"Acquirement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so powerful in bringing out the qualities that can master it, and for any one who has true military courage the acquirement of skill in the more mechanical part of his duty in war is so rapid, that my experience has led me to reckon low, in the comparison, the value of the knowledge a soldier gains in times of peace. I say "in the comparison." Tactics are essential to the handling of large bodies of men, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... I witnessed such quickness of mastery as the Maid showed, both in her acquirement of horsemanship and in the use of arms, in both of which arts we instructed her day by day. I had noted her strength and suppleness of limb the very first day I had seen her; and she gave marvellous proof of it now. She possessed also that power over her horse ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and treatment hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his first "Etudes," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen) had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of liberty was breeding projects in his breast, which ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... still consider the elements of all things as consisting of earth, air, fire, and water; an error which classical-learning, no less than the expressions of common parlance, tends to perpetuate. Let us hope that the days are at hand, if not already arrived, in which the acquirement of such fundamental knowledge will be looked upon as at least equally necessary with the study of languages, and the cultivation of taste and imagination.—Library of ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... place for the exercise of hope; and hope will come if we look away from our not very encouraging acquirement to the ground that we have for expecting any acquirement at all. If we ask: "Why hope?" we shall see that our basis of hope is not in ourselves at all but in God. We hope because of the promises of God, because of His will for us as revealed in His Son. "He loved us ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... form. Mr. Bowditch, too, refuses us; so fascinating is the vinculum of the dulce natale solum. Our wish is to procure natives, where they can be found, like these gentlemen, of the first order of acquirement in their respective lines; but preferring foreigners of the first order to natives of the second, we shall certainly have to go, for several of our Professors, to countries more advanced ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... of His Holy Name is given of the Blessed One. Therefore we must not offer this unto Him for the acquirement of merit. For this will He most ...
— Buddhist Psalms • Shinran Shonin
... Transactions of the Royal Society might possibly be filled with the subtle speculations of the schoolmen; not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of time and of energy than the acquirement of the "New Philosophy;" but though such work engrossed the best intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since the great fire, its effects were "writ in water," so far as ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... travelled abroad, whether at his own charges, or in the company of a son of one of his patrons is not recorded, principally in Germany, Italy, and France, where he applied himself, with an unusual assiduity and success, to the acquirement of the languages spoken in those countries and to the study of their best authors. In the chapter "Of unprofytable Stody," above mentioned, which contains proof how well he at least had profited by study, he cites certain continental seats of university learning at each of ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... stated subsequent to which the enquiry into Brahman is proposed.—Well, then, we maintain that the antecedent conditions are the discrimination of what is eternal and what is non-eternal; the renunciation of all desire to enjoy the fruit (of one's actions) both here and hereafter; the acquirement of tranquillity, self-restraint, and the other means[55], and the desire of final release. If these conditions exist, a man may, either before entering on an enquiry into active religious duty or after that, engage in the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... Tom devoted the whole of their brief leisure after the work of the day was over to the cultivation of a knowledge of Spanish, being fortunate enough, in their pursuit of this acquirement, to make the acquaintance of a young and very intelligent negro, who had been for many years valet to his master, but, being unlucky enough to incur that gentleman's displeasure, had been sent in disgrace into ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... which uses him as a Sunday-school figure to edify a piously admiring world, yet it certainly seems a plain fact that his day-dreams at this period foreshadowed the acts of his later years, and that what he pleased himself with imagining was not the acquirement of official position but the achievement of some great benefit for mankind. He did not, of course, expect to do this as a philanthropist; for he understood himself sufficiently to know that his road lay in the public service. Accordingly he talks not as Clarkson ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... official duties; of troubles for warships in foreign ports; of illegitimate confiscation of traders; of arbitrary imprisonment of citizens; of difficulties originating from outbreak of war or insurrection; and of reclamations already committed to diplomatic treatment, but requiring a speedy acquirement of ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... be said of the acquirement of foreign languages can be said of the acquirement of goodwill. In remedying the deficiences of the heart and character, as in remedying the deficiences of mere knowledge, the brain is the sole possible instrument, and the best results will be obtained by using it regularly and scientifically, ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... for the service of the bonded debt of the Republic, as provided by the convention, have been regularly and promptly made, and satisfactory progress has been made in carrying out the provisions of the convention looking towards the completion of the adjustment of the debt and the acquirement by the Dominican Government of certain concessions and monopolies which have been a burden to the commerce of the country. In short, the receivership has demonstrated its ability, even under unfavorable economic ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... evidently their own. I let them go ahead very much as they choose; I make regulations for the good of all, as in the matter of carts, oxen, etc., but the minutiae I do not meddle with, except as a matter of curiosity and acquirement of knowledge. They work well, some of them harder than in the old time; the lazy ones are stimulated to exertion for their own benefit, the energetic ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... town postmarked upon Brian's letter did he trouble himself with anything but the primitive needs of primitive man. Here, however, he permitted himself the luxury of a brief but wholly satisfactory interval of summary. The fortunes of the road had forced him into the prodigal acquirement of a corncrib and a mule when he had meant to please Brian by his economy. He had burned the one and abandoned the other, wholly necessary irregularities. He had thrashed a farmer. A fugitive from justice he had suffered ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... it broadens our sympathies and charities, and it unifies the home circle. It is an easy habit to acquire, and it sustains its interest: it is inexpensive. The Carnegie libraries, correspondence schools, the university extension plan of lectures, etc., contribute in a large measure to its easy acquirement, and to the success with which ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... London, in the year 1573. He sprung from a Catholic family, and his mother was related to Sir Thomas More and to Heywood the epigrammatist. He was very early distinguished as a prodigy of boyish acquirement, and was entered, when only eleven, of Harthall, now Hertford College. He was designed for the law, but relinquished the study when he reached nineteen. About the same time, having studied the controversies ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... in all their sports and games he admired and emulated. The presence of his friend Brewster in the Wampanoge village, also gave it increased attractions in the eyes of Henrich. The good man was still his friend and preceptor; and with his assistance, he made considerable progress in the acquirement of the native language, as well as in every other kind of knowledge that Brewster was able to impart. But all the elder's instructions were made subservient to that best of all knowledge—the knowledge of God, and of his revealed Word; and in this his pupil advanced and grew in a manner that both ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... but fixed public attention upon him and made him the topic of the hour. He was not of the build or stateliness of Lord Roxholm, and much younger, but was as much older than his years in sin as the other was in unusual acquirement. He was a slender and exquisitely built youth, with perfect features, melting blue eyes, and rich fair hair which, being so beautiful, he disdained to conceal with any periwig, however elaborate and fashionable. When Roxholm returned to England, this male beauty's star was in the ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... comfortable sort of place, isn't it, father?" Fred asked, following his father's look and thought from the Morris chair to the student's lamp, and all those other things which nowadays seem an inevitable part of the acquirement of learning. ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... to be referred to the very general acquirement of what we call "art cultivation" among American women, and this, in conjunction with a knowledge that her social world will be apt to judge of her capacity by her success or want of success in making her own surroundings beautiful, determines the efforts of the individual woman. She ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... poor Poll." Franklin was by no means a bungler in his speech, but he was not fluent. He hesitated, and was at a loss for words, but whatever he wrote had a wonderful flow of harmony. The right word was always in the right place. Doubtless had he devoted as much attention to the acquirement of conversational ease, as he did to skill in writing, he would have been as successful in the one art as in the other. From early life it was his great ambition to be not merely a fine but a forcible writer. He did not seek ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... materials for a scientific basis of ethics can be found, and also what will be the outlines of the future building; and finally it has shown that if the objects of our desires be changed, and many things we held dear are no longer prized, it is owning simply to the acquirement ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... wielded by the arm of any member of that people. On the other hand there was an evil in the habit thus engendered in men's minds, of humbling themselves before mere power without regard to the manner of its acquirement. When we compare the polity of Rome or Constantinople, where a century was a long time for the duration of a dynasty, with the far simpler polities of the Teutonic tribes which invaded the Empire, almost all of whom had their royal houses, reaching back into and even ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... accomplishment as an "acquirement or attainment that tends to perfect or equip in character, manners, ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... passes through the mind, and takes its colour; the love of all that is pure, and good, and great, can alone invest genius with that habit of thought which, applied to practice, makes the perfect painter. Castiglione considered painting the proper acquirement of the perfect gentleman—Sir Joshua Reynolds thought that to be in mind and manners the "gentlemen," was as necessary to perfect the painter. The friend of Johnson and Burke, and of all persons of that brilliant age, distinguished by abilities and worth, was no common ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... there's the actual want of cultivation," said Mrs. Evelyn, warming "time taken up with other things, you know usefully and properly, but still taken up so as to make much intellectual acquirement and accomplishments impossible; it can't be otherwise, you know neither opportunity nor instructors; and I don't think anything can supply the want in after life. It isn't the mere things themselves which may be acquired the mind should grow ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the criticism of which this truth most needs enforcing, for it is in popular judgments on pictures that the false generalisation of all art into forms of poetry is most prevalent. To suppose that all is mere technical acquirement in delineation or touch, working through [132] and addressing itself to the intelligence, on the one side, or a merely poetical, or what may be called literary interest, addressed also to the pure intelligence, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... language actually exists. And when he visits France afterwards he can, within limits, again verify by his reason the acts of faith which he has previously made. Yet none the less they were acts of faith, though they were reasonable. In a word, then, no acquirement of or progress in any branch of human knowledge is possible without the exercise of faith. I cannot walk downstairs in the dark without at least as many acts of faith as there are steps in the staircase. ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... he had neglected nothing. He gave his days and nights to the acquirement of various sciences. He understood anatomy better than any surgeon of his time; he knew history like a Benedictine, and the antiquities of Rome as a botanist does his favourite flora. But architecture was the art which he esteemed most essential to a painter; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... in John Toffey's store is summarized in Table I. In this table may be seen also the growth of economic demand. The increase of the number of kinds of commodities in each evidences the acquirement of varied tastes by this people ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... entertain painful apprehensions. Many a parent would deem it his duty to leave his son without the advantages of a liberal education, rather than thus expose him to the danger of moral shipwreck in its acquirement. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?—is the body, if invited to share in the enquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as the poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses? ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... from his infancy, his will had never suffered restraint, and he thought nothing impossible. As a soldier, he was bold even to temerity; capable of the most hazardous enterprise, and laughing at the danger he provoked. His projects were the more elevated because the acquirement of renown was the intent of all his actions. In council he was dangerous; everything must be conceded to his views. To him the means by which his end was to be ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... the Dr. Lardner of his day,—a man of general scientific acquirement, an indefatigable worker, venturing hazardous predictions, writing some fifteen or twenty volumes upon subjects connected with agriculture, foisting himself into the chair of Botany at Cambridge by noisy reclamation, selling his name to the booksellers for attachment to other men's wares,[6] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... and quinine both afford the basic quinoline under certain conditions, but on oxidation of cinchonine, an acid—cinchoninic acid (C{10}H{7}NO{2})—is the principal body formed, while in the case of quinine, quininic acid (C{10}H{9}NO{3}) is the principal product. The acquirement through experiment of such knowledge as that is, however, so much gained. We find, indeed, that obstacles are gradually being cleared away, and the actual synthetic formation of such alkaloids as piperidine and coniine is a proof that the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... transient Outer to the eternal Inner. In the simple life, external possessions unnecessary and recognized as vain, the soul would turn within and seek Reality. Only a tiny section of humanity has time to do it now. There is no leisure. Civilization means acquirement for the body: it ought to mean development for the soul. Once sweep aside the trash and rubbish men seek outside themselves today, and the wings of their smothered souls would stir again. Consciousness ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... the Afghan mind. The method of teaching is confined to that wearisome system of loud-voiced repetition which is so annoying a feature in Indian schools; and the Koran is, of course, the text-book in all forms of education. Every Afghan gentleman can read and speak Persian, but beyond this acquirement education seems to be limited to the physical development of the youth by instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the priests and physicians; but the ignorance of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... grandeur and beauty that this infinite may possess would fall to its portion; it would only be incoherent, inactive, and vague. Whereas by seeking it in ourselves, where it truly is; by observing it there, listening to it, marking how it profits by every acquirement of our mind, every joy and sorrow of our heart, we soon shall learn what we best had do to purify and ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... at all, (4) castle and wife are not transported beyond the sea, (5) the cat does not serve the hero voluntarily out of gratitude, (6) the hero himself journeys to recover his stolen charm. And yet there can be no doubt of the connection of our stories with this cycle. The acquirement of a charm, through the help of which the hero performs a difficult task under penalty of death, and thus wins the hand of a ruler's daughter; the theft of the charm and the disappearance of the wife; the search, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... the normal child as thoughts of fear and cowardice. A child should never have suggested to him that he is afraid. He should be constantly assured that he is brave, loyal, and fearless. The daily repetition of these suggestions will contribute much to the actual acquirement of the very traits of character that are thus suggested. This does not mean that a child should not ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... The acquirement of this mastery of means is the student's business. Everything he does which aids him in this makes him so much nearer to being a painter. But he must remember that he is still a student, and as he hopes to be a painter, must have patience with himself; ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... man of vast acquirement, with a great flow of ideas, but tasteless, and void of all judgment. An anecdote may be recorded of him, which puts in a clear light the state of these literary men. Raynaud was one day pressing hard a reluctant bookseller to publish one of his works, who replied—"Write a book like Father ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... more practical. The Laws of the Twelve Tables were committed to memory; and rhetoric and oratory were given special attention, as a mastery of the art of public speaking was an almost indispensable acquirement for the Roman citizen who aspired to take a prominent part in ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Interoceanic Canals disagreed, and it is only to the courage and rare ability of the late Senator Hanna and his associates, as minority members of the committee, that the nation owes the abandonment of the Nicaraguan project, the acquirement of the Panama Canal rights at a reasonable price and the making of ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... is called an idea. This chain of ideas may be broken into more or fewer links, or divided in different parts of it, by the customs of different people. Whence the meanings of the words of one language cannot always be exactly expressed by those of another; and hence the acquirement of different languages in their infancy may affect the modes of thinking and reasoning of whole nations, or of different classes of society; as the words of them do not accurately suggest the same ideas, or parts of ideal trains; a circumstance which ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... understandings cannot even fathom the means whereby it is effected; but this we do know, that it indispensably requires to be "wrought out with fear and trembling." The Saviour will be ours, only on condition of our being his. Religion must not be an acquirement, but a transformation; and surely that spirit, which could not make itself, and which, when made by God, has but degraded itself, is unable to "create itself anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." No, fear and trembling are the only part, and that but negative, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... making bread, with the volume of her choice propped up before her; and by the style of the novel jotted down in the rough, almost simultaneously with her reading, we know that to her the study of German was not—like French and music—the mere necessary acquirement of a governess, but an influence that entered her mind and helped to shape the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... worthy of imitation when dealing with the riper adult. Rule of Thumb has the advantage that being born of and acquired by practice it can be applied and put into practice, but it is certainly rather late in the day to revert to it in the acquirement of languages. We have had some experience of Rule of Thumb in this town. The Grammatical Methods of teaching languages are those of teaching any science in a thorough manner. They classify the various parts of speech for the purpose of reducing them to rule, these are studied in detail and the rule ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... your style and manner of writing. A little more pains and a little more reading, and you will exceed Lady Mary W. Montague. Practice, however, is indispensable. The art of writing is an acquirement, as much as music ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the subjects of his winter studies; but, he adds, "I doubt not but you design to season them with a little divinity now and then, which, like the philosopher's stone in the hands of a good man, will turn them and every lawful acquirement into the nature of itself, and make them ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... consummate skill bestowed upon wearing apparel. Many a young girl of the day embroidered her own wedding dress, and during the months or years of its preparation suffered and enjoyed the same ambition which goes on in the present, to the acquirement of some wonder of French composition, or costly ornament of point lace ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... the same race, we speak the same language, we worship the same God, we have the same ideas of culture and of pleasures. The difference is one that is not patent to the eye or to the ear. It is a difference of accidental incident, not of nature or of acquirement." ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... and superhuman stature; and an undefinable curiosity for all that is connected with the Danish race began to pervade me; and if, long after, when I became a student I devoted myself with peculiar zest to Danish lore and the acquirement of the old Norse tongue and its dialects, I can only explain the matter by the early impression received at Hythe from the tale of the old sexton, beneath the pent-house, and the sight of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... in the mind of an immigrant that there is a stake in the land for him, and his confidence that in the acquirement of his stake he gets a square deal from all concerned, are more important from the viewpoint of Americanization than the actual acquirement of any settlement on land; for not all immigrants desire to own a piece of land and work on it, and not all who desire ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... Jacket acquire his power of moving and melting his hearers. His graceful attitudes, significant gestures, perfect intonation, and impressive pauses, when the lifted finger, and flashing eye told more than utterance, were the result of sleepless toil; while his high acquirement was the product of stern habitual thought, study of man, and ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... language, perhaps arising from a line in the dialogue between a sinner and spider, 'My name entailed is to my creation.' In this preface, he learnedly attempts to prove that language was the gift of God by revelation, and not a gradual acquirement of man as his wants multiplied. The other remarkable edition was published about 1790.[6] It is, both the text and cuts, printed from copperplate engravings, very handsomely executed. This is an honour conferred upon very few ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... determining the ideas which the words are intended to express; but this does not in any manner invalidate the conditions which we impose. Whatever theory we may adopt of the relative part played by the knowing subject, and the external object in the acquirement of knowledge, it remains none the less true that no knowledge of the meaning of a word can be acquired except through the senses, and that the meaning is, therefore, limited by the senses. If we transgress the rule of founding each meaning upon meanings ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... Louis, of whom France Newly is govern'd; born of one, who ply'd The slaughterer's trade at Paris. When the race Of ancient kings had vanish'd (all save one Wrapt up in sable weeds) within my gripe I found the reins of empire, and such powers Of new acquirement, with full store of friends, That soon the widow'd circlet of the crown Was girt upon the temples of my son, He, from whose bones th' anointed race begins. Till the great dower of Provence had remov'd The stains, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... with the dry chronicles of a law office. The acquirement of learning is a slow process in life, and perchance a slower one in the telling. I lacked not application during the three years of my stay in Richmond, and to earn my living I worked at such odd tasks ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tried to show that the ways in which elementary or minor species must have originated from their common ancestor must be quite different from the mode of origin of the varieties. We have assumed that the first come into existence by the production of something new, by the acquirement of a character hitherto unnoticed in the line of their ancestors. On the contrary, varieties, in most cases, evidently owe their origin to the loss of an already existing character, or in other less frequent ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... things as the Indian or the Mexican. It is not apprehended that this difficult branch of woodcraft can be taught from books, as it pertains almost exclusively to the school of practice, yet I will give some facts relating to the habits of the Indians that will facilitate its acquirement. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... the Conscience of man project itself athwart whatsoever of knowledge or surmise, of imagination, understanding, faculty, acquirement, or natural disposition, he has in him; and, like light through coloured glass, paint strange pictures 'on the rim of the horizon' and elsewhere! Truly, this same 'sense of the Infinite nature of Duty' is the central part of all with us; a ray as of Eternity ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... aunt at Beaubocage gave her nieces much valuable advice against the time when they should be old enough to assume the management of their father's house. The sweet unselfish lady of Beaubocage had indeed undergone hard experience in the acquirement of the domestic art. Heaven and her own memory alone recorded those scrapings and pinchings and nice calculations of morsels by which she had contrived to save a few pounds for her outcast brother. Such sordid economics show but poorly on earth; but it is probable ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... as such objects really appear when set before us in their natural aspect. I was the more desirous of exhibiting the ability which I possessed in mechanical draughtsmanship, as I knew it to be a somewhat rare and much-valued acquirement. It was a branch of delineative art that my father had carefully taught me. Throughout my professional life I have found this art to be ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... toward the acquirement and dissemination of absolute spiritual truth, as was not unnatural, I thoroughly investigated the 'Supernaturalism' of the day. I soon assented to the general proposition that sociability with the invisibles is practicable, if not profitable; but ever held ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... friends how he could have found leisure to store his mind with the knowledge he had attained of the works and beauties of all our most esteemed writers; his library contains one of the rarest and most curious collections of our early authors, more particularly our poets and dramatists; in the acquirement of these works he was engaged long before it became the fashion to purchase a black letter poem, or romance, merely because it was old or unique. But his highest excellencies were the virtuous and religious principles which governed his whole ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... This is the sickening part of it. People do not seem to talk for the sake of expressing their opinions, but to maintain an opinion for the sake of talking. We meet neither with modest ignorance nor studious acquirement. Their knowledge has been taken in too much by snatches to digest properly. There is neither sincerity nor system in what they say. They hazard the first crude notion that comes to hand, and then defend it how they ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... thousand dollars. I was doing well. I was putting by from two to three thousand dollars every year, and was in a fair way to get rich. But, as money began to accumulate, I grew more and more eager in its acquirement, and less concerned about the principles underlying every action, until I passed into a temporary state of moral blindness. I was less scrupulous about securing large advantages in trade, and would take the lion's share, if opportunity ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... household. The rest of the day was devoted to the enormous correspondence and affairs of administration which devolved upon him as first minister of state and treasury. He was very ignorant. He had no experience or acquirement in the arts either of war or peace, and his early education had been limited. Like his master, he spoke no tongue but Spanish, and he had no literature. He had prepossessing manners, a fluent tongue, a winning and benevolent disposition. His natural capacity for affairs ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... inanimate things his waste energy, his dullest thoughts, his most languid emotions, and reserving all his acuter intellect for researches into his own nature and that of the gods; all his strength of will for the acquirement of political or moral power; all his sense of beauty for things immediately connected with his own person and life; and all his deep affections ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... rode horseback. Never in his life had Phil seen anything to equal the easy grace with which these Southern girls sat their horses. Their mothers before them had been born in the saddle. Their ease, their grace was not an acquirement of the teacher. It ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... Education, Herbert Spencer states that "acquirement of every kind has two values—value as knowledge and value as discipline. Besides its use for guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also its use as mental exercise." Many students of education would assert that one very ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... friend John Sackhouse. We soon found that Toolooak possessed a capacity equal to anything he chose to take an interest in learning; and could he, at his present age, have been voluntarily removed from his companions, and his attention directed to the acquirement of higher branches of knowledge than that of catching seals, he would have amply repaid any pains bestowed upon his education. I had always entertained great objection to taking any such individual from his home, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... one another's houses and discussed all the important social and religious topics of the day. They were mostly young people, college-bred, learned, artistic and thoughtful, and of high ideals in intellectual acquirement, religion and social life. They were all agreed that there were many evils to be eradicated from society; in what way—individualistic, governmental or socialistic, or by a combination of ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... and, in general, also with the mouth nearly closed. The Italian singer finds no difficulty in bringing out his voice; but the Englishman has first to conquer the habit of his life, and to overcome the obstacles his native tongue opposes to his acquirement of this new but necessary, mode of using the voice. The difficulty, of laying this only foundation of real sterling excellence in the vocal art, is very great, and much care and study is indispensable. Those who have occasion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Cuchulain. He confused the cycles, it is true, taking the Red Branch heroes for contemporaries of the Fianna, which is much as if one should make Heracles meet Odysseus or Achilles in battle; but he had these earlier legends by heart, a rare acquirement among the Shanachies ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... be smart always, and even smarter at church. Religious fervour, if it ran to limpness of dress, or form, or mind, was punishable according to law. A wholesome spirit of competition was encouraged, not in the taking of many prizes, the attending of many services, or the acquirement of much Euclid, but in dress, smartness, and ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... very truly observes:—"Though I have unquestionably met in New York with many most intelligent and accomplished gentlemen, still I think the fact cannot be denied,—that the average of acquirement resulting from education is a good deal lower in this country than in the better circles in England. In all the knowledge which must be taught, and which requires laborious study for its attainment, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Sally thought she would not hear, but she did. Ferry's voice, even in its subdued tones, possessed that carrying quality which is the peculiar acquirement of ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... considered by his friends to be a rather cold, steady man, who concealed under an indifferent manner an almost insatiable ambition. He certainly had given way to an entire absorption in his profession, and in the dogged acquirement of one language after another ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... details of the conditions of life of the genera concerned. But from the sporadic distribution of scent-scales in Lepidoptera, and from their occurrence or absence in nearly related species, we may conclude that fragrance is a relatively modern acquirement, more recent ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... other nations of antiquity, a useful art consisted chiefly in the exploits of war,—in being able to undergo privations and hardships, and in wielding successfully the heavy instruments of bloodshed,—such an education as would conduce to the acquirement of that art must be estimated on different grounds from that system whose object is to develop ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... and the distinctions will appear as one studies carefully the features of these living gifts of nature's greenness. The trees wait on one, and once the habit of appreciation and investigation is formed, each walk afield, in forest or park, leads to the acquirement of some new bit of tree-lore, that becomes more precious and delightful as it is passed on and commented upon in association with some other member of the happily ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... parents and teachers speak of the perplexity of spirit which they feel when they see that in so many instances the acquirement of accomplishments, as they are termed, fails to add any moral strength or beauty to the character of the young people in whose welfare and advancement their hearts are so entirely absorbed. This young girl ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy art, or a mere nerve titillater. We are not, sir, by any means ashamed to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a genuine compliment—gratifying because, although perhaps unintentionally it implies that we have acquired the possession of "that one thing" ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... at every spare moment, his favorite avocation. It was this careful and patient training during his apprenticeship that finally made him the expert story-teller that he is. It is very interesting to any one who cares for the acquirement of an excellent style to note how all the authors contained in this text have had to work with almost a superhuman force to reach the ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... other phenomena, which can not be fully comprehended in all their vastness without a previous acquirement of general views regarding the forces that govern the universe. Such, for instance, are the innumerable double stars, or rather suns, which revolve round one common center of gravity, and thus reveal in distant worlds the existence of the Newtonian law; the larger or smaller ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... sprained wrists or chilblains from learning it. When told to construe a passage read out not two minutes before by one of the upper boys, they knew nothing about it, and feared it was too hard for their overwrought capacities; and when pinned down where they sat to the acquirement of some short rule or passage, they explained sorrowfully that that had not been Mr Moss's method. In divinity they raised discussions on questions of dogma, and so subtly evaded challenge on questions of Greek Testament construction and various readings. In history they fell back on a few stock ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... remarks that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would naturally discourse in Hebrew. For this the authority of one experiment is claimed, and I could, with Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would thereby be facilitated. I am aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of Psammiticus to have been in favour of a dialect of the Phrygian. But, beside the chance that a trial ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... I must beg to differ from you," said Ah Ben. "There is a law for the acquirement of this soul-power which is as fixed and certain as the law of gravitation; and when a man has once gained it, he has no more use for worldly wealth than he has for the ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... enough and fine enough to warrant such a course. The remedy for the mental unrest, which is in itself an illness, lies not in an enlightened knowledge of the harmfulness and ineffectiveness of worry, not even in the acquirement of an unconscious conscience, but in the living of a life so full and good that worry cannot find place in it. That idea of worry and conscience, that definition of serenity, simplifies life immensely. To overcome worry by substituting ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... is by no means meant as an aid to the acquirement of heavenly bliss alone. Many of the great sacrifices are for the gaining of good things on earth. In one passage there is described a ceremony, the result of which is to be that the warrior, who is the sacrificer, may say to a man of the people "fetch ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... to become manifest, what is known as inhibition must come into play; an impulse to action must be checked in order that an opposing action can be effective. The movement of rejection uses muscles that oppose the movement of acquirement; e. g., one uses the triceps and the other the biceps, muscles situated in opposite sides of the upper arm and having antagonistic action. In order for triceps to act, biceps must be inhibited from ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... the reason why so few people have distinct notions of natural philosophy. Learning by rote, or even reading repeatedly, definitions of the technical terms of any science, must undoubtedly facilitate its acquirement; but conversation, with the habit of explaining the meaning of words, and the structure of common domestic implements, to children, is the sure and effectual method of preparing the mind for ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... (without depending upon the body) it depends upon that (i.e., the knower or Soul) which has the body for its refuge. Without beginning, middle, or end, Brahma cannot be acquired by exertion (like to what is necessary for the acquirement of the Vedas). The Richs, the Samans, the Yajuses have each a beginning. Those that have a beginning have also an end. But Brahma is said to be without beginning. And because Brahma hath neither beginning nor end, it is said to be infinite and unchangeable. In consequence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... dropped now and then with a judiciousness which proved the existence of a deliberate purpose, of some duty which awaited him on the other side of the water, a duty which would explain his long exile from his only parent and for which he must fit himself by study and the acquirement of such accomplishments as render a young man a positive power in society, whether that society be of the Old World or the New. He showed his shrewdness in thus dealing with this pliable and deeply affectionate nature. From this time forth Thomas ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... Liaison is maintained at all points, but the attack varies from time to time. It may be intense at certain places and other sectors may be quiet for a time. There are occasional reverses, but the whole line in general progresses. Each year witnesses the acquirement of new territory. It is seen that through the centuries there is an ever-growing momentum as knowledge, efficiency, and organization increase the strength of this invading army ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... remarkably distinct from each other. The former may be in vigorous exercise in him who has little feeling of his moral condition,—and the latter may be in a high state of culture in the man, who, in point of intellectual acquirement, knows little beyond the truths which it most concerns him to know,—those great but simple principles which guide his conduct as ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... has not learned at home. She is anxious for her friends to spell, and eager to teach the letters to every one she meets. She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, as soon as she has words to supply their place, and the acquirement of a new word affords her the liveliest pleasure. And we notice that her face ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... of their doings exhausted, then Kitty began to realize what her education, as they called it, really meant. The lessons of those three years were not to be erased from her life as one would erase a mistake in a problem or a misspelled word. The tastes, habits of thought and standards of life, the acquirement of which constituted her culture, would not be denied. It was inevitable that there should be a clash between the claims of her home life and the claims of that life to which she now felt that she ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... certainly not manifest itself, without talents, I would advise every scholar, who feels the genial power working within him, so far to make a division between the two, as that he should devote his talents to the acquirement of competence in some known trade or profession, and his genius to objects of his tranquil and unbiassed choice; while the consciousness of being actuated in both alike by the sincere desire to perform his duty, will alike ennoble both. "My dear young friend," (I would say) "suppose yourself ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... heavily armoured bodies and their firm shield-like forewings render them less aerial than other insects; in many genera the power of flight has been altogether lost. It is not surprising, therefore, that many beetles, even when adult, should live as their larvae do; since the acquirement of complete metamorphosis they have become modified towards the larval condition, and an extreme case of such modification is afforded by the wingless ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... on Ben's singing, which he did with smiling readiness, expressing, however, a profound ignorance of music. "I never take my songs as seriously as my friends seem to do," he explained to Bertha. "Music with me is a gift rather than an acquirement." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... cavalry saber; you might make the one slash at a required vote, with as many chances of missing as of cutting it down. Every argument, therefore, pointed to a seat; whereat Patrick Henry Hanway bent himself to its acquirement, and at the age of twenty-six he was sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution and told to vote in the Assembly. In that body he flourished for ten years, while his manhood mildewed and ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... almost nineteen. I had completed the usual curriculum of study at one of the Scotch universities; and, possessed of a fair knowledge of mathematics and physics, and what I considered rather more than a good foundation for classical and metaphysical acquirement, I resolved to apply for the first suitable situation that offered. But I was spared the trouble. A certain Lord Hilton, an English nobleman, residing in one of the midland counties, having heard that one ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... first, and, as he hoped, his only, essay as a seaman before the mast, and after the slight sketch which has been given of her and her skipper, it will be readily seen that he could scarcely have hit upon a craft where he would be likely to have more hard work, or better opportunities for the acquirement of a large measure of seafaring knowledge ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... Europe and the East have many of them lacked also the chance to be drilled in the things that belong to private and personal habit demanded by our civilization. It may be that for such the public school is the only medium for the belated acquirement of such habits; but if publicity in drill and lack of reserve and modesty be the price paid for wholesale instruction it may injure those with good breeding at command in their own homes by lowering their standards, even while it helps ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... great Conde, you will allow, was no fool; and the Duchesse de Longueville is cited as one of the wittiest women that ever lived. The Regent was a man who had few equals, in every kind of talent and acquirement. The Prince de Conti, who was elected King of Poland, was celebrated for his intelligence, and, in poetry, was the successful rival of La Fare and St. Aulaire. The Duke of Burgundy was learned and enlightened. His Duchess, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... been avoided by changing the peg in the scale of creation, and the studies of the boy might have begun where now they end. Twenty-five years in the span of life would thus have been saved, had what must be a universal acquirement been incorporated into the original programme of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... of professional and a few amateur whips, no one is ever taught how to drive. Most persons who ride—even country boys—are given many useful hints, lessons, and demonstrations; but it seems to be assumed that driving is a natural acquirement. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... Prophet, when "knowledge shall be increased, and many shall run to and fro." The intellectual progress of the race during the last half century has indeed been great. But admiration is not the only feeling of the thoughtful mind when observing this striking advance in intellectual acquirement. We see that man has not yet fully mastered the knowledge he has acquired. He runs to and fro. He rushes from one extreme to the other. How many chapters of modern history, both political and religious, are full of the records of this mental vacillation of our race, of this illogical and absurd ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... particularly at Court, but English was a rare acquirement, still more Italian or Spanish. There was, however, a small inner circle where these languages were studied, chiefly in order to read the master-works of modern literature. And this was all the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at Dessau, and people ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... known the slightest thrill of joy or felt the least sensation of relief, although she was then not sixteen years old,—so entirely was her mind bent upon the crown of Russia. Partly to attain her end, and partly because it suited her intriguing, managing nature, she set herself immediately to the acquirement of the favor of the Empress on the one hand, and popularity on the other. The first she sought by an absolute submission of her will to that of Elizabeth, giving her self-negation an air of grateful deference; the latter she obtained, as most very popular people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various |
