"Wise Men" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before they are dispersed, will make a bonfire of their gimcracks, as an army destroy their artillery when forced to raise a siege. And as for the holes, Edie, I abandon them as rat-traps, for the benefit of the next wise men who may choose to drop the substance ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... means involving treachery and sacrilege. The insurgents were slain clinging to the altars of the gods, where they had taken refuge. Not long after it became necessary to introduce other reforms at the advice of Solon, one of "the seven wise men of Greece." He had acquired popularity by recovering Salamis from the Megarians, and in a sacred war against towns which had robbed the temple of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of those wise men who know when they have met their match. His knockings down and overbearing ways always stopped short at that line where he met courage and strength equal or superior to his own. He possessed about the average of bull-dog courage and more than the average of physical strength, but ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... and wealth, why all this sneering 'Gainst poor Excisemen? give the cause a hearing; What are you, landlords' rent-rolls? teasing ledgers: What premiers—what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers: Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men? What are they, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ordinances of God, in his revealed will; but that either (with the corrupt revolution church) he hath left the government of his house a matter of indifference, and the pattern thereof to be moulded by the discretion of the wise men of this world, and according to the corrupt will and fluctuating inclination of the people; or, with their public resolution-brethren, the Seceders, exchanging the clear scriptural and covenanted basis of civil government, with the obscure foundation of the law and light of nature, ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... his prophecy, but his efforts to talk were distressing. It may be said in excuse for him, that in some paddling up the river from that point, he had arrived at perhaps an honest conviction of what would happen to any one going below; and also, that other wise men of the town predicted that we would never see "Brown's Hole," at ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of reward; and will make themselves sure that you deserve it before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the physical type of wisdom, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... a great secret, O Frank. In this city lie the lost books of the Arwam (Greek) wise men and poets. When the Alexandrian library was burned by Amrou, at Omar's order, the four thousand baths of the city were heated for six months by ancient scrolls. I have heard that ye Feringi have greatly mourned the loss of the Arwam learning and poetry. Not all this treasure ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... great and good. Heroism is an obedience[332] to a secret impulse of an individual's character. Now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to see a little further on his own proper path than any one else. Therefore, just and wise men take umbrage at his act, until after some little time be past: then they see it to be in unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... pertaine to the gouernment or good order both of an housholde, and also of a citie or common wealth. The reading likewise of histories, conduceth not a litle, to the adorning of the soule & minde of man, a studie of all men commended: by it are seene and knowen the artes and doinges of infinite wise men gone before vs. In histories are contained infinite examples of heroicall vertues to be of vs followed, and horrible examples of vices to be of vs eschewed. Many other artes also there are which beautifie the minde of man: but ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... gone into a strange land, far away beyond the rivers that flowed through her father's dominion—farther than one could see from the highest castle tower—up into the land of ice and snow, where wise men, famous for learning and ancient lore had gathered together from many lands and countries the daughters of great men. Kings and powerful rulers, railroad men, bankers, mighty men who wished to bring up their children to be wise and versed in all things old and new. Here, the ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... not ready for it. There was indeed no lack of men. Hundreds of thousands responded to their country's call; and the great body of the people were carried away with the delusion that men with arms in their hands are soldiers, and that massing them in great numbers makes them a great army. Wise men—men of military judgment and experience—knew better. But the popular clamor for onward offensive operations prevailed; with disastrous result in the first instance. Not on the whole perhaps to be regretted. It did what nothing else could have done—it dispelled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... curious one-sidedness shows itself particularly in painting and in sculpture. In the former, when human beings are the subject, the aim has apparently been to extol certain characteristics; in warriors, the military or heroic spirit; in wise men, their wisdom; in monks and priests, their mastery over the passions and complete attainment of peace; in a god, the moral character which he is supposed to represent. Art has consequently been directed to bringing into prominence ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... "I am not afraid to die, if need be. But ere you do your will upon me, I would fain tell you a tale and give you a warning. Here I am one among many. I am also of your opinion, if your opinion be against tyranny. But for God's sake seek it as wise men and not as posturing knaves. As ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... that nothing can happen so important as birth,' says she: 'and perfumes must be ploper to birth, because the wise men blought spices to ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Aunt Angel dear, aren't they bright? Is the Wise Men's Star there still, do you suppose? That's the Plough, isn't it? If one was up in the Plough could one see Oakfield, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... greediness, and a rational management, were all that was necessary. A wonderful era was possible for the human race. But the capitalist class failed. It made a shambles of civilization. Nor can the capitalist class plead not guilty. It knew of the opportunity. Its wise men told of the opportunity, its scholars and its scientists told it of the opportunity. All that they said is there to-day in the books, just so much damning evidence against it. It would not listen. It ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... consideration is of an opposite kind. Admitting that a few wise men are likely to be better governors than the unwise many, yet it is not in their power to fashion an entire people according to their behest. When with the best intentions the benevolent despot begins ...
— Statesman • Plato
... the Corinthians for their patience and wisdom in six points: as wise men, they cheerfully endure the foolish; they bear with those who bring them into bondage and oppress them; with those who devour them; with those who take from them [or take them captive]; with those who exalt themselves; with those who smite them in the face. But his commendation ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... in the matter. I share the opinion in common with many wise men. Let me refer you to Solomon, the census of whose harem warrants us in believing that what he didn't know about women wasn't worth knowing. Yet he records as his experience, "One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... bad luck?" returned his friend. "You cannot both have good luck. Whatever one gains the other must lose—and so it goes on. Should wise men act thus?" ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... to root out all the cursed seeds of evil that I found in him, I should either be turned out of his court, or, at least, be laughed at for my pains? For instance, what could I signify if I were about the King of France, and were called into his cabinet council, where several wise men, in his hearing, were proposing many expedients; as, by what arts and practices Milan may be kept, and Naples, that has so often slipped out of their hands, recovered; how the Venetians, and after them the rest of Italy, may be subdued; and then how Flanders, Brabant, and all Burgundy, and ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... king called together all the wisest men of his kingdom to consult with them as to the best way to make the prince wise and clever. They talked the matter over for a year and a day. It was the unanimous opinion of the wise men of the kingdom that the lad should be sent on a journey through many lands. In this way he might learn many of the things which his teachers had not been able to teach him out ...
— Tales of Giants from Brazil • Elsie Spicer Eells
... liberties, could be trusted regardless of property holdings. "By the report before us," he said, "we propose to annihilate, at one stroke, all property distinctions, and to bow before the idol of universal suffrage. That extreme democratic principle has been regarded with terror by the wise men of every age, because in every European republic, ancient and modern, in which it has been tried, it has terminated disastrously, and been productive of corruption, injustice, violence, and tyranny. And dare we flatter ourselves ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the ingenuity of worldly-wise men, and set them planning and studying the question in all its bearings, to devise new schemes of transportation on a scale not dreamed of hitherto. Watt, the Stephensons, Brunel, A. Maury, and others, rose up to perfect the various steam-machines already known and in use; to investigate ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... 18; which Deut. xxxiv, 9, interprets to be the spirit of wisdom, (i.e.) the spirit of government, fitting and capacitating a man to discharge the duties of the magistratical office, to the glory of God and the good of his people; without this, he ought not to be chosen. Deut. i, 13: "Take ye wise men and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you." Here is a precept, directing the people in their choice: they must not be children nor fools; if so, they are plagues and punishments, instead of scriptural magistrates, ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... from the one he had intended, Pyrrhus changed his ground, and told his generals that no importance whatever was to be attached to visions and dreams. They might serve, he argued, very well to amuse the ignorant and superstitious, but wise men should be entirely above being influenced by them in any way. "You have something better than these things to trust in," said he. "You have arms in your hands, and you have Pyrrhus for your leader. This is proof enough for you that you ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... companions here are aware of your recent departure, except my very old personal friend Hilarion, who, with myself, saw your body while in its state of temporary death. But he is one of those remarkably rare wise men who know when it is best to be silent; then again, he is ignorant as to the results of your soul- transmigration, and will, as far as I am concerned, remain in ignorance. Your confidence I assure you is perfectly safe with me —as safe as though it had been received under the sacred ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... churches, because it wasn't. She—Louie—had been at the Midnight Mass in Toulouse Cathedral on Christmas Eve. That was something like. And down in the crypt they had a 'Bethlehem'—the sweetest thing you ever saw. There were the shepherds, and the wise men, and the angels—dolls, of course, but their dresses were splendid, and the little Jesus was dressed in white satin, embroidered with gold—old embroidery, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... farther." Thus another fly resting upon the proverbial wheel of progress commanded it to turn no more. This man engages our attention because he is a representative of a type to be found in all our lands; wise men on the wrong side of a great question, modern Joshuas who command the sun to stand still and believe ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... and Phidias was crowned King of Emotions. Music alone lagged in the race, music, part speech, part painting, with a surging undertow of passion, music had been too long in the laboratories of the wise men. To free it from its Egyptian bondage, to make it the tongue of all life, the interpreter of the world's desire—Illowski dreamed ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... little fellow sleeping on a tear-stained pillow, dreaming, perhaps, of a heaven where the woods are full of King Charles' spaniel dogs, and a doorkeeper stands with a club to keep out policemen. And still we cannot blame policemen—it is the law that is to blame—the wise men who go to the legislature, and make months with one day too much, pass laws that a dog shall be muzzled and wear a brass check, or he is liable to go mad. Statistics show that not one dog in a million ever goes mad, and that they are more liable to go mad in winter than in summer; but several ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... your four pennies. You, a fool, say "Glory be to God," but before I came the wise men said it. Run away now. I must ring ...
— The Hour Glass • W.B.Yeats
... "For fault of wise men fools sit on the bench, or we should hev none of this," continued Matthew. "I reckon some one that's here is nigh ax't oot by Auld Nick in the kirk ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... three hundred and forty days in a frightful prison," he said, "in the midst of filth, noisomeness, stench, and the utmost want of everything; you then bring me out before you, and lending an ear to my mortal enemies, you refuse to hear me.... If you be really wise men, and the lights of the world, take care not to sin against justice. As to me, I am only a feeble mortal; my life is but of little importance; and when I exhort you not to deliver an unjust sentence, I speak less for myself ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the wisest man in the world. Though like all wise men he had his foolish streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with, I should told him so if I had lived ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... itself and of the pathos of our little span of living; but the wistfulness of its appeal is almost heartbreaking. He can never, I suppose, stand among the great composers; dwarfed he must always be against Mozart or Weber, or even Verdi. But he has done what all wise men must do: he has discovered the one thing he can perform well, and he is performing it very well indeed. His genius is slim and miniature, but he handles it as an artist. There is no man living who can achieve such effects with so slender material. There is no man living ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... for us. We know, now, that he was mistaken: but we have not discovered his mistake for ourselves, and have no right to plume ourselves on other men's discoveries. Had we lived in Amyas's days, we should have belonged either to the many wise men who believed as he did, or to the many foolish men, who not only sneered at the story of Manoa, but at a hundred other stories, which we now know to be true. Columbus was laughed at: but he found a new world, nevertheless. Cortez was laughed at: but he found Mexico. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... comers, often makes them the martyrs of his night watches. I have never been guilty of such foolish conceit, and I am in that respect of the opinion of a Greek, who by an express law forbade all his wise men any unbecoming anxiety to read their works.—Here are some little verses for young lovers upon which I should like to have ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... Siena to venerate some holy relics, carrying with her three candles, each five feet long, to burn before them; which candles contained many particles of the myrrh presented at the Nativity of our Saviour by the Wise Men of the East. Amadeo breathed freely, and was persuaded by Guiberto to take another cup of old wine, and to eat with him some cold roast kid, which had been offered him for merenda. After the agitation of his mind a heavy sleep fell upon the lover, coming almost before Guiberto departed: so heavy ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... whereon the Markmen now abode, there was a ring made of the chief warriors and captains and wise men who had not been slain or grievously hurt in the fray, and amidst them all sat Thiodolf on the ground, his chin sunken on his breast, looking more like a captive than the leader of a host amidst of his ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... into my mind that we should do well for our own safety and comfort to start at once on a hunting journey far from Egypt; in the land of the Ethiopians, Master. There perchance I could gather together some of the wise men in whose hands I left the rule of my kingdom, and submit to them this question of a woman to marry me. The Ethiopians are a faithful people, Master, and will not reject me because I have spent some years seeing the ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... follow us, we could not have found any place in all the world where he would not dare venture. I meant such creatures as that absurd little paymaster, who talked about a stupid tub he had invented, until I couldn't help asking him why he didn't follow the example of the three wise men of Gotham and sail ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... own church three paper lanterns, shaped like stars and representing the "three wise men," at the climax of the mass were worked on wires so that they floated overhead along the auditorium, and finally came to rest above the altar, which had been transformed into a manger, the more realistic on account of the pigs, ducks, and chickens manufactured out of paper that ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... nowadays an experience which is considered at all critical either in its actual occurrence or consequences. As to the other supposed natural disabilities which your wise men used to make so much of as excuses for keeping women in economic subjection, they have ceased to involve any physical ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... kept my word? Wasn't it I That made you what these poor, dull mortals call Crazy? Who crowned you with the cap and bells? Who made you such a hopeless, glorious fool That wise men are afraid of every word You utter? Wasn't it I that made you free Of fairyland—that showed you how to pluck Fern-seed by moonlight, and to walk and talk Between the lights, with urchins and with elves? Is there another fool twixt earth and heaven Like you—ungrateful ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... continued to strive, each one contending for the pre-eminence of his own state, regardless of the sage warning: "In three moments a labourer will remove an obstructing rock, but three moons will pass without two wise men agreeing on the meaning of a vowel"; and assuredly they would have persisted in their intellectual entertainment until the great sky-lantern rose and the pangs of hunger compelled them to desist, were it not for the manifestation of a very ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... strict, but sharp of tongue. I might have continued in that town to this day. But when I was fully come to man's estate the Civil War between King and Parliament broke out all over the land. Loath was I to take up arms, having been ever of a peaceable disposition, but when wise men, whom I revered, called upon me to fight for the civil and religious freedom of my native land, it seemed to me, in my dark ignorance of soul, that no other course remained honourably open to me. I feared ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... delicacy of feeling, a wise reserve, and an undeviating devotion to lofty things such as I have never seen in a healthy frame. The body is but the tenement of the soul, and just as we find righteous men and sinners, wise men and fools, alike in the palace and the hovel—nay, and often see truer worth in a cottage than in the splendid mansions of the great—so we may discover noble souls both in the ugly and the fair, in the healthy and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... learning by fond fathers, or bet from learning by lewde scholemasters," ed. Mayor, p. 19. But Ascham reproves parents for paying their masters so badly: "it is pitie, that commonlie more care is had, yea and that emonges verie wise men, to finde out rather a cunnynge man for their horse than a cunnyng man for their children. They say nay in worde, but they do so in deede. For, to the one they will gladlie give a stipend of 200. Crounes by yeare, and loth to offer to the other, 200. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... difficult to please two such opposite natures: however, as to the things of this world I had enough, and endured their discontents with much sereneness. My mistress was very curious to know of such as were then called cunning or wise men, whether she should bury her husband? She frequently visited such persons, and this occasion begot in me a little desire to learn something that way, but wanting money to buy books, I laid aside these motions, and endeavoured to please both master ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... demoralized to the point where every trace of even national feeling is wiped out, by nineteen years of revolution and crimes, now looks on with cold-blooded indifference at what is passing beyond its own frontiers. Wise men think that the treaties, being as advantageous to Russia as to France, necessarily contain a germ which in developing will prove dangerous to the latter." In reality there was not now a state in Europe toward which the French empire did ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... members spoke with as much want of temper and discretion. Mr. Walpole was more moderate. He recommended that their first care should be to restore public credit. "If the city of London were on fire, all wise men would aid in extinguishing the flames, and preventing the spread of the conflagration, before they inquired after the incendiaries. Public credit had received a dangerous wound, and lay bleeding, and they ought to apply a speedy remedy to it. It was time enough ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... pleases their palates, or by indulging their appetites of every kind. But whether they understand physic or not, let them consult their reason, and observe what agrees, and what does not agree with them, that, like wise men, they may adhere to the use of such things as conduce to their health, and forbear everything which, by their own experience, they find to do them hurt; and let them be assured that, by a diligent observation and practice of this rule, they may enjoy a good share of health, and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Anthem, "Crossing the bar." Scripture Lesson, Bishop Samuel Fallows, D.D., LL.D. Greetings and Communications, Miss Caroline Ruutz-Rees. Address—Memory Pictures, Mrs. Florence Cotnam. Anthem—The Shepherds and Wise Men. (Composed for this occasion by Witter Bynner and A. Madely Richardson.) Address—The Courageous Leader, Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw. Address—Reminiscences, Miss Jane Addams. Address—Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. A Closing Word, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... hills ran up and down the State. Men who had followed the course of things through the past months, men who knew the spoken story of the fire in the hills which no newspaper had dared to print openly, understood just what it meant. The men up there had been goaded to desperation at last. But wise men agreed quietly with each other that they had done the very worst thing that could have been done. The injury they had done the railroad would amount to very little, comparatively, in the end, while it would give the railroad an absolutely free hand from now ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... let discretion interfere with the enunciation of any opinion he favoured. In the Paralipomena are many passages written in the spirit of universalism, and treating of the divine principle as something which animates wise men alone, wise men and philosophers of every age and every clime, Aristotle being the head and chief. Plato and Socrates and the Seven Sages adorn this illustrious circle, which includes likewise the philosophers of Chaldea and Egypt. Opinions like these were no longer ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... land with noble institutions instead of diabolical forts. I will have no more cannon founded. They are a curse and shall be melted—the iron ones into railroads; the bronze ones into statues of beautiful saints, angels, and wise men; the copper ones into money, to be distributed among my poor. I was poor once, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... baseness, far inferior to other parts: but, nevertheless, it doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot those that are either shallow in judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times; therefore we see it hath done wonders in popular states, but with senates and princes less; and more, ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action, than soon after; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... is usually the result of virtuous and industrious habits; and it should be respected merely for what it indicates," rejoined Anaxagoras. "Aristides, and other wise men, in their efforts to satisfy the requirements of a restless people, have opened a sluice, without calculating how it would be enlarged by the rushing waters, until the very walls of the city are ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... 'wisdom,'—a term suggestive of its close application to matters of human life and duty. This Wisdom literature started from the 'proverbs'—simple thoughts conveyed in a couplet or triplet of verse, which were collected together by King Solomon and other of the wise men of Israel. From these proverbs the form of wisdom enlarged to verse epigrams and sonnets, or prose maxims and essays, until we find books of wisdom comprehending complete systems of thought. To catch the development of this Wisdom literature, it is necessary to take in two books of ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... "lefts" as invidious; but I have witnessed the agonized struggles of many a victim of fractious boots, and been thankful that "I am not as other men are," in ability to comprehend the difference between my right and left foot. Still, as already intimated, I have seen wise men driven mad by a thing of leather ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... is allurement about her body; sylph-like, sinuous; the olive tint of her complexion, the wonderful glory of her hair and the glowing night-black of her eyes. Men pause; she is of the superlative kind that robs the reason, a supreme glory of passion and life and beauty, at whose feet fools and wise men would slavishly frolic and folly. She seldom speaks, but those who have heard her say that it is like rippling water, of gentleness and softness and of the mellow flow that comes from love and passion ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... men,' made he answer, while knocking the ashes out of his little silver pipe, 'there are wise men who know these things. And there is an ancient book which discourses of them. According to the age of a man, and the time of his birth, and the stars of heaven, may the number of his Souls be divined. But this is the knowledge of old men: the young folk ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... are found human bones, crusted with a very thick, stony coating, and wise men have ventured to say that those men not only lived before the flood, but as much as ten thousand years before it. It may be true—it looks reasonable enough—but as long as those parties can't vote anymore, the matter can be of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there were not here, too, all the Herr Professors of the German universities—those wise men so unquestionably skilful in altering the trademarks of intellectual products and changing the terminology of things! Those men with flowing beards and gold-rimmed spectacles, pacific rabbits of the laboratory and the professor's ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... king's presence, surrounded by soldiers, and accompanied by many of his friends, for he was a great favourite. By their advice he spent the fourteen days that remained to him going about to seek counsel from wise men of all sorts, as to how he might escape death, but no one could help him, for none could find any excuse for the blow he had given ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... their sins, and they trembled. He touched their sorrows, and they wept. He spoke of the conflicts, the triumphs, the glories of their faith, and they broke out in thunders of applause. He hushed them into reverent silence, and led them tenderly, with the wise men of the East, to the lowly ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... November 2, 1866, congratulating him on his] "well-earned honour" [of the F.R.S.]—"Go on and prosper. These are not the things wise men work for; but it is not the less proper of a wise man to take them ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... you do not understand it, behold the promise of St. James, If any may lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. The divine word is a most precious treasure, from which all wise men are enriched. Drink from the fountain itself. Again, I say, vain is the philosophy of men; for it recommends to us doctrines newly invented, and prevents our increase in virtue, rather than promotes it. Cast it far ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the purple camels belonged to the Three Wise Men, the ones who journeyed, after the Star—do you remember? And found the little baby who was the Christ? And because the purple camels had followed the Star, the good Lord said to them, 'Some day you shall journey towards Paradise, ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... water, faithful servant or monachal abstinence, wisest of wise men, how would thy sides ache with laughter, how wouldst thou chuckle, if thou couldst come again for a little while to Chinon, and read the idiotic mouthings, and the maniacal babble of the fools who have interpreted, commentated, torn, disgraced, misunderstood, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... in luminous rings eruptive of the infinitesimal, or pointed with examples and types under the broad Alpine survey of the spirit born of our united social intelligence, which is the Comic Spirit? Wise men say the latter. They tell us that there is a constant tendency in the Book to accumulate excess of substance, and such repleteness, obscuring the glass it holds to mankind, renders us inexact in the recognition of our individual countenances: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Kent, to the Fleet; but by means of friends, maister Roo and he were deliuered at last. This plaie sore displeased the cardinall, and yet it was neuer meant to him, as you haue heard. Wherfore manie wise men grudged to see him take it so hartilie, and euer the cardinall said that the king was highlie displeased with it, and ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Chaldeans," and having "understanding in all visions and dreams," a remarkable proof of which he gave by relating to Nebuchadnezzar the dream which had gone from him, with its interpretation, was made "ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon," and at his request his three companions were also set over the affairs of the province of Babylon (chaps. 1, 2). He continued in high honor at the court of Babylon as a wise and incorruptible ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... while listening to one of the wise men who had called at the White House to unload a large cargo of advice, the President interjected a remark to the effect that he had a ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... And the wise men made answer: "Let her be brought, that her rashness may be made manifest, that she may confess that never until now has ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... nothing but a warrior's life becomes ethel-born men," he said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. "Nor sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the stars and read lives from the palms of men's hands. His grandfather did the same. He came from a race of wise men. The first seers of his family sat in the shade of the early sphinxes and told Egyptian maidens to beware of young men who came up from the Red ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... superiority of sound limbs, and the value of the five senses; and healthy young people should throng the lazarettos and alms-houses to learn the nature of their own disadvantages. It is equally desirable that wise men like you and Peyton should accustom yourselves to the society of—well—I use polite diction, of imbeciles, of 'innocents,' in order to set a true value on learning and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... all hazard I have ventured what I thought my duty, to speak in season and to forewarn my country in time; wherein I doubt not but there be many wise men in all places and degrees, but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. Many circumstances and particulars I could have added in those things whereof I have spoken; but a few main matters now put speedily into ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... maintain it to be a pity, that it should be done by means of a passion which bends down the faculties, and turns all the wisdom, contemplations, and operations of the soul backwards—a passion, my dear, continued my father, addressing himself to my mother, which couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us come out of our caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... wise God. Men, that have many natural advantages beyond others, are at this great disadvantage, they are more ready to despise godliness, as too base and simple a thing to adorn their natures, as Christ said of rich men, it may be said of wise men, of learned men, of civil and blameless persons who have a smooth carriage before the world, how hard is it for such to enter into the kingdom of heaven? Hard indeed! for they must be stripped naked of that, ere they can enter through this narrow gate, I mean, the opinion and conceit, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... or householders, they shall set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University.'] which was the first school law ever passed in America, and outlined just such a system as we now enjoy on an extended scale in Canada. Wise men those stern Puritans of the early colonial times! It is not surprising that intellectual food, so early provided for all classes, should have nurtured at last an Emerson, an Everett, a Hawthorne, a Wendell Philips, a Longfellow, ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... which may, and often does, entail hours—ay, sometimes months—of exceeding discomfort; but we would not for a moment presume to suggest such a question to him. We have a distinct objection to the ordinary method of what is called "drawing a moral." It is much better to leave wise men to ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... somewhat similar to the habits found in civilized communities, for the passions and evil propensities of all men are found to be alike, no matter what differences of education or color exist. We find that the Indian tribes have their wise men, whose voices are heard and heeded on all occasions. When these villages are located, or, to use soldier phrase; when the Indians go into camp, care is taken that each lodge shall be placed where it will not interfere with the common good. The internal ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... I say. For that proud, greedy, selfish, self- seeking spirit would turn heaven into hell. It did turn heaven into hell, for the great devil himself. It was by pride, by seeking his own glory—(so, at least, wise men say)—that he fell from heaven to hell. He was not content to give up his own will and do God's will, like the other angels. He was not content to serve God, and rejoice in God's glory. He would be a master himself, and set up for himself, ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... divisions, the four first contain some scenes from the history of the Bible; the two last, the day of Judgment and the celestial Jerusalem. On the North side, in an equal number of windows, you see the birth of Jesus Christ, the wise men, and the portraits of several German emperors; the last of these windows represents a series of the oldest events in Scripture. The effect produced by these beautiful windows is greatly increased since they had the happy idea to wash away the daubing with which, about thirty years ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... would it be wrong to disturb that tranquil acquiescence in a humble destiny? He could not decide. He dared not take upon himself so much responsibility. "In doubt do nothing" has been the axiom of many wise men. The remembrance of the maxim closed his lips. He had himself been in early manhood passionately ambitious; he was only a priest, but of priests are made the Gregorio, the Bonifazio, the Leone of the Papal throne; to the dreams of a seminarist nothing is impossible. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... in one of Chicago's segregated districts for advertising and encouraging vice, asked this question, as he stood on the curbstone in one of our midnight gospel meetings: "If the wise men who are set up over us to rule us want it this way, what can you ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... rising over the hills to the eastward. The whole valley, at the farther end of which they were, was filled with warriors formed into regiments of four or five hundred men each. Some little distance off, in front of his hut, stood the chief, Umbulazi, surrounded by his counsellors and other wise men. ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... is," he added, laughing, "when I interposed, and saved your life and your sister's, I was obliged to say all I could in your favour; so I told my friends that you were a very wonderful personage, and that you knew more than a whole army of wise men: if they kept you, they would be certain to conquer all their enemies; but if they killed you, that your friends would be certain to come ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... suggestion I feel that I am treading on dangerous ground; still, having undertaken to suggest a remedy for Irish discontent and anarchy, I must not shrink from offending the prejudices of some of the wise men of England. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Arab conquest, prefaced by extracts from numerous writers eulogistic of a country "whose excellences" (as Al-Makkari himself declares) "are such and so many that they cannot easily be contained in a book ... so that one of their wise men, who knew that the country had been called the bird's tail, owing to the supposed resemblance of the earth to a bird with extended wings, remarked that that bird was the peacock, the principal beauty of which was in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... a great treasure, Wise men in such will oft take pleasure. And he deserves your favor and a collar, He, of the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody ever will hear of. No water babies, indeed! Why, wise men of old said that everything on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day. There are land babies, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... "friends of the people, followers of Marius, vote, if ye be wise men, for the murderer of his kinsman—for ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... or ill, but wise men nevertheless make note of them, and the fact that they once flashed their blinding light upon us must live in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... most complained that, in my ways to persuade a toleration, I helped some men too far, and that I armed the Anabaptists with swords instead of shields, with a power to offend us, besides the proper defensitives of their own ... But wise men understand the thing and are satisfied. But because all men are not of equal strength; I did not only in a discourse on purpose demonstrate the true doctrine in that question, but I have now in this edition of that book answered ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... cannot help itself. When a man is drowning, the thing to do is to pull him out of the water; afterward there will be time for talking it over. We got at it the other way in dealing with our social problems. The wise men had their day, and they decided to let bad enough alone; that it was unsafe to interfere with "causes that operate sociologically," as one survivor of these unfittest put it to me. It was a piece of scientific humbug that cost the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis |
