"Rote" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... results will flow from it at present not anticipated by 'statesmen,' who know little or nothing about the hard matter-of-fact conditions under which trade is carried on, and who are assiduously primed by underlings with statistics which they repeat by rote, and as to the real value or signification of which they are completely and hopelessly in ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... mysteries, the framers of laws, the pronouncers of judgments, and the arbitrators of rewards or punishments. The immunity which they enjoyed from war, allured many young men to enrol themselves in this order. Their education was a poetical one, for it was necessary to learn by rote several thousand verses, in which all the knowledge ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... In the fore noon I went to meting & heard Mr. Eals his text was in the 5th Chapter of James 16th verse a good sermon I rote a letter & sent home & in the after ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... I rote a letter to Mr. Durion, & prepared Some Commissions & a meadel & Sent to Captain Lewis- at 2 oClock Capt Lewis retuned with 4 chiefs & a Brave man named War-cha pa- after a delay of half an hour I went with them on Shore, they left the boat with reluctiance (we Suspect they are ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... is learned by rote, And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote: One likes no language but the 'Faery Queen'; A Scot will fight for 'Christ's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... will take the upper hand in the confusion will arrange life wisely, after their own fashion. Then things won't go at random, but as if by rote. It's a pity that we shall not live to ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... it stood a modest, blooming Peer, Who bow'd with easy grace, and offer'd there Some fine-spun Verses which he never wrote, Some worthy Speeches which he spoke by rote: For thus I heard surrounding tongues rehearse, "H—— wrote the Speeches, H—— composed the Verse." And soon amid the mingled heap there lay The blasted wishes for Hibernian sway. And here he sigh'd, and, as I ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and, as I may add, of his Natural Theology, gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about Paley's premises, and taking ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... cannot be an actress; I cannot resign my real self for that vamped-up hypocrite before the lamps. Out on those stage-robes and painted cheeks! Out on that simulated utterance of sentiments learned by rote and practised before the looking-glass till every gesture has ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... girl had, single-handed, beaten off twenty gorilla-like males, and an instant later, as he saw them again take up their dance about him while she addressed them in a singsong monotone, which bore every evidence of rote, he came to the conclusion that it was all but a part of the ceremony of which he was ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hot days of summer, and the cold days of winter), when we had to sit for hours on hard wooden benches, before uncomfortable desks, bending over grimy slates and ink-besprinkled "copy books," and poring over studies in which we took no interest—geography, which we learned by rote; arithmetic, which always evaded us, and grammar, which we never could master. We could repeat the "rules," but we could not "parse;" we could cipher, but our sums would not "prove;" we could rattle off the productions of Italy—"corn, wine, silk and oil"—but we could not ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 5 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yong sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y ronne, ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his time to every trade Save censure. Critics all are ready made. Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well skilled to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning—call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,— His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet; Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; Shrink not ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty, without a divine marshal. The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... yesterday before the court,' no doubt," he interrupted, "and I remember perfectly that you were 'awakened only.' I could repeat the most of it by rote, indeed. But do you suppose that I believed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the successor of the inventor discovered the defect of this instruction, which was purely mechanical and acquired by rote. He thought he perceived this defect in the concrete verb, in which the deaf and dumb, seeing only a single word, were unable to distinguish two ideas which are comprehended in it, that of affirmation and that ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... appal: 'The man you sent with a note is not a fighting man at all! He has shaved his beard, and has cut his hair, but I spotted him at a look; He is Tom Devine, who has worked for years for Saltbush Bill as cook. Bill coached him up in the fighting yarn, and taught him the tale by rote, And they shammed to fight, and they got your grass and divided your five-pound note. 'Twas a clean take-in, and you'll find it wise — 'twill save you a lot of pelf — When next you're hiring a fighting man, just fight ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... rug reck rate reed rill rub rig rim rite ride rise red rag rick rote run reek rib rob rip ruse roar roam rack rid rip rouse Arch farm lark far snare for march harm bark bar spare war larch charm mark hair sure corn starch dark are stair lure born arm spark star ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Wife Abigiel hes under Rote me by saying it is veri Disagria bell to Hur to Expose to the World the miseris & Calamatis of a Distractid famely, and I think as much for hur Father & mother to Witt Stephen deming & his wife acts very much like Distractid or ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... number of high and glorious principles and acts, and our first thought thereupon is, "All this must have had an existence somewhere or other in those times. These very men, indeed, may be merely speaking by rote, and not understand what they say; but it matters not to the profit of their writings what they were themselves." It matters not to the profit of their writings, nor again to the authority resulting from them; for the times in which ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... delighteth not in the death of a sinner, but would rather that he should be converted and live. The beautiful prayers in the Liturgy, were explained to them in a manner suitable to their different capacities; consequently, they were not repeated by rote, as is too frequently the case, where the same attention is not paid. Mr. and Mrs. Bernard took unremitted pains with their children, and felt themselves amply rewarded by their conduct; for though, like other human beings, they were fallible, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... at the Fair the other day, while the three Englishmen hammered away in vain at Brother Jonathan Herring's. The Englishmen represented brute force. The Germans had been trained to appreciate principle. The Englishman "knows his business by rote and rule of thumb"—science, which would "teach him to do in an hour what has hitherto occupied him two hours," "is in a manner forbidden to him." To this cause the "Times" attributes the falling off of English workmen in comparison ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cultivation had so far advanced in the soil of Miss Melbury's mind as to lead her to talk by rote of anything save of that she knew well, and had the greatest interest in developing—that is ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... information from the guide in respect to the circumstances of Queen Mary's escape; for, generally, the guides who show these old places in England and Scotland know little more than a certain lesson, which they have learned by rote. But the guides who show the Castle of Loch Leven seem to me exceptions to this rule. I have visited the place two or three times, at intervals of many years, and the guides who have conducted me to the spot have always been very intelligent and well-informed ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... always addressed her pupils as "young ladies." And Milly was quickly fascinated by the professor of mental and moral philosophy, a delicate-looking young college graduate. She worked very hard, studying her lessons far into the night, memorizing long lists of names, dates, maxims, learning by rote whatever was contained in ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... fight; Thy humblest folk are clean and bright, Thou still must win the public vote, Philistia! Observe the High Church curate's coat, The realistic hansom note! Ah, happy land untouched of blight, Smirks, Bishops, Babies, left and right, We know thine every charm by rote, Philistia! ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... half-sober, had huddled a friar's frock over his green cassock, and now summoning together whatever scraps of learning he had acquired by rote in former days, "Holy father," said he, "'Deus faciat salvam benignitatem vestram'—You are ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... disgraceful defeat. In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he recognised his error, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... with that revered Antiquity by his fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which matters. Not he is the great philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or Peripatetics by rote—but he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his face and his eyes, by his ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... with wiry note The critics squeak, from Keats, and Tennyson, Shelly, and Hunt, and Wordsworth, every one, And many more whose works we know—by rote! But how, good sirs, if God created him Like unto these, though in their radiance dim? Nothing in Nature's round is infinite; The moulds of every kind are similar: A flower is like a flower; a star a star; And all the suns are lit ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... an elephant, or a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shape, colour, bigness, and particular marks? or of a gorgeous palace, an architect, who, declaring the full beauties, might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were, by rote, all he had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceit, with being witness to itself of a true living knowledge; but the same man, as soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or that house well ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... a clock would be this, that a man make a disc (circulum) of uniform weight in every part so far as could possibly be done. Then a lead weight should be hung from the axis of that wheel (axi ipsius rote) and this weight would move that wheel so that it would complete one revolution from sunrise to sunrise, minus as much time as about one degree rises according to an approximately correct estimate. For from sunrise to sunrise, the whole equinoctial rises, and about ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... to remind him of Johnnie's presence; but the child came forward. 'Grandpapa, he told me to tell you something,' and, with eyes bent on the ground, the little fellow repeated the words like a lesson by rote. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... billy, you will wunder Why I ever rote you this; I am sorry I am leevin Daddie needs me in his biz. I don't reely like this quiet Kind of sober farmer life; I like something allus doin, But for this, I'd be your wife. I got two of old Jim's bullets, Didn't like to let ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... object-lessons learnt by rote, As once we learnt your poison-gas, Your pupils now are shocked to note How Teuton wits, a little crass, Mistake for rude assault and battery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... note: the landing of illegal immigrants from Indonesia's Rote Island has become an ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... congress of macaws; while in our social re-unions I left all the young birds of fashion far behind me: and as I not only articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit, therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo woz stil alive in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld "Enoch Soames"—a thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a sumwot labud sattire but not ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... the ledges and sunken rocks, I speak of pilots, who knew the wind by its scent and the wave by its taste, and could have steered blindfold to any port between Boston and Mount Desert, guided only by the rote of the shore; the peculiar sound of the surf on each island, beach, and line of rocks, along the coast. Thus do I talk, and all my auditors grow wise, while they ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... religion was gentle and humane, but not very enlightened, because it derived its light from the heart and not from, his understanding. Egmont possessed more of conscience than of fixed principles; his head had not given him a code of its own, but had merely learnt it by rote; the mere name of any action, therefore, was often with him sufficient for its condemnation. In his judgment men were wholly bad or wholly good, and had not something bad or something good; in this system of morals there ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of cultivating the sentiment of gratitude, as is the case in all other departments of moral training, can not be taught by definite lessons or learned by rote. It demands tact and skill, and, above all, an honest and guileless sincerity. The mother must really look to, and aim for the actual moral effect in the heart of the child, and not merely make formal ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... several instances of habits, which may be revived by one single word; as when a person, who has by rote any periods of a discourse, or any number of verses, will be put in remembrance of the whole, which he is at a loss to recollect, by that single word or expression, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... house, and were beginning to feel at home. The children were put to school; at least it was what passed for a school in those days: a place where tender young humanity devoted itself for eight or ten hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... As a whole, I think not. A smattering of sentimental literature, a superficial refinement of manners, a few borrowed phrases and appropriated customs of "society," the rendering of a few pieces by rote, and fashionable dress, constitute with, alas! too many the standard of culture. How unworthy of their race are those who entertain the thought! All this may be but the gilding of barbarism; beneath this external ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... Prisma die Strahlen von grsserer Wellenlnge rascher fortpflanzen als die von kleinerer. Ein solches farbiges Spaltbild nennt man Spektrum. Das weisse Licht besteht aus einem Gemisch von unendlich vielen Strahlen verschiedener Farbe. Das rote Licht ist am wenigsten, das violette am ...
— German Science Reader - An Introduction to Scientific German, for Students of - Physics, Chemistry and Engineering • Charles F. Kroeh
... one another in hunting after the leaping Romeo. They call without the slightest impetus. One can imagine how the true Mercutio called—certainly not by rote. There must have been pauses indeed, brief and short-breath'd pauses of listening for an answer, between every nickname. But the nicknames were quick work. At the Lyceum they were quite an effort of memory: "Romeo! Humours! ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... dates, and for learning by rote; but good in retaining a general or vague recollection of many facts. R.D.—Wonderful memory for dates. In old age he told a person, reading aloud to him a book only read in youth, the passages which were coming— knew the birthdays and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... botany; I like flowers, herbs, and trees, but know nothing of their pedigrees: he wrote music; I limit my knowledge of it to what I catch by ear—I never could learn any thing by study, not even a language—it was all by rote and ear, and memory: he had a bad memory; I had, at least, an excellent one (ask Hodgson the poet—a good judge, for he has an astonishing one): he wrote with hesitation and care; I with rapidity, and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... kep' thinkin' of the clack. Now," sez he, "I'm goin' to build a house by rote and not by note. I will git me away from wimmen, and when I'm on the lot with the timber before me, ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... oughte to be taught and brought vp g[en]tly in vertue and learnynge, and that euen forthwyth from theyr na tiuitie: A declamacion of a briefe theme, by E- rasmus of Rote- rodame. ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... rote for some time I had such sore feet lately. When they broke up our regiment and sent me over to the artillery I thought I was goin to quit usin my feet. That ...
— Dere Mable - Love Letters Of A Rookie • Edward Streeter
... doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to Adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he had doubted the authority of Scripture. Above all no man was so ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to drive away amid familiar applause, all those had they but found strange truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. There was no literature, for literature is a child ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... said like a child repeating a lesson she has learned by rote, which the teacher wants to hear, but which the child finds rather uninteresting. But Sir Bryan listened as if it had been the most exciting tale he had ever heard. Thus encouraged she proceeded with the dry ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... but little occupation for his hands, and, apart from his memories, little for his mind. He read and reread his father's dying words until he knew them by rote, and could read them with shut eyes as he lay in his blanket in the wakeful hours of night. He would not admit to himself that he had a real belief in their message, and yet it was always with him in a fainter or a stronger fashion, and it made a ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... on rocky shores the distant rote. Oh, could we float forever, little boat, Under the blissful sky ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... noise in the town, every one slept,—every one, except they watched like me, on that terrible night. No noise in the town, did I say? Ah, but there was! It came creeping round the corners, it poured rushing up the street, it rose from everywhere,—a voice, a voice of woe, the heavy booming rote of the sea. I looked out, but it was pitch-dark, light had forsaken the world, we were beleaguered by blackness. It grew colder, as if one felt a fog fall, and the wind, mounting slowly, now blew a gale. It eddied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... each remote, The world that works, the heaven that waits, Con our brief pleasures o'er by rote, The favourite ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed,) and to assert, that if it was not the case, 'it was a lesson he had learned by rote[688],' I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is not a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... ago, was compelled to be familiar with the Genevan creed, as expressed in "The Shorter Catechism," but most little Presbyterians regarded that document as a necessary but unintelligible evil—the sorrow that haunted the Sabbath. I knew it by rote, Effectual Calling and all, but did not perceive that it possessed either meaning or actuality. Nobody was so unkind as to interpret the significance of the questions and answers; but somebody did interpret them for Stevenson, or his early genius enabled him to discover what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... desire, if she had seen a time so fit; and it so ripe to be denounced. That the greatness of the cause, and the need of their return, made her say that a short time for so long a continuance ought not to pass by rote. That as cause by conference with the learned should show her matter worth utterance for their behoof, so she would more gladly pursue their good after her days, than with all her prayers while she lived be a means to linger out her living thread. That for their comfort, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... head of the way up which thou must go, and I wish thee all good speed. Also I advise that thou put this letter in thy bosom; that thou read therein to thyself, and to thy children, until you have got it by rote of heart,[22] for it is one of the songs that thou must sing while thou art in this house of thy pilgrimage (Psa. 119:54); also this thou must deliver in at the further gate.[23] Now I saw in my dream, that this old ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... philosophy by rote, and play at heroism. But the wiser God says, Take the shame, the poverty, and the penal solitude that belong to truth-speaking. Try the rough water, as well as the smooth. Rough water can teach lessons worth knowing. When the state is unquiet, personal qualities are more than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... dust, on the floor. By the ade of a broom, wot was so old, it was most bald-hedded, I suckceeded in completely ridden the floor of its surplus stock of litterature, and terbackhey balls, wot them printers spit out, wen they warnted to use there mouths, to consine sum feller, wot rote orful to Hallyfax, or sum other ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... kingdom of Loegria (England). With his consent he embarked, and after tossing for many days on the sea, was driven by the winds to the coast of Ireland. He landed, full of joy and gratitude that he had escaped the peril of the sea; took his rote,[Footnote: A musical instrument.] and began to play. It was a summer evening, and the king of Ireland and his daughter, the beautiful Isoude, were at a window which overlooked the sea. The strange harper was sent for, and conveyed to the palace, where, finding that he was ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... flank. Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of this method is that it does not give the student the best kind of training. What he needs most in life is the ability to arrange and present ideas rapidly, not to speak a part by rote. ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... clef, C major, 2/2 time. Doctor sperrt das Thor dem Todt: Rote hilft auch aus der Roth. Doctor sperrt das Thor dem Todt: Rote hilft auch ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... not forfeit sense; No actor ever greater heights could reach In all the labour'd artifice of speech. 950 Speech! is that all? And shall an actor found An universal fame on partial ground? Parrots themselves speak properly by rote, And, in six months, my dog shall howl by note. I laugh at those who, when the stage they tread, Neglect the heart, to compliment the head; With strict propriety their cares confined To weigh out words, while passion halts behind: To ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... have urged in these chapters cannot be learned by rote. What can be taught by rule of thumb is the administration of precedents. That is at once the easiest and the most fruitless form of public activity. Only a low degree of intelligence is required and of effort merely a persistent repetition. Men fall into a routine when they are tired and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... followed our occupations abroad, he sat with the family at home, and amused them by describing the town, with every part of which he was particularly acquainted. He could repeat all the observations that were retailed in the atmosphere of the playhouses, and had all the good things of the high wits by rote long before they made way into the jest-books. The intervals between conversation were employed in teaching my daughters piquet, or sometimes in setting my two little ones to box to make them sharp, as he called it: but the hopes of having ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... regular gymnastics and the romping plays must be alternated with quiet employments, of course, but still active. They will sing at their plays by rote; and also should be taught other songs by rote. But there can be introduced a regular drill on the scale, which should never last more than ten minutes at a time. This, if well managed, will cultivate their ears and voices, so that in the course of a year they will become very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... began the justiciary, turning to the third prisoner. "The charge against you is that, having come to the Hotel Mauritania with the key to Smelkoff's trunk, you stole therefrom money and a ring," he said, like one repeating a lesson learned by rote, and leaning his ear to the associate sitting on his left, who said that he noticed that the phial mentioned in the list of exhibits was missing. "Stole therefrom money and a ring," repeated the justiciary, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... definition,—a method by which the definition is seen to grow out of the primary meaning, and by which the analytic faculty of the pupil is exercised in tracing the transition from the primary meaning to the secondary and figurative meanings,—thus converting what is ordinarily a matter of rote into an agreeable exercise of the thinking faculty. Another point of novelty in the method of treatment is presented in the copious practical exercises on the use of words. The experienced instructor very ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... and preyeres, Men{43} moot yive silver to the pour freres. His typet was ay farsd ful of knyfes And pynns, for to yiv fair wyfes. And certeynly he hadde a mery note; Wel couthe he synge and pleyen on a rote. Of yeddynges he bar utterly the prys. His nekk whit was as the flour-de-lys. Therto he strong was as a champioun. He knew the tavernes wel in every toun, And everych hostiler and tappestere, Bet then a lazer, or a beggestere, For ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... only with capacities suited for it. To attempt to cultivate such minds for eminent purposes would be folly. Even supposing they could be educated—which is scarcely supposable, for it would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat—they could no more apply this learning, which would simply be by rote, than they could go to the moon. Such men are not unfrequently met with, and are designated, by common consent, learned fools. Nature points out the education they should receive. In like manner with those of higher and nobler attributes, educate them for their pursuits in life. It requires not ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... dedication you make of yourselves to God our Master and King. For that is the real thing you seek to do today, to give yourselves to God. This is your spiritual coming of age, in which you set aside your childish dependence upon teachers and upon taught phrases, upon rote and direction, and stand up to look your Master in the face. You profess a great brotherhood when you do that, a brotherhood that goes round the earth, that numbers men of every race and nation and country, that ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... most imposing ceremonies, could confer on it; yet it fell short in effect of the simplicity of the Presbyterian worship. The devotion in which every one took a share seemed so superior to that which was recited by musicians as a lesson which they had learned by rote, that it gave the Scottish worship all the advantage of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... as I have seen, they have failed either because the Catechism was neglected for the sake of cramming the children's brains with scholarship, or because the Catechism was not honestly taught: because the words were taught by rote, but the explanations which were given of it were no explanations at all, but another doctrine, which our forefathers knew not: either Dissenting or Popish; either a religion of fancies, and feelings, and experiences, or one of superstitious notions ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... O Nestor, to be bought? Asia's not price enough! bid the world for him. And shall this man, this Hermes, this Apollo, Sit lag of Ajax' table, almost minstrel, And with his presence grace a brainless feast? Why they con sense from him, grow wits by rote, And yet, by ill repeating, libel him, Making his wit their nonsense: nay, they scorn him; Call him bought railer, mercenary tongue! Play him for sport at meals, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... and sperit loved to grope around more and find out things to praise and blame by rote and not by note, and Dorothy and Robert ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... Egypt, but the gods themselves were entirely different ones. It is also true that some of the gods of the Romans were borrowed from the Greeks, but their life was left behind. They merely repeated by rote the Greek mythology, having no power to invent one for themselves. But the Greek religion they never received. For instead of its fair humanities, the Roman gods were only servants of the state,—a higher kind of consuls, tribunes, and lictors. The real Olympus of Rome was the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Lord the Marquis has not a thing to wish for. He has strawberries whenever there are any, and he has the earliest mackerel to be had in Paris. The programme is printed every morning. He knows his dinner by rote. In the next place, he dresses himself at the same hour, in the same clothes, the same linen, that I always put on the same chair, you understand? I have to see that he always has the same cloth; and if it should happen that his coat came to grief (a mere supposition), ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... of republican economy will make again fast enough when the maxim has prevailed. The weaver of Lancashire, who plays out his hunger in London streets, and our seamen who make the weaver wait while they watch three thousand miles of seaboard, are both listening to the rote of the same great truth, as it dashes on the shores of Time, and brings bracing air to the people who are sick with waiting. If we are gaining battles because we love the rights of the common people, our success ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... quarts foaming over with strong beer, that the subject of the evening's conversation at last turned upon the fairies of the neighbouring hill, and each related his oft-told tale which he had learned by rote from the lips of some parish grandame. At last the senior of the mirthful party proposed to a youthful mate of his, who had dared to doubt even the existence of such creatures, that he durst not go to the hill, mounted on his master's best palfrey, and call aloud, at the full ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... advantageous in it. He was little: his head was large and his legs small; his features were not disagreeable, but he was affected in his carriage and behaviour. All his wit consisted in expressions learnt by rote, which he occasionally employed either in raillery, or in love. This was the whole foundation of the merit of a man so formidable ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... played by rote; Stephen by thought. It was the cruellest thing to checkmate him after so much labour, she considered. What was she dishonest enough to do in her compassion? To let him checkmate her. A second game followed; and being herself absolutely indifferent as to the result (her playing was above ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... lineS to inform you that i was the fir St agent for you pills in thiS Setlement but th as iS Several agent round her and tha ar interfer With mee eSpeSly William a StavSon he liveS her at enfield he Wanted mee to giv him one of you Sur klerS So he Wod be agent but i Wodent let hi m hav hit an he rote to you i SupoSe an haS got a Suplye of pillS an ar aruning a gant mee he iS Sell ing them at 20 centS a box i Want you to St op ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... thei trowed that oure Lord Jesu Crist scholde han honged on the cros, als longe as the cros myghten laste. And therfore made thei the foot of the cros of cedre. For cedre may not, in erthe ne in watre, rote. And therfore thei wolde, that it scholde have lasted longe. For thei trowed, that the body of Crist scholde have stonken; therfore thei made that pece, that went from the erthe upward, of cypres: for it is welle smellynge; so that the smelle of his body scholde not greve men, that wenten ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... made school-time very pleasant. He seldom had to punish a boy for bad conduct or neglect in getting his lessons. He always encouraged them to ask questions about their studies, and told them never to learn anything by rote, like a parrot, but to come to him when they did not understand a lesson; and he always made it so clear that it was a pleasure to learn. Sometimes a boy would ask a foolish question, which would make the rest laugh; but then ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... one fact, the Chesholm Courier did not chronicle, concerning Miss Catheron's evidence—the formal, constrained manner in which it was given, like one who repeats a well-learned lesson by rote. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... It went by rote, as they had learned in childhood. It was the tiresome repetition of going over and over and over the lines of a poem or the numbers of the multiplication table until the pathway was a deeply trodden furrow in the brain. Forever imprinted, it ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... overestimate the excitement, the animosity, and the contention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussions over "singing by rule" or "singing by rote." Many prominent clergymen wrote essays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness of Regular Singing," also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing," by Reverend Mr. Symmes; "Cases ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to names that signifie nothing; but are taken up, and learned by rote from the Schooles, as Hypostatical, Transubstantiate, Consubstantiate, Eternal-now, and the like canting ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... herte, He may not wepe although him sore smerte. Therfore in stede of weping and praieres, Men mote[85] give silver to the poure freres. His tippet was ay farsed[86] ful of knives, And pinnes, for to given fayre wives. And certainly he hadde a mery note. Wel coude he singe and plaien on a rote.[87] Of yeddinges[88] he bar utterly the pris. His nekke was white as the flour de lis. Therto he strong was as a champioun, And knew wel the tavernes in every toun, And every hosteler and tappestere, Better than a lazar or a beggestere, For unto swiche a worthy man as he Accordeth ...
— English Satires • Various
... and Bessy, profiting by an embarrassment which she had perhaps consciously provoked, went on hastily, and as if by rote: "I have left you perfectly free to do as you think best at the mills, but this perpetual discussion of my personal expenses is very unpleasant to me, as I am sure it must be to you, and in future I think it would be much better for us ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... maintained the right, Through storm and shine, in the world's despite; When fools or quacks desired his vote, Dosed him with arguments learned by rote, 20 Or by coaxing, threats, or promise tried To gain his support to the wrong side, "Nay, nay," said John with an angry frown, "Your ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Gull, a Foole, a Rogue, that now and then goes to the Warres, to grace himselfe at his returne into London, vnder the forme of a Souldier: and such fellowes are perfit in the Great Commanders Names, and they will learne you by rote where Seruices were done; at such and such a Sconce, at such a Breach, at such a Conuoy: who came off brauely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what termes the Enemy stood on: and this they conne perfitly in the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Primer conning with an earnest cheer, [E] The whilst the rest their anthem-book repeat The Alma Redemptoris did he hear; And as he durst he drew him near and near, And hearkened to the words and to the note, 70 Till the first verse he learned it all by rote. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of the Church Catechism, learned by rote, parrot fashion, had not awakened in the laundress's boy any keen sense of honour. He had a dim feeling that it was a shabby service which he was called upon to perform; but then of course Miss Pillby, who taught the young ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... that ony man may fynde In forest to shade the dere for her comforte. He breketh he{m} aso{n}der or rendith he rote & ri{n}de Out of the erthe this is his dysporte. So that the deere shall haue noo resorte. Wythin shorte tyme to noo maner shade Where thorough the game is ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight's whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith's instantly recognized his friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... doublenesse Wo worthe also your corrupte Iugement Wo worthe delyte in worldely rychesse Wo worthe bebate without extynguyshment Wo worthe your wordes so moche impacyent Wo worthe you vnto whome I dyde bote And wo worthe you that tere me at the rote ...
— The Conuercyon of swerers - (The Conversion of Swearers) • Stephen Hawes
... sugar, or sweet wine, and so keeping all the yeare long; any hearbes, fruit, or flowers in pickle; also pickle it selfe. Fr. compote, stewed fruit. The Recipe for Compost in the Forme of Cury, Recipe 100 (C), p.49-50, is "Take rote of p{er}sel. pasternak of rases. scrape hem and waische he{m} clene. take rap{is} & caboch{is} ypared and icorne. take an erthen pa{n}ne w{i}t{h} clene wat{er}, & set it on the fire. cast all ise {er}inne. whan ey buth boiled, cast ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... yore, grounded on the desire of deceit, and who, if sometimes they were elevated into rank and fortune, were more frequently found classed with rogues and vagabonds. This was the more apt to be the case that a sufficient stock of impudence, and some knowledge by rote of the terms of art, were all the store of information necessary for establishing a conjurer. The natural consequence of the degraded character of the professors was the degradation of the art itself. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... teaching Filomena her large letters up to N, and making her say them by rote, and with that end in view have divided them into three portions—ABCD—EFG—ILMN. She manages all right, except that she always jumps E and L. Lesson closed: "Were you at church to-day, Filomena?" "No, I have nothing to confess." "Did you go to church last Sunday?" "No, I have not ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... for such a society, and the fruits will be without flavor. Art will not submit to be so lowered," will say some travelled dilettante, who, with book in hand, has looked by rote on the wonders of the Louvre and the Vatican; but the Creator of the universe teaches a different lesson from this observer. Not the rare lightning merely, but the daily sunlight, too; not merely the distant star-studded canopy of the earth, but also ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass and God ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... by rote, and to wave his hand in the same unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha with an anxious wondering face, that never ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... know that service all by rote, And there was many and many a lovely note; Some singing loud, as if they had complained; Some with their notes another manner feigned; And some did sing all ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the wheel battles unceasingly with the conscious mind above, for age is prone to live by law and rote. These fates, the oldest daughters of the Earth-Mother, Nature, know nothing of morals or manners, assume that men and women are as naive in their normality as the denizens of forest and field. And ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Men must give silver to the poore freres. His tippet was aye farsed* full of knives *stuffed And pinnes, for to give to faire wives; And certainly he had a merry note: Well could he sing and playen *on a rote*; *from memory* Of yeddings* he bare utterly the prize. *songs His neck was white as is the fleur-de-lis. Thereto he strong was as a champion, And knew well the taverns in every town. And every hosteler and gay tapstere, Better than a lazar* or a beggere, *leper For unto ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... these words is the sufficient defence of Protestantism. It was the cry of the soul to know God, and not merely to assent to what the Church taught concerning him; it was the longing to know Christ, and not to repeat by rote the creeds of the first centuries, and the definitions of mediaeval doctors in regard to him. In a subsequent chapter we shall consider the truth and error in the Protestant principle of justification ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... lombe, ur[gh] hys god-hede, He toke my self to hys maryage, Corou{n}de me quene i{n} blysse to brede, I{n} lengh{e} of daye[gh] at eu{er} schal wage, 416 & sesed i{n} alle hys herytage Hys lef is, I am holy hysse; Hys prese, hys prys & hys parage, Is rote & grou{n}de of alle my ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Who said she had? It's only one card for me," and with a most satisfied expression 'Lina presented the rote to her mother, whose pale face flushed at the insult thus offered her son—an insult which even 'Lina felt, but would not acknowledge, lest it should interfere ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... the flapping crow, whose frequent note Voiced the monotony of land and sky, Mocking with graceless wing and rusty coat His priestly presence as he trotted by. He would have cursed the bird by bell and rote, But other game just then was in his eye,— A savage camp, whose occupants preferred Their heathen darkness to the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Bridget, who confessed thrice a-year, and knew the marvellous histories of a dozen saints by rote. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... of the great neglect and scorn of preaching, ariseth from the practice of men who set up to decry and disparage religion; these, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonery that serveth all occasions, and refutes the strongest arguments for piety and good manners. These have a set of ridicule calculated for all sermons, and all preachers, and can be extreme witty as often as they please upon ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... with his shoures sote The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote.... Bifel that, in that season on a day In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At night was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... correcting their Children, as we do. A general Complaint is, that it seems impossible to convert these People to Christianity, as, at first sight, it does; and as for those in New Spain, they have the Prayer of that Church in Latin by Rote, and know the external Behaviour at Mass and Sermons; yet scarce any of them are steady and abide with constancy in good Works, and the Duties of the Christian Church. We find that the Fuentes and several other of the noted Indian Families about Mexico, and in other parts of New Spain, had given ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... present the Wartons to you as I see them, and that is as enthusiastic youths, flushed with a kind of intellectual felicity, and dreaming how poetry shall be produced as musicians make airs, by inspiration, not by rote. Remember that when they took their walks in the forest at Hackwood, the whole world of culture held that true genius had expired with Pope, and this view was oracularly supported by Warburton and such-like pundits. I have already pointed out to you that Pope was divided from them ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Take rote of parsel. pasternak of rasenns [2]. scrape hem waisthe hem clene. take rapes & caboches ypared and icorne [3]. take an erthen panne with clene water & set it on the fire. cast all ise erinne. whan ey buth ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... modern and fashionable poem; that the Night Thoughts is the masterpiece of our literature; and that Richardson is our only novelist. Oh, no! Madame Carolina would not have disgraced May Fair. She knew Childe Harold by rote, and had even peeped into Don Juan. Her admiration of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews was great and similar. To a Continental liberal, indeed, even the Toryism of the Quarterly is philosophy; and not an Under-Secretary ever yet massacred a ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... have learned conceits from the catch-books. You quarrel by rote. Were I as eager to answer me, I might say: 'Ah, false flower, you grow out of the foulness underneath. You give your fragrance to all without discretion—a common lover, prodigal of favors, fit only to be torn to shreds by pretty, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Syllable: Singing by rote means that the singer sings something learned by ear without regard to notes. Singing by note means that the singer is guided to the correct pitch by visible notes. Singing by syllable means that the singer ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... made no difference to scholarship. His moral earnestness has made no difference to morality. He acquired scholarship by rote, politics by association, and morality by tradition. To none of these things did he bring the fire of original passion. The force in his youth was ambition, and the goal of his energy was success. No man ever laboured harder to judge between ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... the clerk, turning to the accused man, and speaking in the same sing-song tones of one who repeated a formula by rote, "you stand convicted of the crime of wilful murder. Have you anything to say for yourself why the Court should not give you judgment of ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... "Don Fernando—Majesty?" Yet a third time she repeated it, as by rote; and, very slowly, understanding grew into the words, and with understanding, terror. The dark innocent eyes went appealingly from one to the other, and the lids began to flutter wildly in a kind of spasm. "Majesty? Majesty?" Then, suddenly, she flung ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... arts had rendered scarcely worth defending, could death have come unaccompanied by disgrace. With a manner betraying suppressed, but ill-concealed eagerness, and in language prompt and fluent, as if reciting by rote a carefully kept journal, she went on to detail every fault or neglect or impatient act of her relative, not sparing exposure of the most delicate domestic events, at the same time carefully suppressing all mention of his provocations. In reply to the question, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... the right answer for him, the one she had learned by rote in early childhood: "All life moves in cycles. Creation and progress must be preceded by destruction. In ancient times that meant we had to destroy each other; but for the past century our inherent need for negative moments has been sublimated—that's the word the news broadcasts use—into proper ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... the assches there offe, the coles wil duellen and abyden alle quyk, a zere or more. And that tre hathe many leves, as the gynypre hathe. And there ben also many trees, that of nature thei wole never brenne ne rote in no manere. And there ben note trees, that beren notes, als grete as a mannes hed. There also ben many bestes, that ben clept orafles. [Footnote: Giraffes.] In Arabye, thei ben clept gerfauntz; that is a best ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... your helth. And as how you'd get better when the Court riz. But now the Court is riz, and pears like you aint no ways better from all accounts. And tell you how we knowed. See Hannah and me, we got a letter from Mrs. Whaley as keeps the 'Farmers.' Well she rote to Hannah and me to send her up some chickins and duks and eggs and butter and other fresh frutes and vegetubbles, which she sez as they doo ask sich onlawful prices for em in the city markits as she cant conshuenshusly giv it. So she wants Hannah and me to soopli her. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... painters, so in England we have also these, William and Francis Segar, brethren, Thomas and John Bettes, Lockie, Lyne, Peake, Peter Cole, Arnolde, Marcus (Mark Garrard)," etc. Walpole, quoting this, adds, "I quote this passage to prove to those who learn one or two names by rote that every old picture you see is not by Holbein." At the same time it must be admitted that until some considerable fund of information concerning these early days of painting is brought to light, there is very little to be said about any one except Holbein till almost the end ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... she was not a member of any church, although her nature was deeply religious. Hers was the religion the soul inculcates, not that which is learned by rote in the temple. She was a Christian because she thought Christ the greatest figure in world history, and also because her own conduct of life was modelled upon Christian principles and virtues. She was religious for religion's sake and not for public ostentation. The mystery ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... when I preach, I paine me to have an hautein* speech, *take pains **loud And ring it out, as round as doth a bell, For I know all by rote that I tell. My theme is always one, and ever was; Radix malorum est cupiditas. First I pronounce whence that I come, And then my bulles shew I all and some; Our liege lorde's seal on my patent, That shew I first, *my body to warrent,* *for the protection That no man ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... husband, who would probably come to Florence to meet her—and she added that she hoped I should resume my studies at the university, and in serious preparation for the future obliterate all traces of the past. At these words, which I am inclined to fancy had been got by rote, she sighed and looked down. I promised her entire obedience in every particular, and growing bolder by her timidity, said that, with the doctor's permission, I should wait upon her at her convenience. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... except wickedness. There was nothing plausible about him. His voice was harsh. Treachery was written in all the lines of his yellow face. He had no invention, no presence of mind, and could do little more than repeat by rote the lies taught him ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... methinks he walked hastilie to and fro. Thus I remained, agonized in Tears, unable to recal one Word of the humble Appeal I had pondered on my Journey, or to have spoken it, though I had known everie Syllable by Rote; yet not wishing myself, even in that Suspense, Shame, and Anguish, elsewhere than where I was ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... however, and all its indescribable charm, no longer surrounded us; we began to feel that our walk on the quarter-deck was very like the exercise of an ass in a mill; that our books had lost half their pages, and that the other half were known by rote; that our beef was very salt, and our biscuits very hard; in short, that having studied the good ship, Edward, from stem to stern till we knew the name of every sail, and the use of every pulley, we ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... favor are construed as more significant than open encouragement would be by a less poetic temperament. I have no doubt the poor fellow wears over his heart every rose-bud you ever gave him, and knows by rote every word of sympathy you ever said to him. And then that portrait,—what volumes it tells of itself! Fancy that ardent soul toiling over the canvas to reproduce from memory your image (you tell me you did not sit to him), and when the masterpiece of his life was finished, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... ribbon string You used to wear about your throat; And of this pale, this perished thing, I think I know the threads by rote. God help such love! To touch your hand, To loiter where your feet might fall, You marvellous girl, my soul would stand The worst of hell — its fires ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... I change that note To which fond love hath charm'd me, Long, long to sing by rote, Fancying that that harm'd me: Yet when this thought doth come, "Love is the perfect sum Of all delight," I have no other choice Either for pen or voice ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... the story—repose!" his words sounded hollow, like a lesson he had learned by rote and propriety had obliged him ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... see that Nature hath no end In her great works responsive to their worths; That she, that makes so many eyes and soules To see and fore-see, is stark blind her selfe; And as illiterate men say Latine prayers 5 By rote of heart and dayly iteration, Not knowing what they say, so Nature layes A deale of stuffe together, and by use, Or by the meere necessity of matter, Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty 10 Of strength, or vertue, error, or cleare truth, Not knowing what she does; but usually Gives ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Index, bad books, such as the Bible, are finding their way into the Roman States; and it is better, therefore, not to entrust the people with the key of knowledge; for nothing is so useless as knowledge under an infallible Church. The matters which the Italian youth are taught they are taught by rote. "Ignorance is the mother of devotion,"—a maxim sometimes quoted with a sneer, but one which embodies a profound truth as regards that kind of devotion which ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... click in the rowlocks; stroke after stroke of the broad blades draws him away from the lessening line of land, over the wavering floor of the ocean, nearer the lonely rocks. Slowly the coast-lights fade, and now the rote of the sea among the lonely ledges of the Shoals salutes his attentive ear. A little longer and he nears Appledore, the first island, and now he passes by the snow-covered, ice-bound rock, with the long buildings showing clear in the moonlight. He must have looked at them as he went ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... so doing, ye shall find that He beareth the heavier end. At the least, He shall bear you, and He must needs bear your burden with you. Yet in very sooth there is some gear we must needs get by rote ere we be witful enough to conceive the use thereof. The littlemaster [a schoolmaster] witteth what he doth in setting the task to his scholar. How much rather the ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... he said to Bob. "I'm sure I've given you quite as good a definition as you would find in any of those 'catechisms of common things'—catechisms of conundrums, I call them—which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots, without really acquiring any sensible knowledge of the subjects they are supposed to teach! I might tell you, as these works do, that 'steam was an elastic fluid generated by water when in a boiling state'; but, would you be any the wiser for ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thy talk by rote; Thy farewells array the West; Fur that clasped thee round the throat Leaps—a squirrel—to its nest! Backward from a sparkling eye Half-forgotten jests return Where the rabbit lollops by Hurry-scurry ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... other countries, they are buried in classical frivolities, languages which they never master, and manners and races which they cannot appreciate. Instead of being disciplined to think exactly, to speak and write accurately, they are crammed with rules and taught to repeat forms by rote. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... indigetes." The act of worship is grave and formal; it has to be done with precision and in strict accordance with the rules; silence is commanded; the sacrificer repeats the prayer proper for the occasion after some one who knows it by rote; the worshippers veil their heads. In this the Roman ritual is markedly different from the Greek. Mommsen says the Greek prayed bareheaded, because his prayer was contemplation, looking at and to the gods; and the Roman with ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... was in that city, but have never revisited it since I was ten years old. I was sent, at five years old, or earlier, to a school kept by a Mr. Bowers, who was called 'Bodsy Bowers,' by reason of his dapperness. It was a school for both sexes. I learned little there except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables ('God made man'—'Let us love him'), by hearing it often repeated, without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was made of my progress, at home, I repeated these words with the most rapid fluency; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... criticaster. The golden is truth and honour incarnate: it possesses outsight and insight: it either teaches and inspires or it comforts and consoles, save when a strict sense of duty compels it to severity: briefly, it is keen and guiding and creative. Let the young beginner learn by rote what one master says of another:—"He was never provoked into coarseness: his thrusts were made with the rapier according to the received rules of fence, he firmly upheld the honour of his calling, and in the exercise of it was uniformly fearless, independent and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to find him excited after the events of the past night, but instead he was intent only upon committing a portion of the Latin grammar to memory, learning by rote as ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... good deal of notice of Edgeworth's son; he judged him to be a boy of abilities, and he thought from his answers that 'history can be advantageously learned by children, if it be taught reasonably and not merely by rote.' 'But,' said Rousseau, 'I remark in your son a propensity to party prejudice, which will be a great blemish in ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... to drivin a truck with Fritz bulets bingin all round you and he sez, I received the kit you sent me and It is a great comfort (the kit is not a cat but a assortment of handkerchiefs and tooth brushes and everything a soldier gets and Mother sent him his and so he rote to thank her) an he sez if I go over the top with the best of luck and get enuf leave to come home I will give Myself the pleasure of calling on you, and showin you what a Greenville soldier looks like. My reciprocity shall never end. And he goes on tellin how french cookin ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... yet the children of this large parish attend school regularly, and make use of books. They hold the catechism-book in their hands as if they were reading, while they only repeat its contents, which they know by rote." The only exception to this state of things made by Lord Durham was in favour of the Catholic clergy, who were represented by him as a respectable and well-conducted class of men, and well-disposed towards the government. The report further stated that there was no combination ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... which has two meanings. Properly it signifies the third order of Traditionists out of a total of five or those who know 300,000 traditions and their ascriptions. Popularly "one who can recite the Koran by rote." There are six great Traditionists whose words are held to be prime authorities; (1) Al-Bokhari, (2) Muslim, and these are entitled Al-Sahihayn, The (two true) authorities. After them (3) Al-Tirmidi; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... override that of the governor himself, yielded so far as to permit the father to see his child, on condition that he spoke to no other English prisoner. He talked with her for an hour, exhorting her never to forget her catechism, which she had learned by rote. Vaudreuil and his wife afterwards did all in their power to procure her ransom; but the Indians, or the missionaries in their name, would not let her go. "She is there still," writes Williams two years later, "and has forgotten to speak English." What grieved him still ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... I love to hear your voice. An Esquimaux would feel himself getting civilized under it for there's sense in the very sound. A man's character speaks in his voice, even more than in his words. These he may utter by rote, but his 'voice is the man for a' that,' and betrays or divulges his peculiar nature. Do you like my voice, James? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... with pictures, and with scarlet, blue, and gold. It set forth how a young knight, in sorrow of love, was riding between Pont de Ce and Angiers, and how other knights met him and gave him counsel. These lines I read, and getting them by rote, took them for my device, for they bid the lover thrust himself foremost in the press, and in breach, mine, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... afterwards the tissues and the bones. Thus, unversed in the deeper phases of causation, men are hurried unprepared into ranks of a noble profession to struggle as best they may, through lack of deeper knowledge, with the serious symptoms of disease—at first by rote but later, are tempted to tamper ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... seen, say, a million of Frenchmen, and nearly the same of Italians, since then, with a dozen or so of kings and emperors,—but never the faintest likeness to those deluding pictures. We learned at the same time, by painful rote, the population of various capital cities; but we cannot find in any statistic-book gazetteer, neither in McCulloch nor in Worcester, any of the old, familiar numbers. Also in that same Wonder-Book of Malte-Brun, edited by Pietro ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... stoic lesson, got by rote, The pomp of words, and pedant dissertation, That can support us in the hour of terror. Books have taught cowards to talk nobly of it: But when the trial comes, they start, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... clearly master the structure and relations of these five genera, he will have no difficulty in attaching to them, in a satellitic or subordinate manner, such inferior groups as that of the Silver-weed, or the Tormentilla; but all he will have to learn by heart and rote, will be these six names; the Greek Master-name, Charites, and the five generic names, in each case belonging to plants, as he will soon find, of extreme ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... misgivings, a mistrust of its own evidence, dispositions to affect to feel where there can be no real feeling, indecisive judgments, a superstructure of opinions that has no base to support it, and words uttered by rote with the impertinence of a parrot or a mockingbird, yet which may not be listened to with the same indifference, as they cannot be heard without ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... I cannot consider words picked up at random and learned by rote speech. The Fuzzies have merely learned to associate that sound with a specific human, and use it as a signal, not ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... shortly after Jenny's birth, and she had leaned forward with her chin on her palm and a look in her face as if she were listening for a cry which never came from the nursery. Her praise had had the sound of being recited by rote, and had aroused in him a sense of exasperation which returned even now whenever she mentioned his work. In the days of his courtship the memory of her simplicities clung like an exquisite bouquet to the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... not true. It thus follows that his mother knew the sixty-five stanzas of the ballad by heart. Does any one believe that, as a woman of seventy-two, she learned the poem to back Hogg's hoax? That he wrote the poem, and caused her to learn it by rote, so ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang |
