power they had left. There is now a tendency to minimise the result of legislation in this field, but the impression that one gets by perusing the statutes not only of England but of Continental countries is that, while perhaps the governments would not have admitted any hostility to the gilds ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... from perfect courtesy. Even in this case one can hardly say that he was to blame. There was sufficient in what occurred to make an honest man angry. But we wish to understand what occurred and why it occurred, and for that reason we cannot ignore or minimise the solitary instance wherein a natural flame of anger fired a long train of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... asked. He hadn't even to dot his i's beyond the remark that on the very face of it, she would remember, their wonderful system attached no premium to rapidities of transition. "I couldn't quite—don't you know?—take my rebound with a rush; and I suppose I've been instinctively hanging off to minimise, for you as well as for myself, the appearances of rushing. There's a sort of fitness. But I knew you'd understand." It was presently as if she really understood so well that she almost appealed from ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... of overlooking points and in such cases two or more heads sometimes elucidate matters that might otherwise be missed or not given due weight to. It was in no way intended thereby to detract from the importance of your views on the subject or to minimise your ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... place being set on fire from the outside, and ourselves burnt out of it. Its chief weakness consisted in the exceptionally large size of the door and window openings; but I thought I could see a way to minimise that evil. While out walking with Don Luis and his wife, I had noticed a spot that I remarked at the time might be very easily converted into an excellent sand and gravel pit; while only a few days prior to the eventful morning when Don Esteban de Mendouca and his ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... recital to minimise differences in circumstances; but Marsden seemed bent on aggravating them. He had the miserable advantage of the man who has nothing to lose. And bit by bit, Romarin had begun to realise that he was ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... that new species usually arise from species which have a wide range, and in different areas need somewhat different characters and habits. Then distinctness arises both by adaptation and by development of recognition marks to minimise intercrossing. ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... science discovered the tombs of inhabitants of this globe who had lived during millions of earlier years, and showed that the very law of their life and progress was struggle against evil. Every attempt to minimise the struggle of those earlier ages has failed. At a time when there was no possibility of "spiritual advantage" there was acute consciousness of pain, the struggle and suffering were prodigious. Theistic literature of the last half century, ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... going to recognise and accentuate this difference and to arrange our Utopian organisation to play upon it, are we to have two primary classes of human being, harmonising indeed and reacting, but following essentially different lives, or are we going to minimise this difference in ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... muster on the Heads in time to fire upon us as we passed out of the Basin, one or more of us might be hit and disabled, if not killed, which would greatly jeopardise the success of our attempted flight. Still, the risk had to be taken, and all that we could do was to minimise it as much as possible by taking ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... that he would be arrested and thrown into jail on Friday. It was always an unlucky day for him. The fact that Nellie had aided and abetted in his undignified flight down the slippery back steps did not in the least minimise the peril that still hung like a cloud over his wretched head. Of course, he understood: she was sorry for him. It was the impulse of the moment. When she had had time to think it all over and to listen to the advice of Fairfax and ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... persuade you of this, that the chief duty of the civilised world to-day is to set about making labour happy for all, to do its utmost to minimise the amount of unhappy labour—nay, if I could only persuade some two or three of you here present—I should have made a good night's work ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... he had made—the discovery about himself—and no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... who believed in war with honour, jogged her sister's elbow none too gently. "That's a different thing altogether. For my own part," raising her voice, "I think that as a society we cannot be too careful how we minimise the fact itself. To us, as a society, it is the fact itself that matters, and not what Mrs. Coombe said about it. That, to a certain extent, may be her own affair. But I hold, and I say it without fear of successful contradiction, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... which lies about two thousand feet above the sea-level. The scenery is unvarying, but not without beauty. It is essentially wild, but the light colour of the rocks and the numerous shrubs which find a footing in the crevices minimise the forbidding character of the country. The land is magnificently adapted for guerilla warfare, where every foot can be contested. Little patches of earth, washed down the hillsides, lie in every hollow, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... supervision to make in time a valuable man for the company." Firmstone had strongly opposed the shipping of bullion by private conveyance instead of by a responsible express company. In this he was overruled by the manager. Being compelled to act against his judgment, he had done his best to minimise the risk by making dummy shipments each day, as ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... bank to bank as a sign that no one may enter (Pl. 183). Such a sign is generally respected by the inhabitants of other parts of the river-basin. They are aware also of the risk of infection that attends the handling of a corpse of one who has died of epidemic disease, and they attempt to minimise it by throwing a rope around it and dragging it to the graveyard, and there burying it in a shallow grave in the earth, without touching it with ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... understood that the proceeds would be devoted entirely to feeding the destitute. I believe that the income derived from this alone would in course of time be sufficient to meet the needs of the destitute in any city in India, at the same time that it would serve to equalise and therefore minimise the burden which now rests ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... opportunity to express their gratitude for the manner in which he had voluntarily (and unexpectedly) come to their assistance in time of trouble. The fact that he had come too late to render the invaluable aid he so nobly intended did not in the least minimise the volume of ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
