"Undiscerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did she know of human nature that the very means she used to accomplish her purpose were the most effectual she could have contrived to defeat it. Such is man, that his pride revolts from all attempts to influence his affections. The weak and the undiscerning, indeed, are often led to "choose love by another's eyes;" but the lofty and independent spirit loves to create for itself those feelings which lose half their charms when their source is not in the depths ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... was loudly accused of being a Papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed that he had been educated at St. Omers, and others that he had been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find credit only with the undiscerning multitude; but with these calumnies were mingled accusations ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... adj.; blind, blindfold; hoodwink, dazzle, put one's eyes out; throw dust into one's eyes, pull the wool over one's eyes; jeter de la poudre aux yeux[Fr]; screen from sight &c. (hide) 528. Adj. blind; eyeless, sightless, visionless; dark; stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind; undiscerning[obs3]; dimsighted &c. 443. blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl; wall-eyed. blinded &c. v. Adv. blindly, blindfold, blindfolded; darkly. Phr. " O dark, dark, dark, amid the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... They found Fanny in a state of utter consternation, and even Mrs Grove not quite able to conceal how much she was put about. Mrs Tilman had been taken suddenly ill again, and even the undiscerning Fanny could not fail to understand the nature of her illness, when she found her unable to speak, with a black bottle lying on the bed beside her. Mrs Grove was inclined to make light of the matter, saying ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Imperseverant, undiscerning. This word I have never met with but twice,—in Shakspeare's Cymbeline, with the sense above given; and in Bishop Andrewes' Sermon preached before Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, A.D. 1594, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... attendance at Bela's dinner, and a full house at night. To their undiscerning eyes Bela seemed to be her old self. That is to say, she was not moping over what had happened. A wise man would have guessed that she was taking it much too quietly; he would have seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... that the Chinese as a nation are not more addicted to thieving than the inhabitants of many countries for whom the same excuses are by no means so available. That no undiscerning persons may be led to regard us as panegyrists of a stationary civilisation, we hasten to counterbalance our somewhat laudatory statements by the enunciation of another proposition less startling, but if anything ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... ideal laws which we once believed that they sanctioned; and it only too often has happened that at the very moment we were whispering to ourselves of "purification, trial, reward, punishment," their undiscerning caprice gave the lie to the too lofty, too moral title which we were about ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... whether you like it or no. May not a gentleman choose what arms, mottoes, or armorial bearings the herald will give him leave, without consulting his republican friend, who might advise none? May not a publican put up the sign of the Saracen's Head, even though his undiscerning neighbor should prefer, as more genteel, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... an altered being. She made no reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but undiscerning, comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in. This was the thought which stung her so:—"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part? not one who refused to take part ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thought thou entertainest; The undiscerning life which made them sordid Now makes them unto all ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the abuse of such people as yourself and Marianne will make amends for the regard of Lady Middleton and her mother. If their praise is censure, your censure may be praise, for they are not more undiscerning, than you ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... did we see any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums; any specimen of him preserved in spirits? Lord Herringbone may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes: it skills not; the undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... expression of the soul's life, touched him with a sense of deepest pathos. It revolted him to think of her in connection with those brutalities of the newspaper; he had a movement of rebellion against the undiscerning rigour of social rule. Disinterested absolutely, but he averted his face lest she should have a suspicion of ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... unconstrained atmosphere of a back alley. Yet in hours of depression, when, in spite of the most sincere desire to think favorably of mankind, I cannot fail to notice that I am not appreciated as I should be by the undiscerning world, and my soul seeks consolation and forgetfulness from higher sources, I half believe that when he went back to his own country, and spoke there, as I have heard he did very often, of the pleasant people he had met here, of the American friends he valued so much, it was perhaps ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... posterity but as letter-writers. We have the too-elaborate epistles of BEMBO, secretary to Leo X., and the more elegant correspondence of ANNIBAL CARO; a work which, though posthumous, and published by an affectionate nephew, and therefore too undiscerning a publisher, is a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... pill to swallow. Mr Marshall was about the last man in his world to whom Aubrey felt any inclination to lay himself under an obligation. Both as a clergyman, a Puritan, and an ejected minister, this undiscerning youth had looked down exceedingly upon his superior. The popular estimate of the clergy was just then at the lowest ebb, and it required some moral courage for any man to take holy orders, who was neither very high up in rank, nor very low down. This was the result ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless, the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise is valuable in proportion to the judgment of those who ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... different, their request the same: For good and bad alike are fond of Fame. Some she disgraced, and some with honours crown'd; Unlike successes equal merits found. Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns, And, undiscerning, scatters ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... scene into the world of his ideals, and the cold little place was aglow with the fire that was in him, and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any less wonderful and glistening because only three undiscerning followers were ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... kindred consideration to which Tolstoy, undiscerning as he is in most of his criticism of art, has very justly called attention. In the broad sense, art is liable to untruth from reflecting exclusively the bias of a certain temperament. The following description {208} of a class of contemporary ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... accurately the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and even the aspects of Nature in this our Western world. He was a patriot to the very core of his heart; he loved his country with a fervid, but not an undiscerning love: it was an intelligent, vigilant, discriminating affection that bound his heart to his native land; and thus, while no man defended his country more vigorously when it was in the right, no one reproved its faults more courageously, or gave warning and advice ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... given simply to rid himself of trouble? A benefit is felt to be a debt in the same spirit in which it is bestowed, and it ought not, therefore, to be bestowed recklessly, for a man thanks himself for what he obtains from an undiscerning giver. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... of the twelfth century, meets the undiscerning critic more than half-way. Let none judge, he writes, till he be capable of separating the grain from the chaff; 'for the fool makes haste to condemn, and the ignorant only pretends to know all things, and muses on ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... that Fortune, in her caprice, had reserved for the accomplished Falkland. This untamed, though not undiscerning brute, was found capable of destroying the prospects of a man the most eminently qualified to enjoy and to communicate happiness. The feud that sprung up between them was nourished by concurring ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... goodness.[305] But that constancy, O Arjuna, by which one holds to religion, desire, and profit, through attachment, desiring fruit, that constancy, O son of Pritha, is of the quality of passion. That through which an undiscerning person abandons not sleep, fear, sorrow, despondency, and folly, that constancy is deemed to be of the quality of darkness. Hear now from me, O bull of Bharata's race, of the three kinds of happiness. That in which one findeth pleasure from repetition (of enjoyment), ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sharp a sting to be meditated on until after it had been resented. Dorothea had thought that she could have been patient with John Milton, but she had never imagined him behaving in this way; and for a moment Mr. Casaubon seemed to be stupidly undiscerning and odiously unjust. Pity, that "new-born babe" which was by-and-by to rule many a storm within her, did not "stride the blast" on this occasion. With her first words, uttered in a tone that shook him, she startled Mr. Casaubon into looking at her, and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... his name. For me, I think I said, "Appear! Good were it to be ever here. If thou wilt, let me build to thee Service-tabernacles three, Where, forever in thy presence, In ecstatic acquiescence, Far alike from thriftless learning And ignorance's undiscerning, I may worship and remain!" Thus at the show above me, gazing With upturned eyes, I felt my brain Glutted with the glory, blazing Throughout its whole mass, over and under Until at length it burst asunder And out of it bodily ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... it is not surprising that doubt concealed itself in retirement; but the frequent allusions to it under the name of atheism,(380) in contemporary sermons and theological books, proves its existence. Indeed the reaction contained the very elements which were likely to foster unbelief among undiscerning minds. The court set a sad example of impurity; and the excessive claims of the churchmen, alien to the spirit of political and religious liberty, were calculated to generate an antipathy to the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... hoodwink, dazzle, put one's eyes out; throw dust into one's eyes, pull the wool over one's eyes; jeter de la poudre aux yeux [Fr.]; screen from sight &c (hide) 528. Adj. blind; eyeless, sightless, visionless; dark; stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind; undiscerning^; dimsighted &c 443. blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl; wall-eyed. blinded &c v.. Adv. blindly, blindfold, blindfolded; darkly. Phr. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... on the watch; for the sunshine blink of encouragement, the April shower of praise, he must await the long winter of "hope deferred" passing away. Patience, the courage of the man of talent, he must exert for many a dreary and unrewarded day; he must see the quack and the pretender lead an undiscerning public by the nose, and say nothing; nor must he exult when the too-long enduring public at length kicks the pretender and the quack into deserved oblivion. From many a door that will hereafter gladly open for him, he must be content to be presently turned away. Many a scanty meal, many ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various |
