"Criticise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... am not blind to defects, if there are defects. The Moonlight Sonata, for instance. You have often heard me say that the two last movements do not approach the first in perfection of form. And if I am permitted to criticise Beethoven, I hope I may be allowed to suggest that Mr Cortese has not produced an opera which will render Fidelio ridiculous. But really I am chiefly sorry for Miss Bracely. I should have thought it worth her while to render ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... had formerly received more than one passionate declaration, not signed indeed, but accompanied always by some clue to the identity of the writer, and she had carelessly thrown them into the fire. But there was no such indication here whereby she might discover who it was who had undertaken to criticise her, to cast upon her so unjust an accusation. Moreover, she was very angry and altogether thrown out of her usually calm humour. Her first impulse was to go to her husband, and in the strength of her innocence to show him ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... Luther, for his part, incarnates the spirit of revolt against tyrannical authority, urges the necessity of a return to the essential truth of Christianity as distinguished from the idols of the Church, and asserts the right of the individual to judge, interpret, criticise, and construct opinion for himself. The veil which the Church had interposed between humanity and God was broken down. The freedom of the conscience was established. The principles involved in what we call the Reformation were momentous. Connected on the one side with scholarship and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... impossible to criticise Rudyard Kipling as part of Victorian literature, because he is the end of such literature. He has many other powerful elements; an Indian element, which makes him exquisitely sympathetic with the Indian; a vague Jingo influence which makes him sympathetic with the man ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... bonds, his writings and he himself with them were burnt; as happened to Bruno and Vanini. How completely an ordinary mind is paralyzed by that early preparation in metaphysics is seen in the most vivid way and on its most ridiculous side, where such a one undertakes to criticise the doctrines of an alien creed. The efforts of the ordinary man are generally found to be directed to a careful exhibition of the incongruity of its dogmas with those of his own belief: he is at great pains ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... last we retire one by one from the conversation and watch him with savage, weary eyes over our pipes. He invariably beats me at chess, invariably. People talk about him and ask my opinion of him, and if I venture to criticise him they begin to look as though they thought I was jealous. Grossly favourable notices of his books and his pictures crop up in the most unlikely places; indeed I have almost given up newspapers on account of him. Yet, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... curiosity and interest altogether. We set aside the subject as one on which others have made up their minds for us, (as if we really could have ideas in their heads,) and are quite on the alert for the next new work, teeming hot from the press, which we shall be the first to read, to criticise, and pass an opinion on. Oh, delightful! To cut open the leaves, to inhale the fragrance of the scarcely-dry paper, to examine the type, to see who is the printer, (which is some clue to the value that is set upon the work,) to launch ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... criticise the naive intellectualism of such a view as this, which ignores or thrusts into the background the economic causes of advance and retrogression. But it is certainly not an unhistorical view. Burke dreaded fundamental discussions which "turn men's duties into ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... took possession of her, for she knew that the world would criticise her severely for taking ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... his trunk up like a wipsy, "Friend," said the elephant, "you're tipsy: Put up your purse again—be wise; Leave man mankind to criticise. Be sure you ne'er will lack a pen Amidst the bustling sons of men; For, like to game cocks and such cattle, Authors run unprovoked to battle, And never cease to fight and fray them Whilst there's a ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... came with much greater force than a more formal declaration could have had. It appealed to her own simple nature. Indeed, few women at such a moment criticise the form in which the most fateful words of life—but one—are spoken. Words, while pleasant, are really superfluous. Her ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... To criticise at length any single novel of Thackeray's would be far beyond the scope or purpose of this article. Our object is rather to illustrate the course and development of his distinctive literary qualities, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... are preserved (e.g. labour instead of labor, criticise instead of criticize, etc.); the translators' comments are in square brackets [...] as they are in the text; footnotes are indicated by * and appear immediately following the passage containing the note (in the text they appear at the bottom of the ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... or both.' 'Where then is the glory of salvation?' he said; I replied, 'In the atonement of Christ.' 'All this' said he, 'I know, but so the Mohammedans say, that Hosyn was an atonement for the sins of men.' He then began to criticise the translations he ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... "if you really had brought off this thing on your own, I should be the last to criticise your means of reaching such an end. You have not only scored off a far superior force, which had laid itself out to score off you, but you have put them in the wrong about you, and they'll eat out of your hand for the rest of ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the brave and experienced young officer who would have done all this?" said a cold sarcastic voice, which Syd recognised directly. "No: stop. Don't tell me, but tell him that it is a great mistake for young gentlemen in the midshipmen's berth to criticise the actions of their superior officers, who may be entirely wrong, but whether or no, their critics are more ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... that serene and somewhat dull Epoch, that awkward corner turn'd for days More quiet, when our moon 's no more at full, We may presume to criticise or praise; Because indifference begins to lull Our passions, and we walk in wisdom's ways; Also because the figure and the face Hint, that 't is time ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... by heart, and would often recite them when we were alone together. One she liked well was "Des Maedchens Klage:" that is, she liked well to repeat the words, she found plaintive melody in the sound; the sense she would criticise. She murmured, as we sat ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of depths of dulness may suddenly rise a whirlwind, which he is expected forthwith to ride. Especially in connection with Bill like this now before Committee, Chairman is in state of tension from time he takes Chair till he leaves. Don't forget all this when you criticise MELLOR, still new to place. He's a good fellow, and a shrewd one; but has, among other difficulties, to fight against proneness to good-nature. Good-nature out of place in the Chair. COURTNEY knew that, and successfully overcame his natural ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... I somewhat question whether it is quite the thing, however, to make a genuine woman out of an allegory we ask, Who is to wed this lovely virgin? and we are not satisfied to banish her into the realm of chilly thought. But I liked the statue, and all the better for what I criticise, and was sorry to see the huge package in which the finished marble lies bundled up, ready to be sent to our country,—which does not ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... atheistic, fallacious, heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... time alone can impart. It was, excepting in vastness, like a cathedral interior, and in some ways better than even the best of these great fanes, wonderful as they are. Here, recalling them, one could venture to criticise and name their several deficits:—a Wells divided, a ponderous Ely, a vacant and cold Canterbury, a too light and airy Salisbury, and so on even to Exeter, supreme in beauty, spoilt by a monstrous organ in the wrong place. That wood and metal giant, standing as a stone bridge ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... this day to see the use of this reconnoitring, but at Ladysmith everything was equally mysterious and perplexing. It was perhaps that my knowledge of military matters was too limited to understand the subtle manoeuvres of those days. But I have made up my mind not to criticise our leader's military strategy, though I must say at this juncture that the whole siege of Ladysmith and the manner in which the besieged garrison was ineffectually pounded at with our big guns for several months, seem to me an unfathomable mystery, which, owing to Joubert's ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... rather to describe the qualities of the refined sculpture which is executed in large quantities for private persons belonging to the upper classes, and for sepulchral and memorial purposes. But I could not now criticise that sculpture with any power of conviction to you, because I have not yet stated to you the principles of good sculpture in general. I will, however, in some points, tell you ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... saved at a time when the island was sadly in want of money; the natural surface of the firm soil would have been preferred by all vehicles except during rain, when they would have adopted the metalled parallel way. It is easy to criticise after the event, and there can be no doubt that upon our first occupation of the island a much greater traffic was expected, and the road between the two capitals was arranged accordingly. We halted for the night at the new stone bridge, which, as usual in Cyprus, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... called upon to criticise what I have now written, and to review all that I have seen, read, and heard on the subject, I would conscientiously declare that the importation of Cholera Morbus into England or anywhere else, had been clearly negatived, ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... and his repose. It is well, doubtless, to attack those who can reply with the pen, as then the consequences of the encounter do not reach beyond the ridicule which is often the portion of both adversaries. But Abbe Geoffroy fulfilled only one of the two conditions by virtue of which one can criticise,—he had much bitterness in his pen, but he was not a man of the sword; and every one knows that there are persons whom it is necessary to attack with ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... most young fellows go through," I said. "They then make sonnets to the moon, become pessimistic, criticise everything, and feel certain that they will become the hub of the universe one day. They prefer vegetable food ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... many different ways of going to a concert. You can be one of a party of fashionable people to whom music is a diversion, a pastime, an agreeable change from the assembly or the theatre. They applaud, they condemn, they criticise. They know all about it. Into such company as this, even I, whose poor old head is always getting itself wedged in where it has no business to be, have chanced to be thrown. This is torture. My cue is to turn into the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... for the writers of the nineteenth century to criticise the actors of the fifteenth; and learned scholars, sitting in luxurious easy-chairs in great libraries, can pass swift and severe judgment upon the acts and motives of Columbus. But let them go back four hundred years, and divest themselves of the bias which the science of to-day unconsciously ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... done," yet re-engraving a portion of his best-known plate, and frankly leaving the rejected portion half erased?[6] Titian, whose custom it was to lay aside his pictures for long periods and then criticise them, imagining that he was looking at them "with the eyes of his ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... fear, be thought by those who condescend to criticise this lover's conduct and his mode of carrying on his suit, that he was very unfit for such work. Ladies will say that he wanted courage, and men will say that he wanted wit. I am inclined, however, to believe that he behaved ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... three marvellous powers: she could read by the touch alone: if she pressed her hand against the whole surface of a written or printed page, she acquired a perfect knowledge of its contents, not of the substance only, but of the words, and would criticise the type or the handwriting. A line of a folded note pressed against the back of her neck, she read equally well: she called this sense-feeling. Contact was necessary for it. Her sense of smell was at the same time singularly acute; when out riding one day, she said, "There is a violet," and cantered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... is in the hands of men whose self-interest is coupled with a personal gratification in the altruistic basis whose nature you have learned from me. You are not competent to pass upon their motives, and until you are you should not venture to criticise." ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... mediocrity, compassionate with the weakness and defects of all, incapable of causing the slightest pain to those who were destitute of talent, even when art required that he should condemn them, his goodness was such, that he almost felt remorse whenever he had been led to criticise a work too severely. He deplored his having dealt too harshly with poor Blackett, as soon as the latter's position became known to him; and also with Keats, whose talent, though great, was raw in many respects, and who had become a follower of the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... imperious, and inquiring: for certain parts, and to one who could have used it, the face was a fortune. His voice matched it well, being shrill, powerful, and uncanny, with a note like a sea-bird's. Where there are no fashions, none to set them, few to follow them if they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses—as Sir Charles Grandison lived—'to his own heart.' Now he wears a woman's frock, now a naval uniform; now (and more usually) figures in a masquerade costume of his own design: trousers and a singular jacket with shirt tails, the cut and fit wonderful for island workmanship, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... proceeded to criticise a statement commonly found in text books, that chemical combination suppresses altogether the properties of the combining bodies. The reverse of this statement is probably true. To take the case commonly given ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... of the petitioners. The most important changes in the law of the land were not made, but grew, through the accumulated effect of judicial decisions. The chief function of Parliaments, after the voting of supplies, was to criticise and to complain; to indicate the shortcomings of a policy which they had not helped to make. Except as the guardians of individual liberty they cannot be said to have made medieval government more scientific or efficient. In the fifteenth century the English Commons criticised the government ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... individuality and grace of form, as in the coco-palm and banana of the tropics. The featheriness of the maple, and the arrowy straightness and pyramidal form of the cryptomeria, please me better than all else; but why criticise? Ten minutes of sunshine would transform ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... and men—that man! Is there any use for me to stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and it's high time I ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... moment she got home. He might ask her mother—he might ask the people next door. If Madame Carre didn't think she could work, she might have heard, could she have listened at the door, something that would show her. But she didn't think her even good enough to criticise—since that wasn't criticism, telling her her head was good. Of course her head was good—she needn't travel up to the quartiers excentriques to find that out. It was her mother, the way she talked, who gave the idea that she wanted to be elegant and moral and a femme du ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... police in Trafalgar Square without a word of accusation or explanation. The Home Secretary says that in his opinion the police are very nice people, and there is an end of the matter. A Member of Parliament attempts to criticise a peerage. The Speaker says he must not criticise a peerage, and ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... dominate the situation to her exclusion—unless, by the way, he has her permission and authority so to do, in which case he cannot do so too much—the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to criticise. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... The Golden Bough, I asked my neighbour, who had read it, if to a Japanese who got its penetrating view some things could ever be the same again. He answered frankly, "There are things in our life which are too near to criticise. Do you know that there are parts of Japan where folklore is ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... upon it. I pick up a book and fling it aside with the comment, 'It's not worth reading!' or I look over a great vessel like this and say, 'How clumsily built!' but what if I were doomed to write a similar book, to plan a great steamer—just think of the results! I would never criticise again." ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... of them. They criticise me and make fun of me. Miss Barrows showed what I wrote about tuberculosis to every other ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... and often exhausted even them before the returns came in. If you have newspapers at all, they must, I fancy, be published by the government at the public expense, with government editors, reflecting government opinions. Now, if your system is so perfect that there is never anything to criticise in the conduct of affairs, this arrangement may answer. Otherwise I should think the lack of an independent unofficial medium for the expression of public opinion would have most unfortunate results. Confess, Dr. Leete, that a free ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... things the middle way is the safest. A simple funeral has surely in it more that awakes true religious feeling than the pomp and splendour which are too frequently made the order of the day in these proceedings. In this case are not men sometimes led away to canvass and to criticise the splendour of the show, while they should be deducing a wholesome moral lesson for themselves, or offering up a fervent prayer to the Almighty for the peace ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... hostess. Mr. Boffin was a gentleman who had belonged to the late Ministry, but had somewhat out-Heroded Herod in his Conservatism, so as to have been considered to be unfit for the Coalition. Of course, he was proud of his own staunchness, and a little inclined to criticise the lax principles of men who, for the sake of carrying on her Majesty's Government, could be Conservatives one day and Liberals the next. He was a laborious, honest man,—but hardly of calibre sufficient not to regret his own honesty in such an ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... lonely and sequestered glens of the south, from eyelids touched with fairy ointment, such visions as are vouchsafed to the minstrel alone—the dream of sweet Kilmeny, too spiritual for the taint of earth? I shall not attempt any comparison—for I am not here to criticise—between his genius and that of other men, on whom God in his bounty has bestowed the great and the marvellous gift. The songs and the poetry of the Shepherd are now the nation's own, as indeed they long have been; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... him. There is nothing left for people with no talent and mighty pretensions to do but to criticise those who are really gifted. I hope you enjoy the consolation ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... half a century he had held himself in readiness to attend the bedside of all who might call upon him to speak cheering, hopeful words to the dying. But now our little community has become educated and they are able to criticise. As we look around the church we are lost in wonder as to what has come to the people. The older ones are sadder and a spirit of unrest seems to have seized upon the middle aged, while the very children have lost something ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... any names. It is always a mistake to mention names. One cannot guard against it too carefully. But having done what she did ten years ago dear Adela Sellingworth should really—but it is not for me to criticise her. Only there is nothing people—women—are more sensitive about than the question of age. No one likes to be laid on the shelf. Adela Sellingworth has chosen to—well—one might feel such a very drastic step to be quite uncalled for—quite uncalled for. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... really looking the other way, exhibiting to the spectator all that remained of the face that launched the thousand ships of which half a dozen were shown riding at anchor behind her back. I did not venture to criticise, because the corporal knew all about it, having seen the Story of Hector done by the marionettes. Filomena was embroidering this most beautifully; I should say that the needle-working of it was as much above all praise as the design of it was ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... who took life seriously. If it were possible to imagine that he could criticise unfavourably anything said or done by his chief, it would be perhaps when the chief condescended to trifle about himself and his position. So Hamilton did not like the mild jest about the School Board. Indeed, his mind ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Grog! And Her Highness herself may be thought a cleverer sketch of youthful femininity than even the Hellenic Helen. It is hard to judge the play now. Custom has worn its freshness and made it too familiar: we know it too well to criticise it clearly. Besides, the actors have now overlaid the action with over-much "business." But in spite of these difficulties the merits of the piece are sufficiently obvious: its constructive skill can be remarked; the first act, for example, is one of the best ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... time has brought in his revenges. The Doctor himself has been dead his century. He died on the 13th of December, 1784. Come, let us criticise him. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... condemn and criticise is the sin of criticism and condemnation. There is no place we need such grace as in dealing with an erring one. A lady once called on us on her way to give an erring sister a piece of her mind. We advised her to wait until she could love her a little more. Only He who loved sinners ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... perhaps Anne Bradstreet's youth, and a sense that she could hardly criticise a judgment which had required the united forces of every church in the Colony to pronounce, that made her ignore one of the most stormy experiences of those early days, the trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... before the public. A publisher from London was in our office the other day, signifying a desire to make some arrangement to bring it out there. I have heard almost no unfavorable criticism of the story—nothing which you could make serviceable in its revision. I have heard Dr. P. criticise Ernest—of course the character and not your portrayal. For myself I consider the character a natural and consistent one. Perhaps few men are found who are quite so blind to a wife's wants and yet so devoted, but—I don't know what the wives ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... articles, private readings of passages, interlinings, pointing to a history in that case which has not yet transpired; it was easy for such a one to do it, when the partner of his treasons would have had no chance to criticise his case, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... placed his picture on the easel, and went to one of his former masters, a man of immense talent,—to Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and criticise the rejected work. The great painter left everything and went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before him Schinner, after a glance, ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... mistake but a kind of take? What's nausea but a kind of -ausea? Sober, drunk, -unk, astonishment. Everything can become the subject of criticism—how criticise without something to criticise? Agreement—disagreement!! Emotion—motion!!! Die away from, from, die away (without the from). Reconciliation of opposites; sober, drunk, all the same! Good and evil reconciled in a laugh! ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... himself to criticise adversely Lord Wellington's enactment against duelling, and Captain Tremayne defended it. They became a little heated, and the fact was mentioned that Samoval himself was a famous swordsman. Captain ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... Patsy, promptly. "You're quite right, and I'm just one of those stupid creatures who criticise the sun because there's a cloud before it. Probably there are all grades of society, because there are all ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... Navy is not more modern and powerful than it is has been made a cause of complaint against the Secretary of the Navy by persons who at the same time criticise and complain of his endeavors to bring the Navy that we have to its best and most efficient condition; but the good sense of the country will understand that it is really due to his practical action that we have at this time any effective naval ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... atmosphere into motion. That no one has ever seen the bird doing the work, or that the task is too great for any conceivable bird, is to the simple, uncultivated man no objection to this view. It is long, indeed, before education brings men to the point where they can criticise their first explanations ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... Miss Allison who brought matters to a climax. "I refuse to listen," said she, with something very like a stamp of her plump little foot. "Mr. Elmendorf forgets himself entirely when he attempts to—to criticise my conduct." ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... readers on matters more or less relevant to the story, but rather in the manner of a commentator and scholiast upon it than as actual parts of it. Of this more later: for the immediate purpose is to survey and not to criticise. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... their hands, and yet every one was in a sort of seashore costume. I saw many men whom my nautical instinct detected at once to be naval officers,—some of whom must have been captains,—in round-abouts; but it was quite impossible to criticise toilettes that were so faultlessly neat, and so perfectly ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ones, as long as public decorum is not infringed, and then it is severely punished. But they have none of that censoriousness or prying spirit in France which is so common in England to hunt out and criticise the private vices of their neighbours, which, in my opinion, does not proceed from any real regard for virtue, but from a fanatical, jealous, envious, and malignant spirit. Those vice-hunters never have the courage to attack a man of wealth and power; but a poor ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... nervousness on that point. Having got his brace or so of fish, and finished his studies of water, rise of fly, weeds and weather, and neatly (and oh! so orderly and accurately!) made his entries in his little notebook, he loved to play gillie to his friend for hours together, criticise his style of fishing, and give advice; naturally, after a time, if you are nervous, you are certain of one thing only: that you are the king of asses, and had better imitate the immortal colonel who hurled his book of salmon flies into the pool shouting ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... they conceived it to offer the best opportunity of seeing the country, they accordingly accepted the invitation. As it is to be presumed that they had no intention of taking any personal part in this marauding expedition, we are not disposed to criticise their acquiescence; otherwise there could be no doubt whatever, that they had no right to assist the king of Shoa in his foray on his neighbours, more than they would have had a right to assist his neighbours in their attacks upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Gillen criticise Westermarck's use of the term "pretended group marriage" and assert it to be a fact among the Urabunna. On the very next page group marriage is spoken of as having preceded the present state of things. Both statements cannot ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... special appeal for the BENSON Bros. Only the other day did ROBERT HUGH write a clever and hauntingly horrible story round it, and now here is ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER discoursing at large upon the same theme in Where No Fear Was (SMITH, ELDER). It is a book that you will hardly expect me to criticise. One either likes those gentle monologues of Mr. BENSON or is impatient under them—and in any case the comments of a third party would be superfluous. Personally, I should call this one of the most charming of those many hortatory ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... proceed to criticise this state of things, I will mention one point on which I am glad to be able to bestow on the Royal Society the highest praise. I refer to the extreme regularity with which the volumes of the Transactions are published. The appearance of the half-volumes at intervals of six months, insures for ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... power all the various activities of the human mind. We can only point out a few of the lines of development which become prominent at this period. And firstly we notice the rise of rationalism, that is of the impulse to criticise belief and to ask for that element in it which approves itself to the reflecting mind. Reason asserts its right to judge of tradition; the doubter suggests emendations in the legend; the piously inclined turn their attention to those parts only which are capable of lofty treatment. ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... and sit down and wait until you are excused—" Doctor Hugh's level gaze seemed to draw the rebellious Sarah back to her chair. "If you don't care for the pudding you needn't eat it, but don't criticise anything that is ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... my person they oppose and impede Austria. First of all things, it is necessary for me to get rid of those newspaper editors and scribblers; they are arrogant, insolent fellows who imagine they know every thing and are able to criticise every thing, and who feel called upon to give their opinion about all things and on all occasions because they know how to wield a goose-quill. The best thing we could do would be to suppress all newspapers and periodicals. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... would be the work of half an hour to criticise—that is to say praise—the poem sufficiently to please Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his favorite centipede metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... in me to criticise your action, perhaps," his companion continued. "I never did such a thing before, having always hesitated to set up my views against yours; but I cannot but fear you have made a sad mistake. And if you were contemplating any change of this kind, why did you not ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... struggle over the Prussian constitution. In a series of vigorous addresses (April, 1862, to February, 1863) he first criticised, then condemned, the Progressive party for its—as it seemed to him—pusillanimous policy. But Lassalle was not content merely to criticise and condemn. His restless energy found no adequate expression short of the creation of a new party of his own. His repudiation of the Progressives, however, was not dictated by differences over tactics alone. He rejected the fundamental principles of the liberal movement in German politics. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... various elements and constants used in the calculations, he arrives at a conclusion strikingly accordant with that put forward in the recently published volume. Having myself neither mathematical nor physical knowledge sufficient to enable me to criticise this elaborate paper, except on a few points, I will here limit myself to giving a short account of it, so as to explain its method of procedure; after which I may add a few notes on what seem to me doubtful points; while I also hope to be ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Dryden, Pope, Johnson—looked upon Shakespeare with an indulgent eye, as a great but irregular genius, after much the same fashion as did the old sea-dogs of Nelson's day regard the hero of Trafalgar. 'Do not criticise him too harshly,' said Lord St. Vincent; 'there can only be ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... of this work, though novel and to some extent is daring, it is chaste, practical and to the point, and will be a boon and a blessing to thousands who consult its pages. The world is full of ignorance, and the ignorant will always criticise, because they live to suffer ills, for they know no better. New light is fast falling upon the dark corners, and the eyes of many ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, with new diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other judges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... if I had to show this to Mr. Norman, and get him to criticise my writing as he offered to do, I couldn't put in such things; so perhaps it's as well I shall have to worry ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was wholly unworthy of ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... criticise, it is a little staid; but the classical is apt to look so. It is in curious contrast to that inexpressive, unplanned wilderness of Forster's; clear, readable, precise, and sufficiently human. I see nothing lost in it, though I could ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... temperature. They cling to the customs of their fathers with an obstinacy that is incomprehensible to us, who are always ready to try experiments. Americans complain bitterly of the same freezing experiences in France and Germany, and in turn foreigners all criticise our over-heated houses and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the cost of provisions and the charge she made for her table—was very good. Only it had become a habit for certain of the boarders, led by the jester, Crackit, to criticise the viands. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... their voyage south. At a place called New Salem the flat-boat ran aground; but Lincoln's ingenuity got it off. He rigged up a queer contrivance of his own invention and lifted the boat off and over the obstruction, while all New Salem stood on the bank, first to criticise and then ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... The people put Mr. Lincoln in a position in which he was subjected to the most appalling, as it is the most vague, of all dangers, and then left him to take care of himself as best he could. It was ungenerous afterward to criticise him for exercising prudence in the performance of that duty which he ought never to have been called upon to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... ourselves in the position to assimilate and to criticise any change in ultimate scientific conceptions we must begin at the beginning. So you must bear with me if I commence by making some simple and obvious reflections. Let us consider three statements, (i) 'Yesterday a man was run over on the Chelsea Embankment,' (ii) 'Cleopatra's Needle is on the ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... floats softly over the prairie, or the ringing, prolonged word of command marks some lazily-executed manoeuvre on the homeward way. Drill is over; the sharp eyes and sharper tongue of the major no longer criticise any faulty or "slouchy" wheel; the drill proper has been stiff and spirited, and now the necessary changes of direction are carried out in a purely perfunctory manner, while the battalion commander and his subaltern, troops and all, amble back and give their ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... to peruse and re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's Fourfold State, or Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs. But he knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... much of anything, papa," she replied, "but I'm hungry for a little petting and a chance to hug and kiss my dear father; without anybody by to criticise," she concluded, ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... only to conduct, in the spirit of the author's intentions, a work with which the performers have already become acquainted, but he must also introduce new compositions and help the performers to master them. He has to criticise the errors and defects of each during the rehearsals, and to organize the resources at his disposal in such a way as to make the best use he can of them with the utmost promptitude; for, in the majority of European cities nowadays, musical ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... he read the chapters to Reardon, not only for his own satisfaction, but in great part because he hoped that this example of productivity might in the end encourage the listener to resume his own literary tasks. Reardon found much to criticise in his friend's work; it was noteworthy that he objected and condemned with much less hesitation than in his better days, for sensitive reticence is one of the virtues wont to be assailed by suffering, at all events ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... to criticise any member of her husband's family; their faults are out of her reach except by the force of tactful example. Her concern is with herself and him, not his family, and a wise girl, at the beginning of her married life, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... years the banker's cashier and protege, Prosper Bertomy, had been devoted in his attentions to Madeleine. Mme. Fauvel decided to do all in her power to hasten matters, so that, Madeleine once married and out of the house, there would be no one to criticise her own movements. She could then spend most of her time with Raoul without ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... The marriage law is too arbitrary; it allows no scope for individual action, and yet the subject is so delicate, so intricate, that none but the keenest and nicest balanced minds dare attempt to criticise, much less improve it. The misconstructions of a person's motives are so great that many who see its errors, tremble and fear to speak of them. But if we are to bring any good to the covenant, so sacred in its offices, we must ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... ride in another car," she interrupted, loyally unwilling that even he should criticise the King of Krovitch. "It is his right. I, a subject, would not attempt to pass in judgment upon the acts of my sovereign." There was a sad weakening of voice as she completed her defense, which convinced Carter that she had seen the whole ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... bad a condition that the hyperbolical Sergeant Johnson calls them "half-starved, scorbutic skeletons." That worthy soldier, commonly a model of dutiful respect to those above him, this time so far forgets himself as to criticise his general for the "mad, enthusiastic zeal" by which he nearly lost the fruits of Wolfe's victory. In fact, the fate of Quebec trembled in the balance. "We were too few and weak to stand an assault," continues Johnson, "and we were almost in as deep a distress as we could ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... tears fell on the little gift as I looked and remembered, no one will wonder or criticise. The potatoes were cooked for breakfast, and "Susie Jane" ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... criticise my conduct now. It would have been difficult to act otherwise at the time. I am speaking of the evening after my walk with Mrs. Lascelles, of the next day when it rained, and now of my third night at the hotel. The sky had cleared. The glass was high. There was a finer edge ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... an air of reserve (although there are times when I let myself go); quite correctly dressed; nothing to criticise and ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... criticise intelligently so vast a work, one must not forget an instant the drift of things in the later sixties: Lee had surrendered, Lincoln was dead, and Johnson and Congress were at loggerheads; the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, the Fourteenth pending, and the Fifteenth declared in force in 1870. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... You criticise as follows; "The apostles could not have been convinced of the fact of the resurrection by any evidence short of the fact itself. 2d. If the fact did exist there is no evidence which can counterbalance it. Ergo, as the apostles were ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... sustained him with the full power of the general government. My intense feeling, caused by the atrocities in Louisiana, may have unduly influenced me. But General Grant did not think this was his duty. I do not criticise his action, but only state the facts, He would only maintain the peace. He would not recognize Packard as governor, but I know, what is now an open secret, the strong bent of his mind, and at one time his decision was to withdraw the troops, to recognize ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... I owed to him the most agreeable and elevating hours of my youth, In memory of these hours I have written this eulogy. It is not worthy of particular mention, and the Academie Francaise will doubtless severely criticise my knowledge of their language. But it is impossible to write well, one moment in camp and another on the march. If it is unworthy of him whom it was intended to celebrate, I have at least availed myself of the freedom ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... distinguish this most momentous letter from others which came to him by almost every post, or to indicate that it was destined to change the whole current of his life. It was sent by an unknown woman, and the object of the writer was, while expressing intense admiration for Balzac's work, to criticise the view of the feminine sex taken by him in "La Peau de Chagrin." His correspondent begged him to renounce ironical portrayals of woman, which denied the pure and noble role destined for her by Heaven, and to return ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... he said, "to have acted in a thoroughly capable and praiseworthy manner. The only point in your conduct which I would permit myself to criticise is your omission to slay the kid. That, however, was due, I take it, to the fact that you were interrupted. We will now proceed to examine the future. I cannot see that it is altogether murky. You have lost a good job, but there are ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... on the carpet, wait till you hear the name of the painter. If it's Rubens, or any o' them old boys, praise, for it's agin the law to doubt them; but if it's a new man, and the company ain't most especial judges, criticise. "A leetle out o' keeping," says you. "He don't use his grays enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... phrase—she had heard something like it before. But there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be alone—she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken for the most delicious moment of her young life. If he were ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... to prove satisfactory or should they give rise to contradiction, we would repeat here what Newman wrote in his Preface to "Difficulties of Anglicans," "It has not been our practice to engage in controversy with those who felt it their duty to criticise what at any time we have written; but that will not preclude us under present circumstances, from elucidating what is deficient in them by further observations, should questions be asked, which, either ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... that the heart of man is naturally hard and unamiable. He conducted himself in his new situation with the most unexceptionable propriety, and the most generous benevolence. But there were men in his audience, men who loved better to criticise, than to be amended; and women, who felt more complacency in scandal, than eulogium. He displeased the one by disappointing them; it was impossible to disappoint the other. He laboured unremittedly, but his labours returned ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... no naval training and had worked his way up from the ranks. Perhaps his long fight against the practise of flogging unruly sailors helped to add to the number of his enemies, for those in authority were outraged that this Jewish upstart should criticise a custom so deeply rooted in the traditions of the navy. Another man of quieter temper might have tried to combat the prejudice and hatred which met him at every turn; but Levy's nature was not a patient one. When raised to the rank ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... and nickname their own mother; when they are allowed to drown the voice of the most honored guest at the table with their little bald chatter, so that even the cross-questioning genius of a Socrates would find itself at a discount; when they are allowed to criticise and contradict their elders in a way that would have appalled our grandmothers; when they are suffered to make remarks which are anything but reverent on sacred things—have I not some reason to fear that the one attribute which touches the character to fine issues is threatened ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... plainness to the fault-finding and insolent cavilers against Christians and to other factious leaders when he says, "Ye were led away unto those dumb idols, howsoever ye might be led." This class peremptorily judge and criticise the life and doctrine of the Church because they see therein a measure of defects, and even some divisions and disagreements; notwithstanding the fact is plainly evident to them that the Church possesses the Word of God in purity, a knowledge of Christ, an ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... is no business of mine to criticise your conduct; you can do as you please with your wife, but may I count upon your keeping your word with me? Well, then, promise me to tell her that her father has not twenty-four hours to live; that he looks in vain for her, and has cursed her already as he lies on his deathbed,—that ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... very bad, but "fair to middling," as the Yankees say, in quality and quantity. If a traveler wants anything more he must provide it himself. People who live in India and are accustomed to these things are perfectly satisfied with them, although the tourist who has just arrived is apt to criticise and condemn for ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... were not a poor hungry dastard, and even much of a blockhead withal, he would cease criticising his victuals to such extent; and criticise himself rather, what he ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... interest of such writings endures as the starting-point and foundation for future work. Butler out of England is hardly known, certainly he is not much valued either as a divine or a philosopher; but in England, though we criticise him freely, it will be a long time before he is out of date. Mr. Mozley's book belongs to that class of writings of which Butler may be taken as the type. It is strong, genuine argument about difficult matters, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... you can say more. You can tell me which legend you disliked least; you can criticise my hero's conduct, and find fault with my heroine's manners; you can object to my plot, pick holes in my style. No, thank goodness, you can't do that; but you can take ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... to criticise or complain. Not for ourselves or our friends do we ask redress of specific grievances, or posts of honor or emolument. We speak from no considerations of mere material gain; but, inspired by true patriotism, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... pass your summer in a village?" he presently said, in the tone of a man who has ceased to rule, but not ceased to criticise. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... by others; yet, as a whole, it is good; and if the subject demands a more creative power, and a higher daring than was habitual to him, we are yet charmed with the good sense throughout; and while we look, are indisposed to criticise. We have already remarked how much Sir Joshua was indebted to a picture by Domenichino for the "Tragic Muse." Every one knows that he borrowed the "Nativity" from the "Notte" of Correggio, and perhaps in detail from other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... remarkably well made, and looking as if they all had come straight from Paris. I never saw a large party of prettier or better chosen toilettes. The dresses were generally of rich brocaded silk, but there was nothing to criticise, and all were in perfect taste. We assembled in a long drawing-room carpeted, and sufficiently supplied with chairs, but there being neither tables nor curtains, the room had rather a bare appearance, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... the poet Longfellow. In addition to his celebrity as a poet, he is one of the most elegant scholars which America has produced, and, until recently, held the professorship of modern languages at the neighbouring university of Cambridge. It would be out of place here to criticise his poetry. Although it is very unequal and occasionally fantastic, and though in one of his greatest poems the English language appears to dance in chains in the hexameter, many of his shorter pieces well upwards from the heart, in a manner which is likely to ensure durable ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... sorry I sent them to you; for I see that they have lowered, instead of raising her in your opinion. But if you criticise letters, written in openness and confidence of heart to a private friend, as if they were set before the tribunal of the public, you are—may I say it?—not only severe, but unjust; for you try and condemn the subjects of one country ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... If it is anything, it consists of a score of men and women who chance to be spending their allotted time on earth in that corner of the globe in which I was born, who saw me grow to manhood, and who most inconsequently arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising my actions, as they criticise each other's; who say loudly that this is right and that is wrong, and who will be gathered in due time to their insignificant fathers with their own insignificance thick upon them, as is meet and just. If that is the world I am not afraid ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... not hers, her own was not sharply cut, and she persuaded herself that, in substance, his and her belief were identical. As she grew older her relationship to the Unseen became more and more intimate, but she was less and less inclined to criticise her husband's freedom, or to impose on the children a rule which they would certainly have observed, but only for her sake. Every now and then she felt a little lonely; when, for example, she read one or two books which were particularly her own; when she thought of her ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... has taken place in the theory of socialism, among those who are its most thoughtful exponents, and in a certain sense its leaders. They represent what these leaders think and say among themselves, and what they put forward when disputing with opponents who are competent to criticise them. But what they do not represent is socialism as still preached to the populace, or the doctrine which is still vital for socialists as a popular party. This is still, just as it was originally, the socialism of Marx in an absolutely ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... of Brisbane, an independent newspaper, the Australian, was established by Mr. Wentworth and Dr. Wardell. A second of the same kind soon followed, and was called the Monitor. These papers found it to their advantage, during the unpopularity of Darling, to criticise severely the acts of that Governor, who was defended by the Gazette with intemperate zeal. This altercation had lasted for some time, when, in the third year of Darling's administration, a very small event was sufficient to set the whole ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... Justice Blackburne interrupted. "It was too late," he said, "to criticise the evidence, and the Court had neither the right nor the power to alter or review it. If," he added, "you have any reason to give why, either upon technical or moral grounds, the sentence should not be passed upon you, we will hear it, but it is too late for you to review ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... promised at Fairfax Station, or Centreville, where the army's supplies were to be sent. So, in spite of the high hopes and feverish unrest for the forward movement, there was a good deal of sober foreboding among the men, who held to the American right to criticise as the Briton maintains his right to grumble. For the soldier in camp or on the march is as garrulous as a tea gossip, and no problem in war or statecraft is too complex or sacred for him to attempt the solution. Of the thirty thousand men leaving the banks of the Potomac that 16th of July ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... folly of imitation has been exposed. As a result of this, I like to think that we shall have a finer type of expression, a richer kind of personal quality. Every artist is his own maker, his own liberator; he it is that should be the first to criticise, destroy and reconstruct himself, he should find no mood convenient, no attitude comfortable. What the lay-writer says of him in praise or blame will not matter so much in the future; he will respect first and last only those who have found the time to share his ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... the strong influence that other minds, Shakespeare notably, have produced upon this mind; here its attitude is never merely pessimistic. It does not criticise them, it ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... discuss political questions; they should not form clubs or societies with political intent of any kind; they should not even read agitating tracts and books. He could not help their thinking, but they should not criticise his government. They should be taught in schools directed by Roman Catholic priests, who were good classical scholars, good mathematicians, but who knew but little and cared less about theories of political economy, or even history unless modified to suit religious bigots of the Mediaeval ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... drawn, rather from precedents than reason, there is danger not only from the faults of an author, but from the errours of those who criticise his works; since they may often mislead their pupils by false representations, as the Ciceronians of the sixteenth century were betrayed into barbarisms by corrupt copies ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... holds, by general acclamation, the foremost place in the world's literature, and his overwhelming greatness renders it difficult to criticise or even to praise him. Two poets only, Homer and Dante, have been named with him; but each of these wrote within narrow limits, while Shakespeare's genius included all the world of nature and of men. In a word, he is the universal poet. To study nature in ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... done. And as she was the rather elderly if very wealthy daughter of a baronet, who considered that she had married decidedly beneath herself in taking Frank Harrowby, the untitled young barrister not even yet in silk, she had come down to the Hill prepared to criticise sharply; so that her approbation carried weight and ensured a large amount of satisfaction. Edgar, however, who was not so fastidious as his brother, thought the whole thing a failure and that no one looked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various |
