"Rational" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... That any rational and accountable being should ever have been found to oppose the progress of truth, is truly humiliating; yet every page of history, which records the developement of new principles, exhibits also the outbreakings of prejudice and selfishness. The deductions of Galileo, of Newton, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... When he had closed the door, he stood for a few moments looking about him; it was his first experience of the upper chambers of houses such as this. Merely to step upon the carpet fluttered his senses: merely to breathe the air was a purification. Luxury of the rational kind, dictated by regard for health of body and soul, appeared in every detail. On the walls were water-colours, scenery of Devon and Cornwall; a hanging book-case held about a score of volumes poets, essayists, novelists. Elsewhere, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... hitherto received a very moderate share of cultivation. He cannot but reflect that, if either his plan of instruction be crude and injudicious, or the execution of it lame and superficial, it will cast a damp upon the farther progress of this most useful and most rational branch of learning; and may defeat for a time the public-spirited design of our wise and munificent benefactor. And this he must more especially dread, when he feels by experience how unequal his abilities are ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... her aunt in a state of extreme indignation. It was a clever move to send Mrs. Shorne to Lady Jocelyn. They were antagonistic, and, rational as Lady Jocelyn was, and with her passions under control, she was unlikely ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one that is correct or rational. The proper ratios are given in the diatonic intense, but the large and small steps stand in the wrong order. It is in Ptolemy's record of the determinations of Didymus (born at Alexandria, 63 B.C.) that the true tuning of the first four ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... mind of the good archbishop, was the conversion of the Moors, whose spiritual blindness he regarded with feelings of tenderness and charity, very different from those entertained by most of his reverend brethren. He proposed to accomplish this by the most rational method possible. Though late in life, he set about learning Arabic, that he might communicate with the Moors in their own language, and commanded his clergy to do the same. [6] He caused an Arabic vocabulary, grammar, and catechism ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... passed peacefully away, and so will never trouble you again. At the very last he spoke lovingly of Richard Peveril, and said he was a splendid fellow; but I am inclined to think he referred to your father rather than to yourself. He was also perfectly rational on all subjects except that of the Princess, which he persisted in declaring was one of the richest copper mines of the world. I, of course, know better, for I realized long ago how truly the name 'Darrell's ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... him, if he had ever practised physic? 'Yes, and please your honour (said he) among brute beasts; but I never meddle with rational creatures.' 'I know not whether you rank in that class the audience you was haranguing in the court at St. James's, but I should be glad to know what kind of powders you was distributing; and whether you had a good sale' — 'Sale, sir! (cried Clinker) I hope I shall never be base enough to sell ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... to-day, though it is five-and-forty years ago), exclaiming, "Then you are a fool, and if you were to die to-night you most certainly would be damned." I ask those who were brought up in a more kindly and more rational scheme of Christianity whether it is any wonder that those whose youth was spent in these gloomy shades should welcome the thought that there was no such ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... high ground, they continued their course between the sand-hills and a blue inlet of the lake to the south. Some way to the right they caught sight of a whole herd of elephants, ranged in regular array like an army of rational beings, slowly ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... your credit is pledged. You must not be always jilting him heartlessly. Dreams! nonsense. There—I love peace. It is no use your storming at me; rave to the moon and the stars, if you like, and when you have done, do pray come in, and behave like a rational woman, who has pledged her faith to an honorable man, and a man of vast estates—a man that nursed your husband in his last illness, found your child, at a great expense, when you had lost him, and merits eternal gratitude, not ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... breeze springs up, and these fellows act like rational beings instead of madmen," he answered, in a more gloomy tone than I had ever yet heard him use. "We must not conceal from ourselves the fearful position in which we are placed. These ruffians will probably try to destroy the gunner and the other officers as they did the boatswain; ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... known to you, who is touched with some strain of a better spirit than belongs to these giddy-paced timesreveres his elders, and has a pretty notion of the classicsand, as such a youth must have a natural contempt for the people about Fairport, I wish to show him some rational as well as worshipful society.I am, Dear ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... regard to this: "I hope that no gentleman will think that a State can be called at the bar of the Federal court. Is there no such case at present? Are there not many cases, in which the Legislature of Virginia is a party, and yet the State is not sued? Is it rational to suppose that the sovereign power shall be ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... difficult, but they would do all that for us, and then it would surely be no trouble to man to accept it. They proceeded to discover the light in finance, trade, and matters of government; and Shaw, coming after them, extended the field into marriage, and explained to us the rational thing to do in social relations. These numerous doses of what was confidently recommended as reason were faithfully swallowed by all of us; and yet we're not changed. The dose was as pure as these doctors were able to make it. But—reason ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... the inmates with a ghastly attempt at cheerfulness, belied by his shaking voice, "Get up, gentlemen; there is a ball and supper going on below." He was afraid to utter the word "fire" to them. The other keepers were as rapid, each on his beat, and soon the more rational patients took the alarm and were persuaded or driven out half-dressed into the yard, where they cowered together in extremity of fear; for the fire began to roar overhead like a lion, and lighted up the whole interior red and bright. All was screaming and confusion; and then ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the savage is not occupied with matters relating to his animal existence, it is altogether inactive. In the islands, and upon the exuberant plains of the south, where little exertion of ingenuity was required to obtain the necessaries of life, the rational faculties were frequently dormant, and the countenance remained vacant and inexpressive. Even the superior races of the north loiter away their time in thoughtless indolence, when not engaged in war or the chase, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... necessity, the various threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, fall apart of themselves, without any denoument, strictly speaking, at all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, absence of rational characterization, and want ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... uncertain look came into the face of the nurse. Surely if this girl had been demented she must now be very much better. Her talk was entirely rational. ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is in a sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally ill—rational at times—violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle, harmless—content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded. But during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred which—which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... ees in the cook's galley," smiled Deschaillon, who appeared to be rational; then he added coolly: "Eef there ees any fighting, I weel help you, ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... swindles, widely degrading when widely believed in; and they must disbelieve that such people have the right to know, and that it is their duty to know, wonder- workers by their fruits, and to test miracle-mongers by the tests of probability, analogy, and common sense. They must disbelieve all rational explanations of thoroughly proved experiences (only) which appear supernatural, derived from the average experience and study of the visible world. They must disbelieve the speciality of the Master and the Disciples, and that it is a monstrosity ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... obstructive temperament of military officialdom. The whole system teems with "wait-a-bit" thorns; and in such rare cases when difficulties do not exist, some jack-in-office is certain to arrive with the sole object and intention of inventing them. Now, the brigadier had put forward a simple and rational plan,—so simple and rational that the lieutenant-general at De Aar had willingly acquiesced, for this general was at least a man to whom his juniors might look and be certain of support. But after the general there arose a pack of snarling ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Iden, I'm perfectly rational. Why, I'd glory in making that splendid girl a little ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... the whole, it would not work, for the White would be striking a poor man dead with His lightning, if I attempted that. No, then: the modern Adam is some eight to twenty thousand years wiser than the first—you see? less instinctive, more rational. The first disobeyed by commission: I shall disobey by omission: only his disobedience was a sin, mine is a heroism. I have not been a particularly ideal sort of beast so far, you know: but in me, Adam Jeffson—I swear it—the human ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... wish to know the relative values of the various forms of lime and how we may choose in the interest of our soil and our pocketbook. The time and method of application are important considerations to us. There are many details of knowledge, it is true, and yet all fit into a rational scheme that shows itself to be simple enough when the facts arrange themselves in an orderly ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... considerable number of Spanish and Portuguese prizes and prisoners. The disaster to the Spanish Armada in 1588 was a drastic blow to Spanish power at sea, a signal for England's maritime ascendancy, and an impetus to more rational, consistent, and practical methods of colonization, in which great Companies and great fleets participated—fleets that prepared the way for the establishment and development of our incomparable Navy, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... a rational one. It depicts men not as they are but such as, some day, they ought to be. Thus it sets up an ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... her only rational theory of the case! But his supposed insanity did not vindicate him to her pure and just mind. For he was not an insane man so much as an insane devil! He had only been mad in his recklessness, not ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoter parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own; but it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated. One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which a rational existence may still be possible ought to ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... one who has catarrh, bronchitis, a cough, "lingering cold," or any other of the symptoms of deadly Consumption, to send me his or her name. I will send by return mail my new Ozonized Lung Developer, together with my new 3-fold Rational System of Treatment, which is producing such marvelous results in checking and repairing the ravages of pulmonary diseases and building up wasted tissues. If you are fully satisfied with the benefit from this treatment, send me five ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... seen that the R.S. has been giving me the Darwin Medal, though I gave as broad a hint as was proper the last time I spoke at the Anniversary, that it ought to go to the young men. Nevertheless, with ordinary inconsistency of the so-called "rational animal," I ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... are also familiar with philosophy need not my book, for they know more than I can teach them here. It is the beginner in speculation who can benefit from this work, the man who has not yet been able to see the rational necessity of beliefs and practices which ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... dry them up; to ligate the tumors, that they may die or drop off, or to amputate the portion of the rectum in which the tumors form (known as the radical operation), none of which prevent a return of the trouble. The only rational plan is ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... would be an error to think of the medicine of the period, either European or Virginian, only in terms of rational or scientific theories. Treatment was too often based on magic, folklore, and superstition. There were physicians relying upon alchemy and astrology; the Royal Touch was held efficacious; and in the materia medica of the period were such substances as foxes' lungs, ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... however, another point, and a still more important one, bearing on this matter of purchase, than the keeping down of prices to a rational standard. And that is, that you pay your prices into the hands of living men, and do not pour ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... thoughts. I had, indeed, taken an early opportunity of telling him of my discovery of the picture of Adrian Temple, as I thought it would tend to show him that at least the last appearance of this ghostly form admitted of a rational explanation. He seemed glad to hear of this, but did not exhibit the same interest in the matter that I had expected, and allowed it at once to drop. Whether through lack of interest, or from a lingering dislike to revisit the spot where he was seized with illness, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Yet, by the present large size of our stages, and the complete management of light and shade, the incantation might be represented with striking effect; an advantage which, I fear, has been gained by the sacrifice of others, much more essential to the drama, considered as a dignified and rational amusement. The incantation itself is nobly written, and the ghost of Laius can ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... know this, and therefore converse with us on the footing of rational creatures, without either fearing or expecting to find every man ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... or ten of the more substantial and rational inhabitants traversed in a body, slowly and silently, the agitated throng; they seemed overwhelmed with amazement and distress at the agitation and excitement they witnessed everywhere, and as each new instance of the popular frenzy appeared, they exchanged glances ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the old flag increased with the days. Of course none of them would ever confess regret at having drawn the sword, or cease to think of the lost cause with a sigh. At the same time a rational conviction settled down upon all its most thoughtful minds that in secession the South had been misguided. Universal was the admission that at least for the dominant race the death of slavery was a blessing. Northern people and intelligent immigrants ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... said Mrs. Petulengro, "catch at words, and very naturally, as by so doing they hope to prevent the possibility of rational conversation. Catching at words confined to pothouse farmers, and village witty bodies! No, not to Jasper Petulengro. Listen for an hour or two to the discourse of a set they call newspaper editors, and if you don't ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... not tell her I had never noticed it. I think my offence was something about calls, and I must be more particular. But George and I have been sketching at every spare moment this lovely weather. Oh, Margery dear, I do often feel so thankful to my mother for having given us plenty of rational interests. I could really imagine even our quarrelling or getting tired of each other, if we had nothing but ourselves in common. As it is, you can't tell, till you have a husband of your own, what a double delight there is in everything we do together. ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a physical influence to lift these people into a more decent and prosperous way of living? She had thought of herself as working with him to a common end. But for him now to turn upon her, absolutely ignoring the solid, rational, and scientific ground on which he knew, or should know, she stood, and to speak to her as one of the "lost," startled her, and filled her with indignation. She had on her lips a sarcastic reply ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that the millennium has come, for they will want to enjoy it immediately, and will tolerate no deception practiced on their expectations. In this violent state, fired by boundless expectations, all their whims appear reasonable and all their opinions rational. They are no longer able to find faults with or control themselves. In their brain, overflowing with emotions and enthusiasm, there is no room but for one intense, absorbing, fixed idea. Each is confident and over-confident in his own opinion; all become ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hotel hesitated to disturb her when they found that the visitor declined to mention her name. Her ladyship's new maid happened to cross the hall while the matter was still in debate. She was a Frenchwoman, and, on being appealed to, she settled the question in the swift, easy, rational French way. 'Madame's appearance was perfectly respectable. Madame might have reasons for not mentioning her name which Miladi might approve. In any case, there being no orders forbidding the introduction of a strange lady, the matter ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... state, were declared to be the unavoidable consequences of Paine's return to our shores,—that impious apostate! that Benedict Arnold, once useful, and then a traitor! The "United States Gazette" had ten leaders on the text of Tom Paine and Jefferson, "whose love of liberty was neither more rational, generous, or social, than that of the wolf or the tiger." The "New England Palladium" fairly shrieked:—"What! invite to the United States that lying, drunken, brutal infidel, who rejoices in the opportunity of basking and wallowing in the confusion, devastation, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Game, turkeys so numerous that it might be said there appeared but one flock Universally Scattered in the woods ... it appeared that Nature in the profusion of her Bounties, had Spread a feast for all that lives, both for the Animal & Rational World, a Sight so delightful to our View and grateful to our feelings almost Induced us, in Immitation of Columbus in Transport to Kiss the Soil of Kentucky, as he haild & Saluted the sand on his first setting his foot on ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... is well to remember that while the Greeks in all their glory of Art and Poetry were unquestionably rational or consciously intelligent, there was not among them the thousandth part of the anxious worrying, the sentimental self-seeking and examination, or the Introversion which worms itself in and out of, and through and through, all modern work, action and thought, even as mercury ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... was the revelation. Up to that moment I had never lost the sense of being my own master; never consciously taken a single step until my reason had examined and approved it. I had come to believe that I was a purely rational creature: a thinker! I said, with the foolish philosopher, "I think; therefore I am." It was Woman who taught me to say "I am; therefore I think." And also "I would think more; therefore I ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... to high altitudes. Meryl, do come down and be rational. I just feel as if I could shake you." She got up and roamed round the room, then returned to the window-seat and leaned out of the window watching some workmen who were painting the balcony below them. Meryl sat on silently, still ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... with me to my friend, where, after a careful examination of his patient, he assured the anxious son that the wounds were only slight, and that her unconscious condition was simply "the result of over-stimulation, perhaps," as he delicately put it. She would doubtless waken in her usual rational state—an occurrence really more to be feared than desired, since her peculiar sensitiveness might feel too keenly the unfortunate happening. "Anyway," he continued, "I will call early in the morning, and, in the event of her awakening before that ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... black veil, or, by a direct appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who claimed a superiority to popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Particular, in my Works of Husbandry, and I shall therefore proceed to speak of the Management of Milk in the Dairy for making Butter; for I am very sensible, that many Farmers might have twice the Benefit from their Dairies, if the Articles of Butter and Cheese were consider'd in a rational way, and the old Custom could be broke through; and moreover, if the best Rules for managing of the Dairy were known, and put in practice, the whole Country would be the better for it, every one might enjoy the benefit of good things: whereas for want of knowledge among ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... rightly got and rightly used, rational enjoyment, power, fame,—these are all worthy objects of ambition; but they are not the highest objects, and you may acquire them all without achieving true success. But if, whatever you seek, you put good will into all your actions, you are sure of the best success ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the powers of the princes of the air; who overthrew the dragon, and trampled him under foot. The destruction of the Anaconda, in his hands, would be a smaller undertaking. Assuming for our people a hope not less rational than that of the people of Nineveh, we may reasonably build upon the guardianship and protection of God, through his angels, "a great city of sixty thousand souls," which has been for so long a season the subject of his care. These notes ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... he was unwilling to renounce, even when contradicted by the voice and testimony of experience; and, moreover, considered his utter inattention to the quality of what he eat and drank, as unworthy of a rational, that is, of a cooking creature, or of a being who, as defined by Johnson, holds his dinner as the most important business of the day. Cargill did not act up to this definition, and was, therefore, in the eyes of his new acquaintance, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... people, shooting with the cross-bow at the bird on the top of a pole; large tents are pitched for their reception, and they spend the evening; the court ladies came the second evening. You would have enjoyed it much. The Germans are a more rational people in these matters than we are, the best society enjoy this fair, and sit out under tents taking their coffee and meals and enjoying the sight with their families and wives. All the musicians from Bohemia, Tyrol and various other districts of Germany were here ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... citizens, did the kind hand of over-ruling Providence conduct us, through toils, fatigues and dangers, to Independence and Peace. If piety be the rational exercise of the human soul, if religion be not a chimera, and if the vestiges of heavenly assistance are clearly traced in those events, which mark the annals of our nation, it becomes us, on this day, in consideration of the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... met Sir Antony MacDonnell in the House of Commons, and he asked 'What is your labourers' minimum?' I gave him a brief outline of the Macroom programme. 'No rational being could object,' he said, 'but what does it mean in hard cash?' I replied, 'Roughly, four millions.' And the great Irishman—'the worst enemy that ever came to Ireland' of Mr Dillon's nightmare hours—ended the interview with these laconic words: 'The thing ought to be done and ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... the study of the law, his father exhorted him with great earnestness to shun the practice, too common in that profession, of straining every point in favor of prerogative, and perverting so useful a science to the oppression of liberty; and in the midst of these rational and virtuous counsels, which he reiterated, he was suddenly seized with an apoplexy, and expired in his son's presence. This circumstance gave additional weight to the principles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... and achieve the protection, scientific study, and rational use of Antarctic seals, and to maintain a satisfactory balance within the ecological ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... is a rational historic criticism to moderate the theological hypothesis with which the older Protestants set out, the supernatural inspiration of the books, their internal inseparability, and their direct reference to the work of salvation. ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... is; the dear creature is waiting for you even now. You see, after we got to the house, and she had consented to become a little rational, mutual explanations ensued, by which it appeared she had ran away from Sir Norman Kingsley's in a state of frenzy, had jumped into the river in a similarly excited state of mind, and was most anxious to go down ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... silly fables," said she, "tales with which nurses might frighten little children, but only fit to provoke laughter from rational beings." ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... whither we are borne on the wings of song? This, indeed, would be Heine's answer to any criticism based upon Ruskin's notion as to the "pathetic fallacy." If the setting is such as to induce in us the proper mood, we readily enter the non-rational realm, and with credulous delight contemplate wonders such as we too have seen in our dreams; just as we find the romantic syntheses of sound and odor, or of sound and color, legitimate attempts to express the inexpressible. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... man into weakness and languor, afterwards to give him the greater strength, has more of the empiric than the rational physician. It is true that some persons have been kicked into courage; and this is no bad hint to give to those who are too forward and liberal in bestowing insults and outrages on their passive companions. But such a course does not at first view appear a well-chosen discipline ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the presumption that they will bite. Their habit of suddenly dashing across the floor, in furious pursuit of nothing in particular, upsets me. But an invisible dog under a dining-room table is a dreadful experience. It is true that I managed to give Mrs. Harrington a fairly rational account of the woman's suffrage parade. But was she aware, as I sat there smiling spasmodically, what agonies of fear were mine as I waited for those white fangs under the table to sink into my flesh? If, under the circumstances, ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... gentlemen of his household, he is considerate, benevolent, and just, and of very amiable manners. My own observation leads me to think, that, in his behaviour to her, he is affectionate and attentive, rational and discreet; and, in the exercise of that judgment which is sometimes brought in opposition to some little thoughtlessness, he is so cheerful and slily humorous, that it is evident (at least it appears to me so) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... fears within their proper bounds. As it was, I found myself obliged to take several turns up and down the room, and even to open the window for a breath of fresh air, before I could face the subject with any calmness, or ask myself what had become of this letter, with any hope of receiving a rational reply. ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... did this in a more rational way than that set forth as orthodox by later priestcraft, which taught that to the believer who simply turned round the revolving library containing the canon, the merit of having read it all would be imputed. The rin-z[o][24] found near the large temples,—the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... thin wick, that gives just a point of flame, and no more, by which to light another candle, if necessary—of admirable service for this and all other purposes of a common-place bedroom. Eccentric sleepers, who write Greek hexameters, and fasten on poetic thoughts while the rest of the world are in rational slumber, might object to the feebleness of this point of light; but eccentricities need provisions of their own, and comets have orbits to which the laws of the stars do not apply. For all ordinary people, this thick ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... Valuable Experiences.—Of the three forms of human reaction, instinctive, habitual, and conscious, or ideal, it is evident that, owing to its rational character, ideal reaction is not only the most effective, but also the only one that will enable man to adjust himself to unusual situations. For this reason, and because of the difference in value of experiences themselves, it is further ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... own room, as Ottillie dressed her hair, she closed her eyes and tried to reduce her thoughts to a rational basis. But ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... Cairo in the special train which Kaid had sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest. There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer, as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... It is this rational and common-sense view which I want to impress upon you to-night, to get you out of the region of mystery, marvel, wonder, and fear, which to so many people surround what is called psychism; to make you understand that you are unfolding consciousness, ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... People are getting so cursedly in earnest now-a-days, that I shall have to bolt to the backwoods to amuse myself in peace; or else sham dumb as the monkeys do, lest folks should find out that I'm rational, and ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... cheek resting against her sister's shoulder as a mute sign of sympathy. What could be the matter? Presently her gaze travelled from Rose to the letter on the floor. It lay with the address uppermost, and she at once recognised Langham's handwriting. But before she could combine any rational ideas with this quick perception, Rose had partially mastered herself. She raised her head slowly and grasped ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be with you! Where have you been these many years? Your place has long been empty. My eyes are refreshed by the sight of you.' Then he repeated himself in the same strain several times over, until we at length got upon more rational subjects. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... accord to hunt up and bring in seeds and blossoms. They did not in the least understand what it was for; and it used to puzzle them hugely until out of sheer pity for their uneasiness, I implied that the Memsahib collected "medicine." That was rational, so the wrinkled brow of care was smoothed. From this botanical trait, Billy got her native name of "Beebee Kooletta"-"The Lady Who Says: Go Get That." For in Africa every white man has a name by which he is known among the native people. If you would get news of your friends, you must know their ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... quiet night's rest, free from further excitement, the best chance of a rational day, Ethel was glad that her mission resulted in the report, 'Far too nearly asleep to be disturbed;' but on the way up to bed, soft as Harry's foot-falls always were, a voice came down the stairs, 'That's Harry! Oh, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... likewise in ancient Times the Conceit of making an Eccho talk sensibly, and give rational Answers. If this could be excusable in any Writer, it would be in Ovid, where he introduces the Eccho as a Nymph, before she was worn away into nothing but a Voice. The learned Erasmus, tho' a Man of Wit and Genius, has composed a Dialogue ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... me the only clue to her frame of mind. If she went on gyrating in this way indefinitely, she must go mad. No human consciousness could stand it. For sanity she must stop at some point. The only rational halting-place was at the Tomb. If I knew my Auriol, she would drop a flower and a tear on it, and then would start on a bee-line for Central Tartary, or whatever expanse of the world's surface offered a satisfactory ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... and print as you please, to remain at home or travel abroad, to exercise the elective franchise, to make your own rulers? What you demand for yourselves, in virtue of your manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground. How is it that I am a madman, and you are perfectly rational? Wherein is my ultraism apparent? If the slaves are not men; if they do not possess human instincts, passions, faculties and powers; if they are below accountability, and devoid of reason; if for them there is no hope of immortality, no God, no heaven, no hell; ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... had been a daring ruse, but a successful one. Where his partner was, no one could guess. But by that time all the camp excepting Herman and Mrs. Louderer were so panicky that we couldn't have made a rational suggestion. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... aspiring to sovereignty, he turned his eyes, and pointing to that edifice, put them in mind of what he had there done for his country. 25. The multitude, whose compassion or whose justice seldom springs from rational motives, refused to condemn him, so long as he pleaded in sight of the Capitol; but when he was brought from thence to the Pe'teline grove, where the Capitol was no longer in view, they condemned him to be thrown headlong from the Tarpe'ian rock.[16] 26. Thus, the ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... ears, and understandings of others, imbecility, credulity and folly would be as rare as they are now common in community. But, unhappily, to borrow the words of Ganganelli, a large majority of mankind are 'mere abortions:' calling themselves rational and intelligent beings, they act as if they had neither brains nor conscience, and as if there were no God, no accountability, no heaven, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... processes which here take control of the will and of the decision are perfectly clear and simple, and the mental analysis offers not the least difficulty. The fundamental instincts of man on the background of modern economic conditions must lead to such rational and recommendable behaviour. A psychological problem appears only when such a course of wisdom is abandoned, and either the savings are hidden away instead of being made productive, or are thrown away in wildcat schemes. Yet of the two extremes the first again is easily ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... of this purpose, she felt it was in keeping with all the rest. It might mean what was on the surface; it might mean more. It might be a part of the possible impulse that had driven him into the Vermont woods, or the natural and rational step he would have taken had he never seen her. At any rate, she felt that he was daily growing more remote, and that by a nice gradation of effort he was consciously withdrawing himself. And yet she could scarcely dwell on a single word or act, and say: "This proves it." His manner toward her was ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... Of the three governors-general whose opinion had been invited the governor-general of Vilna was the only one who thought that the present situation needed no change. His colleague of Kiev, Count Vasilchikov, was, on the contrary, of the opinion that it would be a rational measure to transfer the surplus of Jewish artisans who were cooped up within the Pale and had been pauperized by excessive competition to the interior governments where there was a scarcity ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... assert that he hung on the Professor with the fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And perhaps with the like return; for Teufelsdroeckh treated his gaunt admirer with little outward regard, as some half-rational or altogether irrational friend, and at best loved him out of gratitude and by habit. On the other hand, it was curious to observe with what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly protection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as he fondly imagined far more practically influential ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... bit of it; she is perfectly rational; of intelligence, I am told, far beyond her apparent station in life—a little reserved, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... self-directing force. In the second place, we directly experience that it knows, feels, and wills. In the third place, we experience that there exists some power unifying the intellectual, emotional, and volitional activities so as to make life uniform and rational. Lastly, we experience that there lies deeply rooted within us Enlightened Consciousness, which neither psychologists treat of nor philosophers believe in, but which Zen teachers expound with strong conviction. Enlightened Consciousness is, according to Zen, the centre of spiritual life. It is the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... 'em once, that were lost in the canyon. I found them,—that was comparatively easy; but when I tried to get them home, I couldn't. At last, after infinite trouble, I managed to drive them up on to the trail, which was so narrow there was but one thing for a rational creature to do, and that was to go ahead. Then, if you'll believe me, those idiots kept bleating and getting under the horse's fore-feet; finally, one of them, the champion simpleton, tumbled over into the canyon, and I tied the legs of the other ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in what he called her wrong-headedness that Jude could not help being moved to tears more than once for pity of her. "I never knew such a woman for doing impulsive penances, as you, Sue! No sooner does one expect you to go straight on, as the one rational proceeding, than you ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... time. Then you have the shopkeeping class descending to the rank of the operatives. It must be so. Withdraw the custom of 7,000,000 pounds per annum, which has ceased to be paid in wages, from the shopkeepers, and the consequence must present itself to any rational mind. We have then another class—the young men of superior education employed in warehouses and counting-houses. A great number of these will rapidly sink to the condition in which you find the operative classes. All this will add to the distress and the embarrassment ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... we all fell to work with a zeal worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have stumbled ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... can't. There is enough of my mother's for my few needs. I was brought up simply, and I am glad! If I sell the works, as you desire, I shall still give the proceeds away. Had you rather I built a hospital, or founded a girl's college, or set up a mission to the South Pole? I'd rather build a town on rational principles." ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... be so deceived? How is it that we do not learn from others' disasters to avoid, every one of us, those deceiving, ruinous masters, those false gods that can lead us away from the one true Shepherd of our souls? It is, indeed, a curious fact that our deception is so easy. Surely a rational, intelligent being, who stops to consider, ought easily to distinguish between the great God of Heaven and the creatures of His hands. It ought not to be difficult for us to see the transient vanity of human things when compared with the eternal mansions. But the truth ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... composition of their decisions, the reaction of which must be calculated upon and guarded against. If our philosophical statesman had to open the case before a class of tyros, or a circle of grey-beards, who wished to form or to strengthen their judgments upon fair and rational grounds, nothing could be more satisfactory, more luminous, more able or more decisive than the view taken of it by Sir James Mackintosh. But the House of Commons, as a collective body, have not the docility of youth, the calm ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... of a labyrinth, from which at each effort to get free she was only the more inextricably involved. Her perceptions had lost their clearness, and, still worse, her confidence in them was diminishing. Heretofore she had reposed all trust in her husband's rational intelligence; and her woman's nature had leaned upon him and clung to him as the vine to the oak. As his judgment determined, her intuitions had approved. Alas for her that this was no longer! Hitherto she had walked by his side with a clear light upon their path. She was ready to walk ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... nuther. I was just seeing how I could have fout." So saying, he pointed to his plow, which stood in the corner of the fence about fifty yards from the battle ground. Would any man in his senses believe that a rational being could make such a fool of himself? All that I had heard and seen was nothing more nor less than a rehearsal of a knock-down and drag-out fight in which the young man had played all the parts for his own amusement. I went to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... perfumed cambric handkerchief, which also implies what is most in use for the indulgence of one of the five senses. When he enters a coffee-room, it is not for the purpose of meeting an old friend, and to enjoy with him a little rational conversation over his viands, but to ask for every newspaper, and throw them aside without looking at them—to call the Waiter loudly by his name, and shew his authority—to contradict an unknown speaker who is in debate with others, and declare, upon the honour of a gentleman and the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... sufficiently to put out his tongue when told to do so in a loud, commanding tone. In three minutes he began to struggle to get out and to complain of the cold. In six minutes and a half he had become quite rational. He was now taken out, only partially wiped, laid upon an India-rubber blanket and covered with a single sheet, the temperature of the room being between 65 deg. and 70 deg. Three minutes after this the temperature in the armpit was 94 deg., in the mouth 105-3/5 deg.; five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... mismanagement, are eroding away their arable soil at an alarming rate. At the same time, they are breeding like rabbits. In other words, each successive generation has less and less food to divide among more and more people, and, for inherited traditional and superstitious reasons, they refuse to adopt any rational program of birth-control ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination; how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... appearance of the second course, when Elmore, throwing himself back with an air of content, that signified the first edge of his appetite was blunted, observed, Sir, the second course I always opine to be the more dignified and rational ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious. When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered, especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed always ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... conclusive, for which he grudged a few shillings, and was absolutely impenetrable by her persuasions and representations. And I have known him waste pounds on things of the most curious variety, foisted on him by advertising agents without knowledge, trial, or rational ground of confidence. I suppose that persistency, a glibber tongue than he himself possessed, a mass of printed rubbish which always looks imposing to the unliterary, that primitive combination of authoritativeness and hospitality which makes some ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of gold during the waning of the moon. Writing a suitable inscription on an olive leaf, gathered before sunrise, was his specific for ague. Alexander appears at times to have doubted the efficacy of such remedies as amulets, for he explains that his rich patients would not submit to rational treatment, and it was necessary, therefore, to use other ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... occasion, unaccountable as they seemed to those who witnessed them, and must seem to the more sober class of my readers, admit of perfectly rational explanation, give them only Manitou ground to rest on. Nick of the Woods and Meg of the Hills, who knew as well as anybody—better, I fear, than many a human body—that there are few things more wholesome for us poor mortals than hearty, unrestrained, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... you some respectable man's wife; because I want to see you safely settled in life, and no longer left to your own caprices, or those of Carl Walraven. If you love this Hugh Ingelow, and marry him, you may probably become a rational being ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... case, as presented, fails to convince me that General Schofield, or the enrolled militia, is responsible for that suffering and wrong. The whole can be explained on a more charitable, and, as I think, a more rational hypothesis. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... nature? To look upon it from a Darwinian point of view. Goethe saves his fallen Faust through useful "occupation," through honest hard work for the benefit of mankind. The more we make ourselves acquainted with evil, the last remnant of our animal nature, in a rational and not mystic dogmatical sense, the less we exalt ourselves as exceptional creatures above nature, the easier it must be for us to dry up the source of superstition and ignorance which serves ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... reaction against Religion as merely revelation and in its endeavour to find a rational basis for faith set God apart from His world, detached, unheeding and offering no real recourse to a travailing humanity between whom and Himself it built a rigid fabric of impersonal law. The Individualism of the eighteenth century was partly a reaction against old despotisms of Church ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... a right to argue upon the question from the character of God, and the nature of man. Which of these views the Jewish or the Christian doth most commend itself to the sincere believer in the moral government of God, and the rational and accountable nature ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... caricaturing and disfiguring the beauty of the genuine blessing; then good is changed to evil, and the evil is the greater, the more comprehensive the truth that is so shamefully abused. It is absurd and may entail sad consequences upon the world, if the rational use of Apis is to be converted to the irrational proceedings of the so-called specific method, which is often practised by men who, knowing better, purposely conceal the truth from the world. For years past, I have been called upon again and again, by patients ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... healthful employment of the mind, distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him to dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational question that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the prosperity of crops. I have little doubt that the regulated observation of the vane in many different places, and the interchange of results by telegraph, would put ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... again called Fid; "he interrupts rational conversation by his noise; and, as his gear is condemned by this here tailor, why, you may turn him over to the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... art; as, book, vessel, house: 3. Personal nouns, or those which stand for human beings; as, man, woman, Edwin: 4. Neuter nouns, or those which denote things inanimate; as, book, field, mountain, Cincinnati. The following, however, is quite a rational division: Material nouns are the names of things formed of matter; as, stone, book: Immaterial nouns are the names of things having ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... profession was, and recited stories of the self-denial of Pestalozzi and Froebel, and the great schemes of Basedow, and told how he meant here in this new country to build a great Institute on rational principles, Helen Minorkey found him more interesting than ever. Like you and me, she loved philanthropy at other people's expense. She admired great reformers, though she herself never dreamed of putting a little finger to ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... of the scene with mechanical glances, but his mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel, although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... analyze the meaning of it. Damn it all, he had enough else to think about. Just as well that elections had been suspended and bade fair to continue indefinitely in abeyance. If he, a member of the intelligentsia, wasn't sufficiently acquainted with the political and military facts of life to make rational decisions, it certainly behooved the ill-educated ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... me. I hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a frequent correspondence. I send this to say so. After the first two or three I shall settle down into a connected style, and become gradually rational. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... formerly, was the same cheerful and intelligent person as ever. Amiable, urbane, accomplished, and benevolent, there was just enough worldliness in Cleveland's nature to make his views sensible as far as they went, but to bound their scope. Everything he said was so rational; and yet, to an imaginative person, his conversation was unsatisfactory, and his philosophy ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... exile, 'but be quite sure that, to make the monarchy strong, you must rest it on the laws, avoiding everything arbitrary, too frequent commissions, and all ministerial jobberies.' We may well believe how unsavoury this rational and just talk was to people who meant by strong government a system that should restore to them their old prerogatives of anti-social oppression and selfish corruption. The order that De Maistre vindicated ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... knowledge, essential alike to any subject of science that may be presented to their maturer years. By means of the press, many broken and ill-sustained rays pierce across the neglect or indifference of parents, to the minds of the young. Gleams of a rational spirit and enlarged feeling may often be found among the daughters of country gentlemen, whose sons are still solely devoted to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... on the king; but Siward defeated them and avenged many fold the insults and injuries sustained by the king, thus fulfilling the prophecy "that Divine Providence would permit to be born from the union of a rational with an irrational creature, i.e., from the union of a woman with a bear, a man who would wreak vengeance on the enemies of the illustrious ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... of all independent development; the circle is a hideous substitute for society, woman, life; the circle... oh, wait a bit, I'll tell you what a circle is! A circle is a slothful, dull living side by side in common, to which is attached a serious significance and a show of rational activity; the circle replaces conversation by debate, trains you in fruitless discussion, draws you away from solitary, useful labour, develops in you the itch for authorship—deprives you, in fact, of all freshness and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... of labour, either as thinker, teacher, artist, or producer, all being classed according to their capacity, and remunerated according to their work, appeared to me a far superior description of Socialism to Owen's. Their aim seemed to me desirable and rational, however their means might be inefficacious; and though I neither believed in the practicability, nor in the beneficial operation of their social machinery, I felt that the proclamation of such an ideal of human society could not but tend to give a beneficial direction to the efforts ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... Proposition is one which states nothing more about the subject than is contained in its definition, e.g. 'Man is an animal'; 'Men are rational beings.' ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... after it, able to perform all functions of animal life after its own fashion. It moved, went, came, spoke, breathed, accepted pious homage, but without pleasure, and as it were mechanically, rather from an instinctive horror of annihilation than from any rational desire for immortality. Unceasing regret for the bright world which it had left disturbed its mournful and inert existence. "O my brother, withhold not thyself from drinking and from eating, from drunkenness, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his friend Battersleigh there before him, in full possession, and apparently at peace with all the world. His tall figure was reclining in an office chair, and his feet were supported by the corner of the table, in an attitude which is called American, but which is really only masculine, and quite rational though unbeautiful. Battersleigh's cloak had a swagger in its very back, and his hat sat at a cocky angle not to be denied. He did not hear Franklin as he approached the door, and the latter stood looking in for a moment, amused ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... reserved towards strangers; for my part, I found them sociable and communicative in the extreme. A few hours after I had embarked on board the steamboat I found myself quite at home. I was much pleased to observe the rational manner in which the passengers amused themselves. Little groups were formed, where religion, politics and business matters were discussed with excellent sense and judgment. These seemed to be the common topics of discourse in both ends of the cabin. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... connection with the right set of circumstances. There it is in a nutshell!—Permit me to hand you back the manuscript, with my best thanks for your very complete and striking confirmation of the rational theory of dreams." Saying those words, Mr. Hawbury returned the written paper to Midwinter, with the pitiless politeness ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... amidst whose larger areas their own dominions lay. . . . This sounds, I know, like a lunatic's dream, but mankind was that lunatic; and not only in the old countries of Europe and Asia, where this system had arisen out of the rational delegation of local control to territorial magnates, who had in the universal baseness of those times at last altogether evaded and escaped their duties, did it obtain, but the "new countries," as we called them then—the United States of America, the Cape ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... as sure as a man can well be. That's why I don't prescribe a sanatorium for her, or anything of that sort. All she needs is a rational, every-day life of the health-making kind, such as Charlotte and I can teach her—Charlotte even more effectively than I. Evelyn needs simply to build up a strong physical body; then these troublesome nerves will take care ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation? You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people to those who are not used to them. Try him with hot water. If he won't lick it up, it is a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? That has ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... maintain a watchful eye over society; these must purify it and proscribe thieves and evil-doers. Each individual must bring his small philosophic portion with him and, with these small portions, compose a rational totality that will turn out to be of benefit and to the welfare of all. Oh, for the time when functionaries shall be rare, when the wicked shall be overthrown, when the law shall become the sole functionary in society! Headquarters, etc. "—Every morning, he preaches in the same pontifical strain. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... possessed of what that Being thought and wished. Like them, he considered any controverted question as settled, if he could once bring to bear upon the point in dispute a text beginning, "Thus saith the Lord." No rational creature, certainly, would think of contesting a view of the Creator, or acting contrary to a command coming unmistakably from Him. But at this very point the difficulty begins; and in nothing did Cooper more resemble ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury |
