"Sift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to sift data. ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... good and strong in us comes from God, and not from ourselves; if we are conceited, and confident in ourselves; then we cut ourselves off from God's grace, and give place to Satan the Devil, that he may sift us like wheat, as he did St. Peter; and then in some shameful hour, we may find ourselves saying and doing things which we would never have believed we could have done. God grant, that if ever we fall into such unexpected sin, it ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... symptoms—discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it—wondered what else I had got; turned up Saint Vitus's Dance—found, as I had expected, that I had that, too—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learned that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... Weigh the facts. Sift the evidence. The jug was standing on the mantelpiece, for all eyes to behold. Gussie had been complaining of thirst. You found him in here, laughing heartily. I think that there can be little doubt, Jeeves, that the entire contents of that jug ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... of our system; to the inspectorate come all complaints or information as to defects in goods, insolence or inefficiency of officials, or dereliction of any sort in the public service. The inspectorate, however, does not wait for complaints. Not only is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault in the service, but it is its business, by systematic and constant oversight and inspection of every branch of the army, to find out what is going wrong before anybody else does. The President is usually not far from fifty when elected, and serves five years, forming ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... screen; they will keep crisper than in the oven. We shall not need to put them anywhere for more than a minute, however, for they are just done. Dish them in a circle, sift a little white sugar on, and ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... all the same, it is the most important and necessary thing of all in questions like this—so uncertain and dubious, I mean. For the discovery of truth, your one and only sure or well-founded hope is the possession of this power: you must be able to judge and sift truth from falsehood; you must have the assayer's sense for sound and true or forged coin; if you could have come to your examination of doctrines equipped with a technical skill like that, I should have nothing to say; but without it there is nothing to prevent ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Lead!—of human feuds the great And universal arbiter; endowed With penetration to pierce any cloud Fogging the field of controversial hate, And with a sift, inevitable, straight, Searching precision find the unavowed But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed By the chirurgeon, settles the debate. O useful metal!—were it not for thee We'd grapple one ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... originate in literary periods and claim divine authorship. Great religious communities naturally produce a large number of such books, and at some time it becomes necessary (from the growth of heresies or rivals) to sift the whole mass and decide which works are to be considered to have permanent divine authority; the process of sifting is performed in each case by its community under the guidance of leading men, and the result is a ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... have been no limit and no end had Athalie not learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be admitted to her rooms after the hours of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... to meet Miss Fox, but owing to a cold the lady was unable to come. A celebrated medium was, however, present, as were some half-dozen ladies and gentlemen well known in society—one of the latter being a sergeant-at-law, and a judge accustomed to sift evidence and determine the difference between truth and falsehood. The seance was not, however, productive of anything very strange. The only curious manifestation occurred with a lath about two feet long and a quarter of an inch thick, which most certainly rose off the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... cannot—let go any truth that has been assimilated into our lives; and what truth we have not assimilated it is no advantage to hold without agitation. We know better where we are when we are forced to sift it. It is the very great apparent advantage of recognised order that deceives us! When we lose that apparent advantage, when we lose, too, the familiar names and symbols, and think, like children, that we have lost the reality they have expressed to us, a very low state of things appears to result. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... thoroughly believes in the innocence of Darcy, and he sticks by his daughter's engagement so well, that he'd supply twice as much cash as was necessary to sift this to the bottom. So here's some to enable you to keep up ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... her, and set out for a farm at a little distance, where she was engaged to milk the cows and sift the corn. ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... of truth that we are able to sift from the mass of legend which has accumulated round the early history of Rome seem to indicate that at a very early period—which the generally received date of 753 B.C. may be taken to fix as nearly ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... Ashbridge to Dunnington castle a long while before. The princess had quite forgotten this trivial circumstance, and lord Arundel, after the investigation, kneeling down, apologized for having troubled her in such a frivolous matter. "You sift me narrowly," replied the princess, "but of this I am assured, that God has appointed a limit to your proceedings; and ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... insoluble state, and undo what the sulphuric acid has done. Peat, saw-dust, sand, decaying leaves, or similar substances, will answer the purpose, and they should all be made thoroughly dry before being used. An excellent plan is to sift the bones before dissolving, to apply the acid to the coarser part, and afterwards to mix in the fine dust which has passed through the sieve, to dry up the mass; or a small quantity of bone ash, of good quality, or Peruvian guano, may ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... suspicious, a flour-sieve or a grain-sieve, and a hand-mill and an oven; but she is neither to pick the wheat nor grind it with her. A woman of a special religious society may lend to the wife(61) of an ordinary man a flour-sieve, or a grain-sieve, and may pick wheat, or grind it, or sift it, with her. But when she (the wife of an ordinary man) pours in the water, she (a woman of a special religious society) must not touch the flour (to knead it) with her, lest she strengthen the hands of a transgressor. And all these ...
— Hebrew Literature
... To sift thoroughly this sophism, it is sufficient to remember that human labor is not an end, but a means. It is never without employment. If one obstacle is removed, it seizes another, and mankind is delivered from two obstacles by the same effort which was at first necessary for one. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... indissoluble by ecclesiastical courts, or dissoluble by civil courts, woman, finding herself equally degraded in each and every phase of it, always the victim of the institution, it is her right and her duty to sift the relation and the compact through and through, until she finds out the true cause of her false position. How can we go before the Legislatures of our respective States, and demand new laws, or no laws, on divorce, until we have some idea of what ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... with your heart broken, you would not sift the truth. She had committed no offence ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... for fifteen minutes basting them three or four times with butter. Have some slices of toast laid under them to catch the drippings. While the birds are roasting make a bread sauce as follows; roll a pint bowlfull of dry bread, and sift the crumbs; use the finest ones for the sauce, and the largest for the frying later; remove the onion from the milk in which it has been boiling, stir into the milk the finest portion of the crumbs, season it with a saltspoonful of white pepper and a grate ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... fears," I replied, "probably had to do with Woods. But that cry to Jim to 'Look out!' is a real clue and I'm going to sift it ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... little man; "if you were to come to our committee meetings you would see for yourself. Everything is most carefully gone into; we endeavour to sift the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to me neighbours and rared into any one under me, and that's the only kind of honesty that is honesty at all," she splendidly finished. "An' I'm very thankful to you for informin' me. I wish you had caught him an' skelped the hide off of him. It's what I'll do meself soon as I sift ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... competent knowledge of the language of the originals, with an unbounded command of his own. The latter is, however, by far the most marked characteristic of his Translations. Dryden was not indeed deficient in Greek and Roman learning; but he paused not to weigh and sift those difficult and obscure passages, at which the most learned will doubt and hesitate for the correct meaning. The same rapidity, which marked his own poetry, seems to have attended his study of the classics. He seldom waited to analyse the sentence he was about to ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Deity has so intimately associated, in the grain, the several substances which are necessary for the complete nutrition of animal bodies. The above considerations show how unwise we are in attempting to undo this natural collocation of materials. To please the eye and the palate, we sift out a less generally nutritive food,—and, to make up for what we have removed, experience teaches us to have recourse to animal food of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... looked upon him with compassion and said, "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Simon! Simon! Satan hath desired to have thee that he may sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strength thy brethren! This night all ye shall be offended because of me, for it is written, 'I ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... thunder, to the infinite consternation of the multitude, who received it as a supernatural manifestation. But a member of the King's Privy Council, a satirical skeptic and mistruster of everybody's word but his own, undertook to sift the matter,—and adopting the dress of the Mystics, managed to introduce himself into one of their secret assemblies, where with considerable astonishment, he saw them make use of a small wire, by means of which they wrote in characters of azure flame on ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... pronouncing his sentence, he ought to follow rather than the information he has acquired as a private individual. And yet this same information may be of use to him, so that he can more rigorously sift the evidence brought forward, and discover its weak points. If, however, he is unable to reject that evidence juridically, he must, as stated above, follow ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... sift quick Lime into foxed Drinks while they are working in the Tun or Vat, that its Fire and Salts may break the Cohesions of the Beer or Ale, and burn away the stench, that the Corruption would always cause; but then such Drink should by a Peg at the bottom of the Vat be drawn off as fine ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... the subordinate officials but declared (and seemingly proved) that he had acted only in retaliation and self-defence. As there was no way of obtaining evidence from the shippers, in whose favour the concessions had been made, it was impossible to sift out the truth. Each Chairman or President could only say that he had entire confidence in his own staff. There was no visible remedy except to discharge the entire membership of the Traffic Departments of all the companies simultaneously and get new men, to the number ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... open great roads or pierce mountains at the cost of labour and the risk of a thousand dangers, in order to draw wealth from the earth. She will find riches on the surface, in shallow diggings; she will find them in the sun-dried banks of rivers; it will suffice to merely sift the earth. Pearls will be gathered with little effort. Cosmographers unanimously recognise that venerable antiquity received no such benefit from nature, because never before did man, starting from the known world, penetrate to those unknown regions. It is true the natives are contented with ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... is used, prepare the hot starch paste first. Then sift strychnine and baking soda, previously thoroughly mixed, into the hot starch paste and stir to a creamy mass. Proceed as in the above directions with sirup, ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... so excited that they were sending me not only every fact, but every story, and as it was difficult to sift them in London, I dare say some of the charges were untrue ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... The word survives in the last syllable of 'seneschal,' and indeed of 'marshal' as well.] 'To carp' is in Chaucer's language no more than to converse; 'to mouth' in Piers Plowman is simply to speak; 'to garble' was once to sift and pick out the best; it is now to select and put forward as a ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... midnight, and there by candle-light did make shift to gather forty pieces more; and so to bed, and there lay in some disquiet until daylight. 11th.—And then William Hewer and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and did gather the earth and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses (just as they do for diamonds in other parts), and there, to our great content did, by nine o'clock, make the last night's forty-five up to seventy-nine; so that we are come to some twenty or thirty of what I think ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Committee, long deliberating on Lafayette and that Anti-jacobin Visit of his, reports, this day, that there is 'not ground for Accusation!' Peace, ye Patriots, nevertheless; and let that tocsin cease: the Debate is not finished, nor the Report accepted; but Brissot, Isnard and the Mountain will sift it, and resift it, perhaps for ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... class-room; and of these characteristics his doctor's examination is unable to take any account whatever. Certain bare human beings will always be better candidates for a given place than all the doctor-applicants on hand; and to exclude the former by a rigid rule, and in the end to have to sift the latter by private inquiry into their personal peculiarities among those who know them, just as if they were not doctors at all, is to stultify one's own procedure. You may say that at least you guard against ignorance of the subject ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... suspended. I trust he will exculpate himself. Listen to me, my young gentleman, I have a liking for you. What I ask of you is nothing to speak of. Just to stay quietly at home till I get back from Corte. I shall only be three days away. I'll bring back the public prosecutor with me, and then we'll sift this wretched business to the bottom. Will you promise me you will abstain from ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... may admit of being represented as resulting from personal inclination, as well as from national policy. In life, as we actually experience it, motives slide one into the other, and the most careful analysis will fail adequately to sift them. In history, from the effort to make our conceptions distinct, we pronounce upon these intricate matters with unhesitating certainty, and we lose sight of truth in the desire to make it truer than itself. ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... these principles which both explain Acton's work as a student, and make it so difficult to understand. He believed, that as an investigator of facts the historian must know no passion, save that of a desire to sift evidence; and his notion of this sifting was of the remorseless scientific school of Germany, which sometimes, perhaps, expects more in the way of testimony than human life affords. At any rate, Acton demanded that the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... think unjustly, the air of a man of business and expedition. He appeared to me enraged against the Cardinal, and I concluded he might do service in the present juncture, but did not address myself directly to him, and thought it the wisest way first to sift the Comte de Cremail, who was a man of sound sense, and could influence the Marechal de Vitri as he pleased. He apprehended me at half a word, and immediately asked me if I had made myself known to any of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... He saw where Lane's questions led, and realized that the sergeant meant to sift the matter thoroughly. There was not much cause to fear that he and his friends would be held responsible for Clarke's death; but he suspected things he did not wish the police to guess; and the Indians might mention having seen a white man's footprints on the occasion when he had forcibly taken ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... justly commanding the public confidence, it is necessary to re-examine the grounds on which they rest. This I propose to do, without regard to labor or space. I shall not rely upon general considerations, but endeavor, in the course of this discussion, to sift every topic on which the Reviewer has struck at the truth of history, fairly and thoroughly. On this particular point, of the relation of these two instances of alleged Witchcraft, in localities so near as Boston and Salem, and with so short an interval of time, general ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... difference what our thoughts, our theories, may be; and, therefore, there is good in this work of investigation which proposes to sift and test and try things, and find out the real nature of the forces which confront us and with which we ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors' minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time has been to sift and winnow out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive but what ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... sift the matter very deeply, nor did he ask Undy, or himself either, whether in using the contents of his purse in the purchase of shares he would be justified in turning to his own purpose any information which he might obtain in his official ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... come to you," continued Agatha, very seriously. "I am employed by those whose identity I must not disclose to sift this mystery of Colonel Weatherby to the bottom, if possible, and then to fix the guilt where it belongs. By accident you have come into possession of certain facts that would be important in unravelling the tangle, but through your unfortunate affliction you are helpless to act in your ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... large sums of money, and a few of them become bankrupt. When affairs had reached this crisis, one of the T.C.P.—an irascible old gentleman, whose fiery nature seemed to have singed all the hair off his head, leaving it completely bald—went down to Cornwall in a passion to sift the thing for himself. There he found the Great Wheal Dooem pump-engine going full swing, day and night, under the superintendence of one man, while the vast works underground (on which depended the "enormous" dividends promised to and expected by the T.C.P.) ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Duty, my Dear, to warn the Girl against her Ruin, and to instruct her how to make the most of her Beauty. I'll go to her this moment, and sift her. In the meantime, Wife, rip out the Coronets and Marks of these Dozen of Cambric Handkerchiefs, for I can dispose of them this Afternoon to a Chap in the City. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... incredible height and tapering exquisitely as it soars, it drops not foliage but plumage. To walk in a redwood forest at night and to look up at the stars tangled in the tree-tops, to watch the moonlight sift through the masses of soft black-green feathers, down, down, until strained to a diaphanous tenuity it lies a faint silver gossamer at your feet, is to feel that you are living in one of the old woodcuts which illustrate Shakespeare's "Midsummer ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... surprised, "how could she do that without your intervention? However, will you authorize my father-in-law to undertake your case? He will see the assignee, and sift the whole affair, since you have neither the time nor the inclination to attend ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... to dig prefer to make a deep pit, because fewer can work together at it, rather than scrape off and sift the two feet of surface which yield "antka's." They rob what they can: every scrap of metal stylus, manilla, or ring is carefully tested, scraped, broken or filed, in order to see whether it be gold. Punishment is plentifully administered, but in vain; we ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... finished slinging the last pack in the morning, a heavy grey sky began to sift down thickly falling snowflakes gently as if not wishing to give alarm. But when we were fairly under way this mildness vanished, and the storm smote our caravan with fierce and blinding gusts, amidst which progress was difficult. After four miles up the valley through beautiful ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... matter by the Church fathers. Having cited these authorities, I shall attempt to submit them to a critical examination, and so eliminate all accretions, hearsay and controversial opinions, and thus sift out what reliable residue is possible. Finally, my task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our admiration, and that, instead ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... and body." I might better have said "difficulties of body, mind and character," or even character alone, for, after all, when you come to sift things down, it is the character that is at the root of ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... blacken the stove. Strong, thick gloves, and a neat box for brushes, blacking, &c., will make this a much less disagreeable operation than it sounds. Rinse out the tea-kettle, fill it with fresh water, and put over to boil. Then remove the ashes, and, if coal is used, sift them, as cinders can be burned a large part of the time where only a moderate ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... therefore I am determined, for your brother's sake, to sift the story to the very bottom. In fact, I think—to end all doubt—I shall put the direct question myself to Sir ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... that wind would sift through a concrete wall," he said. "It's part an' parcel of the awful land. I tell you there's a curse on this country. Long, long ago godless people have lived in it, lived an' sinned an' perished. An' for its wickedness in the past the Lord has ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... us, great and small, As wheat to sift us, and we all Are tempted; Not one, however rich or great, Is by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the next morning to the moan of wind and the sift of snow clouds past their walls. Staring through his peep-hole, George distinguished only a seethe of whirling flakes that greyed the view, blotting even the neighbouring huts, and when the early evening brought a rising note in the storm the ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... and, if nearly examined, incorporeal arguments, the closest and wisest authors scatter about one good one: they are but verbal quirks and fallacies to amuse and gull us: but forasmuch as it may be with some profit, I will sift them no further; many of that sort are here and there dispersed up and down this book, either borrowed or by imitation. Therefore one ought to take a little heed not to call that force which is only a pretty knack ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... clerk from the house in Bedford Row had found him out at Hubbles and Grease's, and had discovered that he would be forthcoming as a witness. On the special subject of his evidence not much had then passed, the clerk having had no discretion given him to sift the matter. But Kenneby had promised to go to Bedford Row, merely stipulating for a day at some little distance of time. That day was now near at hand; but he was to see Dockwrath first, and hence it occurred that he now made his ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... protection, doubtless," said Elizabeth. "Thou shalt have it—that is, if thou art worthy; for we will sift this matter to the uttermost. Thou art," she said, bending on the Countess an eye which seemed designed to pierce her very inmost soul—"thou art Amy, daughter of Sir Hugh ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... weigh evidence, to sift facts, his clear mind indicates Natalie de Santos as the brain, Villa Rocca as the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... around here at home who put their money into that scheme. Sam and Bill Holton made a big play for small investors, and a lot of people put their savings into it—the kind o' folks who scrimp to save a dollar a week. Tom's trying to sift out the truth about the building of the line, and if he can force the surrender of the construction company's graft over and above the fair cost of the road, Sycamore will be all right. Your bonds are good, I think. People ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... ago when I found that my sister was anxious to have her with us in the North again this autumn. As you remember, I came to you, and told you the facts. I made you understand how repulsive it was to me to think that this girl might be my child, and begged you to sift the matter as far as was possible, and to find out if there were not a chance that I was mistaken in thinking it was Countess Romaninov who had been Lena ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... to PRINCESS IDA, that the way to make jumbles is to rasp on some good sugar the rinds of two lemons; dry, reduce it to powder, and sift it with as much more as will make up a pound in weight; mix with it one pound of flour, four well-beaten eggs, and six ounces of warm butter; drop the mixture on buttered tins, and bake the jumbles in a very slow oven from ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... to Stawell. By rail. Still in the colony of Victoria. Stawell is in the gold-mining country. In the bank-safe was half a peck of surface-gold—gold dust, grain gold; rich; pure in fact, and pleasant to sift through one's fingers; and would be pleasanter if it would stick. And there were a couple of gold bricks, very heavy to handle, and worth $7,500 a piece. They were from a very valuable quartz mine; a lady owns two-thirds of it; she has an income of $75,000 a month from it, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and rushed out of Whitehall as fast as her legs could carry her, heeding not the jeers of the crowd. She made for Tower Hill, from the summit of which she delivered her world-famous political speech, ending with the stirring words, "Sift ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... are contaminated in a manner unworthy of an honest man. I tell you it's rotten. It's—it's despicable. Do you think I'm going to sit down under this suspicion? It will be all over the countryside by to-morrow, and I—I shall be a branded man. I tell you I'm going to sift this matter to the bottom. But make no mistake. Not for your sake—nor for anybody else but myself. Those four years of hard honest work don't count with you. Well, they shan't count with me. I'll stay here with you so that I'm handy whenever wanted—you understand me, ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... of the situation, before we commit ourselves to a measurement. And they may be accurate observers without being good judges. They do not think so, and their bent is to glean hurriedly and form conclusions as hasty, when their business should be sift ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pursued by Senator Duvall in the Belmount affair leaves an unproved charge against others; a charge which I am determined to sift to the bottom—you see, I am speaking quite frankly. That charge involves the reputation of men high in authority; but I shall be strong to do my sworn duty, Mr. Kent; I ask you ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... moon as in a sieve, and sift Her flake by flake and spread her meaning out; You who roll the stars like jewels in your palm, So that they seem to utter themselves aloud; You who steep from out the days their colour, Reveal the universal ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast, And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While asleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits, In a cavern under ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... was refused publication in the Report of the British Association, and it was not until the Society for Psychical Research was founded that the paper was published, in the first volume of its Proceedings. It was the need of a scientific society to collect, sift and discuss and publish the evidence on behalf of such supernormal phenomena as Prof. Barrett described at the British Association that induced him to call a conference in London at the close of 1881, which led to the foundation of the Society ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... matter at once to my chief on the 'Nation', and with his frank goodwill I talked it over with Mr. Osgood, of Ticknor & Fields, who was to see me further about it if I wished, when he came to New York; and then I went to Boston to see Mr. Fields concerning details. I was to sift all the manuscripts and correspond with contributors; I was to do the literary proof-reading of the magazine; and I was to write the four or five pages of book-notices, which were then printed at the end of the periodical in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... off the green Stalk, then boil some Sugar till it blows very strong; throw in the Violets, and boil it till it blows again, then with a Spoon rub the Sugar against the Side of the Pan till white, then stir all till the Sugar leaves them; then sift ...
— The Art of Confectionary • Edward Lambert
... fiction. If one could know what is going on around him, how surprised and startled he would be. If we could get all the facts in any one incident, and get them colourlessly, and have the judgment to sift and analyze accurately, what fascinating instances of the power ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... should be put in each ring as they raise easily. Eat with plenty of good butter. They should be given to children before each meal, when they are hungry, not after their stomachs are full. Put bran in dish first. Sift in flour, soda and salt. Mix these thoroughly together, then add one pint of milk (two cupfuls) and six to eight tablespoonfuls of New Orleans molasses. The quantity of molasses depends upon the individual taste. They are good for any child or adult whether ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... declared his readiness to sift cinders, or scour knives, or do anything, if she would let him come. Just then Neil arrived, not altogether pleased to find Jack there before him, standing close to Bessie, who was looking very happy. The two young men went with her to the station, where they vied with each other in showing ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... been some one else," suggested Dick, not because he believed that, but because he wanted to sift all the evidence and get to the bottom ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... curse thee to thy face"; as he afterward did when he afflicted Job with ugly boils and in addition filled him with his fiery arrows—terrifying thoughts of God. Further, Christ said to Peter and the other apostles: "Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not." Lk 22, 31-32. In short, if God hinders him not, Satan dares to overthrow even the greatest and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... more racing chatter to be heard at the great hairdressers' than almost anywhere else outside a race-course. Some of it is worth hearing, most of it is valueless. The difficulty, as elsewhere, is to sift the ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... is the Sieve [2], But it is of no use to sift. In the north is the Ladle [3], But it lades out no liquor. In the south is the Sieve, Idly showing its mouth. In the north is the Ladle, Raising ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... his surprise and chagrin he discovered that as fast as he brought to light a "basis" for his selection, he was informed, after some perfunctory investigation by the employees of the State Land Office that these bases had already been used! Eventually the light of reason began to sift through the fog of despair and suddenly Bob had ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... "Who would sift the matter to the bottom? Scolding one party or the other was of no avail. Threats only serve to aggravate people in such cases. I never was in danger but once, young people," said Madame de Bernstein, "and I think that was because my poor mother ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... futile, I may suggest, to subject work of this sort to critical analysis by attempting to sift out what is probably true from what is certainly false. You only break up the picture, you destroy the artistic effect, which is at least a true reflection of real life. Moreover, it is dangerous for learned men sitting in libraries to regard as incredible ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... jeered. "Now whose trick is it to make me a fool? Come, sift this thing! You," to Valencia, "have looked on this before. ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... from Grisapol that day, the Espirito Santo was very much in my reflections. I had been favourably remarked by our then Principal in Edinburgh College, that famous writer, Dr. Robertson, and by him had been set to work on some papers of an ancient date to rearrange and sift of what was worthless; and in one of these, to my great wonder, I found a note of this very ship, the Espirito Santo, with her captain's name, and how she carried a great part of the Spaniard's ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and days dragged slow. But joyful now, with eager eye, Fast to the Promised Land we fly: Where in deep mines, The treasure shines; Or down in beds of golden streams, The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams! How we long to sift, That yellow drift! Rivers! Rivers! cease your goings! Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide! 'Till we've gained the golden flowing; And in the ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... for no recruits under false pretences, but rather discouraged than stimulated light-hearted adhesion. His constant effort was to sift the crowds that gathered round Him. So here great multitudes are following Him, and how does He welcome them? Does He lay Himself out to attract them? Luke tells us that He turned and faced the following ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... country, sat against the walls. Here and there a bunch of herbs or a few ears of corn, their husks braided, hung on the bare rafters. The aroma of the summer fields—of peppermint, catnip, and lobelia—haunted it. Chimney and stovepipe tempered the cold. A crack in the gable end let in a sift of snow that had been heaping up a lonely little drift on the bare floor. The widow covered the boys tenderly and took their treasures off the bed, all save the little wooden monkey, which, as if frightened by the melee, had hidden far under ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... writers—like Lombroso in his Man of Genius and Nisbet in his Insanity of Genius—to rake in statements from all quarters regarding the morbidities of genius, often without any attempt to authenticate, criticise, or sift them, and never with any effort to place them in ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Jacob did, you shall see, as Jacob did, that your sin shall surely find you out. The Lord will be more sharp and severe with you than with Esau. And why? Because he has given you more, and requires more of you; and therefore he will chastise you, and sift you like wheat, till he has parted the wheat from the tares. The wheat is your faith, your belief that if you trust in God he will prosper you, body and soul. That is God's good seed, which he has sown in you. The tares are ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... I lay awake, trying to sift some motive for Mr. Allen's deceit. For the life of me I could see no farther than a desire to keep me as his pupil, since he was well paid for his tuition. Still, the game did not seem worth the candle. However, he was safe in his lie. Shrewd rogue that he was, he well knew ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... under forms, Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves, Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me, — Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet That advise me of more than they bring, — repeat Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath From the heaven-side bank of the river of death, — Teach me the terms of silence, — preach ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... unquestionably very well worth reading; yet that a young man of twenty should ride seven miles and back again each day in the week, to hold this sort of tete-a-tete of three hours, was a zeal for literature to which he was not prepared to give entire credit. Little art was necessary to sift the Dominie, for the honest man's head never admitted any but the most direct and simple ideas. "Does Miss Bertram know how your time is engaged, my ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... deep philosophy, too, in showing how carefully we should sift misfortune to the dregs, and ascertain what of benefit we might rescue from the dross, is not to be denied; and the more we reflect on it, the more should we see that the germ of all real consolation is intimately ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the porter had insisted upon making up the girls' berths and, like most of the other passengers in the Pullman, Nan and Bess were asleep. While the passengers slept the snow continued to sift down, building the drifts higher and higher, and causing the train-crew increasing ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... high feast sat primate and dean, Both dressed like divines, with hand and face clean: Quoth Hugh of Armagh, 'the mob is grown bold.' 'Ay, ay,' quoth the Dean, 'the cause is old gold.' 'No, no,' quoth the primate, 'if causes we sift, The mischief arises from witty Dean Swift.' The smart one replies, 'There's no wit in the case; And nothing of that ever troubled your grace. Though with your state sieve your own motions you s—t, A Boulter by name is no bolter of wit. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... it was coarse to a degree, and seemed to consist chiefly of minute speckly pieces of husk, which used to tickle our throats up in the most unpleasant manner, and had a nasty habit of choking the swallower, in addition to being highly indigestible. We used at last to sift the flour through linen, and the residuum was ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... to make me a sieve, to sift my meal and part it from the bran and husk. Having no fine thin canvas to search the meal through, I could not tell what to do. What linen I had was reduced to rags: I had goat's hair, enough, but neither tools to work it, nor did I know how to spin it: At length I remembered I had some neckcloths ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... to express it, he would have liked to say to her. Deep down within him he was questioning whether it was possible always to live under such impulse of fealty to Heaven as had befallen him under the exciting influence of Cameron's expectation, whether the power of such an hour to sift the good from the evil, the important from the unimportant in life, could in any wise be retained. But he would have been a wholly different man from what he was had he thought this concisely, or said it aloud. All that he did was to express superficial curiosity concerning ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... might effect my exit. In this calculation, however, I was deceived; instead of anything of the sort, my eyes were greeted by a stiff ox-fence, with a rather unpleasantly high fall of ground into the lane beyond,—a sort of place well fitted to winnow a hunting-field, and sift the gentlemen who come out merely to show their white gloves and buckskins, from the "real sort," who "mean going," and are resolved to see the end of the run. However, in the humour in which I then was, it would not have been easy to stop me, and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... sources of information in the Orient are not always easy to find, nor always in accord after one finds them. Consider, for example, the population of Manchuria: it seems a simple enough matter, yet it required the help of consuls of two or three nations to enable me to sift out the truth from the conflicting representations of several writers ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... life's joys and gains? What pleasures crowd its ways, That man should take such pains To seek them all his days? Sift this untoward strife On which thy mind is bent, See if this chaff of life Is ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... the apple tree would be blooming, and the petals would sift down on Gabriella. Looking up at the marriage bell of blossoms, and speaking in the language of her grandmother, she ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... my grief supply Since 'tis heavier than I figured. Let us sift the matter deeper.— If a Muscovite by birth, then He who is your natural lord Could not 'gainst you have committed Any wrong; reseek your country, And abandon the wild impulse That ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the older man. His own years were disguised by an ample growth of hair and the past experience of an accomplished rascal. Jinnai could have passed himself off for a man of thirty odd years. The house of a physiognomist was overrun with visitors, whom Jinnai knew how to sift, and who had no particular wish to encounter each other. Hence the presence of the leaders, with his own particular followers, Watanabe Mondo, Ashizuke To[u]suke, Yokoyama Daizo[u], Hyu[u]chi To[u]goro[u], ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... from mixture.] Simpleness — N. simpleness &c adj.; purity, homogeneity. elimination; sifting &c v.; purification &c (cleanness) 652. V. render simple &c adj.; simplify. sift, winnow, bolt, eliminate; exclude, get rid of; clear; purify &c (clean) 652; disentangle &c (disjoin) 44. Adj. simple, uniform, of a piece [Fr.], homogeneous, single, pure, sheer, neat. unmixed, unmingled^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
