"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should be the address to which the correspondence is to be returned by the postal authorities in case of non-delivery to the addressee. The trade mark or other similar distinctive imprint of a firm may properly be used on the envelope, but only in cases where it will not tend to confuse or crowd the essential wording. The name of the person to whom the letter is to be returned is of considerable more practical value to the postman than a unique design with which ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... Very ghostly it seemed to hear these familiar sounds and to see naught, and it was the more so that we might by no means judge from which side of us, or fore or aft, the noises came, for fog will confuse all things, and save a driving snowstorm, I ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... his own soul, his own responsibility as the creative vanguard of life. And he must also have the courage to go home to his woman and become a perfect answer to her deep sexual call. But he must never confuse his two issues. Primarily and supremely man is always the pioneer of life, adventuring onward into the unknown, alone with his own temerarious, dauntless soul. Woman for him exists only in the twilight, by the camp fire, when day has departed. Evening ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the Times was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the Times powerfully contributed to confuse ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... trivial fact being announced all over the country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—their "total abstinence" from all the intoxicating moral and mental "drinks" which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience. He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had paid him that sum to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... only Greek art we know anything about—were chiefly concerned with form, and that the ideas behind their perfection of form were very simple and elementary ideas, not at all comparable in complexity and elaborateness with those that confuse and distinguish the modern world. When one comes to French art it is still more difficult for us to realize that the ideas underlying its expression are ideas of import, validity, and attachment. The truth is largely that French ideas are not our ideas; not that the French who—except possibly ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... false witness!' Mary Hall blubbered out. 'I would not do it. But you do not know how they confuse a body. And they threaten with cords and thumbscrews.' She shuddered with her whole body. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... went into the welter of religious wars which gradually merge into dynastic wars and confuse the record of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century. At the end of the last of these divisions ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... because Queen Mary found comfort in marmalade when she was sea-sick—hence Marie-malade, hence marmalade—gives an etymological explanation of the origin of the word marmalade. Here is a real folk-etymology. We must never confuse such myths of folk-etymology with myths arising (on the philological hypothesis) from 'disease of language.' Thus, Daphne is a girl pursued by Apollo, and changed into a daphne plant or laurel, or a laurel springs from the earth where she was buried. On ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... but many times. She had made up her mind with the right instinct that the thing to do was to blunt her sensibilities. By the third day she had ordered the earlier associations on duty, and managed to confuse them somewhat with those which had held possession for so brief a time. She was determined to succeed. She had no right to love the husband of another woman, and suffering was something so much more terrible ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... as peat that looks rather like mould, but is really so different that you must be careful not to confuse the two. Peat is not good for plants, and does not make the soil fertile, but quite the reverse. You can see it being formed on a moor or bog, and you should at the first opportunity go and examine it. There was a peat ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... I should not prize you, you elude me in a thousand ways. Lest I should confuse you with the crowd, you stand aside. I know, I know your art, You never ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... is a prejudice, and a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady—for I suppose the second is in your own class—a real, an unspeakable injury would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the new generation confuse what's ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... pain and wrong My spirit doth deep confuse, And I sit all day on the deck, and long— And ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... to encourage them to go on doing it. We'll arrange to send true stuff that don't matter, so as they'll continue to trust him, and a few selected falsehoods that'll matter like hell. It's a game you can't play for ever, but with luck I propose to play it long enough to confuse Fritz's ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... distinction between the laws of the Production of Wealth—which are laws of nature, dependent on the properties of objects—and the modes of its Distribution, which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. The commom run of political economists confuse these together, under the designation of economic laws, which they deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on the unchangeable conditions ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... in the restlessness of a period too rapidly changing to be always sure of its ground that needlessly confuse the issues of family obligation and personal loyalty to accepted tasks. There are many tendencies toward extreme individualism which need balancing by clearer ideals of social serviceableness. Especially is this true ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... the young man's hand against me. Ah! my father, did I not know how this son of thine was most beautiful, best, and bravest of the Capuan youth? Had I not marked him out for signal honour—only less than yours, my father and his? See, now, how the gods confuse the affairs of men. It was at the banquet that I learned his worth, and determined that he should love me and find in me ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... it is," said Tom; "we must agree on something, or we shall both get left. All we're doing now is to confuse the poor girl. She evidently likes us both the same. What I mean is, we're both so alike that she can't possibly make a choice unless one of us chucks it. You don't feel like chucking it, ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... seas. It appeared as if this brother was to have better fortune than the two others. But the evil spirit was angry at this, and accordingly he set to work with incense powder and incense smoke, which he can prepare so artfully as to confuse an angel, and how much more therefore a poor poet! The Evil One knows how to take that kind of people! He surrounded the poet so completely with incense, that the man lost his head, and forgot his mission and his home, and at last himself—and ended ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... been repeatedly cautioned, kindly and unkindly, intelligently and unintelligently, against his alleged tendency to confuse recognized standards of morality by extenuating lives of recklessness, and often criminality, with a single solitary virtue. He might easily show that he has never written a sermon, that he has never moralized or commented upon the actions of his heroes, that he ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... doing this, hobbling with difficulty over the uneven ground. The signal fires he placed about fifty feet apart, so that the wind should not confuse them; his camp fire he built between three big rocks that formed a natural oven, over which he laid a hastily constructed grill made of green alder withes. On this grill he intended to broil whatever game he could bring down ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... hour's tramp brought us to the bush-veld where I feared that our troubles might begin, since if the Amahagger were cunning, they would take advantage of it to confuse or hide their spoor. As it chanced, however, they had done nothing of the sort and a child could have followed their march. Just before nightfall we came to their first halting-place where they had made a fire and eaten ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... would be absolute pleasure, and all they who see now no light beyond the grave, would by this unerring hand be led to the mountain top of truth's divine and eternal habitation. In your soul, Mr. Davis, you ask and long for this. Doctrinal points confuse you when you think upon them, and you have lain aside these thoughts and said, 'the mysteries of godliness may not be understood;' but my dear sir, if this be true, why are we told to be perfect even as our 'Father in Heaven is perfect;' for would not that state be godly, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... to hinder the work, God marvelously helped us. At one time a certain minister came to try to look me out of countenance while I was preaching. His plan was to confuse me so that I could not preach. The enemy knew that if I became the least bit confused, I would stammer so that I could hardly talk. God was present to help me. He so confounded the man that before the service was over, his head went down and I had ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... on Francis Ardry, as if paying the deepest attention to his discourse. All of a sudden, however, he cried with a sharp, cracked voice, 'That won't do, sir; that won't do—more vehemence—your argument is at present particularly weak; therefore, more vehemence—you must confuse them, stun them, stultify them, sir'; and, at each of these injunctions, he struck the back of his right hand sharply against the palm of the left. 'Good, sir—good!' he occasionally uttered, in the same sharp, cracked tone, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... meaning easily apprehended, but the complexity of its incidents and the intricacies of its plot make it difficult to follow. The rapidity of its action, the necessity of gathering the meaning from a single hearing, and the intensity of feeling aroused would all unite to confuse the hearer were it not for the skill of the actor and the appropriateness of the stage settings. By the aid of these, understanding is in most cases not difficult. The changing scenery, the dress of the actors, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... been noted that our historical notions of the Civil War are now, and are going to be in the future, more just and less partisan than those of the Revolution. This is not because we are nearer the Civil War; for nearness often tends to confuse historical ideas rather than to clear them up. It is because the descendants of those who fought on both sides are here with us, citizens of our common country, intermarrying and coming into contact in a thousand ways. We are not likely to ignore the Southern standpoint regarding the rights ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... John van Witt placed himself at the head of the squadron. "Tromp has courage enough to fight," he said, "but not sufficient prudence to conduct a great action. The heat of battle is liable to carry officers away, confuse them, and not leave them enough independence of judgment to bring matters to a successful issue. That is why I consider myself bound by all the duties of manhood and conscience to be myself on the watch, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... as many say and sing, a grievous thing. So some food is bitter, and sharp, and biting to the taste, yet by an admixture with it of sweet and agreeable food we take away its unpleasantness. There are also some colours unpleasant to look at, that quite confuse and dazzle us by their intensity and excessive force. If then we can relieve this by a mixture of shadow, or by diverting the eye to green or some agreeable colour, so too can we deal with misfortunes, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... such a voluminous author that it would require a veritable effort to remember the throng of characters which exists in his books; and it is more than difficult not to confuse their individual doings and achievements. This abundance is connected with a peculiarity in the author's talent. He does not exhaust his subject; the psychology of his characters is emphasized by two or three expressive traits only, and ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... was shy, or ungraceful, or even taciturn,—no! it was an indescribable embarrassment, resembling that of one playing a part, familiar to him, indeed, but somewhat distasteful. This embarrassment, however, was sufficient to be contagious, and to confuse that dignity in others, which, strangely enough, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would-be assassin that betokened cooperation and an organized plan. He had availed himself of the thunderstorm, the flash and long reverberating roll of sound—an artifice not unknown to border ambush—to confuse discovery at the instant. Yet the attack might be only an isolated one; or it might be the beginning of a general raid upon the Syndicate's freedmen. If the former he could protect Cato from its repetition by guarding him in the office until he could be conveyed to a place of safety; if the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... M'Micking seats himself upon a convenient log. In order not to confuse his faculties by endeavouring to read and write simultaneously, he turns his back upon the fluttering flag, and bends low over his field message-pad. Private Wamphray stands facing him, and solemnly spells out ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... Spirit! for the changes are great and the speech of Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle with no politicians on the marmi, or elsewhere; ask no questions about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in their grandeur; look at the faces of the little ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... to-morrow and to be followed in ten days by fifteen per cent. more. Couldn't resist your appeal." Thus by the sheer luck that had so often supplemented his skill and mitigated his mistakes, he had yielded to her plea just in time to confuse the issue between her ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... uncomfortable, and the present occasion was no exception. She was already reproving him, hoping he was not disappointed at seeing her, and he had to explain that he expected to see Eliza, and that was why he looked surprised. She must not confuse surprise with disappointment. He was very glad to ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... round, smoothly developed Italian head, with that rather tumid outline of features which one often sees in a Roman in middle life, when easy living and habits of sensual indulgence begin to reveal their signs in the countenance, and to broaden and confuse the clear-cut, statuesque lines of early youth. Evidently, that is the head of an easy-going, pleasure-loving man, who has waxed warm with good living, and performs the duties of his office with an unctuous grace as something becoming and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... the artist must be up there in the lofty gallery! For there he was, still at work on his picture. The artist is the only really happy man. He need fear no exile; every land is his home. No foreign tongue can confuse him; his thoughts find a medium of expression intelligible to all. Wars have no terror for him; he paints them, but takes no part in them. Storms and tempests, by land or sea, speak to him not of danger, but are merely the symbols of nature's ever-varying ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... volumes with tablets of wood, that the inside may be preserved from moisture, and the parchment from the injurious effects of dampness. The different orders of books were to be kept separate from one another, and conveniently arranged; not squeezed too tight, lest it should injure or confuse them, but so placed that they might be easily distinguished, and those who sought them might find them without delay or impediment.[18] Bibliomaniacs have not been remarkable for their memory or punctuality, and in the early times the borrower was often forgetful to return the volume within ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... Much Mooted Question Among Soldiers—Partisan Politicians Attacked With Vitriol—Partisan Explanations Did Not Explain—Red Propaganda Helped Confuse The Case—Russians Of Archangel, Too, Were Concerned—We Who Were There Think Of Those Pitiable Folk And Their Hopeless Military And Political Situation That Tried Our Patience And That Of The Directors Of The ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... to the second kind of classification. I appreciate men less by the special affection which they show to me than by their personal excellence, and I cannot confuse gratitude with esteem. It is a happy thing for us when the two feelings can be combined; and nothing is more painful than to owe gratitude where yet we can feel neither respect ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not to confuse the two forms of memory which Bergson distinguishes in the second chapter of his "Matter and Memory," namely the sort that consists of habit, and the sort that consists of independent recollection. He gives the instance of learning a lesson by heart: when I know it ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... meaning, and (ii) that we have excluded from membership of moments abstractive sets of durations which all have one common boundary, either the initial boundary or the final boundary. We thus exclude special cases which are apt to confuse general reasoning. The new definition of a moment, which supersedes our previous definition, is (by the aid of the notion of antiprimes) the more precisely drawn of the two, and the ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... was given to be a helpmeet, and as the bride, the Church to her Bridegroom? Look high enough, Gillian, and the popular chatter will not confuse your mind. You own that you ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a vigorous and logical power displayed in the discussion of these two points. The discomfiture of those who urge these assumptions does not of course convince all scepticism, or substitute faith for it, but it is something to discomfit such pleas, and to expose the fallacies which confuse the minds of their advocates. The matters of debate are lofty, and there is no levity in ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... overwhelming majority of people in this country know how to sift the wheat from the chaff in what they hear and what they read. They know that the process of the constructive rebuilding of America cannot be done in a day or a year, but that it is being done in spite of the few who seek to confuse them and to profit by their confusion. Americans as a whole are feeling a lot better—a lot more cheerful than ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... a very quiet night, here in Turner Road: the roysterers were in the better-lighted streets, and the sober folk were at home. And there was not a footstep on the pavements outside to confuse the little drama of sound that came down to her through the ill-fitting boards overhead. She could not explain afterwards why she did not interfere. I imagine that she hoped against hope that she was misinterpreting what she heard, and also that a kind of terror seized her ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... sometimes with his equals, and almost invariably with his superiors. He puts questions to power as embarrassing as are those which infancy puts to mature age. He affects excessive humility, in order to confuse him whom he addresses with the very height of his isolated elevation. He exaggerates the awkwardness of his manner and the rudeness of his speech, as a means of covering his real thoughts under the appearance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary," he remarked. "Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual intellectual study results ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... growths. Maple and spruce held place and made her course more awkward, and further hindered her. The blue gums crowded so closely that frequently she was driven to considerable detour. Gradually the maze began to confuse her. She started to reckon the whereabouts of the river, a process which confused her more. But she kept on, her whole attention concentrated,—so much so that even ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... diminutive article that may be concealed in the closed hand. This is passed backward and forward among the party "in hand," while the party "out of hand" guess where it is concealed. To heighten the excitement and confuse the guessers, a number of dry poles are laid before each platoon, upon which the members of the party "in hand" beat furiously with short staves, keeping time to the choral chant already mentioned, which waxes fast and furious as the game proceeds. As large bets are staked ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what those who stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you step out of your carriage, know it to be. These fine dresses ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... an enlightened, intelligent, almost methodical fashion. He does not confuse issues, and complain indiscriminately. Even when in the hands of others, he remains the man who had the courage to cut off his own foot, and finish the work of the shrapnel. He is too modest and respectful to give ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... habit of awaiting, should surround themselves with pauses of patience. The simple little processes of logic that arrange the grammar of a common sentence are too quick for these young blunderers, who cannot use two pronouns but they must confuse them. I never found that a young child—one of something under nine years—was able to say, "I send them my love" at the first attempt. It will be "I send me my love," "I send them their love," "They send me my love"; not, of course, through any ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... periodicals and their editorial policies shaped in such a way as to further Nazi ends. In the countries Germany sought to overpower, all the highly developed organs of Nazi propaganda were utilized to confuse and divide public opinion, to discredit national leaders and institutions, and to induce an unjustified feeling of confidence in the false assertions of Nazi leaders ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... sort in one case than in the other. A man can be prevented from breaking into other persons' houses by shutting him up, but shutting him up may not alter his disposition to commit burglary. When we confuse a physical with an educative result, we always lose the chance of enlisting the person's own participating disposition in getting the result desired, and thereby of developing within him an intrinsic and persisting direction in ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... position in which he is placed, everyone without exception lives in a certain state of limitation, both as regards his ideas and the opinions which he forms. Another man is also limited, though not in the same way; but should he succeed in comprehending the other's limitation he can confuse and abash him, and put him to shame, by making him feel what his limitation is, even though the other be far and away his superior. Shrewd people often employ this circumstance to obtain a false and ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of rendering unhappy a person who so much deserves to be blessed:—and what but misery would attend a match so unequal as yours would be with me!—How would your kindred brook it!—How would the world confuse and ridicule the fondness of an affection so ill placed!—What would they say when they should hear the nobly born, the rich, and the accomplished monsieur du Plessis, had taken for his wife a maid obscurely defended, and with no other ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... thou who after toil and storm May'st seem to have reached a purer air, Whose faith has centred everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form. Leave thou thy sister when she prays Her early heaven, her happy views, Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse A life ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... tales concerning its contents; however, all are mere inventions as the book is supposed to be kept in the Prophet's family, nor will it be fully explained until the Mahdi or Forerunner of Doomsday shall interpret its difficulties. The vulgar Moslems of India are apt to confuse Al-Jafr with Ja'afar bin Tayyar, the Jinni who is often quoted in talismans (see Herklots, pp. 109-257). D'Herbelot gives the sum of what is generally known about the "Jafr" (wa Jami'a) under the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... country, were to be brought to England, it would not be necessary to tell him, with a view to his comfort here, the motion of the earth with regard to the sun, and the causes of the length of our days and nights, and of the variation of the seasons. To enter into these matters would confuse his mind, and the man, if he had to earn his living, would starve while he was acquiring the knowledge of them. By such a course of proceeding we should, in reality, do him a great injustice. Instead of attempting anything of the kind, we should naturally give him such information as might be ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... confuse functions or apply wrong tests. What can books do for us? Dr. Johnson, the least pedantic of men, put the whole matter into a nut-shell (a cocoa-nut shell, if you will—Heaven forbid that I should seek to compress the great Doctor within any narrower limits ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... names, where Vedic data should be separated from what may have preceded Vedic belief. Oldenberg, as a ritualist, finds in Varuna, Dawn, and the Burial Service the inevitable stumbling-blocks of such scholars as confuse Brahmanism with early Vedism. To remove these obstacles he suggests that Varuna, as the moon, was borrowed from the Semites or Akkadians (though be frankly admits that not even the shadow of this moon lingers in Vedic belief); explains Dawn's non-participation in soma by stating that she ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... confuse Liebknecht with his father, now dead. Liebknecht, the son, is a man of perhaps forty-three years, with dark bushy hair and moustache and wearing eye-glasses, a man of medium height and not at all of strong build. In the numerous interruptions made by him during the debates in ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... personally incorruptible, and in some ways almost pedantically high-minded. The charge must be put in another way. Grey was irritable, strong-willed, and inclined to self-righteousness. Nothing is easier than for a self-righteous man to confuse his wishes and his principles. It is probable that he came to feel that Mr Hawes's letter went further than was desirable. To the hot fit induced by Howe's eloquence succeeded cold shivers, which the great contractors naturally encouraged. Of the great ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... had been asked, and an attempt had been made to confuse and browbeat the youth, when the Nestor of the Lexington Bar expectorated at a fly ten feet away, and remarked, "Oh, the devil! there is no need of tryin' to keep a boy like this down—he's as ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... natures, and we often confuse a wise suspension of judgment with the weakness of hesitation. To profess an opinion for which we have no sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but when it is necessary to act we must do so on the best evidence available, however slight ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... Mars subjects. They are even more obstinate in their views, but conceal their opinions, and often pass for assenting parties when in reality they are but waiting for the right opportunity to strike their "mental blow" and confuse their opponent. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... achievements of the race, its accumulated social experience; its civilization, in short. It is doubtful whether any useful end is gained by speaking of this continuance of the environment as "heredity;" it certainly tends to confuse many people who are not used to thinking in biological terms. Tradition is the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... how you condemn yourself! You have not been round the world at all, and yet you have no leg at all." So spake Mr. Mordacks, wishing to confuse ideas; for the speech of Bob ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... make one idea the centre of thought for the week,—not to confuse the minds of the children by too much at once," said the Directress. "This week it is pansies." In the garden children were watering pansies in bloom, and pansies were cut and dug for use in the house, where they were the materials for play and work. In one room the children had cards ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... Dorothy was beset of many shynesses now that she was brought with her beloved into the presence of ones who were aware of her secret without possessing sympathy therewith. Bess was there; but Bess did not weigh upon her, since Bess applauded her love. Senator Hanway was there; but "Uncle Pat" did not confuse her, since he cared nothing about her love. It was Mr. Harley who permitted, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley who tolerated, her heart's choice that set her cheeks aflame. Still it was good to see Richard sitting across in the serpent stead of Storri—to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... in India had served to confuse his perception of the conduct of affairs at home. He did not in the least appreciate the men with whom he had to deal. If he gauged pretty closely the malignity of Francis, he may have fancied that ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the story of the death of the buck, and therefore had invented one in which he had gradually come to confuse himself with his uncle ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... the moment before, and a frightened expression came into her eyes. She looked down again at once, and went on reading in a hurried, puzzled way, as if she was scarcely taking in much. Of course I knew she had the will, and I did not want to hurry or confuse her, so I pretended to turn my attention to something else. It must have been quite a couple of minutes before I looked again, and then—I confess that I am not easily startled, but I did have to smother an exclamation—the poor girl must ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... past doesn't count. We start over to-day. I'm not goin' to say much or confuse you with complex team coachin'. But I'm hopeful. I sort of think there's a nigger in the woodpile. I'll tell you to-night if I'm right. Think of how you have been roasted by the students. Play ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... night I got on the roof of one of the tall government buildings near here, and examining each roof as I crossed it looking for wireless antennae, I finally reached this house. I suspected I was being watched by Baron von Fincke, but managed to confuse him as to the direction I was taking, and finally clambered down into this attic through the scuttle. I was certain he was not aware of my identity, and for the sake of my plans, could ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... said that the presence of mind and heroic self-sacrifice of an officer saved the ship from the fate that subsequently overwhelmed two of her consorts. By this time the range had decreased to 16,000 yards (British reckoning) and Beatty shifted his course more to the south to confuse the enemy's fire control. Apparently this move did not succeed in its purpose for at 4.06 a salvo struck the Indefatigable on a line with her after turret, and exploded a magazine. As she staggered out of column and began sinking, another ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... storehouse of information, Professor J. H. Breasted should have accepted Sir James Frazer's views. These seem to me to be altogether at variance with the renderings of the actual Egyptian texts and to confuse the exposition.] ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... conqueror life is to be placed: Clearly in the third or mixed class, in which the finite gives law to the infinite. And in which is pleasure to find a place? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite, which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the superlative), gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts Socrates, and also to pain the character of absolute evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that ...
— Philebus • Plato
... know, there is no economist of note who makes any objection to that statement. I know that sometimes political economists confuse their readers and themselves by a loose use of the term wealth, including in it many things which have nothing at all to do with economics. Good health and cheerful spirits, for example, are often spoken of as wealth and there ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... "that you would hardly approve any social reform which threatened to interfere with your own business methods. But no matter how you disapprove of socialism on general principles, as a leader of the capitalist class you should understand what socialism is, and not confuse one of the most important movements in modern world-history with the crazy theories of irresponsible cranks. The anarchists are the natural enemies of the entire human family, and would destroy it were their dangerous doctrines ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... remarks have already indicated. As usual there was the school, represented by the Duke of York and Penn, which inclined to formality, and by pedantic insistence on well-meant principles tended inevitably to confuse the means with the end. On the other hand we have the school of Monck and Rupert, which was inclined anarchically to submit all rules to the solvent of hard fighting, and to take tactical risks and unfetter individual initiative ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... where it would seem that convention would rest practically at the zero point, the bugbear of good form, although mashed and disguised, rises up to confuse the directed practicality. The average man is wedded to his theory. He has seen a thing done in a certain way, and he not only always does it that way himself, but he is positively unhappy at seeing any one else employing a different ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Tiffany? And yet, when he returned again, and holding his face up to the moon, which was shining at a convenient angle over the edge of the house, the tawny tuft clearly identified it as Tiffany and no one else. And yet, as if to further confuse all recognition, what sound is that which breaks ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... then. It was therefore impossible to keep track of the number of Japanese who entered the country in this way, more especially as the official emigration figures issued at Tokio were purposely inaccurate, so as to confuse the statistics still more. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... in the raid. The Huns were "out for blood," as Jack termed it, and would do their utmost to break up the formation. Their object would be to confuse the Yankee pilots, and thus weaken the force to the extent of making them abandon ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... appearance of the plant is somewhat like that of the Boletus edulis, and beginners should be cautioned not to confuse the two species. It is known by its bitter taste and the flesh-colored tubes, while the taste of the B. edulis is sweet, and the tubes are greenish-yellow, ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... subjects which partisanship should not disturb or confuse. Let us survey the ground calmly and moderately; and having put aside other means of settlement, if we enter upon the policy of retaliation let us pursue it firmly, with a determination only to subserve the interests of our people and maintain the high standard ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... rise And paint the palsied town, Of humbler hue, of simpler size, And sold at half a crown; Please note the pregnant brand—Savoy, And don't confuse with saveloy.[*] ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... effort had been made by Hugh to avoid Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was. This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her conscience would ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... not mean to have no convictions. The superficial confuse definiteness with prejudice, forgetting that definite opinions may be the result of careful judgment. Post-judiced I trust I am. But prejudiced? Heaven forfend! Why, 'tis because I do not wish to bind myself to anything that I may say in them that I mark these personal communications "Without ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... others guarantee to be genuine "classics." Unfortunately, in the case of recently written books, Mr. Rhys is not always at hand. In such cases there is little direction for docile disciples of culture excepting such as is given in newspaper reviews, and reviews are as likely to misdirect and confuse as to encourage ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it." The plan upon which he had determined; if ever it should be his fortune to bring a Baltic fleet to action, was, to attack the head of their line and confuse their movements. "Close with a Frenchman," he used to say, "but out manoeuvre a Russian." He offered his services for the attack, requiring ten sail of the line and the whole of the smaller craft. Sir Hyde gave him two more line-of-battle ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... as he turned quietly: "Child, you must not confuse matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is passing—ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted order of things is being reversed. You don't know what I mean, do you? ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... constructive evidence; by which many actions, either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, amount to treason." The conclusion is, that Mr. B. is a Cambridge man; the Oxford men do not confuse the elementary terms of logic. O dear old Cambridge! when the New Zealander comes let him find among the relics of your later sons some proof of attention to the elementary laws of thought. A ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... place around them, the two chums devoted their attention to the task of baffling the designs of their two foes. Wonderfully well did Tom manage his aerial steed. They swung this way and that, dipped, rose, and cut corners in a dizzying fashion in the endeavor to confuse the aim of ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... here for a long time without speaking. The warmth of the chamber had the reverse of an assuaging effect upon his difficult breathing and his frequent short cough—it seemed to oppress and confuse his brain. He began to feel a pain in his right side, and could not sit ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... beginning of a new function of secretion. The newborn baby has only enough saliva to furnish moisture for the mouth, and not until the age of four or five months does saliva really flow, and since the teeth appear a bit later we often confuse the institution of a new secretion with ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... in the hands of their ancestors, had so often repelled the impetuous assaults of the mountaineer; and they were subjected to a new and complicated species of discipline, well adapted, perhaps, to the use of regular troops, who could be rendered completely masters of it, but tending only to confuse the ranks of citizen soldiers, by whom it was rarely practised, and imperfectly understood. So much has been done in our own time in bringing back tactics to their first principles, and in getting rid of ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... committed by the positive school, is this. They confuse the negative conditions of happiness with the positive materials of it. Professor Huxley, in a passage I have already quoted, is caught, so to speak, in the very act of committing it. 'Theft, murder, and adultery,' all these three, it will be remembered, he classes ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... confuse a stage makeup with the customary society makeup that milady applies in her boudoir. They ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... yet built up an enduring empire, and the danger of military success is that it is apt to confuse means and ends in the public mind, and to encourage the subordination of the civil to the military spirit in national institutions. Such a result could only be disastrous to the British Empire, and so, while rejoicing in the success of the British arms, it behoves us to oppose with all ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... necessary factors along the fighting front. Camouflage also found great usefulness in the protective coloration of battleships and merchant vessels. Scientific study went hand in hand with the art, the object being to confuse the enemy and to offer targets as small as possible ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... assurance which could be made the following day did not entirely counteract the idea. The explanation was given by Rich himself, in the presence of his friend Bencraft, the contriver, and perhaps the actor of the scheme, which he designed only as an innocent affair, to confuse the dancers, without adverting to the serious ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... and that her head is deranged; whereas I say that her wounds are going on badly, and that her head is better than they say. Mademoiselle very rarely talks irrationally, and if by chance she does, it is in the presence of these gentlemen, who confuse and frighten her. She then makes such efforts not to appear mad that she actually becomes so; but as soon as they leave her alone with me or Saint-Jean or Monsieur l'Abbe, who could quite well have told you how things are, if he had wished, she becomes calm ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... person must arrive who is seeking the true life of the spirit. There are thinkers, not a few, who maintain that it is impossible to arrive at pure thought, free from any material admixture. These thinkers confuse what they feel bound to say about their own inner life, with what is humanly possible. The truth rather is that it is only possible to arrive at higher knowledge when thought has been liberated from all material ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... are right, perfectly right, when they point to the shortcomings of the Churches. But they confuse the form with the substance, the frailties of human nature with the irrepressible desire to find God. They have their small idols and their conventional forms of worship, which, if put to the great ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... as they threatened, because it was not worth while. But they won't want to let you out of their sight in the final hours, so they will almost certainly come here to be on the spot. Our object is to keep them out and confuse their plans. Somewhere in this neighbourhood, probably very near, is the man you fear most. If we nonplus the three watchers, they'll have to revise their policy, and that means a delay, and every hour's delay is a gain. Mr. McCunn has found out that the factor Loudon is in the plot, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... the concealer, and Caecius the darkener, and Indra is obliged to spend hours in looking for them, sending Sarama, the inconstant twilight, to negotiate for their recovery. Between the storm-myth and the myth of night and morning the resemblance is sometimes so close as to confuse the interpretation of the two. Many legends which Max Muller explains as myths of the victory of day over night are explained by Dr. Kuhn as storm-myths; and the disagreement between two such powerful champions would ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... in the domain of fancy was so complete at times as to cause him to confuse it with the outside world. It is related that Jules Sandeau, returning once from a journey, spoke to him of his sister's illness. Balzac listened to him abstractedly for a while, and then interrupted him: "All that, my friend, is very well," he said to the astonished Jules, "but let us ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... too, stir uneasily. There is, perhaps, more in their claim; they request the world not to confuse them with the Poles and they protest against incorporation with Poland. But should a number of little states be created, sliced from the map of Russia, they would enjoy but a short independence before falling, one by one, into ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... this— this adventurer who has so strangely interested her with his hypnotic power is the man who twenty years ago forged her father's name to the title-deeds of Burnington, drove him to his ruin, and subsequently, through a likeness so like as to bewilder and confuse even a mother's eyes, has forced the rightful Earl of Puddingford out into a cruel world, to live and ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... it? Aren't you going to make me that brief little sketch of the length plan and cross-section of the Tube? I remember your sketch of it in college, and it tends to confuse me with the real changes that were made necessary when the wind-propulsion method ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... have substituted a system of contention and difference warring against the laws of nature herself, and attempting by these new fangled, petty, puny, and most contemptible contrivances, organized in defiance of the best lessons of human experience, to confuse, impede, and disarrange the palpable will of the Creator of the world. I can see in this proposition for female suffrage the end of all that home life and education which are the best nursery for a nation's ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... net of crime;—Devouring insects, who weary and confuse men's minds, Ignorant, oppressive, negligent, Breeders of confusion, utterly perverse:—These ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... Greenhill was removed looking more dead than alive—though every one remarked that Mr. Greenhill senior looked determined and not the least worried. In the course of his examination on behalf of his son, of the medical officer and one or two other witnesses, he had very ably tried to confuse them on the subject of the hour at which Mrs. Owen was last ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... not have recourse to the supernatural, it is no wonder that my extreme desire to be known to you for good should so confuse me as to work the contrary effect. Possibly, too, one might be robbed of one's presence of mind by the crowd of military persons pushing for precedence, or treating the salutation ceremony in their ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred, which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her, but now ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... point. I may or may not have a gun licence, but our present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game. Do not let us confuse the issue." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... gets stuck on a hill, as will occasionally happen, so that all the oxen are discouraged at once, we would see one of the Kikuyus leading the team back and forth, back and forth, on the side hill just ahead of the wagon. This is to confuse their minds, cause them to forget their failure, and thus to ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... C'EST QUE DE NOUS! poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and embitter a ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sister of the woman he was going to marry, that was all. Why should she not pluck her innocent roses whilst she might? Jess forgot that the rose is a flower with a dangerous perfume, and one that is apt to confuse the senses and turn the head. So she gave herself full swing, and for some weeks went nearer to knowing what happiness really meant than she ever had before. What a wonderful thing is the love of a woman ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... from tourmaline (which it may resemble in color). Its double refraction is very large also, so that the doubling of the edges of the rear facets may easily be seen through the table with a lens. The dichroism is feeble too, whereas that of tourmaline is strong. No one would be likely to confuse the stone with true emerald ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... my soul, and perhaps endanger my soul, by doubts. I will take the doctrine of the Trinity for granted, because I am bidden to do so: but I leave what it means to be explained by wiser men. If I begin thinking about it I shall only confuse myself. So it is better for me ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... subordinate and sufficiently distant not to detract from the force of the chief climax. The main point is to see that one of the preliminary climaxes is not really the climax, for inexperienced writers sometimes allow their stories to run on longer than they should; or they confuse what is merely an incident with what should be made the main crisis. In "The Ambitious Guest" there is only one climax; but in Hawthorne's "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe" I find no less than five critical points, which I here subpend with the numbers of the paragraphs ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... ones, of England and Wales, and great part of lowland Scotland, as far as Perth, where every other year we spent the whole summer; and I used to read the Abbot at Kinross, and the Monastery at Glen Farg, which I used to confuse with 'Glendearg,' and thought that the White Lady had as certainly lived by the streamlet in the glen of the Ochlis, as the Queen of Scots in the island of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... accept the invitation and go whirling around the room with exactly the same steps, laughing at the same instant and enjoying the dance equally. But if one youth asked his partner a question, both the twins would make answer, and that was sure to confuse and embarrass the youth. Still, the maids managed very well to adapt themselves to the ways of people who were singular, although they sometimes became a little homesick for Twi, where they were like all ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... he cries out, "Oh, it burns!" He feels a very keen sensation, and the heat of the fire is the keenest sensation he knows, so he thinks that is what he feels. Yet he is mistaken; cold hurts, but it does not burn; and these two sensations are different, for persons with more experience do not confuse them. So it is not the sensation that is wrong, but the judgment formed ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... comfort in reading, not only that the light should come from the right side, but that the left should be shielded from any luminous object, like the fire, which even at the distance of half the length of a room would strike on his field of vision and confuse the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... But leave them their natural notes; profit by their bravery, their alertness (LEGERETE), by their very faults,—I believe their confusion might confuse their enemies sometimes.' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... before the Massachusetts Senate, which is of similar character, have been preserved to us. The speech for Prescott is a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and yet sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly free from any attempt to confuse or mislead, or to sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. Under the circumstances, which were very adverse to his client, the argument was a model of its kind, and contains some very fine passages full of the solemn force ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... because you confuse construction and destruction with creation and murder. They're quite different: I adore creation and abhor murder. Yes: I adore it in tree and flower, in bird and beast, even in you. [A flush of interest and delight suddenly clears the growing perplexity and boredom ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... anything else, I think, nevertheless, that I have chosen rightly. In such moments, when one cannot see far enough in advance to form an accurate judgment upon deliberation, feeling is, after all, the best adviser; that inner impulse, which is a safe guide if other considerations do not confuse the judgment. This says to me, "Go to Neuchatel; do not stay in Paris." But I speak in riddles; I must explain myself more clearly. Last Monday Levrault sent for me in order to propose that Valenciennes and I should jointly undertake the publication of the Cuvierian ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... doctrines, separate in the world of false ideas, though their joint application in the world of practice has led many to confuse them, exercised a dominant influence in diminishing the quantity, and determining the quality of international trade in the eighteenth century. These doctrines had reference respectively to the construction and maintenance of home industries and the balance of trade. The former ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson |
