"Rational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no more;—but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... extent and deteriorate in quality, and as, with the increase of our population, the demands upon forest products of all kinds become greater, the necessity of a rational system of forestry, and the need of educated foresters becomes more apparent every day. We should, moreover, constantly bear in mind that, while there are trees, as the catalpa, the ash and the hickory, which will attain merchantable size in forty or fifty years from the seed, there ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... thing. 'Urge what I would, they fined him. I talked to old Brewster! I appealed to his generosity, if there be room for generosity about a trout no bigger than a gudgeon! I talked to Mr. Calcott, who, I thought, had more sense, but Justice Shallow would have been more practicable! No one took a rational view but Ramsbotham of the factory, a very sensible man, with excellent feeling. When it is recorded in history, who will believe that seven moral, well-meaning men agreed in condemning a poor lad of ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vast a body of facts can be adduced against it, the only possible explanation of so extraordinary a circumstance is that of a mendacious intelligence of superhuman power carefully disposing all the observable facts of his creation in such a way as to compel his rational creatures, by the best and most impartial use of their rational faculties, to conclude that the theory of evolution is as certainly true as the theory of special ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... woman; for the humanity of these is in an inverse ratio to that of their lords. For the women it may be urged that the sport is a custom of the country; and what country is without its cruel sports? Is it rational or consistent to weep over the sufferings of Chanticleer, while we ride gaily upon the heels of poor ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... obstacle to a rational view of the present position of architecture comes from the number of clever men who devote their lives to putting a good face on our absurdities, and by all sorts of tricks and sophistries in wood and stone prevent us from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... to change the tessitura, or natural character of the voice. A voice will become higher just when it should by the development due to rational work and never by forcing it. Nothing is easier than to force a voice upward or downward, but to cause it to "recede," as it were, in either direction, is another matter. A baritone who tries to increase his upper range by main strength will surely ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... better so—far better. I am one of those who think that if either party to a marriage"—he was talking in a constrained way—"entertains beforehand any rational doubt about it, he is wiser to withdraw, even at the church door, rather than set out on a ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul, the other, with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... to this thought are very large. First of the sciences to assume a perfectly rational form, it presents the eternal type of the unfolding of the speculative spirit of man. This springs, no doubt, from the essentially subjective character of astronomy,—more than all the other sciences a construction of the creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... frightened the authorities out of their wits. Every citizen that could possibly get out of the place was grabbing his valuables and fleeing the city on every train. The Cabinet officers were running hither and thither, not able to form a sensible or rational idea. Had it been possible to have evacuated the city, that would have been done. A Confederate prison or a hasty gibbet stared Staunton in the face, and he was sending telegrams like lightning over the land. Lincoln was the only one who seemingly had not ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... another point, and a still more important one, bearing on this matter of purchase, than the keeping down of prices to a rational standard. And that is, that you pay your prices into the hands of living men, and do not pour ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... himself she had no fear; all that had been seemed to have passed away with her two victories over him in the struggle of wills. Moreover, the more recent apprehension—that of his madness—had also ceased. In the conversation of the last few minutes he seemed so rational, so clear, so unaggressive, that she no longer saw reason for doubt. So satisfied was she that even when he put out a hand to guide her to the steep, narrow stairway, she took it without thought in ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... is only a local aspect of universal assimilation. It looks like materialism: but the intermediatist holds that interpretation of the immaterial, as it is called, in terms of the material, as it is called, is no more rational than interpretation of the "material" in terms of the "immaterial": that there is in quasi-existence neither the material nor the immaterial, but approximations one way or the other. But so hypnotic quasi-reasons: that globular ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... brothers, to add their shrieks to the general clamour. Deanie's fellow workers, poor little souls, denied their childish share of the world's excitements, gazed with a sort of awful relish. Only Johnnie, speeding down the room away from it all, was doing anything rational to avert the catastrophe. The child hung on the slowly moving belt, inert, a tiny rag of life, with her mop of tangled yellow curls, her white, little face, its blue eyes closed. When she reached the top, where the pulley was close against the ceiling, her brains would be dashed out and the ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... person; are "filled with a just sense of the many blessings" they enjoy, and "beg leave to approach the throne, and express our indignation at, and abhorrence of, the measures adopted by our unhappy and deluded fellow-subjects in America, in direct opposition to law and justice, and to every rational idea of civilization;" "with still greater indignation, if possible, we behold this rebellious disposition, which so fatally obtains on the other side of the Atlantic, fomented and cherished by a set of men in Great Britain;" ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... its elements are bound together by a specific emotional tone, experienced as feeling when the complex is aroused. Apart from the mental processes and corresponding actions depending on purely rational mental systems, it is through complexes that the typical mental process (the specific response) works, the particular complex representing the particular set of mental elements involved in the process which begins with perception ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have stumbled upon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hawk's, and long yellow hair hanging about his haffets, as if barbers were unco scarce cattle among the howes of the Lammermoor hills. Having a general experience of human nature, I saw that I would have something to do towards bringing him into a state of rational civilization; but, considering his opportunities, he had been well educated, and I liked his appearance on ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... hardly well from weeks of raving illness that followed, but yet well enough to walk and go about like a rational being, I went to the cemetery to see all that now remained to me beyond my own fearful memory. Dick was beside me. He had insisted on coming with me, and, when we reached the grave, he stood beside me at its edge, as he had stood ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... rational method of teaching which Mr. Louden is seeking, has heretofore been wanting ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... tenets which before had been little more than floating errors in the popular mind, but which, definitely attacked by Protestantism, it became necessary to fasten down with a band of iron and brass, gave a form at once more rigid, and less rational, to the whole body of Romanist Divinity. Multitudes of minds which in other ages might have brought honor and strength to the Church, preaching the more vital truths which it still retained, were now occupied in ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... instinctive act of a happy soul soaring upward to bless the heavenly Father, is, on the contrary, the despairing cry of an atom lost in immensity, they desired above all things a religious reformation, rational and profound. They dreamed of bringing the Church back to the purity of the ancient days, and saw in the vow of poverty, understood in its largest sense, the best means of struggling against the vices of the clergy; but they forgot the freshness, the Italian gayety, the sunny poetry that there ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the men, yea, all the things in the world, must be saved. "All things," saith he, "are delivered unto me of my Father" (Matt 11:27). This, I think, no rational man in the world will conclude. Therefore, the gift intended in the text must be restrained to some, to a gift that is given by way of speciality by the Father ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that it had been despoiled of its treasure: then, by all that lovers hold dear, I swear I was on the verge of transfixing them both with my sword and uniting their sleep with death. At last, however, I adopted a more rational plan; I spanked Giton into wakefulness, and, glaring at Ascyltos, "Since you have broken faith by this outrage," I gritted out, with a savage frown, "and severed our friendship, you had better get your things together at once, and pick up some other bottom for your ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him. For the coming into being at first was not in our power; and in order that we may follow those things which please Him, choosing them by means of the rational faculties with which He has himself endowed us, He both persuades us and leads ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... learned wisdom enough, and humanity enough, and pedagogy enough to dispense with the quasi-inquisition type of recitation, the transition to a more rational method of examination will be well-nigh automatic. Let it not be inferred that to inveigh against the question-and-answer type of recitation is to advocate any abatement of thoroughness. On the contrary, the thought is to insure greater thoroughness, and to make evident the patent ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... difficulty and expense which attend the possession of plants of rare, and more particularly of foreign growth, form a natural and insurmountable obstruction to the researches of many lovers of the science...." "Whatever regard is due to the rational gratifications of which the most laborious life is not incapable, there is a moral influence attendant on horticultural pursuits, which may be supposed to render every friend of humanity desirous to promote them. The most indifferent observer cannot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... retreat to their Hindenburg line we saw the full ruthlessness of war as never before on the western front, in the laying waste of a beautiful countryside, not by rational fighting, but by carefully organized destruction. Ludendorff claims, quite justly, that it was in accordance with the laws of war. That is true. It is only that our laws of war are not justified ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Man was made last, and instead of developing into a reasonable, rational object, like a potato or a cabbage, he has strayed away into all manner of wild side-issues, and is still nothing but a very ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... without the annual Motion of the Earth, no rational Account can be given of any Comet, but that all is involved with perplexities, and ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... war make for national greatness? Before we can give a rational verdict we must answer certain other questions. What is our nation, anyway? What are the factors that make for its greatness? And how does war affect ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... family, viewed in the dry light of modern science? Well, they are simply one of the very oldest mammalian families, and therefore, I need hardly say, in the levelling and topsy-turvy view of evolutionary biology, the least entitled to consideration or respect from rational observers. For of course in the kingdom of science the last shall be first, and the first last; it is the oldest families that are accounted the worst, while the best families mean always the newest. Now, the earliest mammals to appear on earth were creatures of distinctly ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the things I found. Here is a definition of God which did not help me very much." He picked up one of the slips of paper and read: "'God is the integrated harmony of all potentialities of good in every actual and possible rational agent.' What do ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... little while they had now wherewith to live; and if it seem to my reader that the horizon of hope was narrowing around them, it does not follow that it must have seemed so to them. For what is the extent of our merely rational horizon at any time? But for faith and imagination it would be a narrow one indeed! Even what we call experience is but a stupid kind of faith. It is a trusting in impetus instead of in love. And those days were fashioning an eternal joy to father and son, for they were loving each ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... had the insolence to rebel against its illustrious mistress, you remember that all the rational world was highly incensed. The Baroness Surowkoff declared herself frequently, and with vehemence she appealed to me. My veracity and my principles were called forth, and I confessed that I thought every friend to the Tzaritza ought to take up arms against that ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Each rational person, and every self-directing social group seeks to get the largest possible return in the form of satisfaction for the time and the energy invested in any given enterprise. This law of maximum advantage—which applies with double force to social enterprises, ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... to promote and achieve the protection, scientific study, and rational use of Antarctic seals, and to maintain a satisfactory balance within the ecological system ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... good or evil, improving them by good influence and good conjugations, or deteriorating them by bad selection or by blastophthoria, which causes them to degenerate. The combination of a bad selection with blastophthoric influences constitutes the great danger for humanity, and it is here that a rational sexual life should intervene. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... which are not of so noble a strain as some of mine in the Gaelic, but I could set some of them to the pipes if this rencounter goes as it's to be desired. Let's first, as I understand you to move, do each other this rational courtesys; and if either will survive, we may grow better acquaint. For your tastes for what's martial and for ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which submerged the whole earth, out one that merely covered some particular part of the great Central Asian plains. But surely, apart from any consideration pertaining to the very emphatic language of the text, rational men must perceive that the difficulty is not obviated by this explanation, but rather increased. How could the waters ascend in one place to the height of seventeen thousand feet (the height of Mount Ararat) without overflowing the adjacent districts, and, indeed, the whole earth, ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... last self-interest; in fact, Herbert Spencer declares that there is no sane thought or rational act but has ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... connected with considerations of sanitary police,(13) and above all the practice of burning the bodies of the dead, adopted among the Romans at a singularly early period, far earlier than among the Greeks—a practice implying a rational conception of life and of death, which was foreign to primitive times and is even foreign to ourselves at the present day. It must be reckoned no small achievement that the national religion of the Latins was able to carry out these and similar improvements. But the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... lift up the souls of all our family and neighbours to that pitch of industry, courage, information, and wisdom necessary to enable an enslaved, dark, and starving people to become free, and rich, and rational. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... crosses to Poland, another undiscovered country, and shows us the new Poland, its aims and its struggles to emerge from a state almost of anarchy into one of a rational democracy. Very little do we of this country know of the new nation of Tcheko-Slovakia, but Dr. Guest has travelled through it also and shows us the two sections, one cultured, the other more backward, but both working together to form ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... pieces his subject seizes him in a poetic way, and prosaic as much of his treatment may be, he is always ready to rise into sudden bursts of imagery and fancy. But he was a poet with a prosaic end; his aim was not simply to express beautiful things in the most beautiful way, but to invest rational things with such an amount of poetic expression as may make them at once rational and poetic, to use poetry as an exquisite form for argument, rhetoric, persuasion, to charm indeed, but primarily to convince. Poetry no longer held itself ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... black bile that of earth, being cold and dry, the phlegm that of water, being cold and moist, and the blood that of air, being hot and moist. There are in man three hundred and threescore veins, two hundred and forty bones and three souls [or natures], the animal, the rational and the essential or [natural], to each of which is allotted a separate function. Moreover, God made him a heart and spleen and lungs and six guts and a liver and two kidneys and marrow [or brain] and buttocks ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... powers is absolutely sinful—l'homme qui raisonne est l'homme qui peche. Franklin, on the other hand, in a familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the cupidity of the indolent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... because such was the "purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will; who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working; whose counsel stands, and who doeth all his pleasure." (Eph. i. 11.) Can a rational creature work without a plan? And shall mortal man be more rational than his Maker? The objects which were presented to John are not to be understood as material objects. It was requisite that he ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... "Since the rational world discarded the superstitions of religion halfacentury ago," I said, "we have learned that good and evil are relative terms; without ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... I will listen to you." I replied: "I should like you to know, Messer Francesco, that I could say much which would prove irrefragably, and make you admit, that such ways of acting as you have described and used are not in vogue among rational animals. I will, however, come quickly to the point at issue; give close attention to my meaning, because the affair is serious." He made as though he would rise form the chair on which he was sitting, since he saw my colour heightened and my features greatly discomposed. I told him that ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to be rational. "Come now," he told himself, "don't get carried away." He attempted control. A simple thing. He would have the boy pull the dog's ear, gently. He concentrated, suggested. But all his efforts were thwarted. The boy leaped at the dog, grabbed it around the middle. The ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... affairs; till which in some measure be compast, I refuse not to sustain this expectation." Before the piety of this vow, Dr. Johnson's morosity yields for a moment, and he is forced to exclaim, "From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might be ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... soothingly, "I shouldn't hunt for a rational reason for their act. They have merely hastened the step we were going to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Greer ees in the cook's galley," smiled Deschaillon, who appeared to be rational; then he added coolly: "Eef there ees any fighting, I ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... those to whom he had been presented in the course of the evening. The Duke had considerable tact with women, and soon perceived that the common topics of a hack flirtation would not do in the present case. He was therefore mild and modest, rather piquant, somewhat rational, and apparently perfectly unaffected. Her Ladyship's reserve wore away. She refused to dance, but conversed with more animation. The Duke did not leave her side. The women began to stare, the men to bet: Lady Aphrodite against the field. In vain his Grace laid a thousand plans to arrange ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... people must its pleasures have, and so, Whether they're virtuous, poisonous, fast or slow, Depend on the directing minds that lead The city's councils met for public need; So it should be our great concern to see Our rulers men of whole-souled charity. Let national be rational delight, Made profitable to each class by right, That public parks may be a joy to all, Men, women, rich and poor, and children small. That, as in Germany, the people may Find healthful pleasures in them day by day. Thus the class social barriers which the pride Of Anglo-Saxon nations still provide, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... old Quaker lady sits by the side of her son, Amer Moore, 2d U. S. artillery—shot in the head two weeks since, very low, quite rational—from hips down paralyzed—he will surely die. I speak a very few words to him every day and evening—he answers pleasantly—wants nothing—(he told me soon after he came about his home affairs, his mother had been an invalid, and he fear'd to let her know his condition.) He ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... did not wish to die just yet: at all events a change came over his spirit; he became more rational and even apologetic, and Barboza graciously accepted the assurance that he had no desire ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design of life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new one; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that thenceforth I may live like a rational creature." ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... the ascent was resumed in a more rational way. They accomplished a quarter of a mile in the phenomenal time of two hours, during which period they sat down fourteen times, drank at twenty-one streams, fell on their noses about eighty times, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... boy, NO!" she said. "Thank goodness, I have kept clear of 'memories that bless and burn.' None of these things enter into my rational and well-ordered life, and I have no wish that ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... tranquillity is restored, and on our frontier that misguided sympathy in favor of what was presumed to be a general effort in behalf of popular rights, and which in some instances misled a few of our more inexperienced citizens, has subsided into a rational conviction strongly opposed to all intermeddling with the internal affairs of our neighbors. The people of the United States feel, as it is hoped they always will, a warm solicitude for the success of all who are sincerely endeavoring to improve the political condition of mankind. This generous feeling ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and conspicuous in its night-dress, kneeling upright in bed, and praying like some Catholic or Methodist enthusiast—some precocious fanatic or untimely saint—I scarcely know what thoughts I had; but they ran risk of being hardly more rational and healthy than that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... comes in all vegetal bodies developed under sunlight, next deserves a place by itself, because it is one of the few organic bodies of which no rational analysis has ever been pretended. Though we can not state the constitution of this chlorophyl, we know that, except by turning acid in the stomach, it remains inert on the human system, as one might ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... neither the gates of death nor even the stubborn resistance of a human will can prevail against it. It is power sufficient to satisfy the most critical search, and to make acceptance not only possible with one's reasoning power in fullest exercise but the rational thing. ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... invariably in the rear of Italian progress; it caught but partial inspiration from the free Republics, or even the wise Tyrannies, of the Middle Ages; the theatre of frequent revolutions without fruit; and all rational enthusiasm created by that insurrection, which has lately bestowed on Naples the boon of a representative system, cannot but be tempered by the conviction that of all the States in Italy, this is the one which least warrants the belief of permanence to political ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... shore than it seated itself on its hinder legs, and listened to the sound of the pursuers. Fanny was wonderfully pleased with the little wretch, and eagerly longed to have it in her arms that she might preserve it from the dangers which seemed to threaten it; but the rational part of the creation do not always aptly distinguish their friends from their foes; what wonder then if this silly creature, the moment it beheld her, fled from the friend who would have protected ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... in plans for its execution. The fear of immediate death vanished with the heats of September. Another winter was before us, and we might elect our mode of passing it to the best advantage. Perhaps in rational philosophy none could be better chosen than this scheme of migration, which would draw us from the immediate scene of our woe, and, leading us through pleasant and picturesque countries, amuse for a time our despair. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... popular tracts of Canon Rawlinson, Mr. R.S. Pattison, and others, have already made the ordinary reader familiar with the main outlines of the subject; and still more because, be the views of archaeologists what they may, it is impossible for any rational person to contend either that they can be reduced to anything like unity among themselves, or that they lead to any conclusion favourable to the belief in the self-caused ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... replaced and adjusted the harness from which they had relieved for the time their trusty steeds. Each seemed familiar with an employment which at that time was a part of necessary and, indeed, of indispensable duty. Each also seemed to possess, as far as the difference betwixt the animal and rational species admitted, the confidence and affection of the horse which was the constant companion of his travels and his warfare. With the Saracen this familiar intimacy was a part of his early habits; for, in ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... cherry-stone or some other hard and indigestible matter penetrates into its narrow cavity, and by setting up inflammation and suppuration causes the death of otherwise sound men. Teleology has great difficulty in giving a rational explanation of, and attributing to a beneficent Providence, this dreaded appendicitis. In our plant-eating ancestors this rudimentary organ was much larger and ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... pretty lively interchange between the two countries of slipshod and vulgar "journalese;" and as the picturesque reporter is a greater power in America than he is with us, we perhaps import more than we export of this particular commodity. But there can be no rational doubt, I think, that the English language has gained, and is gaining, enormously by its expansion over the American continent. The prime function of a language, after all, is to interpret the "form and pressure" of life—the experience, knowledge, ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... five millions, and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire, indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational things at the instigation of others. For, though I should have liked total isolation best, I, of course, found that there was a sediment of unfortunates like myself, who, unlike me, viewed the situation in a most prosaic light. There were river excursions, and so ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Washington, and on the other hand of Mr. Giddings, the radical antislavery member of the House of Representatives. Notwithstanding the singular merit of the bill in reconciling such extremes of opposing factions in its support, the temper of Congress had already become too hot to accept such a rational and practical solution, and Mr. Lincoln's wise proposition was not allowed to ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... orthodox priest of the Church of England, I believe the Theology of the National Church of England, as by law established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century, have done more for sound physical ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... further fits occurred, and eight days later he was conscious, but was excitable and talked at random. On the twentieth day he arrived at the Base after 30 hours' railway journey (623 miles). He was then quite rational, but unable to make any demands on his memory and very sensitive to noise; at times he wandered in the evenings and his temperature rose as high as 100 deg.. The wound was open and granulating, the floor ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... rocks, and noble trees abounded, and exquisite residences peeped out through the woods, giving evidences of high civilisation. Elegance of taste and perfect domestic arrangements supplied every form of rational comfort and enjoyment. My old friend Sir John Ross, of Arctic celebrity, was settled at Stockholm as chief consul for Her Majesty. He introduced me to several of the leading English merchants, from whom I received much kind attention. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... a rational historic criticism to moderate the theological hypothesis with which the older Protestants set out, the supernatural inspiration of the books, their internal inseparability, and their direct reference to the work of salvation. It must be allowed that many points are independent ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... recourse to force is not to be justified in a state of real weakness. Such attempts bring on disgrace, and in their failure discountenance and discourage more rational endeavors. But reason is to be hazarded, though it may be perverted by craft and sophistry; for reason can suffer no loss nor shame, nor can it impede any useful plan of future policy. In the unavoidable uncertainty as to the effect, which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... looking at her, paralyzed with the certainty that no mortal aid could save her from this dire extremity, there came an unexpected diversion. Old Lady Green spoke out clearly and decidedly from her corner, in so rational a voice that it seemed like one calling from ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... in 1874, while the Liberals in the United Kingdom, in the aggregate, had a majority of 214,000 votes, the Conservatives had a majority of 60 in the members elected, whereas with a rational system of representation the Liberals should have had a majority ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... examined in the cold light of reason, puts a heavy enough strain on the credulity. Such an influence can reach the embryo only through the blood of the mother. Is it conceivable to any rational human being, that a scar, or what not, on the mother's body can be dissolved in her blood, pass through the placenta into the child's circulation, and then gather itself together into a definite ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... by Europeans of being cold and reserved towards strangers; for my part, I found them sociable and communicative in the extreme. A few hours after I had embarked on board the steamboat I found myself quite at home. I was much pleased to observe the rational manner in which the passengers amused themselves. Little groups were formed, where religion, politics and business matters were discussed with excellent sense and judgment. These seemed to be the common topics of discourse ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... not lie in the multitude of facts which it contains, but rather in the lucid, natural way in which a few really important facts are presented and grouped, and in the stimulus which it imparts to a rational study of our country's history.—The Review ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 19, March 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... were they Ever So Desirous of it and are kept in Such a miserable manner as never to know the Blessings of it. I say these things have Convinc^d me of the Notorious Violation of the Rights of Mankind and which I think no Rational Man will Ever try to Justify. America my Earnest Prayer is that thou mayst preserve thy Own Freedom from any Insolvent Invaders who may attempt to Rob the of the Same—but be Sure to let Slavery of all kinds ever ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... take up the pen once more. After as before the Conquest the rational object of life continued to be the gaining of heaven, and it would have been a waste of time to use Latin in demonstrating this truth to the common people of England. French served for the new masters, and for their group of adherents; Latin for the clerks; ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... delightful little romance," continued the Duchess, "the venerable goat attempted to subdue me by the force of argument; and, to do him justice, I must say that his philosophy, if not very rational, was at least very profound. He went over the entire field of moral subtleties, and proved himself an excellent sophist. He argued that as nature had given me passions, I was justified in gratifying them, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... the child to their home, where, in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit, he would stand up before them all and sing a whole recital of little songs, to the delight of all his relatives. The singer's progress, from the musical child on and up to that of an operatic artist, has been rational and healthy, with nothing hectic or overwrought about it; a constant, gradual ascent of the mountain. And while an enviable vantage ground has been reached, such an artist must feel there are yet other heights to conquer. ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the lad dance for joy. Why not, indeed, speak to the father? He was a rational being now. He may wake, thought Hans, quite bright and rested—may tell us the watch is of no consequence, to sell it of course! And Hans ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... must," she said, pulling at the obnoxious broad brim of her hat; and, interpreting a pause he made for his assent to her rational resolve, shyly looking at him, she held her hand out, and said, "Good-bye," as if it were a natural thing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... martyrs, while the rest of the dead slept on, and that in the glorious reign of Righteousness and the subjugation of all Evil thus begun for a thousand years men then living, or the true saints among them, might partake. This interpretation, though scouted by the more rational theologians, had seized on many of the more fervid English Independents and Sectaries, so that they had begun to see, in the great events of their own time and land, the dazzling edge of the near Millennium. The doctrine had caught the souls of Harrison and other ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... useless, harmful fads, fancies and functions, which disturbed and prevented you from living a sane, rational life. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... Sterling were his father's guests, and hence it may be inferred that there was an altar in the house, and that the sacred flame burnt thereon. Mr Palmer almost worshipped Mr Maurice, and his admiration was not blind, for Maurice connected the Bible with what was rational in his friend. 'What! still believable: no need then to pitch it overboard: here after all is the Eternal Word!' It can be imagined how those who dared not close their eyes to the light, and yet clung to that book which had been so much to their forefathers and themselves, ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... From his poem, entitled Reflections, he appears, like some other authors, to have turned his mind, in old age, entirely to those objects of sacred regard, which, sooner or later, must engage the attention of every rational mind. To poetry he bids an eternal adieu, in language which breathes no diminution of genius, at the moment that he for ever recedes from the poetical character. But he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... reproduced in analogy. When the spontaneity is unconscious, you have simple action; when it is conscious, intelligent and moral action. At bottom this is nothing more than the proposition of Hegel: ["What is rational is real; and what is real is rational;"] but it had never seemed to me more evident, more palpable. Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... detail, and fully shaded. The book was handed along the row of men, each recognizing the semblance, once pointed out, with a touch of dismayed surprise that alarmed the coroner for the sanity of the verdict; his rational estimate rated spells and bewitchments and omens as far less plausible agencies in disaster than ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... irreconcilable to each other, in respect both of their opinions and practice. Celsus, with great judgment, has occasionally adopted particular doctrines from each of them; and whatever he admits into his system, he not only establishes by the most rational observations, but confirms by its practical utility. In justness of remark, in force of argument, in precision and perspicuity, as well as in elegance of expression, he deservedly occupies the most distinguished rank amongst the medical writers of antiquity. It appears that ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and of the decision are perfectly clear and simple, and the mental analysis offers not the least difficulty. The fundamental instincts of man on the background of modern economic conditions must lead to such rational and recommendable behaviour. A psychological problem appears only when such a course of wisdom is abandoned, and either the savings are hidden away instead of being made productive, or are thrown away in wildcat schemes. Yet of the two extremes the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... youth, through divine aid, to wisdom and holiness by instilling into their minds the principles of true religion—speculative, experimental, and practical—and training them in the ancient way, that they may be rational, spiritual Christians. We have consented to receive children of seven years of age, as we wish to have the opportunity of teaching 'the young idea how to shoot' and gradually forming their minds, through the divine blessing, almost from their infancy, to holiness ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... of existence.' The definition is already characteristic. 'Religion' may be used in a far wider sense, corresponding to a philosophy of the universe, whether that philosophy does or does not include this particular doctrine. But 'Philip Beauchamp's' assumption is convenient because it gives a rational reasoning to the problem of utility. Religion is taken to be something adventitious or superimposed upon other beliefs, and we can therefore intelligibly ask whether it does good or harm. Taking this definition for granted, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... does not mean that the memoriter work should be excluded. A solid basis of fact is essential to the mastery of principles. Personally I believe that the work of the intermediate grades should be planned to give the pupil this factual basis. This would leave the upper grades free for the more rational work. In any case, I believe that the efficiency of examinations may be greatly increased by giving one or two questions that must be answered by a reasoning process for every question that may be answered by ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... in what he called her wrong-headedness that Jude could not help being moved to tears more than once for pity of her. "I never knew such a woman for doing impulsive penances, as you, Sue! No sooner does one expect you to go straight on, as the one rational proceeding, than you double ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... he regained control of himself, and then he steadied himself in the saddle, assuring himself in a burst of bitter, ironic humor that death at the hands of a crazy man could be no worse than death at the hands of a rational one. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... mumbled Mr. Shackford, who cold not evade taking the hand which Richard had forlornly reached out to him, "but that needn't prevent us understanding each other like rational creatures. I don't care for a great deal of fine sentiment in people who run away without so ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... small surface in plan, and leaves between them wide openings that the sun and air can enter in quantity, was the only thing that was capable of giving the solution sought. So it has been said, and rightly, that the Central Markets are, as regards the distribution and rational use of materials, the most beautiful of the structures of modern Paris. This system of construction at once met with great success, and the old markets are everywhere gradually disappearing, in order to give place to the new style ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel, although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought either ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand, I think that another explanation is more obvious and more rational. Shakespeare had to introduce into his play the magic herb which was to alter the loves of those into whose eyes it was squeezed. We may reasonably guess that he had read somewhere one of the many popular legends that explain why the violet is purple, why the rose ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... man to the other.) Men are so strangely and wonderfully made. What am I to do with the pair of you? Why won't you reason together like rational human beings? ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... Wilford said, having no suspicion as to who was the woman standing now just outside his door, and listening, with a throbbing heart, to his rational questions. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... discovery of the anti-toxine for fatigue. "Just think!" exclaims Claparede, "a serum against fatigue. How valuable this would be!" From this point of view, I should say that the ponogenic co-efficients might find a more practical and rational application than that of the revelation of "programs"; indeed these co-efficients indicating the production of toxines would appear destined to determine the dose of anti-toxine necessary to nullify the evil effects resulting from each different subject ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... be such, but because every unbeliever doth not properly go under that name. Now with this froward and peevish fellow, thou art to serve as faithfully for the time thou standest bound, as with the most pleasant and rational master in the world: 'Servants,' saith Peter, 'be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward' (1 Peter 2:18). And if thy peevish master will still be froward, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together—I am her pet, I suppose I may say—but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pleasure, I would be willing to encounter all the keenness of pangs suffered by such natures. For such, the rational delights of a year are crowded into a day, an hour; and the ignorant reader of their obituary sighs mournfully, computing their lives by a false reckoning. Yet after all, we have been disposed to regard the death of the young as something unnatural; the violent rending asunder ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... rational and convincing (as to me it seems) would it have been to have shewn, that when from various causes the practice of Infant Baptism became general in the Church, Confirmation or the acknowledgment 'in propria persona' of the obligations ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... no longer associated any painful idea with the name of her lost son. But there were none of the signs of a softening brain,—no foolish ravings, nor any expressed desire to do anything not perfectly rational. She accomplished the journey with evident comfort, and was evidently delighted at the beautiful sights she saw on the way, though she said nothing, but only smiled and looked pleased. Her habitual expression was one of calm melancholy. Her features wore a sad but ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... the generous wages paid to the co-operators, which affords for them such an abundant supply of food, clothing and books; the fine quality and perfect reliability of the large assortment of goods in the farm-store; the advantages of a rational scheme of insurance, which stands as an absolute safe-guard against accidents, sickness and old-age; the improved conditions for women, which largely relieves them from the irritating, nerve-destroying worry, of a constant ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... acknowledged, become erroneous, when applied to the existence of a God. Whatever has been hitherto said upon the subject, is either unintelligible, or perfect contradiction, and must therefore appear absurd to every rational man. ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... the loud peals upon days of revelry, without wishing to adventure further in "a game," which, "were subjects wise, kings would not play at." In the possession of some competence he might prudently adjust his pursuits, out of office, to the rational and not unimportant indulgence of literature,[44] seeking in the retirement of the study, of the vales of Kent, and of domestic society, that equanimity of the passions and happiness which must ever flow from rational amusement, ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... suspicion of foolhardiness in the arrogancy of his address. [5] We have, however, from the lips of one of his intimate acquaintances, Hermogenes, [6] the son of Hipponicus, an account of him which shows the high demeanour in question to have been altogether in keeping with the master's rational purpose. [7] Hermogenes says that, seeing Socrates discoursing on every topic rather than that of his impending trial, he roundly put it to him whether he ought not to be debating the line of his defence, ...
— The Apology • Xenophon
... too often they are, without regard to the necessary and natural conditions, possess no value, and may be entirely dispensed with; especially when, as in the present case, Nature affords the opportunity for observation, and when we make a rational ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... as she supposed he was about to advise. "You, who yesterday manifested little uneasiness, to-day, when we are farther removed from danger, have appeared extremely cautious and apprehensive, I have thought. Why such a change, while the reverse would seem so much more rational?" ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... representatives of Greece utterly misunderstood the objects of our labours—that we were not there to partition Turkey, and give them their share of Turkey, but for a very contrary purpose—as far as we could to re-establish the dominion of the Sultan on a rational basis, to condense and concentrate his authority, and to take the opportunity—of which we have largely availed ourselves—of improving the condition of his subjects. I trust, therefore, when I have pointed out to your Lordships this ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular professions, published "An Evening Walk" and "Descriptive Sketches," in 1793, and in 1794, still moving about to all appearance in stubborn aimlessness among his friends and relatives, had no more rational purpose of livelihood than drawing up the prospectus of a periodical of strictly republican principles, to be called The Philanthropist. At this stage, at the age of twenty-four, Wordsworth seemed to his friends a very hopeless and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... not only offers a rational method, it also enables the student to guide his own development, to advance his physical welfare, and, because he knows the why and wherefore of things vocal, to perceive what is best in the performance of others and to profit by it. Moreover, correct method of voice-production is ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... with his best portable furniture had vanished. At which Schloss, as above noticed, some disorders were committed by angry parties of the march;—doors burst open (doors standing impudently dumb to the rational proposals made them!), inferior remainders of furniture smashed into firewood, and the like,—no doubt to his Majesty's vexation. Here at Weichau stricter measures were taken: and yet difficulties, risks were not wanting; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... signification of America in the progress of our race—democracy will not be destroyed. All the inveterate enemies here and in Europe, all who already joyously sing the funeral songs of democracy, all of them will become disgraced. Democracy will emerge more pure, more powerful, more rational; destroyed will be the most infamous oligarchy ever known in history; oligarchy issued neither from the sword, nor the gown, nor the shop, but wombed, generated, cemented, and sustained ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... he listened intently, could not but confess in his own mind that the King had many rational, perhaps just, grounds for grievance against such an ardent opponent as the blind Lord had shown himself to be. "But, sir," said he, after a little space of silence, when Prior Edward had ended, "to hold enmity and to breed treason are very different matters. Haply my father was Bolingbroke's ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle |
