"Exaggerate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It would hold a hundred elephants," declared Frane, Junior, who was inclined to exaggerate a good deal ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... no letter from an editor to read (like the last speaker), and tells a story of a Methodist, on request, praying for rain; and when a terrible storm came, the man who asked, was heard to murmur: "How these Methodists do exaggerate." This was to show the excellence of the dinner. Two other stories were used by the speaker, about the length and discursiveness of his talk. The people need and will read deep, accurate, and scholarly productions. There ought to be a general paper for such. Something ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... German atrocities and by the more recent deportations, I was inclined to think, for one moment, that I had solved the problem, and that their sympathy for Belgium had brought these soldiers to the rescue. We are so easily inclined to exaggerate the part which ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... genius of the Brontes that made their place immortal; but it is the soul of the place that made their genius what it is. You cannot exaggerate its importance. They drank and were saturated with Haworth. When they left it they hungered and thirsted for it; they sickened till the hour of their return. They gave themselves to it with passion, and their works ring with the shock and interchange of two immortalities. Haworth is saturated ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... exceptional treatment lavished upon our exceptional case often rouses in a neighborhood hopes that it is impossible for us to fulfil. Then, too, occupied as we are with individuals, we are likely to exaggerate the importance of those causes of poverty that have their origin in the individual. We are likely to over emphasize the moral and mental lacks shown in bad personal habits, such as drunkenness and licentiousness, in thriftlessness, laziness, or ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... former public opinion is in the state of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing, they have divided their nation into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate; this is a true picture of Europe." Tucker's ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... themselves. And as there is no doubt a grain of the bully somewhere in the nature of every boy—if not of every human being—what this tiresomeness might have grown into had the Fates, or something higher than the Fates, not interposed, it would be difficult to exaggerate. ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... what to think. A man who had never had any balance to speak of at his bank, and from the nomadic condition of his life had no exaggerated feeling for a settled social status—deeming Society in fact rather a bore—he did not unduly exaggerate the worldly dangers of this affair; neither did he honestly believe that she would burn in everlasting torment if she did not succeed in remaining true to 'that great black chap,' as he secretly called Cramier. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... subject, preparatory to the publication of his "History of the American Colonies," a work in which, doubtless, he will not be liable to the reproach of histories written by New-Englanders, that they exaggerate the virtues and the influence of the Puritans. Mr. Tyson is of the best stock of the Philadelphia Quakers, and the traditional fame of his party will ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... even during the month preceding the trial. The Countess became on a sudden very popular. Exaggerated stories were told of the romance of her past life,—though it would have been well nigh impossible to exaggerate her sufferings. Her patience, her long endurance and persistency were extolled by all. The wealth that would accrue to her and to her daughter was of course doubled. Had anybody seen her? Did anybody know her? Even the Murrays began to be proud of her, ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... when they have not really occurred, and are manufactured on purpose. But one has taken a certain sort of pleasure in the bull fight, and yet how is one to state gracefully that one has taken pleasure in a disgusting thing? It is a hard case. If you record your pleasure, distinctly, you seem to exaggerate it and to calumniate your delicacy; and if you record nothing but your displeasure, you feel rather crabbed and stingy. This much I can say, at any rate, that as there had been no bull fights in that part of the country during the Carlist war, the native dilettanti ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... "The tendency to exaggerate the 'upper work' of the organ reached a climax in the instrument built by Gabler, in 1750, for the Monastic Church at Weingarten, near Ravensburg. This organ comprised no less than ninety-five ranks of Mixture, including two stops of twenty-one and twenty ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... some did not exaggerate none of us would get a hearing—especially if we happened to be in a minority; and ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... to imply that its acceptance by Irish Home Rulers is dishonest. In their eyes it is a move in the right direction; they exaggerate, as their English allies underrate, the freedom of action which the Constitution offers to Ireland. It cannot, as already pointed out, by any possibility remove the admitted causes of Irish discontent. It cannot tempt capital towards Ireland, but it may easily drive capital ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... are good-natured, and enjoy to the full such small vanities; moreover, we all like to see winning smiles, beautiful gowns, and graceful gestures; but it is a pitiable misnomer to call such exhibitions reading. But the more subtle forms of insincerity in this art are even more prevalent. To exaggerate some form of emphasis, to exaggerate a gesture or facial expression, to wrest a passage from its meaning, these, and many other devices for forcing immediate approval from an audience, are grossly insincere. There is still a broader ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... or since, of such a plunge into the muddy unfathomable, on the part of little George, who was an honorable creature, and dubitative to excess: and truly this rash plunge might have cost him dear, had not he directly scrambled out again. Or did Friedrich exaggerate to himself his Uncle's real share in the matter? I always guess, there had been more of loose talk, of hypothesis and fond hope, in regard to George's share, than of determinate fact or procedure on his own part. The transaction, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... subsequent times, took it into their heads that there was a literal proof in the prelate's jesting epistle of our poet's passion for Laura being a phantom and a fiction. But, possible as it may be, that the Bishop in reality suspected him to exaggerate the flame of his devotion for the two great objects of his idolatry, Laura and St. Augustine, he writes in a vein of pleasantry that need not be taken for grave accusation. "You are befooling us all, my dear Petrarch," says the prelate; "and it is wonderful that at so tender an age (Petrarch's ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... my enquiries about the revenues of Nice, I am obliged to trust to the information of the inhabitants, who are much given to exaggerate. They tell me, the revenues of this town amount to one hundred thousand livres, or five thousand pounds sterling; of which I would strike off at least one fourth, as an addition of their own vanity: perhaps, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... humiliating comparison for me," replied Gerfaut, with an indifferent smile; "however, you exaggerate. I have always noticed that these bullies with mysterious threats of their own and these slaughterers of plaster images were not such very dangerous fellows to meet. This is not disputing Bergenheim's bravery, for I believe it to be ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... He and Mr. Reynolds are our favourite painters, and two of the very best we ever had. Indeed, the number of good has been very small, considering the numbers there are. A very few years ago there were computed two thousand portrait painters in London; I do not exaggerate the computation, but diminish; though I think it must have been exaggerated. Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Ramsay can scarce be rivals; their manners are so different. The former is bold, and has a kind of tempestuous colouring, yet with dignity and grace; the latter is all delicacy. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... smelling of teetotallers and grim, forbidding people in whom are to be found none of the genial foibles of ordinary, hearty men, he felt an excess of remorse for any unkind thing he had ever said to Eleanor. His pessimism about his play caused him to exaggerate the enormity of his offences. He pictured her, looking at him with that queer air of puzzled pathos that had so impressed him when he first saw her, and intense shame filled him when he thought that he had done ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... and it is the same with nine tenths of our interests and duties in life. In legislating or philosophizing for woman, we must neither forget that she has an organization distinct from that of man, nor must we exaggerate the fact. Not "first the womanly and then the human," but first the human and then the womanly, is to be the ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to say I am apt to exaggerate too much; but I merely relate what I have seen in my time, and you will all have numerous instances by and by of making the same observations, and I think at last you will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... quite pale and weak under this prophecy. It was extraordinary that Grace, whom almost every one would have characterized as a gentle girl, should be of stronger fibre than her interlocutor. "You exaggerate—cruel, silly young woman," she reiterated, writhing with little agonies. "It is nothing but playful friendship—nothing! It will be proved by my future conduct. I shall at once refuse to see him more—since it will make no difference to my heart, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Marchurst, reprovingly, as Vandeloup opened the box, "how you do exaggerate—ah!" he broke off his exhortation suddenly, for the box was open, and the great mass of gold was glittering ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... dreamily, after a pause, "if that is not the bare truth. Ask Colville, ask Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, ask Miriam Liston, sitting here beside us, if I exaggerate the importance ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... had been sleeping, as it were, all the winter, hugging the delusive dream of French sovereignty and French assistance. No language can exaggerate the deadly effects from the slow poison of that negotiation. At any rate, the negotiation was now concluded. The dream was dispelled. Antwerp must now fall, or a decisive blow must be struck by the patriots themselves, and a telling ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... blue, And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!" But the gingham dog and the calico cat Wallowed this way and tumbled that, Employing every tooth and claw In the awfullest way you ever saw— And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew! (Don't fancy I exaggerate! I got my views ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... sir," said he, "and, like most men at your time of life, exaggerate both pain and pleasure. Your despair is unfounded; for it is easy in our time to discover people whom we want to find. With a little money and diligence we may be sure, in a few days, to discover Monsieur De Vlierbeck's retreat, even if he has gone abroad ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... wool which the Flemings manufactured into cloth; and that if there were fewer hands to till the soil, there were fewer mouths to feed. No one can doubt that the labour market must have been seriously disturbed, but it is very easy to exaggerate this disturbance; and whether it were less or more than has been asserted, we shall certainly err by attributing the rise in wages, which undoubtedly took place after the Black Death, to it, and to it alone—post hoc ergo propter hoc ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... overplus, after the deduction of expenses, is the real gain. Here we have the true theory, and it is one which leads directly to freedom in trade. I now, gentlemen, abandon you this theory, as I have done all those of the preceding chapters. Do with it as you please, exaggerate it as you will; it has nothing to fear. Push it to the farthest extreme; imagine, if it so please you, that foreign nations should inundate us with useful produce of every description, and ask nothing in return; that our importations should be ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... them amends for the time I have detained them."—"Ay, that I will with all my heart," quoth Sancho; "but what is become of the lions? Are they dead or alive?" Then the keeper very formally related the whole action, not failing to exaggerate, to the best of his skill, Don Quixote's courage; how at his sight alone the lion was so terrified, that he neither would nor durst quit his stronghold, though for that end his cage door was kept open for a considerable time; and how upon his remonstrating to the knight, who would have had the ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... serious, but we must not exaggerate it. There is an evident partiality, but it would be unjust to go farther and believe, as men did later, that the last part of Francis's life was an active struggle against the very person of Elias. A struggle there ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... ever. But this is an old story, yet, unfortunately, it is a true one; and it will continue to be true until a clearer perception of what a domestic training should be is more universally recognised. I am sure that I do not exaggerate when I say that millions of our English-speaking race are living this life without the slightest glimmering of what domestic content might be theirs. Surely the word "home" for the artisan should signify something more than a place where he is badly fed. Still, it is ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... captured together at fifteen hundred. Vaudreuil, who always makes light of Indian barbarities, goes to the other extreme, and avers that no more than five or six were killed. Levis and Roubaud, who saw everything, and were certain not to exaggerate the number, give the most trustworthy evidence on this point. The capitulation, having been broken by the allies of France, was declared void ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... these are withdrawn no doubt it increases the strain on the men, and in a long course of years they could not stand it. But in times of war everybody is working at full strain, and therefore it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of suspending restrictions which have the effect of diminishing the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... with himself. He suffered from the universal suffering. That crushed him by the amount of its pain, which he exaggerated:—for if humanity does support it in spite of everything, that is because humanity has a harder hide than is the delicate skin of a frail boy. But what he did not exaggerate and what weighed him down much more than the suffering of the world was the imbecility ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... should now adorn the broad page of the Telegraph was a thing to talk about at the press club; the fact of his large salary got abroad in that little world as well, and, after the way of that world, managed to exaggerate itself, as most facts did. He began to be sensible of attentions from men of prominence—small things, mere nods in the street, perhaps, or smiles in the theater foyer, but enough to show that they recognized him. What those children of the people, those working-men and women ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... gesture of refusal. "You exaggerate," he said impatiently, brushing her hand from ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... the welcomes given to him by great official personages, that these remarks do not in the least exaggerate the feeling created all over the country by the activities of The Army. Had The General merely made great proposals he would only have been looked upon in the generally favourable way in which men naturally regard every prospector of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... the darkness of the narrow streets, the Vicomte was making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair difficult to describe, impossible to exaggerate. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had seen a way of escape—and lost it for ever! No wonder that as he trudged through the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... sprang out of mediaeval life, out of the mediaeval mind; and the mediaeval mind had for centuries been taught to abominate literature. I would not exaggerate or darken the 'Dark Ages' for you by throwing too much bitumen into the picture. I know that at the beginning there had been a school of Origen which advocated the study of Greek poetry and philosophy, as well as the school of Tertullian which condemned ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... taken delight in: and the mighty men of the central class will always give us all that is needful of it; sometimes, as Hogarth did, dwelling upon it bitterly as satirists,—but this with the more effect, because they will neither exaggerate it, nor represent it mercilessly, and without the atoning points that all evil shows to a Divinely guided glance, even at its deepest. So then, though the third class will always, I fear, in some measure exist, the two necessary classes are only ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... admitting no ambiguous relations and clearing away the clouds from human intercourse, I have not known his equal. The great Sir Walter himself, as this book will prove, was not more manfully free from artistic jealousy or irritability under criticism, or more unfeignedly inclined to exaggerate the qualities of other people's work and to underrate those of his own. Of the humorous and engaging parts of vanity and egoism, which led him to make infinite talk and fun about himself, and use ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sea-level. The eye, then, judges the horizon to be where it usually is—on the same level as the observer; but looking downwards, the eye perceives, and at once appreciates if it does not even exaggerate, the great depth at which the earth lies below the balloon. The appearance, then, as judged by the eye, is that of a mighty basin whose edge rises up all round to the level of the balloon, while its bottom lies two or three miles or more below ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... "Don't you exaggerate what my brother wants?" my mother asked. "He knows too well the value of time to wish to waste that of ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... can exaggerate the consequences of this wretched treason. Unfortunately, too; the abject condition to which the English troops had been reduced by the niggardliness of their sovereign was an additional cause of danger. Leicester was gone, and since her favourite was no longer in the Netherlands, the Queen ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the appetite for power inherent in human nature, and add to it the king's education in foreign countries and among the cavaliers, a party which would naturally exaggerate the late usurpations of popular assemblies upon the rights of monarchy, it is not surprising that civil liberty should not find in him a very zealous patron. Harassed with domestic faction, weary of calumnies and complaints, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... "You exaggerate his capacities for evil," I said, as equably as I was able, for her agitation was so great that I feared for her reason. "What has Mannering been saying to you, for it was he whom I saw behind the hedge when I brought you out ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... "Mothers always exaggerate," said Ridley. "A well-bred child is no responsibility. I've travelled all over Europe with mine. You just wrap 'em up warm and put 'em in ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... were to arrive at the main range itself. We killed this day one of the largest kangaroos we had seen in any part of New South Wales, being from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty pounds weight. These animals live in flocks like sheep; and I do not exaggerate, when I say that some hundreds were seen in the vicinity of this hill; it was consequently named Kangaroo Hill: several beautiful little rills of water have their source in it, but are soon lost in the ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... poured European capital into the country by scores of millions for public works and the establishment of factories, and we have enriched India instead of impoverishing it to an extent that makes the Home Charges—of which such agitators as Digby always exaggerate the importance—a mere trifle in the balance." Lord Curzon's statement of three or four years back was that there were eight hundred and twenty-five crores of rupees (five hundred and fifty millions sterling) of buried capital in India; and he might have ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... "Do we not exaggerate trifles? Why should this man be so derided because he covers his head with an old hat? What of it? Suppose it shows some vanity or eccentricity, why is there more merit in covering that up than in expressing it in the dress? The styles we wear to-day ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... his journeys, but it is feared that these notes have been destroyed. If their value were in any respect such as we have reason to expect from the man's character, this would be a loss not easy to exaggerate. It is still wonderful to the Japanese how far he contrived to push these explorations; a cultured gentleman of that land and period would leave a complimentary poem wherever he had been hospitably entertained; and a friend of Mr. Masaki, who was likewise ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you speak like a courtier," said John, shaking his head, "and you exaggerate as a friend. But even though you were right, those qualities would not be calculated to render the emperor's heart more attached to us. He wants the emperor alone to shed lustre on, and do honor to the imperial ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... take dinner that night, was full of his adventures, inclined perhaps to exaggerate his peril, pardonably exasperated against the man who had led him through so many dangers, real and imaginary. But, above all things, he was ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... nay, that the real facts were often understated. As to the Famine, several of the gentlemen sent by the Charitable Societies to make Reports, wrote back, that there was no exaggeration whatever, and, for a very sufficient reason, namely, that, in their opinion, it was impossible to exaggerate the dreadful condition in which they found ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... for a man to pride himself on what he is and make the best of it. The pride of craftsman betokens a valuable man. We exaggerate our worth, and this is Nature's plan to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... of that moment! No angel hand, no reporter even for the New York papers could exaggerate the blessedness of that time, much as they knew about exaggeration. Tears of pure joy ran down both our faces, and all the sorrows of the past seperation seemed to dissolve in a golden mist that settled down on everything round us and before us. The land looked good, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... "You exaggerate, sir," said Geoffrey. "It was you who won the concession and overcame all the initial difficulties, while we would never have gone so far without your assistance. Such a task would have been far beyond ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... can know the Grand Canyon, in all its phases. It is one of those sights that words cannot exaggerate. What does it matter how deep you say—in hundreds or thousands of feet—the Canyon is, when you cannot see to the bottom of it? Strict literalists may stick out for the exact figures in feet and inches from rim to river—elsewhere given as the scientists of the United States ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... felt at that moment those pangs of jealousy in which a poet had tried in vain to make me believe! the jealousy of engravings, of pictures, of statues, wherein artists exaggerate human beauty, as a result of the doctrine which ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... you?" exclaimed the Buck; "well, although I don't exaggerate with your severity, yet I will shake hands with you. How do you do Darby? Darby, I think you're a true petriot—but, so far as Mr. Purcel is concirned, I wish you to understand that he is a particular friend of mine, and so is ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... replied the baronet, smiling after his own peculiar fashion, that is to say, with a kind of bitter sarcasm, "I have as good a right, I think, to exaggerate the failings of my daughter as you have to magnify those of your son. But a truce to this, and to be serious: I know the girl; you know, besides, something about women yourself, my lord, and I need not say that ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate the danger. The lad's heart failed him. He stammered some excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors depart. No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm his doubts. By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified the girl he had jested with the day before. ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do not greatly exaggerate, when they claim Chancellorville as the victory of this war: though there is a fearful counterpoise in the loss of the South's favorite leader. But the great Army of the Potomac, in its shameful retreat, could ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... will be a hundred years hence. By keeping these rules in mind you can make a picture or a cartoon of yourself, just as you wish. The one thing to remember is that the lines and proportions of the face must be carefully considered and a mode of hairdressing adopted which will lessen and not exaggerate those lines and proportions. Be alert to your defects, and do not forget that what may be essentially appropriate for one woman will ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... chief beauty of the irrational soul of the mind, that is, of the lower animal—which is singleness. The simplicity, the integrity, the one thing at a time, of a good animal's eyes is a great beauty, and is apt to cause us to exaggerate our sense of their expressiveness. An animal's eyes, at their best, are very slightly expressive; languor or alertness, the quick expectation, even the aloofness of doubt they are able to show, but the showing is mechanical; the human sentiment of the ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... dear child, to hear what I have resolved to do? I hope so; for your feelings, your self-blame so honestly avowed, though I think you exaggerate the need of it, have helped to influence me. I know how bitter such self-blame may grow to be, and my darling Jacinth, I want to feel, when I come to die, that at least I have brought nothing but good into your ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Why is it amusing to adopt a few stock phrases and make them do service at every turn? Why amusing to miscall, exaggerate, and vulgarise? ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... remarked is that Brussels has two contrasting elements of life, which, lying close, one upon the other, strongly exaggerate the French note of it all, and make the hotels, cafes, restaurants, etc., take on that boulevard aspect which we fondly ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... would fit either the intensity of my feeling or the confused state of my mind. "Death here! where all are so happy! Remember your bride's ingenuous face! Remember the candid expression of Dorothy's eye—her smile, her noble ways! You exaggerate the situation. You neither understand aright the simple expression of surprise you heard, nor the feminine frolic which led these girls to carry off this romantic specimen ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... exercise of the imagination become for better or worse a little old-fashioned, but the one thing that is insisted on as a starting-point and basis, at the very least, is the sense of reality. And it is impossible to exaggerate the way in which the sense of reality has been intensified by Manet's insistence upon getting as near as possible to the individual values of objects as they are seen in nature—in spite of his abandonment of the practice of painting on a parallel scale. ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... land where philosophers had become the fashion of the day, and as the representative of a people struggling for liberty he was peculiarly dear to the French, who were themselves speculating on such matters and preparing for their own revolution. It is of course easy to exaggerate the influence of sentiment in the case. France was glad to encourage America because the loss of the colonies would weaken the British Empire, and that was natural; but it is, I think, a mistake not to acknowledge the generous sentiments of the people and even of the grandees of the land. Voltaire ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... ferment in England speedily aroused a decided opposition. Macaulay probably does not much exaggerate when he says that out of twenty well-to-do persons nineteen were ardently loyal and firmly anti-Jacobin. The month of November saw the formation of an "Ante [sic]-Levelling Society, for supporting the Civil Power in suppressing Tumults ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... break an engagement for fancies about your own worthiness,' said Felix. 'Rouse yourself up, and don't exaggerate the thing, to alarm all the girls, and make ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excepting the Stoics, whose opinion I think I have sufficiently defended; and indeed I have explained what the Peripatetics have to say; excepting that Theophrastus, and those who followed him, dread and abhor pain in too weak a manner. The others may go on to exaggerate the gravity and dignity of virtue, as usual; and then, after they have extolled it to the skies, with the usual extravagance of good orators, it is easy to reduce the other topics to nothing by comparison, and ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... life depends upon herself. In a new environment, surrounded by what seem to her "multitudes" of new faces, obliged to meet larger demands under strange and untried conditions, she is quite likely to go to the other extreme and exaggerate her own insignificance. Sometimes she is fortunate enough to have an older sister or friend to help her steer her bark through these untried waters, but generally she must ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... sufferers, if only they would take the trouble to practise them faithfully,—a very slight effort compared with the result which will surely ensue. And so it is with the fatigue from sewing. I fear I do not exaggerate, when I say that in nine cases out of ten a woman would rather sew with a pain in her neck than stop for the few moments it would take to relax it and teach it truer habits, so that in the end the pain might be avoided entirely. Then, when the inevitable nervous exhaustion ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... history. I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dress coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supplemented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his plainly furnished parlor and were uninterrupted during the nearly four hours I remained ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... fellow did not exaggerate. Shanks and his father would find no place in organized industry. They belonged to the open spaces, the wide marsh and the ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... it? and yet of all the untidy, unpunctual—no, I mustn't let myself go like that. Besides, it's quite true, as Hebe says, Anne has got a very good heart, and she's very particular in some mind ways; she never says a word that isn't quite true—she doesn't even exaggerate. I have noticed that rather tiresome, careless people often have very good hearts. I wish they could see how much nicer it would be for other people if they'd put some of their good hearts into their ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... Unless, therefore, some new event should occur, or some more cogent reason present itself, I would have you move over by the easiest and best passage. I am sensible your numbers will not be large, and that the movement may not perhaps be agreeable to your troops. As to the first, report will exaggerate them, and there will be preserved the appearance of an army, which will, at least, have the effect of encouraging the desponding here; and, as to the other, you will doubtless represent to them, that in duty and gratitude, their service ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... flatterers do not draw the line at a lie if it will please their patrons; panegyrists aim merely at bringing into relief what really exists. But there is another great difference: the flatterers exaggerate as much as ever they can; the panegyrists in the midst of exaggeration observe the limitations of decency. And now that you have one or two of the many tests for flattery and panegyric proper, I hope you will not treat all praise as suspect, but make distinctions ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... nature which enables them to read aright the riddle of this strange world, those who by faith walk over burning ploughshares and dread no evil, those are the people who write the best letters of condolence. They do not dwell on our grief, or exaggerate it, although they are evidently writing to us with a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye—they do not say so, but we feel it. They tell us of the certain influence of time, which will change our present grief ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the aspersions of the orthodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and prone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic minds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled different provinces simultaneously. But this "effugium" was cut off by the witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. "This has now been done to such an extent ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... he got rid of his anxieties by putting a cheerful face upon the matter, and denying the possibility of danger. "The measles! every child had the measles. If no fuss was made the little chap," he declared, "would soon be all right. It was always a mistake to exaggerate." But when there could no longer be any doubt on the subject, a curious struggle took place in Sir Tom's mind. That baby—die? That crowing, babbling creature pass away into the solemnity of death! It had not seemed possible, and when he tried to ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... with this at once supplicating and imperious behest, and related in a despairing voice the events which had wrought his woe. He did not omit a single particular, but tried rather to exaggerate than palliate the horrors of his situation. Perhaps he found a strange satisfaction in proving to himself that there was no hope left; possibly he believed his mother would say: "Yes, you are right; and death is ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... is overdrawn. The student of history must bear in mind that practically all of our histories of that period are based altogether on the testimony of prejudiced whites and are written from their point of view. Some of these writers have aimed to exaggerate the vagrancy of the blacks to justify the radical procedure of the whites in dealing with it. The Negroes did wander about thoughtlessly, believing that this was the most effective way to enjoy their freedom. But nothing else could be expected from a class who had never felt anything ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... part in a debate. This therefore is not a reason with me for objecting to the appointment. My objection rests on the unconstitutional grounds which I have before stated, and on the experience of the noble duke being wholly military. Let it not, however, be supposed that I am inclined to exaggerate. I have no fear of slavery being introduced into this country by the power of the sword. It would demand a stronger man even than the Duke of Wellington to effect that object. The noble duke might take the army and the navy, the mitre and the great seal—I ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... your absence so acutely. Possibly it is always wiser to subtract at least half of the impression conveyed in both written and spoken words. Please understand that I am speaking in generalities when I say that we are exceedingly apt to exaggerate our own importance to others, and their ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... sound of his death would reach her ear—the jerk of the fatal cord, the struggle of the choking breath, the last sigh of her beloved Parys, would come to her, and reason might remain to bear it. If she could close up both eyes and ears, her fancy would exaggerate the acts performing around her, and fill her mind with shapes and forms, if possible more hideous than the dread spectres of the waking sense. Breaking loose from Helen, and also from Hector—who had joined his sister, and had from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... cannot fasten adultery, murder or like errors upon us, unless by their own fabrication (this shameless class of people abhor no kind of lie), yet they gather up smaller matters, which they afterward exaggerate ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... along with them a great deal of gold, even when their sources are found in trachytic soils. Why may there not be an alluvial auriferous soil to the east of the Cordilleras, as there is to the west, in the Sonoro, at Choco, and at Barbacoas? I am far from wishing to exaggerate the riches of this soil; but I do not think myself authorized to deny the existence of precious metals in the primitive mountains of Guiana, merely because in our journey through that country we saw no metallic veins. It is somewhat ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... from all signs of her former profession and identify herself as closely as possible with the ordinary "respectable" bourgeoise of the harem, from whom she has been distinguished hitherto by unveiled face and freedom of ingress and egress; and with this aim in view she would naturally be inclined to exaggerate the rigour of Muslim ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... impossible to exaggerate the impression of deep and widespread discontent with the condition of the Church which one meets in the writings of the early sixteenth century. The whole German people, from the rulers down to the humblest tiller of the fields, felt themselves unjustly used. The clergy were denounced ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in consequence, as was suggested, of ill-treatment by the authorities of the gaol. The governor had been tried and punished in consequence. Fitzjames gives the actual facts to show how Reade had allowed himself, as a writer of fiction, to exaggerate and distort them, and had at the same time taken the airs of an historian of facts and bragged of his resolution to brand all judges who should dare to follow the precedent which he denounced. This article, I may notice, included an injudicious reference to the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Sairey Gamp, Sam Weller and a host of others is perhaps the most normal thing about them; it is as the rattling of a safety valve, which speaks not of stagnant water but of a full head of steam. For Dickens deals with life, and you can exaggerate life as much as you please, since there is no end to either its wisdom or foolishness. Nothing but a question can be added to the silent ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... to say a few words upon the aims of this society: and I should be sorry either to exaggerate or to depreciate our legitimate pretensions. It would be altogether impossible to speak too strongly of the importance of the great questions in which our membership of the society shows us to be interested. It would, I fear, be easy enough to make an ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... slipped away. As an official personage, my importance increased, but I was careful not to exaggerate it to myself. Many have wondered (perhaps you among the rest) at my success, seeing that I possess no remarkable abilities. If I have any secret, it is simply this—doing faithfully, with all my might, whatever I undertake. Nine-tenths ...
— Who Was She? - From "The Atlantic Monthly" for September, 1874 • Bayard Taylor
... estimate distances and magnitudes is lost and the wildest conjectures result. We fail at first to realize the stupendous scale on which the work was done, and when we do finally realize it we swing to the opposite side and exaggerate. At the junction of Monument canyon there is a beautiful rock pinnacle or needle standing out clear from the cliff and not more than 165 feet on the ground. It has been named, in conjunction with a somewhat similar pinnacle on the other side of the canyon, "The Captains," ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... so many, of both sexes and of all ages, as fifty thousand. But, Gentlemen, it is possible you may not know that the people of that persuasion in Ireland amount at least to sixteen or seventeen hundred thousand souls. I do not at all exaggerate the number. A nation to be persecuted! Whilst we were masters of the sea, embodied with America, and in alliance with half the powers of the Continent, we might, perhaps, in that remote corner of Europe, afford to tyrannize with impunity. But there is a revolution ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... It is impossible for me to describe to you the fascination which this man exercises over me. You know that I do not usually exaggerate, although inclined to the mystical and romantic. I have lived too little on land, however, for any ideas of that nature to have taken much hold upon my mind. At sea, the movement of the winds and waves, the unintermitting intercourse with one's fellow-men—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... "Miss Humfray, when I received that letter from Mrs. Chater, I said I would have no more to do with you. I told Miss Porter I would not see you. Why, out of all my ladies, do you come back to me characterless from your situations? I will listen to your story. Make it very brief. Don't exaggerate. I have sat in this chair for seventeen years. I can distinguish in a minute between facts and spleen. You desire to ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... dined in Thurston Square since the scandal. Was it possible that he did not realise the insufferable nature of that incident, the efforts it must have cost to tolerate him, the points that had been stretched to take him in? She felt that it was impossible to exaggerate the essential solemnity of that evening. They had met together, as it were, to celebrate Walter's return to the sanctities and proprieties he had offended. He had been formally forgiven and received by the society which (however Fanny ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair |
