"Disparaging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mahdi-Kuli dreamed that he saw the Sayyid shoot the Shah at a levee. [Footnote: Ibid. p. 355.] Evidently there were some Court politicians who held that the Bāb was dangerous. Probably Shah Muḥammad's vizier took the disparaging view mentioned above (i.e. that the Bāb was a mere mystic dreamer), but Shah Muḥammad's successor dismissed Mirza Aḳasi, and appointed Mirza Taḳi Khan in his place. It was Mirza Taḳi Khan to whom the Great Catastrophe ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... walked there together for the first time—it now leaked out that Dove spent every Sunday afternoon in the LESSINGSTRASSE—he spoke to Maurice of Johanna. Not in a disparaging way; Dove had never been heard to mention a woman's name otherwise than with respect. And, in this case, he deliberately showed up Johanna's good qualities, in the hope that Maurice might feel attracted by her, and remain ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... at him, and told him he was young, and that his Uncle's circumstances were not good, there had been an expression of disdain in his face; a contemptuous and disparaging assumption that he would be quite content to live idly on a reduced old man, which stung the boy's generous soul. Determined to assure Mr Dombey, in so far as it was possible to give him the assurance without expressing it in words, that indeed he mistook his nature, Walter had been ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... his selfishness is very strong and his sense is very weak. It is no wonder that Hopeful was well-nigh moved to anger, and queried, "Why art thou so tart, my brother?" when Christian said to him, "Thou talkest like one upon whose head is the shell to this very day." To be compared to a chicken is disparaging enough; but to be compared to a chicken so very young that he has not yet quite divested himself of his shell must be, as Pet Marjorie would say, "what Nature itself can't endure." A little chicken's greedy crop blinds ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... great and distinct interests bound up together, which, if not separately consulted and severally accommodated may harass and impair each other.... I always distrust the soundness of political councils that are accompanied by acrimonious and disparaging attacks upon any great class of our fellow-citizens. Such are those urged to the disadvantage of the great trading and financial classes ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Wilkins had seen her disappointment in her face, and tried, with wifely zeal, to defend her lord from even a disparaging thought. Wishing to atone for this transgression she was about to sing the praises of the wooden-faced Elisha, but was spared any polite fibs by the appearance of a small girl who delivered an urgent message to the effect, ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... teaching her servants the method of laying a table and attending it, if she has to take, as we commonly must, the uneducated Irishman from his native bogs as a house-servant. If she employs the accomplished and well-recommended foreign servant, he is too apt to disarrange her establishment by disparaging the scale on which it is conducted, and to engender a spirit of discontent in her household. Servants of a very high class, who can assume the entire management of affairs, are only possible to people of great wealth, and they become tyrants, and wholly detestable to the master and mistress after ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... champion removed his gaze from Sally's face, into which he had been peering in a conquering manner, and cast a disparaging glance at the audience. It was far from being as large as he could have wished, and at least a third of it was composed ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... disparaging the virtues of peace and home in comparison with the heroic virtues of war? Or are these "half-virtues" contrasted with the loftier virtue, the devotion ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... came when Cathro, still ignorant that the heather was on fire, dropped some disparaging remarks about the Stuarts to his history class. Tommy said nothing, but—but one of the school-windows was without a snib, and next morning when the dominie reached his desk he was surprised to find on it a little cotton glove. He raised it ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... draca, dragon, rather than the bird, but the latter is unmistakable in Sheldrick, for sheldrake. As a rule, animal nicknames were taken rather from the domestic species with which the peasantry were familiar and whose habits would readily suggest comparisons, generally disparaging, with those ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... hitherto known. And by way of refuting his own argument, he would draw from his pocketbook the photograph of Bertha, which had a secret compartment there all to itself, and, gazing tenderly at it, would eagerly defend her against the disparaging reflections which the involuntary comparison had provoked. And still, how could he help seeing that her features, though well molded, lacked animation; that her eye, with its deep, trustful glance, was not ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Lowndes's Bibliographical Manual having caught my attention, they appeared to me somewhat obscure and contradictory; and as they seemed rather disparaging to the fame of Hogarth, of whose works and genius I am a warm admirer, I have taken some pains to ascertain what may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... in the same disparaging manner, "it lies with Sir William's policy to secure the next best match, since he cannot barter his child to save the great Ravenswood estate, which the English House of Lords are about to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... on many points, and especially upon that which is the very foundation of the early narrative respecting Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was no way related to Astyages. However indignant we may be with Ctesias for the disparaging epithets which he presumed to apply to an historian whose work is to us inestimable—we must nevertheless admit that, as surgeon in actual attendance on king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and healer of the wound ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... that is a matter of taste; I shall continue to follow mine, and each young lady present is at liberty to do the same; but be assured that unless you can furnish some more satisfactory reason for your disparaging remarks than you have yet done, they will bear no weight with me." With much irony in her voice Miss Carlton replied, "Really, Miss Lebaron, I am unable to reply to your very able defence of your charming friend, and will only say that I shall avail myself of the liberty you have kindly ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... him from the first that there must be some reason why she had not married, and the somewhat disparaging remarks concerning her which he heard from time to time excited his curiosity. As he had always intended to consult the head of his family upon the matter he now determined to do so at once. He was not willing, indeed, to let ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... independent politician, the present Sovereign state of Ireland demonstrates the utter impossibility of governing it upon the principle of breaking down or disparaging the Protestant interest. Such a course would tend only to bloody and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... had made such scenes a piece with Lee Randon's subconsciousness, today the hunt seemed nothing more than nonsense. He laughed, and made a remark of disparaging humor; but he found no support. Willing Spencer, kept out of the field by a broken collar bone, gazed at him with lifted eyebrows. Fanny and Lee turned to their horses, held for them by a groom at a mounting block, and went home. The rain had increased, but, not cold, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... went forward with music and dancing, discussing, disparaging, flirting, and skirmishing, culminating in numbers and brilliancy as some gorgeous flower might expand; and seemingly it would have ended by the gay company's rustling departure like the flower, as the varied colored petals drop away from the stem, had not ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... of the English Press of altogether too free a nature on the American Government, their disparaging cartoons of the President and the patronizing air adopted by many English war journals and often in the English daily Press towards America—as, for example, in a recent number of the Morning Post, alleged ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... cordially, when he paid her a visit next day. "Ah! he's making a custom of it," she thought. She was not of herself disposed to like him very much, and Panshine, who had got her thoroughly under his influence, had praised him the evening before in a very astutely disparaging manner. As she did not treat him as an honored guest, nor think it necessary to trouble herself about one who was a relation, almost a member of the family circle, before half an hour had elapsed he went out into the garden. There he and Liza strolled along one of the alleys, while Lenochka ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... unpalatable one of combing it to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard, and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was pleasure in hearing disparaging remarks about the darkness of his complexion. He tried to do everything as an Indian would do it, striking Indian poses, walking carefully with his toes turned in, breaking off twigs to mark a place, guessing ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... slipped down the stream of life more smoothly. After his travels he settled quietly at Norwich, and there passed forty-five years of scarcely interrupted prosperity. In the 'Religio Medici' he indulges in some disparaging remarks upon marriage. 'The whole world,' he says, 'was made for man; but the twelfth part of man for woman. Man is the whole world and the breath of God; woman the rib and crooked part of man.' He wishes, after the fashion of Montaigne, that we ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... these numerous and important events were brought to so happy an issue, some persons in the palace of Constantius, disparaging Julian in order to give pleasure to the emperor, in a tone of derision called him Victorinus, because he, modestly relating how often he had been employed in leading the army, at the same time related that the Germans had received ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... barren facts, of random intrusions from without, though not of morbid imaginations from within? And in thus speaking, I am not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself a real treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored mind, though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any more than I would despise a bookseller's shop:—it is of great value to others, even when not so to the owner. Nor am I banishing, far from it, the possessors of deep and multifarious learning from my ideal University; ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... Hill, the great entrenched eminence to the west of the village, and seem to have been officered by the country clergy. At least they appear to have greatly chagrined Cromwell, although he spoke of them in a very disparaging way, and deprecated their fighting qualities. Iwerne Minster, the next village on the road, possesses a very fine cruciform church of dates varying from Norman to Perpendicular, though the main structure ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... said Don Quixote; "for those we see now-a-days are not like the hermits of the Egyptian deserts who were clad in palm-leaves, and lived on the roots of the earth. But do not think that by praising these I am disparaging the others; all I mean to say is that the penances of those of the present day do not come up to the asceticism and austerity of former times; but it does not follow from this that they are not all worthy; at least I think them so; and at the worst the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... saw Lucien, and favored him with a cool, disparaging little nod, indicative to men of the world of the recipient's inferior station. A sardonic expression accompanied the greeting, "How does he come here?" he seemed to say. This was not lost on those who saw it; for ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... at the inauguration of President Roosevelt, a very honourable position indeed. So he was intensely interested in old forts and battlefields, and his enthusiasm while in Peshawar and the Khaiber Pass was boundless. More than that he was a strong Anglo-Phile, and amused me by his disparaging criticism on how his own Government did things in the Philippines and elsewhere, compared with what he saw in India and other British possessions. Peshawar is a very delightful place, or so at least it appeared to me. We lodged in ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... criticise with severity—the work of a person whose motive was the same as that which actuates the present publication; but when the gross unfaithfulness[2] exhibited in the versions in question tends to give a false and disparaging idea of the value and the tone of Russian poetry, we may be excused for our apparent uncourteousness in thus pointing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... be toying with a bat when Tommy made this disparaging remark threatening to topple her off the dizzy height she had attained. She saw red! She made an infuriated rush upon him, and brought the bat down on his offending head. Tommy crumpled up like a paper doll. There was an ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... remarked. She went down to dinner with a gentleman, whose name of course she did not make out, and whose appearance, she thought, was exactly the same as that of half the gentlemen in the procession down the narrow staircase. Chatty, indeed, made disparaging reflections to herself as to society in general, on this score; the thought flashing through her mind that in the country there was more difference between even one curate and another (usually considered the most indistinguishable ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... of a Presence which in silence strove with him, and only desired to overcome that He might bless? The conception of a Divine manifestation wrestling all night long with a man has been declared 'crude,' 'puerile,' and I know not how many other disparaging adjectives have been applied to it. But is it more unworthy of Him, or derogatory to His nature, than the lifelong pleading and striving with each of us, which He undoubtedly carries on? The idea of a man contending with God has been similarly stigmatised; but is it more mysterious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... educated and kept in touch with artistic movements; but that was even worse, for in his judgment there was always a disparaging tinge. He was lacking neither in taste nor intelligence; but he could not bring himself to admire anything modern. He would have disparaged Mozart and Beethoven, if they had been contemporary, just as he would have acknowledged the merits of Wagner and Richard Strauss had they been dead ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... How lovingly it was timed! The people had heard John's message and its answer, and might expect some disparaging remarks about his vacillation. But Jesus chooses that very time to lavish unstinted praise on him. That is praise indeed. The remembrance of the Jordan banks, where John had baptized, shapes the first question. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... quiescence of her sex in which are generally found so many charms. Her hands and feet were large,—as was her whole frame. Such was Lady Laura Standish; and Phineas Finn had been untrue to himself and to his own appreciation of the lady when he had described her in disparaging terms to Mary Flood Jones. But, though he had spoken of Lady Laura in disparaging terms, he had so spoken of her as to make Miss Flood Jones quite understand that he thought a great deal ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... fragments of the same rock, that must have rolled down in some remote age from the precipices above, and which, mossy and hoar, and many of them ivy-bound, resemble artificial ruins—obnoxious, however, to none of the disparaging associations which the make-believe ruin is sure always to awaken. It was inexpressibly pleasant to spend a quiet evening hour among these wild cliffs, and imagine a time when the far distant sea beat against their bases; but though their enclosed pebbles evidently owed their rounded ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... street Irish in London, he is most emphatic in his praise of the purity of the women in particular, and the care of the parents in general to preserve the virtue of their daughters, in the midst of the frightful corruption ever under their eyes. The only remark he passes of a disparaging character is ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... simple, unaffected kindness of the two great artistes who were to assist at her recital. It surprised her a little; she had anticipated the disparaging, almost inimical attitude towards a new star so frequently credited to professional musicians, and had steeled herself to meet it with indifference. She forgot that when you are at the top of the tree there is little cause for envy or heart-burning, and graciousness becomes an ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... where an immensely stout and immensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool to shake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertain them. "... but I haven't got anything much today," he said, with a disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a single death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday." He brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... persons, a great general: whoever is beaten is a lead general; and no general had ever been more completely beaten than Mackay. William, on the other hand, continued to place entire confidence in his unfortunate lieutenant. To the disparaging remarks of critics who had never seen a skirmish, Portland replied, by his master's orders, that Mackay was perfectly trustworthy, that he was brave, that he understood war better than any other officer in Scotland, and that it was much to be regretted that any prejudice ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... habitually wore grew erectile with a swelling indignation, possibly half assumed to conceal a certain conscious satisfaction beneath. "Mr. Grey," he said, with pained severity, "as a personal friend of mine, and a representative of the press,—a power which I respect,—I overlook a disparaging reflection upon a lady, which I can only attribute to the levity of youth and thoughtlessness. At the same time, sir," he added, with illogical sequence, "if Ramierez felt aggrieved at my attentions, he knew where I could be found, sir, and that it was not my habit ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... compatriots. What chance had this cultured honour-loving Sybarite in the deadly grapple of modern life where the first quality is will power, the only knowledge needed a knowledge of the value of money. I must not be understood here as in any degree disparaging Oscar. I can surely state that a flower is weaker than a weed without exalting the weed or depreciating ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... subject in his message, December 3, 1877. He did not believe that "the interests of the Government or the people would be promoted by disparaging silver," but held that it should be used only at its commercial value. "If," said he, "the United States had the undoubted right to pay its bonds in silver coin, the little benefit from that process would be greatly over-balanced by the injurious effect ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... people are commonly unable to see the use of it all. It seems a waste of dear-bought human life, with a large sum of nothing to show for it. So also many men of an elderly turn, prematurely or otherwise, are ready to lend their countenance to the like disparaging appraisal; it may be that the spirit of prowess in them runs at too low a tension, or they may have outlived the more vivid appreciation of the spiritual values involved. There are many, also, with a turn for exhortation, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... an interpretation disparaging to Williams' racial self-respect. With more understanding of the poet's surroundings it may be taken rather to express the poet's desire to be marked as distinct from the then condition of those who represented his race round him, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the maid walked away. Signally vexed at the stranger's disparaging remarks, Dorothy had no inclination to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... having lost the eye that sees the compensation balancing all things. As long as Louis attacked things, it did no harm, except to incite a friendly passage-at-arms; hence, most of such talk passed in the speaking. Not so the disparaging insinuations he had cast at ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... him and his betrothed. He had been inclined to fancy that the man must needs be much handsomer than himself, possessed of every outward attribute calculated to subjugate the mind of an inexperienced girl like Marian; but the parish-clerk at Wygrove and Miss Long had both spoken in a disparaging tone of Mr. Holbrook's personal appearance; and, remembering this, he was fain to believe that Marian had been won by some charm more subtle than that of a ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... behind his guest he would have witnessed a little comedy which would have gone far in wiping clean all trace of his uncle's disparaging remarks of the morning. He would have enjoyed, too, Parkins's amazement. As the Receiving Teller of the Exeter Bank reached the hall floor the President of the Clearing House—the most distinguished man in the Street and ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... day, she felt no hunger, but for Milly's sake she tried hard to eat the supper when it came. Before it had fairly begun Moses Hatch had arrived, with Amandy and Eben; and Rias Richardson came in, and other neighbors, to say a word of welcome to hear (if the truth be not too disparaging to their characters) the reasons for her sudden appearance, and such news of her Boston experiences as she might choose to give them. They had learned from Lem Hallowell that Cynthia had returned a lady: a real lady, not a sham one who relied on airs and graces, such as had come ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this, let it receive its due meed of praise, and I mine of blame for not selecting another theme for my praise. However, what I write is not panegyric but history. My brother Quintus clears himself to me in a letter, and asserts that he has never said a disparaging word of you to anyone. But this we must discuss face to face with the greatest care and earnestness: only do come to see me again at last! This Cossinius, to whom I intrust my letter, seems to me a very good fellow, steady, devoted to you, and exactly ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... need have none. I am often very disagreeable," said Diana candidly, "but my worst enemy won't charge me with disparaging good ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a prestidigitator with verse, and may be regarded solely with a view to his professional expertness, is surely no ground for disparaging him as a poet. But it is the kind of penalty which extraordinary technical expertness has to pay in all the arts. Many persons remember Paganini only as the violinist who could play upon a single string. Every "amplificolor imperii"—every ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... probable that lack of food conduced to this disparaging outlook; and he recovered presently, for he had been smitten with a quick vision of Beulah Baxter in one of her most daring exploits. She, at least, was real. Deaf to entreaty, she honestly braved her hazards. It was a comforting thought after this ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... been wished, my good woman," said Miss CAROWTHERS, casting a rather disparaging look around the death-chamber of the late Mr. SKAMMERHORN, "that you had assigned to educated single young ladies, like ourselves, an apartment less suggestive of Man in his wedded aspects. The spectacle of a pair of pegged boots sticking out from ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... January, 1523, on 67 theses drawn up by Zwingli. Here, as so often, it was found that the battle was half won when the innovators were heard. They themselves attributed this to the excellence of their cause; but, without disparaging that, it must be said that, as the psychology of advertising has shown, any thesis presented with sufficient force to catch the public ear, is {153} sure to win a certain number of adherents. [Sidenote: October 27, 1523] The ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... their return from Mr. Heron's, they disposed themselves for their usual smoke and chat. But neither of them seemed inclined for conversation. Rupert lay back in a long lounging-chair; Percival turned over the leaves of a new publication which had been sent to him for review, and uttered disparaging comments upon it from time ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... he was fearful Armida might admire, had persuaded him to aspire to the place of Dudon, to whom a successor must be elected. Gernando of Norway desired the same place, and, angry that the popular Rinaldo should be his rival, scattered through the camp rumors disparaging to his character: Rinaldo was vain and arrogant; Rinaldo was rash, not brave; Rinaldo's virtues were all vices. At last, stung past endurance by his taunts and insinuations, Rinaldo gave the lie to his traducer, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... embarked at Baghdad on one of the river boats. I took Yusuf with me to Busra to put me aboard the transport for Egypt. It was the first time he had ever been that far down-stream, and he showed a fine contempt for everything he saw, comparing it in most disparaging terms to his own desolate native town of Samarra. The cheapness, variety, and plenty of the food in the bazaars of Busra were the only things that he allowed in ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... she said aloud. "You give yourself away, old sport! Don't you, now!" The mirrored head shook in disparaging admission of its own shortcoming. Jenny bent nearer, meeting the eyes with a clear stare. There were wretched lines about her mouth. For the first time in her life she had a horrified fear of growing older. It was as though, when she shut her eyes, she saw herself as an old woman. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions. The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more beautiful than we think. In the course of these essays I fear that I have spoken from time to time of rationalists and rationalism, and that in a disparaging sense. Being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Seleucia, the second city in the Empire, received the new monarch with an obsequiousness that bordered on adulation. Not content with paying him all customary royal honors, they appended to their acclamations disparaging remarks upon his predecessor, whom they affected to regard as the issue of an adulterous intrigue, and as no true Arsacid. Tiridates was pleased to reward the unseemly flattery of these degenerate Greeks by a new arrangement of their constitution. Hitherto they had lived under the government ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... and particularly admires Macaulay, whom he declares to have been not only a great writer, but also a great statesman. Among writers of fiction he gives the palm to George Eliot, and speaks of the novelists of his own country, and, indeed, of Russian literature as a whole, in the most disparaging terms. ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... will not now take up time to carry out this illustration minutely. The mere suggestion that each one is working out a peculiar destiny invests even the meanest life with a solemn dignity, and counteracts any disparaging ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... of time differs from epoch to epoch, but it does not differ much. And we may be perfectly sure that our own age will make a favourable impression upon that excellent judge, posterity. Therefore, beware of disparaging the present in your own mind. While temporarily ignoring it, dwell upon the idea that its chaff contains about as much wheat as any similar quantity of chaff ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... years, very prudent and clear-headed. All W.'s colleagues were most cordial and charming on his appointment. He made a statement in the House of the line of policy he intended to adopt—and was absolutely approved and encouraged. Not a disparaging word of any kind was said, not even the usual remark of "cet anglais qui nous represente." He started the 10th of June in the best conditions possible—not an instruction of any kind from his chief, M. Dufaure, President du ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... said Anderson, conscious of a certain disparaging note in the speaker's voice, which he quite naturally laid to the "galluses." Without turning his back toward them he retrieved his coat from the gate-post, remembering in time that those "plaguey" suspenders had played him false that day and Alf Reesling had volunteered ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... arguing. Harry Hazelton, as driver, remained silent, but the others argued against Dick, trying to overthrow all his disparaging utterances ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... cause of this may have been the unfriendliness of his brother-in-law, who was a leading art critic in New York City, and who disliked Cranch on account of his wife, and never neglected an opportunity of disparaging his work. ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... yards on deck. This startled me, for I had not been watching the barometer, as the captain had; and I remember, by the same token, that I was then enlarging on the beauties of the outlook above, accompanied by some disparaging remarks about what steamers could show, whereupon one of our senior officers, over-hearing, called me in, and told me quite affably, and in delicate terms, not to make ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... from the ESSAYS. Stung by the lack of all positive Christian credence in Montaigne, Pascal represents him as "putting all things in doubt;" whereas it is just by first putting all things in doubt that Pascal justifies his own credence. The only difference is that where Montaigne, disparaging the powers of reason by the use of that very reason, used his "doubt" to defend himself alike against the atheists and the orthodox Christians, Catholic or Protestant, himself standing simply to the classic theism of antiquity, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... not detain you," Hector Garret exclaimed, impatiently; and Leslie hurried to her own chamber in a tumult of surprise and indignation, and vexed suspicion. Mysteries had not ceased; and what was this mystery to which Hector Garret deigned to lend himself in disparaging company with ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... should take added significance, being probably remembered from conversations with the great artist himself.[72] Duerer, like Luther, was depressed and distressed at the course the Reformation had run; but, like Erasmus, though regretting and disparaging the present, he looked forward to the future, and knew "that he would be surpassed," and had no morbid inclination to see the end and final failure of human effort in ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... ten pounds, and you will be bound to the peace for twelve months, and you must give two securities of fifty pounds each, or go to jail for a term of six months with hard labor. And anything that you may say after the sentence of the court has been passed, of a disparaging nature to the Bench, will be considered as a necessity for further punishment. I hope that I ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... rooted suspicion of the soundness of the Schoolmaster's Natural History, which nobody actually felt. For he had never yet pretended to know anything that he didn't know well; and when Potts would say something disparaging of Mac's learning behind his back (which was against the unwritten rules of the game) the Colonel invariably ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... a policy of intelligent self-interest, I am not really disparaging the claims of humanity or of morals. I am merely maintaining the utilitarian ethics which insist that morality, the performance of human obligations, is the best policy, that policy which in the long run will yield the ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... From my point of view, as will presently be seen, perusal of this literature would be a waste of time for none of it that I have seen or heard of discusses what seems to me essential, but in saying this I must not be understood as disparaging either the sincerity or the ability of ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... well-worn overcoat of a somewhat pronounced check, he had a top-hat, glossy and obviously new, at the back of his head, and the lower part of his face was covered by a ragged beard. This he was plucking with nervous jerks, talking to himself the while, and casting a disparaging eye upon the portrait of Remington Kara which hung above the marble fireplace. A pair of pince-nez sat crookedly on his nose and two fat volumes under his arm completed the picture. Fisher, who was an observer of some discernment, noticed under the overcoat a creased blue suit, ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... Hallam's flippant and disparaging remarks on Luther, contained in his Introduction to the Literature of Europe, are simply outrageous, "stupid and senseless paragraphs," evidencing a presumption on the part of their author which deserves intensest rebuke. ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... at Rambagh, for though the other officers were pleasant enough with me, Barton always seemed to be sneering at my efforts, and was ready to utter some disparaging remark. There was one consolation, however: the others did not seem to like him, so that it did not look as if it were all my fault. I noticed one thing, though, and it was this: Barton was always ready to say disparaging things about Brace; but the latter never ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... be affirmed, without thereby disparaging the Comedie Humaine, that Balzac's personality is even more interesting than his work; and this is a sufficient excuse for returning to it in a last chapter and trying, at the risk of repetition, to make its presentment completer by way of ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... heard also of Lamarck, and held him to be a kind of French Lord Monboddo; but we knew nothing of his doctrine save through the caricatures promulgated by his opponents, or the misrepresentations of those who had another kind of interest in disparaging him. Dr. Erasmus Darwin we believed to be a forgotten minor poet, but ninety-nine out of every hundred of us had never so much as heard of the "Zoonomia." We were little likely, therefore, to know that Lamarck drew very largely from Buffon, and probably also from Dr. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... doors, he did as he had told them he would do. Though they hurried swiftly into the great valleys to colonize them—where oceans had been—they were like ravening beasts, and gave my grandfather no thanks. Our people have always fought against progress, have always been disparaging of its advocates! When the first Sarka discovered the Secret they would have destroyed him, though ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... contained a section on Japanese Buddhism consisting of three chapters, but after it had been sent to the publishers I was appointed H.M. Ambassador in Tokyo and I decided to omit this section. Let not any Japanese suppose that it contained disparaging criticism of his country or its religions. It would, I hope, have given no offence to either Buddhists or Shintoists, but an ambassador had better err on the side of discretion and refrain from ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... fruit from her greenhouse," says the old man in a disparaging tone: "and, oh Jane, bring me a saucer. Here's a sprat I just capered out of Hemmelford mill-pit; perhaps the Doctor would like it fried for supper, if it's big enough not ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... be some who, in a disparaging tone, will at this stage of my confessions enter an accusation of impracticableness. To such a charge I would plead guilty; but to those who proffer it, I neither appeal, nor do I fear their judgment. These writings are for those who see something in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... himself, and Luck got a fifteen-foot scene of the departure of a very indignant sheriff who is with difficulty holding his anger subordinate to his official dignity. Before he had time to recover his usual good humor, Luck with further disparaging comment called him back. Applehead, smarting under the sarcasm, came ready for war, and Luck turned the crank until the sheriff was almost ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... startling to the ignorant, but that he has said them because he had a right to say them. The main right is briefly the right to criticise the Bible freely. Fitzjames admits that he has to run the risk of apparently disparaging that 'most holy volume, which from his earliest infancy he has been taught to revere as the choicest gift of God to man, as the guide of his conduct here, the foundation of his hopes hereafter.'[82] He declares that the articles were framed with the confidence which has ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the grounds," he added, all at once. Soon after, in the shade of the trees, she broke in upon the thread of their casual conversation. "A few moments ago," she murmured, "you said: 'One life is about enough for most of us.' Then you added a disparaging remark about memory. Well, that doesn't seem like your usual point of view—more like that of Mr. Pride; but not so plaintive, of course. Pray do smoke," she added, as, throwing back his coat, he exposed some cigars ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exigencies of life have not called out. Work will then be all action that is necessary or useful for life. Evidently if work and play are thus objectively distinguished as useful and useless action, work is a eulogistic term and play a disparaging one. It would be better for us that all our energy should be turned to account, that none of it should be wasted in aimless motion. Play, in this sense, is a sign of imperfect adaptation. It is proper ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... institutions. Like all journals of merit and independence, it has had its law troubles, more than one action for libel having been commenced against it. James Silk Buckingham, the traveler and author, took this course, in consequence of the publication of articles disparaging a club of his originating, known as the "British and Foreign Institute." A Jew clothes-man, named Hart, obtained a small sum as damages from "Punch." But Alfred Bunn, lessee of Drury Lane Theater, libretto-scribbler, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... But, what was it to me, loving as I did, exclusive, and selfish, and exacting as I was—what was it to me if, forbearing all crime of conduct, she yet regarded another with eyes of idolatry—if her mind was yielded up to him in deference and regard; and thoughts, disparaging to me, filled her brain with his superior worth, manners, merits? He had tastes, perhaps talents, which I had not. In the forum, in all the more energetic, more imposing performances of life, William Edgerton, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... and no doubt each thought herself a great beauty; but not one of them would have stood up alone in the central promenade of Bath House. Several of the men stared in disapproval; which emboldened their fair partners to make disparaging remarks, until it was observed that Lord Hunsdon, the greatest parti in the matrimonial market, had gone in ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... as an auditor. To this request, No. 22,817, brown-study color, or Dr. Reasono, gave a very cordial assent; hinting delicately, at the same time, his expectation that this new auditor, who, of course, was no other than Captain Noah Poke, would not deem it disparaging to his manhood, to consult the sensibilities of the ladies, by appearing in the garments of that only decent and respectable tailor and draper, nature. To this suggestion I gave a ready approval; when each went his way, after the usual salutations ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you hadn't started disparaging my headgear. I repeat, it was a hat of unusual elegance. It had ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... and became a well-known figure both in politics and in scientific economics after he succeeded to the peerage himself. I have already mentioned him for his admiration of Smith, and his defence of him from the disparaging remarks of Fox, though he was himself no blind follower of the Wealth of Nations, but one of the earliest and not the least acute of the critics of that work. He was at this time one of the rising hopes of the Whigs ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... co-temporary poets, those at least who deserve the name, those who have any individuality of character, if they are not before their age, are almost sure to be behind it. An observation curiously verified all over Europe in the present century. Nor let it be thought disparaging. However urgent may be the necessity for a breaking up of old modes of belief, the most strong-minded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are generally those who bring up ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... relived from the disparaging distinctions that came into existence with the system of slavery. They were placed upon an equality with other citizens and in the forms of law all discriminations affecting unfavorably the right of suffrage must apply ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... Hijaz, I was the fellow-traveller of some piously-disposed young men, and on a footing of familiarity and intimacy with them. From time to time we were humming a tune and chanting a spiritual hymn, and an abid, who bore us company, kept disparaging the morals of the dervishes, and was callous to their sufferings, till we reached the palm plantation of the tribe of Hulal, when a boy of a tawny complexion issued from the Arab horde and sung such a plaintive melody as would arrest the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... for departure arrived, and we crossed to Amboy by ferry. We were in New Jersey. We had heard disparaging things of the railroad management of this State, but we were now to realize the beauties of monopoly. We learned afterwards to respect New Jersey's soldiers, many of whom fought shoulder to shoulder with us, and were among the bravest of the brave, but we never forgave her ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... contrarious impact of the air, however quick or however slow the motions, either of the screw itself or of the machine which is propelled by its operation. In attestation of this fact and as showing the immunity of the perfect screw from the disparaging effects experienced by the other modes of accomplishing the same object, I will only mention a circumstance related to me by Mr. Smith himself, to whom I am glad to acknowledge myself indebted for so much valuable information ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley
... missionaries and their wives. In the camp of the king there were also a number of artisans of various nations, some of whom were engaged by the king to manufacture cannon and muskets. Mr Stern, on returning to England, wrote an interesting volume, in which he made some disparaging remarks on King Theodore. The book unfortunately found its way into the country, and these remarks were translated to the king. He had previously written a letter to the Queen of England, which for a long time remained unanswered. This and other circumstances ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston |
