"Presumptuously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... religion at all which they as yet supposed to be the object of Christ's teaching, but a simple preparation for a pitiably vulgar scheme of earthly aggrandizement. But, whilst the other apostles had simply failed to comprehend their master, Judas had presumptuously assumed that he comprehended the purposes of Christ more fully than Christ himself. His object was audacious in a high degree, but (according to the theory which I am explaining) for that very reason not treacherous at all. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... of men, being very much given to indulge their own opinions on all manner of subjects (a propensity exceedingly offensive to your free governments of Europe), did most presumptuously dare to think for themselves in matters of religion, exercising what they considered a natural and unextinguishable right-the liberty ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... her Grace, "so it is with you as concerns spiritual things. How if you should one day find that to be true which your infidelity now presumptuously asserts to be false? Will not your repentance then be bitter? If you have found my words true—the words of a poor, weak, sinful woman, will you not much more find those of the holy Son of God? Yes, to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... appear, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Oxford; but when nevertheless, bibliolatry was rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of God, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural sequence, the most presumptuously ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... pleasant;' by Mr Burke, the Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and by 'that brave Irishman, Captain Macbride, the cousin of my wife.' In grandiose capitals he appeals to Fox and to Pitt. 'Great sir,' he cries, 'forgive my thus presumptuously, thus rashly, attempting for a moment to forge your thunder! But I conjure you—in the name of God and the King, I conjure you—to announce in your own lofty language, that there shall be a stop put to this conspiracy, which I fear might have the effect of springing a mine that ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... I presumptuously thought at the time that the anger of Heaven was thus shown for the crime I had committed. I trembled violently; and had it not been dark, my confusion would have been discovered. The pirates were, however, in a hurry to depart, and, stepping into ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... description that appeared of the newly discovered continent and islands in the west, which had hitherto been anxiously endeavoured to be concealed by the monopolizing jealousy of the Spanish government. Pretending to have been the first discoverer of the continent of the New World, he presumptuously gave it the appellation of America after his own name; and the inconsiderate applause of the European literati has perpetuated this usurped denomination, instead of the legitimate name which the new quarter of the world ought to have received from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... comfort than of indignation. A sweet little woman moaned that she had attempted an authors' reading, but that her authors could not command a proper degree of attention from her guests. Her eyes flashed indignantly as she called to mind the ways of the people she had presumptuously ventured to entertain. "They were swells," she murmured bitterly. "Yes, swells;—it's a harsh word, but not undeserved. I never tried having so many people of that particular sort before, and they simply overrode me. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... in Socrates to say, that all he had learned to know was that he knew nothing. But surely it is a mark of wisdom, to be sensible of the limited extent of human knowledge, to examine with reverence the ways of GOD, nor presumptuously reject any opinion which has been held by the judicious and the learned, because it has been made a cloak for artifice, or had a variety of fictions raised upon ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... the will of Mahomet,' and consequently to neglect all means of preservation. I, on the contrary, recollecting the lesson I had learned from the sensible foreigner, neither suffered my spirits to sink with superstitious fears of ill luck, nor did I trust presumptuously to my good fortune. I took every possible means to secure myself. I never went to bed without having seen that all the lights and fires in the house were extinguished, and that I had a supply of water in the cistern. I had likewise learned from my Frenchman that wet mortar was the most ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... like a lovely spring day amid the showers of February. But this flourishing condition tempted the Flemish towns at last to their ruin; Ghent and Bruges, giddy with liberty and success, declared war against Philip the Good, the ruler of eleven provinces, which ended as unfortunately as it was presumptuously commenced. Ghent alone lost many thousand men in an engagement near Havre, and was compelled to appease the wrath of the victor by a contribution of four hundred thousand gold florins. All the municipal functionaries, and two thousand of the principal citizens, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... determined within myself, as resolutely as presumptuously, to "go and sin no more;" and to that effect, that very evening, dived to the bottom of Deadman's Hole, and returned to Joe Hyde his ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... falsely call the Prince of Wales?" quoth Edward, stepping one pace nearer and regarding the noble lad with haughty displeasure. "How dost thou dare to come thus presumptuously to my realms with banners ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the faith of the gospel, the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the religious institutions of their country, and presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... been summoned from the very first, and without the possibility of any such gradual training, to the necessity of relying almost singly upon her own courage and discretion. For the other question, whether I did not depend too blindly and presumptuously upon my good luck in not at least affording her my protection so long as nothing occurred to make it impossible? I may reply, most truly, that all my feelings ran naturally in the very opposite channel. So far from confiding too much in my luck, in the present instance I was engaged ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... predestined fact, cannot influence our preordained condition here or hereafter. On the other hand, if the doctrine be misunderstood or false, it is most dangerous; there being but a short step between believing it and applying it, presumptuously, in our own favor, and adversely to our neighbor. We are ever more successful in deceiving ourselves than others; and to indulge in the belief that we are the chosen of God, may be only less dangerous than a ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the privilege of this house that we, and we only, are the judges of our own rights, and we only, therefore, can assign the proper punishment when they shall be presumptuously invaded. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... succeed in an expedition of such moment. Truth has prevailed over calumny and falsehood, and justice has wiped off the ignominious stain of my supposed want of personal courage, and the charge of disaffection. My heart acquits me of these crimes; but who can be presumptuously sure of his own judgment? If my crime is an error in judgment, or differing in opinion from my judges, and if yet the error in judgment should be on their side, God forgive them, as I do; and may the distress of their minds, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the writer of "The Political State of Great Britain" made a pretty tart reply. In the issue for April, 1711, pp. 315-320 he says: "One of the Tory writers, shall I call him? or rather libellers—one who presumptuously sets up for an Examiner—who, in order, as he fondly expects, to make his court to some men in power, with equal insolence and malice, makes it his weekly business to slander the moderate party; who, without the least provocation, brandishes ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... manifest itself in another direction, one suggested by Maynard's evident susceptibility to his cousin's attractions. "Here is a chance," he thought, "of righting myself in Lou's eyes. If this fellow, thrown into her society by the fortune of war, not by courtesy, presumptuously goes beyond a certain point in his attentions, Cousin Lou will find that no knight of olden time would have fought for her quicker than I will. Mother says she is one who must have her romance. She may have ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Brewster adds his testimony as follows: "Geology does not pretend to give us any information respecting the process by which the nucleus of the earth was formed. Some speculative astronomers indeed have presumptuously embarked in such an inquiry; but there is not a trace of evidence that the solid nucleus of the globe was formed by secondary causes, such as the aggregation of attenuated matter diffused through space; and the nebular theory, as it has been called, though maintained ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... are pursued by the intellect, the recording of past events is of pre-eminent utility; but of its merits I may, I think, be silent, since many have spoken of them, and since, if I were to praise my own occupation, I might be considered as presumptuously[12] praising myself. I believe, too, that there will be some, who, because I have resolved to live unconnected with political affairs, will apply to my arduous and useful labors the name of idleness; especially those who think it ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... reason for any man to think it really done; nor consequently to fear him, till he enquire of God, by his Vicar, or Lieutenant, whether it be done, or not. If he say not, then followeth that which Moses saith, (Deut. 18. 22.) "he hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not fear him." If he say 'tis done, then he is not to contradict it. So also if wee see not, but onely hear tell of a Miracle, we are to consult the Lawful Church; that is to say, the lawful ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... prop of Israel, the much-enlightened master, "Eximious Jochanan Ben Sabbathai," when his last hour is at hand has to confess that all his wisdom of life lies in his theoric; in practice he is still an infant; striving presumptuously in boyhood to live an angel, now that he comes to die he is hardly a man. And Solomon himself is no more than man; the truth-compelling ring extorts the confession that an itch of vanity still tickles and teazes him; the Queen of Sheba, seeker for wisdom and patroness of culture, after ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... result of some unqualified condemnations of 342:6 scientific Mind-healing, one may see with sorrow the sad effects on the sick of denying Truth. He that decries this Science does it presumptuously, 342:9 in the face of Bible history and in defiance of the direct command of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel," to which command was added the promise 342:12 that his students should cast out evils and heal the sick. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... similar institutions, furnished with friends for life, and puzzled with homes to choose from. How comes it that Jane had acquired neither? Among that number of associates there were surely some exceptions to what she so presumptuously stigmatises as "the society of inferior minds." Of course it suited the author's end to represent the heroine as utterly destitute of the common means of assistance, in order to exhibit both her trials and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... at the royal headquarters; but such was the obstinate infatuation, that no officer of rank would condescent to give him a hearing. The consequences may be imagined. Colonel Walpole, an Englishman, full of courage, but presumptuously disdainful of the enemy, led a division upon one of the two roads, having no scouts, nor taking any sort of precaution. Suddenly he found his line of march crossed by the enemy in great strength: he refused to halt or to retire; was shot through the head; and a great part of the advanced ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... 21. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? 22. When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... towards him; unquestionably deserved, and seasonably pronounced. As also when the high priest commanded him illegally and unjustly to be misused, that speech from a mind justly sensible of such outrage broke forth, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." So when St. Peter presumptuously would have dissuaded our Lord from compliance with God's will, in undergoing those crosses which were appointed to Him by God's decree, our Lord calleth him Satan; . . . . "[Greek], "Avaunt, Satan, thou art an offence ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... in another place (Exo 21:14), the man that sins presumptuously shall be taken from God's altar, that he may die; even as Joab was by King Solomon, when he thought to find shelter there (1 Kings 2:28), &c. These places did pinch me very sore; yet, my case being desperate, I thought with myself I can ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... honourable father; and, as I understand you, was, to start with, himself perfectly honest and honourable; yet look at him now! What is he? Why, simply a dishonoured corpse, hastily huddled away into a suicide's grave; a man who, having utterly spoiled his life, has presumptuously and prematurely hurried into the presence of his Maker, burdened not only with the heavy load of his own sin but also with the responsibility for all the ruin and misery which he has left behind him! Moralising, however, will not help you, my boy; for if ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... upon a ledge of rock which afforded a precarious pathway, cautiously intersected, however, by a deep trench cut with great labour in the living rock; so that, in its original state, and before the introduction of artillery into the art of war, this tower might have been pronounced, and that not presumptuously, almost impregnable. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of a secret; blurt out, of passionate feeling. To chat is to talk in an easy, pleasant way, not without sense, but without special purpose. Chatting is the practise of adults, prattling that of children. To prate is to talk idly, presumptuously, or foolishly, but not necessarily incoherently. To jabber is to utter a rapid succession of unintelligible sounds, generally more noisy than chattering. To gossip is to talk of petty personal matters, as for pastime or mischief. To twaddle is to talk feeble nonsense. To murmur ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... with a self-satisfied air, presumptuously said, he would suffer every thing, to oblige my family, and to save me: and doubted not to be amply rewarded, could he be so happy as to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... constituted minds. When Captain Foster, in 1828, then only lieutenant, received the Copley medal, the highest scientific honour in the gift of the Royal Society, it never occurred to him merely to hang it at his breast in solitary dignity, or to chuckle presumptuously at his own particular good fortune. So far from this, he thought only of the service; and proceeding straight to the Admiralty, he showed the medal, and declared modestly, but firmly, to their lordships, that he considered the honour only nominally bestowed upon himself, but ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Antony, hoping to receive the crown of martyrdom, went to Alexandria, served and encouraged the martyrs in the mines and dungeons, before the tribunals, and at the places of execution. He publicly wore his white monastic habit, and appeared in the sight of the governor; yet took care never presumptuously to provoke the judges, or impeach himself, as some rashly did. In 312 the persecution being abated, he returned to his monastery, and immured himself in his cell. Some time after he built another monastery, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and inspection of this being of infinite purity, and the solemnities of a life which is to come. Above all, let him look up in humble supplication to that pure and holy One, who is the witness of this warfare,—who will regard it with compassion, and impart his powerful aid. But let him not presumptuously rely on this aid, as if the victory were already secured. The contest is but begun; and there must be a continued effort, and unceasing watchfulness,—a habitual direction of the attention to those truths which, as moral causes, are calculated ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... sister of the fair one to lend one of the lady's rings, to enable the jeweller to select the proper size. Care must be taken, however, that it be not too large. Some audacious suitors, rendered bold by their favoured position, have been even known presumptuously to try the ring on the patient finger of the bride-elect; and it has rarely happened in such cases that the ring has been refused, or sent ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... doctrine condemns those arrogant teachers who presumptuously expect to be justified before God by their own merits and works. They imagine that their wisdom, learning, good judgment, intelligence, fair reputation and morality entitle them, because of the good they are thus enabled to do, to the favor of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... bunch, a sign of bad gardening, for they ought to have been pruned, and the tree, indeed, had an appearance of neglect. One heavy bough had broken away from the nails and list, and drooped to the ground, and the shoots of last year, not having been trimmed, thrust themselves forward presumptuously. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... somewhat as if by acting against such opposition as is like to be, there will be a tempting of God. Dear Robin, tempting of God ordinarily is either by acting presumptuously in carnal confidence, or in unbelief through diffidence: both these ways Israel tempted God in the wilderness, and He was grieved by them. Not the encountering of difficulties, therefore, makes us to tempt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... under such Incapacities, which would prevent an agreeable Consummation in the amorous Embrace, (however they may sport and dally with each other) as they must expect nothing but the greatest Resentment and highest Indignation from the Persons they have presumptuously espous'd, and must inevitably tend to their being expos'd to the World, as Prodigies and Monsters; and they have in Times past been the more effectually deterr'd from engaging in Matrimony, as they were immediately on ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... to me, "Thou that shouldest be judged and ruled by Holy Church, presumptuously, thou deemest Holy Church to have erred in the ordinance of tithes and other duties to be paid to priests! It shall be long ere thou thrive, losell! that thou despisest thy ghostly Mother! How darest thou speak this, losell! among the people? Are not tithes ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... and superintends all! Because you cannot annihilate matter, nor conceive of its annihilation in the infinitessimal compass of your brain, is that any reason why Infinite power and intelligence may not have spoken it into existence at His sovereign and commanding will? If man would presumptuously press towards the threshold of the Infinite, let him do it reverently, and with humility of spirit, and not as one "that vaunteth himself of strength," or ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... its success in the hands of a higher power," answered the king, gravely, yet kindly. "Other than we did we could not do; rashly and presumptuously we would not have left our quarters. Not for the mere chase of, mad wish for glory would we have risked the precious lives of our few devoted friends, but challenged as we were, the soul of Bruce could not have spoken other ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... "advanced him to the dignity"—but in truth that is an idle speech; for any dignity which the maturity of eighteen may be supposed to confer he had already in possession. Manhood had come to him, both in character and demeanour, not as it comes to most young lads, an eagerly-desired and presumptuously-asserted claim, but as a rightful inheritance, to be received humbly, and worn simply and naturally. So naturally, that I never seemed to think of him as anything but a boy, until this one June Sunday, when, as before stated, I myself became ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... tortured, as we acknowledge, innocently: (which appears by the account lately received from Madrid of the intentions of the English) yet it was the divine power that brought those judgments upon you, for presumptuously treating the blessed miracle of Loretto with ridicule, and expressing yourself in your writings irreverently of his holiness, the great agent and Christ's vicar upon earth; therefore you are justly fallen into our hands by their special appointment: thy books and papers are ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... institutions, although somewhat fallen from their primaeval simplicity, are such as influence, in a particular manner, the moral conduct of their youth; and in this general depravity of manners and laxity of principles, pure religion is no where more strongly inculcated. The academies, as they are presumptuously styled, are too low to be mentioned; and foreign seminaries are likely to prejudice the unwary mind with Calvinism. But English universities render their students virtuous, at least by excluding all opportunities of vice; and, by teaching ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... almost wish you my own Eyes for a Moment, to view your charming Cousin, where you would see such Beauties as are too dazling to be long beheld; and if too daringly you gazed, you would feel the Misfortune of the loss of Sight, much greater than the want of it: And you would acknowledge, that in too presumptuously seeing, you would be blinder then, than now ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... to offer advice about the holidays, he might seem to be stepping presumptuously outside his own province; but that plea for reticence is one we cannot admit. Term and holidays alike are an education, and they interact upon one another so closely that the schoolmaster not only may, but must, form his judgment ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... a little as he spoke, not familiarly, not presumptuously, but with an air which indicated his entire ability to ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... is, God's actual divine essence and his will, administration and works—are absolutely beyond all human thought, human understanding or wisdom; in short, that they are and ever will be incomprehensible, inscrutable and altogether hidden to human reason. When reason presumptuously undertakes to solve, to teach and explain these matters, the result is worthless, yea, utter darkness and deception. If anything is to be ascertained, it must be through revelation alone; that is, the Word of God, which was ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... wise for that. Infancy lies very near to heaven. Childhood is a not unfit study for angels; and happy were it for us could we maintain the hearts and the hopes of that innocent period for a longer day within our bosoms. In our world we grow too fast, too presumptuously. We live on too rich food, moral and intellectual. The artifices of our tastes prove most fatally the decline of our reason. But, for us—we two linked hearts, so segregated from all beside—we certainly lived the lives of children for a while. But we were not to live thus always. In some ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... room for such stratagem against savage and unskilled men, not even [Ariovistus] himself expected that thereby our armies could be entrapped. That those who ascribed their fear to a pretence about the [deficiency of] supplies and the narrowness of the roads, acted presumptuously, as they seemed either to distrust their general's discharge of his duty, or to dictate to him. That these things were his concern; that the Sequani, the Leuci, and the Lingones were to furnish the corn; and that it was already ripe in the fields; that as to the road they would ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... man presumptuously his genius boasts, Let him reflect upon the countless hosts, The untold myriads, of each age and clime, That sleep forgotten in the grave of time. What were their names! Go ask the silent sod Their deeds—their record lives but with their God! At every ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... professional respect to their calling, in a smock-frock, or blouse, to render so ugly a clash of syllables. His young mistress was every way and by much his superior, as well in prospects as in education. But the man, by nature arrogant, and little acquainted with the world, presumptuously raised his eyes to one of his young mistresses. Great was the scorn with which she repulsed his audacity, and her sisters participated in her disdain. Upon this affront he brooded night and day; and, after the term of ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... some particularly grievous sins, of which conscience justly accuses us; sins committed more or less presumptuously and willingly, deliberately and repeatedly."—Bickersteth, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Huntingdon and her relative Mr. Shirley were not wanting, on their part, in Christian courtesy. 'As Christians,' wrote Lady Huntingdon, 'we wish to retract what a more deliberate consideration might have prevented, as we would as little wish to defend even truth itself presumptuously as we would submit servilely to deny it.' Mr. Shirley wrote ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... as we are informed, no small clamor raised anent some expressions used in debarring the ignorant and scandalous from the holy table of the Lord; That the Minister should have unreasonably and presumptuously excommunicated the Queen and Parliament, and the whole Ministers of the established church of Scotland; Therefore, we shall here insert the very words relating to that affair, as they were uttered by him without any alteration. In warning the ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... himself, gave something strikingly wild, and even noble to his aspect. He was one of the chief leaders of those who were called Fifth-Monarchy men, who, going even beyond the general fanaticism of the age, presumptuously interpreted the Book of the Revelations after their own fancies, considered that the second Advent of the Messiah, and the Millenium, or reign of the Saints upon earth, was close at hand, and that they themselves, illuminated, as they believed, with the power of foreseeing these ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott |
