"Comprehensiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... defined is much more simple than the definition; then there is such a want of unity that quite special mechanisms adapted to each phenomenal detail have to be imagined; and, lastly—most serious argument of all—so much comprehensiveness and suppleness is employed, that no experimental law is found which cannot be understood mechanically, and no fact of observation which shows an error in the mechanical explanation—a sure proof that this mode of explanation has ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... of a world of "modern ideas," which would like to confine every one in a corner, in a "specialty," a philosopher, if there could be philosophers nowadays, would be compelled to place the greatness of man, the conception of "greatness," precisely in his comprehensiveness and multifariousness, in his all-roundness, he would even determine worth and rank according to the amount and variety of that which a man could bear and take upon himself, according to the EXTENT to which a man could ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... relations of the English Church in the eighteenth century, especially in its earlier years, towards Rome on the one hand and the foreign Reformed Churches on the other, began with a reference to those principles of Church comprehensiveness which, however imperfectly understood, lay very near the heart of many distinguished Churchmen. But all who longed to see the Church of England acting in the free and generous spirit of a great national ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... Christian churches. They made every land their own, yet were aliens in all. They lived subject to the laws of the Empire, yet gathered into corporations governed by their own. They were citizens of Rome, yet strangers to her imperial comprehensiveness. In a word, they were like a spirit in the body, but a spirit of uncleanness and of sordid gain. If they hated the Gentile, they could love his vices notwithstanding. If the old missionary zeal of Israel was extinct, they could still purvey impostures for the world. Jewish superstitions ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... things is the artist. He has bowed down and worshipped and he has arisen and stood before God and created before Him, and the spirit of the Creator is in him. To take the artist's point of view, is to take the point of view that absorbs and sums up the others. The supremacy and comprehensiveness of this point of view is a matter of fact rather than argument. The artist is the man who makes the things that Science and Practical Affairs and Philosophy are merely about. The artist of the higher order is more scientific than the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... natural philosopher who treated this difficult question with the greatest sagacity and comprehensiveness was Jean Lamarck. He was born at Bazentin, in Picardy, on August 1st, 1744; he was the son of a clergyman, and was destined for the Church. But he turned to seek glory in the army, and eventually devoted ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... very convenient subdivision of topics, the most striking merit of the new cyclopaedia is, perhaps, comprehensiveness. Among its faults, very few faults of omission can fairly be charged; and, indeed, it seems to us rather to err in giving too many articles, especially on American second-rate preachers, politicians, and literary men, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... honourable and beneficent office is assigned him, and he is warned only—though zealously—against its perversions. A judicial chair in the kingdom of human thought, filled by a man of true integrity, comprehensiveness, and delicacy of spirit, is a seat of terror and praise, whose powers are at once most fostering to whatever is good, most repressive of whatever is evil.... The critic, in his office of censurer, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... pictures without rapture. By their comprehensiveness and amplitude they filled the imagination. I was unwilling to believe that in no region of the world, or at no period could these ideas be realized. It was plain that the nations of Europe were tending to greater depravity, and would be the prey of perpetual vicissitude. ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... of an evening, and they fell to counting up the homicides which had fallen under their notice in that county within recent memory. They counted up seventy-five authenticated cases, and could not claim comprehensiveness for their tally. Many a county of Texas could do as well or better, and there are many counties. It takes you two days to ride across Texas by railway. A review of the bad man field of Texas pauses ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... established character. The change is that from him who follows to him who commands. It is the privilege of men of genius, not only to give more than others to the world, but also to receive more from it. Sympathy, in its full comprehensiveness, is the proof of the strongest individuality. By as much as Dante or Shakspeare learnt of and entered into the hearts of men, by so much was his own nature strengthened and made peculiarly his own. The "Vita Nuova" shows ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... going on more or less ever since. To the foreigner Holland or the Northern Netherlands must always appear a land of dykes and canals, the one not more important for protection than the other as an artery of communication; spreading commerce and supporting national life. Napoleon, with naive comprehensiveness, called Holland the alluvion of French rivers. Dutch patriots declare with legitimate pride, 'God gave us the sea, but we made the shore,' and no one who has seen the artificial barrier that guards the mainland from the Hook to ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... are superior to any other class in France; but they are inferior to the English aristocracy, and they are inferior, as I said before, to their ancestors of the eighteenth century. There existed in the highest Parisian society towards the end of that century a comprehensiveness of curiosity and inquiry, a freedom of opinion, an independence, and soundness of judgment, never seen before or since. Its pursuits, its pleasures, its admirations, its vanities, were all intellectual. Look at the success of Hume. His ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... view. Goodrich, in his Select British Eloquence, speaking of Burke's comprehensiveness in discussing his subject, compares him to one standing upon an eminence, taking a large and rounded view of it on every side. The justice of this observation is seen in such instances as the above. It is this breadth and clearness of vision more than anything ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... rent stalls, so the market men and farmers alone have the use of the buildings. The regulations under which they trade were drawn up by a market commission and confirmed by ministerial decrees. These regulations are regarded in Europe as a model of comprehensiveness and their observance ensures close attention to hygiene. Among the rules is one insisting on the placing of all waste paper in the public refuse receptacles, while another compels the use of new, clean paper only in wrapping up ...
— A Terminal Market System - New York's Most Urgent Need; Some Observations, Comments, - and Comparisons of European Markets • Mrs. Elmer Black
... this rule, so wide in its comprehensiveness, so beautifully simple in its working, Bonaparte approached Tant Sannie with the book in his hand. Waldo came a step nearer, eyeing it like a dog whose young has fallen into ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... they were numerous, and whom he more than once advised the King to bridle and keep "in awe." Bacon presented his scheme to the King in a Proposition, or, as we should call it, a Report. It is very able and interesting; marked with his characteristic comprehensiveness and sense of practical needs, and with a confidence in his own knowledge of law which contrasts curiously with the current opinion about it. He speaks with the utmost honour of Coke's work, but he ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... was the Fourth of July orator of the city of Boston. The Morning Post says, "his ability is so agile, elegant, and hilarious, that his readers generally do not discern the profundity and comprehensiveness of his nature or the progressive power of thought manifested in his writings. We await impatiently the publication of his late oration. It will be an apt opportunity, by the way, to compare Mr. E. Everett with him, each having just spoken on a similar national occasion. His level, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... in the nineteenth century modern research in the Pyramids and elsewhere, brought it to light; but the Hebrew literature was passed down to the Christian era, and thence to our own times, intact. It excels in beauty, comprehensiveness, and a true religious spirit, any other writing prior to the advent of Christ. Its poetry, which ranges from the most extreme simplicity and clearness, to the loftiest majesty of expression, depicts the pastoral life of the Patriarchs, the marvellous history of the Hebrew ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... personal habits, he had the practical democracy of a good-natured young prince; he had never yet seen a human being who awed him, nor one whom he had the slightest wish to awe. His courtesy, had, therefore, that comprehensiveness which we call republican, though it was really the least republican thing about him. All felt its attraction; there was really no one who disliked him, except Aunt Jane; and even she admitted that he was the only person who knew ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of a catholic review should have definite convictions, if flexible minds, established principles, if a wide latitude of application. But although a review may thus be made catholic, it cannot thus attain comprehensiveness. There are too many books; too many branches upon the luxuriant tree of modern knowledge. No editorial group, no editorial staff, can survey the field competently unless they strictly delimit it by selection, and that means not to be comprehensive. ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... a sense, an epitome of the thought of mankind on the destiny of man. I have striven to add value to it by comprehensiveness of plan, not confining myself, as most of my predecessors have confined themselves, to one province or a few narrow provinces of the subject, but including the entire subject in one volume; by carefulness of arrangement, not piling the material ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... appears from the experience of the last session, when members who were not prepared to support any clause of the bill, nevertheless voted for its second reading. It is true, that many who voted against it alleged its comprehensiveness as the ground of their opposition; but when actually limited measures were brought forward, they were either crushed at once by the very same persons, or first reduced to nothing—and, indeed made worse than nothing, by repealing ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... penetration which discerns what terms, ideas, or things, are definable, and therefore capable of being taught, and what must be left to the teaching of nature: these are the essential qualifications for him who would form good definitions; these are the elements of that accuracy and comprehensiveness of thought, to which allusion has been made, and which are characteristic of "the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Bartlett resumed conversation with the professor, Yates looked up at young Hiram and winked. The boy flushed with pleasure under the comprehensiveness of that wink. It included him in the attractive halo of crime that enveloped the fascinating personality of the man from New York. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... was commonly called, from his being about three shades blacker than any other son of ebony on the place, was revolving the matter profoundly in all its phases and bearings, with a comprehensiveness of vision and a strict lookout to his own personal well-being, that would have done credit to any ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the Revolution, as Mr. Fiske tells it, is one of surpassing interest. His treatment is a marvel of clearness and comprehensiveness; discarding non-essential details, he selects with a fine historic instinct the main currents of history, traces them with the utmost precision, and tells the whole story in a masterly fashion. His little volume will be a text-book for older quite as ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... evidence of a case related by the author himself.[35] On the whole therefore we have designedly stated our general estimate of the author's system with a reference to that of the Edgeworths; not only because it has the same comprehensiveness of object, and is in some degree a further expansion of their method and their principles; but also because the author himself strikingly resembles the Edgeworths in style and composition of mind; with this single difference perhaps, that the good sense ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... physiology and chemistry. His language, coming to us as it does through the medium of interpreters of a bygone age, and through the simple symbols of less sophisticated minds, has poetic beauty, but lacks our modern comprehensiveness. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... scene of historical fiction. In the freshness of literary success, she did not hesitate to sacrifice all her newly won popularity, for years, by the publication of her remarkable "Appeal for the Class of Americans called Africans," a book unsurpassed in ability and comprehensiveness by any of the innumerable later works on the same subject,—works which would not even now supersede it, except that its facts and statistics have become obsolete. Time and the progress of the community at length did her justice once more, and her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... made her feel that this attention was due to the mother of her friend. Verena could scarcely say to her she guessed Miss Chancellor didn't think much of that personage, true as it was that the girl had discerned this angular fact, which she attributed to Olive's extraordinary comprehensiveness of view. Verena herself did not suppose that her mother occupied a very important place in the universe; and Miss Chancellor never looked at anything smaller than that. Nor was she free to report (she was certainly now less frank ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... thing at least I have learnt, in all my experiments on poor humanity;—never to see a man do a wrong thing, without feeling that I could do the same in his place. I used to pride myself on that once, fool that I was, and call it comprehensiveness. I used to make it an excuse for sitting by, and seeing the devil have it all his own way, and call that toleration. I will see now whether I cannot turn the said knowledge to a better account, as common sense, patience, and charity; and yet do ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... weakness of the chapter on Instinct. The reading of St. George Mivart's book "The Genesis of Species" later convinced me of the accuracy of my uncle's judgment. But the fascination of the subject persisted, and for a time Herbert Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy," by the comprehensiveness of its induction and its vast array of data, exercised its thrall. Alfred Russel Wallace's "Darwinism," Huxley's "Lectures on Evolution," Tyndall's "The Beginning of Things," Grant Allen's "The Evolutionist at Large," Eimer's ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... gay and pleasurable in conversation I can easily admit; for there never was a mind at once so plastic and so pliant: but without much gravity, could there have been that potency and comprehensiveness of thought, that depth of feeling, that creation of imperishable ideas, that sojourn in the souls of other men? He was amused in his workshop: such was society. But when he left it, he meditated intensely upon those limbs and muscles on which he was about to bestow new action, grace, and majesty; ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... of the various sciences, so that for a while the great unity of all tends perhaps to be obscured. Such a caste system in scholarship, undoubtedly helps at first, in the gathering and classification of new material. But if followed too exclusively, it ends by limiting the comprehensiveness of truth. The search is ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose |
