"Depreciate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prisoner in the minds of the jury. In his eagerness to carry out this laudable design, the Quarterly Reviewer cannot even state the history of the doctrine of natural selection without an oblique and entirely unjustifiable attempt to depreciate Mr. Darwin. "To Mr. Darwin," says he, "and (through Mr. Wallace's reticence) to Mr. Darwin alone, is due the credit of having first brought it prominently forward and demonstrated its truth." No one can less desire than I do, to throw a doubt upon Mr. Wallace's originality, or to question ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... again, are we to cry down man for the sake of crying up nature? Why are we to depreciate the dweller that we may magnify the dwelling-place? Is not, man (to say the least) one of the works of God? Did not God make, both man and nature? And does not Revelation (which our author holds in so deep reverence) ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... I shall never hear you depreciate the constancy of men. Thured had better have married ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... practical, but less systematic form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform but a change in the material conditions of existence in economical relations could be of any advantage ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... knowledge, and withal be a man of good character and judgment, before receiving this most desirable degree in American and European universities. With such a uniform standard, this degree will not likely depreciate in public esteem, but have, as all degrees should, a uniform value. A federation of colleges may help to attain ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... many teachings of Masonry, one of the most valuable is, that we should not depreciate this life. It does not hold, that when we reflect on the destiny that awaits man on earth, we ought to bedew his cradle with our tears; but, like the Hebrews, it hails the birth of a child with joy, and holds that his birthday should ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... inaugurate, initiate, institute, originate, start, found. Belief, faith, persuasion, conviction, tenet, creed. Belittle, decry, depreciate, disparage. Bind, secure, fetter, shackle, gyve. Bit, jot, mite, particle, grain, atom, speck, mote, whit, iota, tittle, scintilla. Bluff, blunt, outspoken, downright, brusk, curt, crusty. Boast, brag, vaunt, vapor, gasconade. Body, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... at Fontevrault and at Saumur. But the ecclesiastical remains of Le Mans are far from being the whole of its attractions. Its military and civil antiquities are endless, and they are more characteristic. We have not the least wish to depreciate Chartres. It is a highly interesting city; it contains a magnificent cathedral and several other remarkable buildings. But it ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... joy. And who is the cause of it all? who has wrought the change? Has any man a prior claim? Then I withdraw; be his the honour and the reward. But if not—if mine was the deed, mine the risk, mine the courage to ascend and smite and punish, dealing vengeance on the father through the son—then why depreciate my services? why seek to deprive ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... too much to his prompt and favorable commissions, in whose durability the quickest despatch is not enough; for the agents on the opposing side, availing themselves of his voluntary absence, began to depreciate the mission that had been conceded. They declared that the Recollects were not necessary in Philipinas; that those who had gone there before were but few and useless. The procurators of the provinces of Philipinas—who by having taken the habit were not divested of human ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... expert had simultaneously to do all these feats purely by mental processes, as he was allowed no paper and pencil. The strain on the faculties must have been terrific. Ordinarily men in unconscious envy are apt to depreciate such efforts by affecting to believe that they involve only the exercise of the lower functionings of the brain. It is not, however, a pure question of memory. The greater factor is ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... readily sympathise with Plato's delight in the properties of pure mathematics. He will not be disinclined to say with him:—Let alone the heavens, and study the beauties of number and figure in themselves. He too will be apt to depreciate their application to the arts. He will observe that Plato has a conception of geometry, in which figures are to be dispensed with; thus in a distant and shadowy way seeming to anticipate the possibility of working geometrical problems by a more general mode of analysis. He will remark with ...
— The Republic • Plato
... man is energetic and determines to be somebody in the world—which is praiseworthy so long as that energy is guided by propriety and a just conception of right—there are always scores, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who endeavor to depreciate that ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... unfortunately fell into extravagant and dissipated habits, which frequently caused him great inconvenience. From his facility, he multiplied his pictures to such an extent as greatly to depreciate their value. It is related that he would sit down, when pressed for money, dispatch a large picture in a few hours, and send it directly to be sold at any price. His servant, possessing more discretion than his master, usually paid him the highest price offered by the dealers, and ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... added that we may find a curiously inconsistent proof of the excessive importance attached to sexual function by a society which systematically tries to depreciate sex, in the disgrace which is attributed to the lack of "virile" potency. Although civilized life offers immense scope for the activities of sexually impotent persons, the impotent man is made to feel that, while ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... against those who exalt works merely, and depreciate faith. Therefore he admonishes them against the false teachers who should come, who, through the teachings of men, should destroy faith entirely. For he clearly saw what a cruel trial there would yet be in the world, as had even then already begun; as St. Paul says, II. Thes. ii., "The ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... and in her subtle but potent workings on the human soul that we shall find at least one antidote for the undue and portentous tension of our day. To say this is not to depreciate science, but to put it in its rightful setting. Nor is it to depreciate culture, but to bring it into due perspective, and to vitalise it. Nor is it to depreciate art, but to endow it with glow, with variety, with loyalty ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil, Plautus, and Terence, because they derived so much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks also borrowed from one another. Pure originality ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... the style and size wheel he should install. In the older settled communities, especially in New England, a farmer should be able to pick up a second-hand turbine, at half the price asked for a new one; and since these wheels do not depreciate rapidly, it would serve his purpose as well, in most cases, ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... Rev. Dr Stewart of Moulin has been out of print. This has been a source of regret to scholars and students of that tongue. Not but that there are other Grammars of real value, which it would be unjust either to ignore or to depreciate, and which have served, and are serving, an excellent purpose in connection with Celtic Literature. But the Grammar of Dr Stewart has peculiar features of its own which give it a permanent value. It is distinguished by ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... when servants wish to ingratiate themselves into a child's affections by flattery! Their method of showing their attachment to a family, is usually to exaggerate in their expressions of admiration of its consequence and grandeur; they depreciate all whom they imagine to be competitors in any respect with their masters, and feed and foster the little jealousies which exist between neighbouring families. The children of these families are thus early set at variance; the children in the same family are often taught, by the imprudence ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... place, all the honest tradesmen about him ought to join to expose him, whether they are afraid of him or no: they should blow him among the neighbourhood, as a public nuisance, as a common barrettor, or raiser of scandal; by such a general aversion to him they would depreciate him, and bring him into so just a contempt, that no body would keep him company, much less credit any thing he said; and then his tongue would be no slander, and his breath would be no blast, and nobody would either ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... compendious title of the "classics"—that is to say, the languages, the literature, and the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the geography of so much of the world as was known to these two great nations of antiquity. Now, do not expect me to depreciate the earnest and enlightened pursuit of classical learning. I have not the least desire to speak ill of such occupations, nor any sympathy with those who run them down. On the contrary, if my opportunities had lain in that direction, ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... inclined to depreciate all other men, the more he felt there was one to whom he had been grossly unjust. And, as he recalled all that had passed, he began to do justice to the man who had not flinched from warning him and braving him, who he felt had been watching over him, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... names speaks of the sea as a weak solution of drowned men. Be that as it may, it leaves the skin harsh with salt, and the hair sticky. Moreover, it is such a promiscuous bathing-place. However, we need scarcely depreciate the sea as a bath, for what need is there of that when the river is clearly better? No one can deny that the river is better. People who bathe in the sea bathe by mistake, because they have come to the side of the sea, and know not ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... the opinion that the book is dramatic rather than historical: it does not relate actual occurrences, but rather points a moral in the form of a narrative. In the New Testament the overgreat emphasis which he thought James placed on works as against faith caused him to depreciate this Epistle and to question its apostolic authorship. Luther also knew that in the earliest centuries of the Christian era the question had been raised whether Second Peter, Jude, James, Revelation, really belonged in ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my policy and cavil at my official acts, I shall not complain of them. I accord them the utmost freedom of speech and liberty of the press, but shall not change the policy I have adopted in the full ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... out their own fortunes and recorded them on the pages of history, the one with his pen, the other with his graver. If at times ill informed bibliographers who have got beyond their depth fail to discern its merits, and endeavour to deny or depreciate De Bry's Collection, charging it with a want of authenticity and historic truth, it is hoped that enough has been said here to vindicate at least the first two parts, Virginia and Florida. The remaining parts, it is believed, can be shown to ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... Perugino—one, that he was an Umbrian, even though long resident in Florence, the other, that he had come, as we have seen, into collision with his admired Michelangelo. Even so, Vasari is much too good a judge to depreciate his art, but he attacks the Perugian master personally, and his remarks about religion do not count for much. Vasari lived in an age—that of the counter-Reformation—which combined in Italy the lowest level ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... material of his poetry.' To this I can only reply in some words which I used in writing of the Religio Poetae, and affirm with an emphasis which I only wish to strengthen, that, here and everywhere, and never more than in the exquisite passage which Mr. Gosse only quotes to depreciate, the prose of Patmore is the prose of a poet; not prose 'incompletely executed,' and aspiring after the 'nobler order' of poetry, but adequate and achieved prose, of a very rare kind. Thought, in him, is of the very substance of poetry, and is sustained throughout ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... of an alligator with their primitive weapons was a feat never attempted. They chanted praises in my honour at night, and wherever I moved, my performances with the whales and alligator were always the first things to be sung. Nor did I attempt to depreciate my achievements; on the contrary, I exaggerated the facts as much as I possibly could. I described to them how I had fought and killed the whale with my stiletto in spite of the fact that the monster had smashed my boat. I told them ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... sales there are always anxious buyers who make a practice of trying to depreciate ("crabbing," as it is called) any article or property they particularly wish to purchase, by making damaging statements or insinuations to anybody whom, they fear, is also a probable buyer. At a sale of cottage property adjoining a public-house, in a village not far from Aldington, a keen ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... maxim is nearly as good for the man who has to conquer difficulties in the field of government; and analogies and parallels are one way of substituting pictures for plans and charts. Just because the statesman's problem is individual, history can give him little help. I am not so graceless as to depreciate history or literature either for public or for private persons. "You are a man," Napoleon said to Goethe; and there is no reason why literature should prevent the reader of books from being a man; why it should blind him to the great practical truths that the end of life ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... all its dangerous allurements, all its repentant sorrows; than like one who has lived his whole time secluded in a monastery, or in his own study. Then he speaks with such exquisite sensibility on the subject of love, that he commends the very thing which he attempts to depreciate. I do not think my Lord Frederick would make the passion appear in more pleasing colours by painting its delights, than Mr. Dorriforth could in describing its sorrows—and if he talks to me frequently in this manner, I shall certainly take pity on Lord ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... condition, writing her husband, who was one of the Council assembled in Philadelphia, to send her, if possible, six thousand pins, even if they should cost five pounds. Prices continued to rise and currency to depreciate. In seventeen hundred and seventy-nine Mrs. Adams reported in her letters to her husband that potatoes were ten dollars a bushel, and writing-paper brought ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... rare good-fortune; to have had Elizabeth. Not that I depreciate my other friends," and she gave Foster another fleeting smile. "There was Mrs. Brown who in the autumn, when I saw the necessity to give up my apartment at Vivian Court, asked me to stay in exchange for piano and dancing lessons. I had often taught her little ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... and it is also the great object of the plan which the convention has advised them to adopt. With what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, are attempts at this particular period made by some men to depreciate the importance of the Union? Or why is it suggested that three or four confederacies would be better than one? I am persuaded in my own mind that the people have always thought right on this subject, and that their universal and uniform attachment to the cause of the Union ...
— The Federalist Papers
... argument is to dispute not only that sociology is a science, but also to deny that Herbert Spencer and Comte are to be exalted as the founders of a new and fruitful system of human inquiry. I find myself forced to depreciate these modern idols, and to reinstate the Greek social philosophers in their vacant niches, to ask you rather to go to Plato for the proper method, the proper way of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... had no hope of seeing you, but it was the homage of gratitude and adoration. Great events have happened since we last met. I have realised my dreams, dreams which I sometimes fancied you, and you alone, did not depreciate or discredit, and, in the sweetness of your charity, would not have ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... this and following numerical examples no account is taken of the possibility that the standard metal may depreciate in the world market in terms of all other goods as a result of its diminished use as money in one or more countries. This properly belongs in a complete theoretical treatment ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... be sure, will proceed to depreciate the military work of Von Moltke, just as he tries to depreciate his diplomatic and parliamentary work. He has reached a pitch of infatuation unbelievable; and is becoming, as I have said before, more and more of a Nero every day. At the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... that everything bad in the play is Dekker's, and everything good Massinger's, will not hold for a moment; but, on the other side, it must be remembered that since Lamb there has been a distinct tendency to depreciate Massinger. All that can be said is, that the grace and tenderness of the Virgin's part are much more in accordance with what is certainly Dekker's than with what is certainly Massinger's, and that either was quite ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, he could not have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit's. In the measure that he would not allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favourable circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit's juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered waggon-loads of ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... utter inability to move one's self; for as far as appetite is concerned, it gives the greatest satisfaction. Certainly fat and sugar would be more to one's taste; in fact those seem to me to be the great stand-by for one in this extraordinary continent: not that I mean to depreciate the farinaceous food; but the want of sugar and fat in all substances obtainable here is so great that they become almost valueless to us as articles of food, without the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... the ease of life which wealth and plenty secure, without the traditions of a civilized past, emerging slowly from a state of utter rawness, each nation could barely do more than gain and keep a difficult hold upon existence. To depreciate the work achieved for humanity during the Middle Ages would be ridiculous. Yet we may point out that it was done unconsciously—that it was a gradual and instinctive process of becoming. The reason, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of possible completeness, the improvements here offered are neither few nor inconsiderable. He does not mean to conceal in any degree his obligations to others, or to indulge in censure without discrimination. He has no disposition to depreciate the labours, or to detract from the merits, of those who have written ably upon this topic. He has studiously endeavoured to avail himself of all the light they have thrown upon the subject. With a view to further improvements in the science, he ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... problematical fashion, as if the love were more a possibility of the future than a present fact. Men of Hector Darcy's type set an exaggerated value on anything which belongs to themselves, the while they unconsciously depreciate what is denied them. Peggy understood that the very fact of her refusal of himself had lessened her attractions in his sight, and the knowledge brought with it ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... indiscreet impulse, or to inexperience; but the folly of spending money lavishly on a few ostentatious "spreads" that are "beyond one's means" has no redeeming points. The deception seldom long deceives. It is a social blunder, the effect of which is to depreciate rather than to enhance the social importance ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... remarks without a word of opposition. We could have listened to him for hours, it seemed so good to have him extol, instead of depreciate, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... term occurs nowhere within the Bible except in this instance of the parable. Plainly any kind of weed, particularly a poisonous sort, such as would seriously depreciate the garnered crop, would serve the Master's purpose in the illustration. The traditional belief commonly held is that the plant referred to in the parable is the darnel weed, known to botanists as ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... about; she added no opinion as to the merits of the painting, and, in her next letter, Miss Elvan left the subject untouched. Bertha was glad of this. "A Ministering Angel" seemed to her by no means a very remarkable production, and she liked much better to say nothing about it than to depreciate the painter; for to do this would have been like seeking to confirm Rosamund in her attitude towards Norbert Franks, which was not at ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... gravely replied, "Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me—I should infinitely ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... flush tinged the brow of Mr. Carlyle. "I know more than one who would be glad to get Barbara, in spite of the murder. Do not depreciate Miss Hare." ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the factory and see what can be done. Surely Wilmarth cannot oppose anything for their united interest, unless, indeed, he means to ruin if he cannot rule. There is a misgiving in Floyd's mind that he is purposely allowing everything to depreciate with a view of getting it cheaply into his own hands. Floyd has the capacity of being roused, "put on his mettle," and now he resolves, distasteful as it ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... were, an are for an is, and to be able to speak in mood and tense, and such like valuable parts of education: so that, my dear, you can have no reason to look upon that sex in so high a light, as to depreciate your own: and yet you must not be proud nor conceited neither; but make ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... by genii in one night. Mrs. Stowe's genius has done a greater wonder than this—it has reared in a marvellously short time a structure which, unlike that Arabian fabric, is a reality, and shall last forever. [Applause.] She must not be allowed, to depreciate herself, and to call her glorious book a mere 'bubble.' Such a bubble there never was before. I wish we had ten thousand such bubbles. [Applause.] If it had been a bubble it would have broken long ago. 'Man,' says Jeremy Taylor, 'is a bubble.' Yea, but he is an immortal one. And ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... to depreciate Montesinos, but I find it impossible to discover the reasons by which this depreciation can be justified. It is alleged that he uses fanciful hypotheses to explain Peru. The reply to this seems to me conclusive. In the first place, he is, in this respect, like all other writers of his time. That ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... "think of me that must write a volume every month!" He complained to him of the attempts made by inferior writers, and by others who could scarcely come under that denomination, not only to abuse and depreciate his writings, but to render him ridiculous as a man; perverting every harmless sentiment and action into charges of absurdity, malice, or folly. "Sir," said he, in the fullness of his heart, "I am as a lion ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... was the connoisseur throughout. Of the huge acquisitiveness of a Heber or a Huth he had not a trace. He hated a crowd, of whatsoever it was composed. He was apt to apologize for his possessions, and to depreciate his tastes. As for boasting of a treasure, he could as easily ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... your inference," said Vincent; "and before I leave this question, I cannot help remarking upon the folly of the superficial, who imagine, by studying human motives, that philosophers wish to depreciate human actions. To direct our admiration to a proper point, is surely not to destroy it; yet how angry inconsiderate enthusiasts are, when we assign real, in the place of exaggerated feelings. Thus the advocates for ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enemies. Now, whether his poetry is good or bad as poetry, is a matter that may admit of a difference of opinion without alienating those who differ. We could not keep the peace with a man who should put forward claims to taste and yet depreciate the choruses in SAMSON AGONISTES; but, I think, we may shake hands with one who sees no more in Walt Whitman's volume, from a literary point of view, than a farrago of incompetent essays in a wrong direction. That may not be at all our own opinion. We may think that, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with machine-made goods. Many of these local craftsmen have attained a high standard of artistic skill in making up silk, wool, linen, cotton, carpets, brass, iron, silver, wood, ivory and other materials. But their arts must necessarily decay or depreciate if the local markets are flooded with cheap products from factories, and there a question ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... dispose me to depreciate a talent, or art, for art it may be called, that renders society in France not only so brilliant but so agreeable, and which is attended with the salutary effect of banishing the ill-natured observations and personal remarks which ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... as few can comprehend. She writes of Buzot, "Sensible, ardent, melancholy, he seems born to give and share happiness. This man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues. Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who like to depreciate what it can not equal, accuse him of being a dreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his attire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respect of self as well as of others. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... well apprised that the little intriguers, and whisperers, and self-conceited, thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about to depreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation. But whilst they talk, we must make our choice,—they or the Jacobins. We have no other option. As to those who in the pride of a prosperity not obtained by their wisdom, valor, or industry, think so well of themselves, and of their own abilities and virtues, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... youse depreciate yourself to all dem. Jus' youse put on de pootiest dress youse hab an' do ole Sukey proud." Then, as she helped Janice to bedeck herself she poured out the story of their makeshift life, telling how, with what had been left of the poultry, and with the products of the small patch ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... is visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations; in which an apprentice, after serving his time, obtains a testimonial of his skill, and a licence to practise his trade and mystery. It is not my design to depreciate those honours, which could never gratify or disappoint my ambition; and I should applaud the institution, if the degrees of bachelor or licentiate were bestowed as the reward of manly and successful study: if the name and rank of doctor or master were strictly reserved for the professors of science, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... the regular pilot of the harbour; a post, be it known, of no small profit; and, in his eyes, at least, invested with immense importance. Our unceremonious entrance, therefore, was regarded as highly insulting, and tending to depreciate both the dignity and ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... collection of those beguilers of time, or cordials for ennui, called Novels constitute a circulating library; and, judging from the condition of the volumes, this degree of literary taste is general among the females of this village. Far be it from me to depreciate the negative merits of novel-reading, because the majority tend to improve the heart, to direct the sensibilities and sympathies of the mind, and to create many liberal and rational reflections, to which without Novels their readers might have been total strangers. This is no small praise of ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... generally speaking. Praise his exactitude and fidelity, and occasionally quote him; this is but fair: after you rob a man (and I intend you shall rifle him most completely), it is but decent to give him kind words. All others you must abuse, contradict, and depreciate. Now, there is a great advantage in so doing: in the first place, you make the best writer your friend—he forgets your larcenies in your commendation of him, and in your abuse of others. If his work be correct, so must yours be; he praises it everywhere—perhaps finds you out, and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... Meanwhile before you depreciate a brother soldier, why don't you do something yourself? You are not in ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully by me. I do not know a single public newspaper in the kingdom that did not vilify me, and labour in all ways to sully my character, and to depreciate my exertions. The liberal and enlightened editor of the Examiner, took the lead in making these attacks upon me, and professed to be desperately alarmed, lest the public should imagine that he was the vulgar ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... beauty, or what not, they clearly do not envy them at all, but are mildly covetous of the things that they see others possess. Where envy does show its presence and where we do not recognise its nature, is in that horrible inclination to depreciate others which is visible in certain characters. They seem never to hear another mentioned but they try to think of something which limits the praise bestowed upon him, or altogether counteracts it. It seems to be an instinctive hostility ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... England, and so intimately connected with Englishmen, that he was not obvious to any of the commonplace ridicule thrown upon Hibernians; and he had lived with men who were too well informed and liberal to misjudge or depreciate a sister country. He had found, from experience, that, however reserved the English may be in manner, they are warm at heart; that, however averse they may be from forming new acquaintance, their esteem and confidence once gained, they make the most ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... matter out, Mr. Curtis. When you have slept on it, and the fact dawns on you that there are other people in the world than the charming Lady Hermione, you will realize that she is a mere pawn around whom a number of very important persons are contending. I don't wish to say a word to depreciate her as a star of the first magnitude, but I am greatly mistaken if there is not another woman, either here or in Europe, whose personality, if known, would attract far more attention from the police. . . . By the way, has it occurred to you that Providence has certainly befriended you to-night? ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... successful lottery ticket, or got some good appointment, or if it were a question of a marriage with a rich woman, or a great success in business, or somebody got famous by his talent, the fine perspicacity of the inhabitants of Lancia was in revolt, and at once set to work to depreciate the money, the talent, the instruction or the industry of the neighbour, and to put things in their true light. Such a feeling might easily be confounded with envy, nevertheless the truly observant would soon gather from the remarks in the gatherings at shops and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... "Do not depreciate your efforts. They have been invaluable to me. Remember, it was you who greatly confirmed my suspicions of Anderson. I did acquire some facts myself; but it was due to the information which you imparted to me that I was enabled to join together ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... placed the United States in a commanding position in regard to the use of silver. If that metal had continued to maintain its supremacy upon the ratio then established between gold and silver coin, there could have arisen no demand for the coinage of silver. If, on the other hand, silver should depreciate, the government might, at its pleasure, use, or it might decline to ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... himself, either by the perfection or imperfection of his dress measured by the standard of the critic, he is not only mentioned by name and his garb audibly criticised, but pointed at approvingly or derisively. The men are made the butt of their own sex among the audience; while the women praise or depreciate, according as the occasion may seem to require, the female members of the procession. Frequently, when the costume of some dusky beauty in the arena is the object of publicly expressed admiration, some other within hearing may be seen casting a covert glance ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... this concussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for some unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge against this Lombard whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he could by writing to depreciate. 'He was fond,' says Vasari, 'of keeping in his house all sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... is avowedly written for examination purposes, and in conformity with the requirements of the now familiar "type system" of teaching. Recent attempts have been made to depreciate this. While affording a discipline in detailed observation and manipulation second to that of no other branch of learning, it provides for that "deduction" and "verification" by which all science has been built up; and this appears to me ample justification for its retention, as the most rational ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He glared at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a deeper voice ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... expense is an expenditure of money for some article that may indeed be necessary, as a pair of shoes, but it begins to depreciate in value as soon as the expenditure has been made. A profitable investment is an expenditure of money, time or talents, that is expected to increase in value or yield an income. If a lamb is purchased it will grow into a sheep and its value is doubled. If an acre of good land is purchased ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... theirs only as an appendix or (in the style of painters) a companion to the other. There is nothing in their collection which will be understood by any candid person as a reflection on anybody, or any body of men. They are not in the least prompted by any mean jealousy to depreciate the merit of their brother artists. Animated by the same public spirit, their sole view is to convince foreigners, as well as their own blinded countrymen, that however inferior this nation may be ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... this very excellence of our author's carries with it a danger which most of his readers must have recognised. His definition and vignetting of separate scenes, incidents, and characters is so sharp and complete that he finds a difficulty in combining them. The attempt to disdain and depreciate plot which the above-mentioned Preface contains is, I suspect (though I am, as often confessed, no plot-worshipper), as our disdains and depreciations so often are, itself a confession. At any rate, it is allowed that the longer books, with the exception of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... with deep humiliation in herself for daring to think so far—why, if he loved her so much as he declared, did he not ask her to be his wife? She supposed he would do so,—though she had heard him depreciate marriage as a necessary evil. Evidently he had his own good reasons for deferring the fateful question. Meanwhile she made a little picture-gallery of ideal joys in her brain,—and one of her fancies was that when she married her Amadis she would ask ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... repugnance nor in scorn Our spirit holds you, Nor would our pen abase you More than it must—to call you feminine! Exemption I am sure you would not claim, Being subject to the common influence; Shining on earth as do the stars in heaven. Your sov'reign beauty, ladies, our austerity Cannot depreciate, nor would do so, For we have not in view a superhuman kind, Such poison,[H] therefore, far from you be set, For here we see the one, the great Diana, Who is to you as sun amongst the stars. Wit, words, learning and art, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... daughters knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,—so to call them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew, it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper was a burden. Ennui was turned into ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... which she but seldom showed, were very even and very white, and there rested on her chin the dearest dimple that ever acted as a loadstar to mens's eyes. The fault of her face, if it had a fault, was in her nose,—which was a little too sharp, and perhaps too small. A woman who wanted to depreciate Violet Effingham had once called her a pug-nosed puppet; but I, as her chronicler, deny that she was pug-nosed,—and all the world who knew her soon came to understand that she was no puppet. In figure she was small, but not so small as she looked to be. Her feet and hands were ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... subject from Paris. It may be of some importance to you to learn, that our plan for calling in the old paper and emitting new, was not attended with all the success that was expected. The old paper was indeed redeemed, but the new beginning to depreciate, most of the States thought it prudent to take ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... the limitations of his work. He baptized with water, the symbol and means of outward cleansing. He does not depreciate his position or the importance of his baptism, but his whole soul bows in reverence before the coming Messiah, whose great office was to transcend his, as the wide Mediterranean surpassed the little lake of Galilee. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the government and sent to foreign ports, the depreciation of its funds would have been averted, but whether this could have been done is, to say the least, by no means certain. As it was, in 1863, both Confederate and State money began to depreciate in value, and this depreciation once begun, had no stop in its ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... rival was worthy of praise; to be silent where it would be easy to depreciate; to win her from him, not because of my own greater worth, but in spite of the worst she could know of me. That would, in my opinion, be a conquest worthy ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... likely to depreciate to you the value of What Does, after spending my first twelve lectures up here, on the art and practice of Writing, encouraging you to do this thing which I daily delight in trying to do: as God forbid that anyone should hint a slightening word of what our ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... half a battalion of regular infantry. That the picturesque effect produced by these Bashi Bazouks (conspicuous among whom were the Albanian levies) was heightened by the addition of the regulars, in their soiled garments and woollen great coats, I cannot pretend to say; yet let no one endeavour to depreciate the Turkish infantry who has not seen them plodding gallantly on beneath a broiling sun, and in a country which, by its stony roughness, would tax the energies of the ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... You are "beating down" the goods. You say that that article, for which five dollars is charged, is not worth more than four. Is it worth no more than four dollars? Then all right. If it be worth more, and, for the sake of getting it for less than its value, you wilfully depreciate it, you have lied. You may call it a sharp trade. The recording angel writes it down on the ponderous tomes of eternity—"Mr. So and So, merchant on Water street, or in Eighth street, or in State street; or Mrs. So and So, keeping house on Beacon street, or ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom—nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace—why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest would ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... to be distinguished, like that of the Doge at Venice, by world-historical memories and by works of art as yet unrivalled. The spirit of the Venetian Republic still lives in that unique building. Architects may tell us that its Gothic arcades are melodramatic; sculptors may depreciate the decorative work of Sansovino; painters may assert that the genius of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese shines elsewhere with greater lustre. Yet the poet clings with ever-deepening admiration to the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... exchange, which, for long before, and for more than three months after, stood at sixty for one. It seems as if the certainty of its being our own, made us careless of its value, and that the most distant thoughts of losing it made us hug it the closer, like something we were loth to part with; or that we depreciate it for our pastime, which, when called to seriousness by the enemy, we leave off to renew again at our leisure. In short, our good luck seems to break us, and our bad ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... not obscure places, acknowledge that the path of mortal man, by his internal light, is a little dim. Many, therefore, say, that the 'Naturalists' and 'Spiritualists' are but plagiarists from the Bible, and of course, like other plagiarists, depreciate the sources from which they have stolen their treasures. I think unjustly; for, whatever their obligations to that mutilated volume, I acknowledge they have transformed Christianity quite sufficiently to entitle themselves ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Jane. Among the public there may be some to admire, and some to depreciate; but the one critic to whom the author submits his work may be of the latter class, and there seems to be no refuge from him. It is curious to see the revelations of the inner self that some authors ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... which he records his celebrated discussion with Lamb, on persons whom one would wish to have seen. But perhaps some of his most characteristic performances in this line are those in which he anticipates the modern taste for muscularity. His wayward disposition to depreciate ostensibly his own department of action, leads him to write upon the 'disadvantages of intellectual superiority,' and to maintain the thesis that the glory of the Indian jugglers is more desirable than that of a statesman. And perhaps the same sentiment, mingled with sheer ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... takes bank-notes, good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor beer sour, nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our safety is ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... depreciate herself, and to exalt that higher tribunal before which all opinions are arraigned; still, there was in the answer a tinge of spite, telling him by the way that it did not distress her to differ with him. It was ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a "scientist." How that name tends continually to depreciate itself as the pursuit of physical science is divorced more and more completely from a knowledge of literature, from a knowledge of the humanities! And a scientist is a poor guide to an acquaintance with man, civilised or uncivilised. To come to the study of any ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... against Greek poetry, or depreciate the knowledge of the language as an attainment. I congratulate you on it, though I never should think of trying to convert other women into a desire for it. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... and that if anything could cure his unfortunate passion, it would be a supposition on his part that the girl was not correct. I determined at all events to depreciate her, as I knew that what I said would never be mentioned by him, and would therefore do her no harm. Still, I felt that I had to play a difficult game, as I was determined not to state what was not the fact. "Pleasant, sir; yes, pleasant to everybody; the fact is; I don't like ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'—will attack what he is pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high authority—and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn courts of law, he deserves—what does ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of their commerce,—the West Indian, and the North American. All these are so interwoven that the attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and, if not entirely destroy, would very much depreciate the value of all the parts. I therefore consider these three denominations to be, what in effect they are, one trade. ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... wranglings of the essentially politics-practising nations;—supposing such a statesman were to stimulate the slumbering passions and avidities of his people, were to make a stigma out of their former diffidence and delight in aloofness, an offence out of their exoticism and hidden permanency, were to depreciate their most radical proclivities, subvert their consciences, make their minds narrow, and their tastes 'national'—what! a statesman who should do all this, which his people would have to do penance for throughout their whole future, if ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... not help being generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Deplore bedauxregi. Deponent atestanto. Depopulate senhomigi. Depopulated senhoma. Deportment konduto. Depose (give evidence) atesti. Depose eksigxi, detroni. Deposit enmeti. Depot tenejo. Deprave malvirtigi. Depravity malvirto. Depreciate maltaksigi. Depredation rabado. Depress malleveti. Deprivation senigo. Depth profundo—ajxo. Depute deputi. Deputy deputato. Derail elreligxi. Derange malordigi. Deride moki, mokegi. Derive ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes |
