"Underestimate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... several generations the boys and girls of New England had read the "Day of Doom" as if Mr. Wigglesworth, the gentle and somewhat sickly minister of Malden, had veritably peeped into Hell. It is the present fashion to underestimate the power of Wigglesworth's verse. At its best it has a trampling, clattering shock like a charge of cavalry and a sound like clanging steel. Mr. Kipling and other cunning ballad-makers have imitated ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... practical purposes we shall not emerge at all. Even if we shrink from a "fight to a finish," our enemies can be relied upon to persist to the bitter end. It is for this reason only, and not because I underestimate for a moment the vast resources, the splendid organisation, the military valour of Germany, that I restrict myself in the following pages to a consideration of the possible effects of victory rather than of defeat. It would be the height of folly to anticipate victory before it is achieved; ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... economic organisation of the theatre in that age. Those who are most familiar with the dramatic and poetic art of Christopher Marlowe and the histrionic art of Edward Alleyn are the least likely to underestimate the important influence which was exerted on the early Elizabethan drama by the illiterate but crafty and enterprising manager of these great artists, Philip Henslowe. Students of the Queen Anne period may read the comedies of Congreve, but they must also read the autobiography ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... percentage on a circulation which is actually becoming a liability instead of an asset, we should reckon your salary on a basis of the paper's net earnings." As Banneker, sitting with thoughtful eyes fixed upon him, made no comment, he added: "To show that I do not underestimate your value to the paper, I propose to pay you fifteen per cent of the net earnings for the next three years. By the way, it won't be necessary hereafter, for you to give any time to the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... impressed that religious organizations as such which arise within Christianity tend to survive in proportion as they make central the significance of Christ as the revealer of the character of God. We would not for a moment underestimate the importance of those groups of Christians who take Christ merely as a prophet who lived the noblest life and exalted his truth by the noblest death. Many such believers manifest the very purest devotion ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... Bidwell did not underestimate his importance in this rush of gold-frenzied men. He was appalled by the depth and power of the streams centering upon him. For weeks he had toiled to the full stretch of his powers without sufficient sleep, and he was ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... It is good to hear things like that though I think you underestimate your own strength. I am thankful if I have helped in any degree. I have felt futile enough. We all have. At any rate the strain is about over. The telegram must have been a knock down blow though. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... any one of which would prove a valid excuse for my not doing so. To begin with, I have known Barkis ever since he was a baby. I have tossed him in the air, to his own delight and to the consternation of his mother, who feared lest I should fail to catch him on his way down, or that I should underestimate the distance between the top of his head and the ceiling on his way up. Later I have held him on my knee and told him stories of an elevating nature—mostly of my own composition—and have afterwards put these down upon paper and sold them to syndicates at great profit. So that, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... foolish to underestimate the strength of Ferdinand Ramero," Jondo replied, adding, grimly, "It has been my lot to know the best of men who could make me believe all men are good, and the worst of men who make me doubt all humanity." He clenched his fists as if ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the golf course should not be fifty yards longer. One must not be like the man who in the discussion of bimetallism a few years ago used to keep his wife awake at night expounding to her the iniquities and inequalities of a single standard. It is safer to underestimate than to overestimate the endurance and patience ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... think there is a certain justice developed among modern business women which home women do not comprehend as a rule. Oh, not that I underestimate the home women or the sheltered women. There is a distinction between the two—but I say that the business woman who earns a man's wage and does his work has a certain squareness, for want of a better term, which makes her say, 'If I earn something ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... personality and irrepressible originality have left their stamp on all his work, and have moulded his treatment, his handling, his diction, his style. We, who have been inured for centuries to Miltonic mouthings and mannerisms, are too likely to underestimate the degree of his originality. Coleridge was probably wrong when he said that "Shakespeare's poetry is characterless; that is, it does not reflect the individual Shakespeare." But he was unquestionably right when he added that "John Milton himself is in every line ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... you are not aware of the strength and tenacity of the sentiment we represent. I assure you that if you underestimate the power of the millions of thirsty mouths that speak through us, you will rue ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... contrary, I appreciate your shrewdness and kindly interest on my behalf most cordially," Tresler replied, dropping the stirrup and turning to his companion; "but, you see, there's one little weakness in the arrangement. Jake's liable to underestimate the importance of the nocturnal visits unless he knows ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... and cons as to your motive, inclination, or your position. Many try to give an answer that they think would be pleasing to you. If they think you are weary and tired, and you ask your distance from the place you may be wishing to reach, they will ridiculously underestimate the length of road. A man may have all the cardinal virtues, but if they think you do not like him, and you ask his character, they will paint him to you blacker than Satan himself. It is very hard to get the plain, unvarnished truth from a Hindoo. Many, indeed, are almost ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... or underestimate, however, the inestimable value of the services rendered by Darwin, who by his patience, industry, and rare genius for observation and experiment, and his powers of lucid exposition, convinced the world of the truth of evolution, with the result that it has transformed the philosophy of our day. ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... theory had been propounded and when he, perhaps, was the only man in the world who might have substantiated and vitalized that theory? It is easy to overestimate the influence of any single man, and, contrariwise, to underestimate the power of the Zeitgeist. But when we reflect that the doctrines of Hipparchus, as promulgated by Ptolemy, became, as it were, the last word of astronomical science for both the Eastern and Western worlds, and so continued ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... entanglement. But he could not for a moment bring himself to believe that there could have ever been any need for Helena to have recourse to the knife. He could not see Lord Loudwater resisting her when she became really angry; he must have given way. None the less, he did not underestimate the awkwardness, the danger even, of her having paid that visit and had that quarrel at such an ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... great gathering. The hotels fed us, and the liveries cared for our horses. The liquid refreshments were provided by the prohibition druggists of the town and were as free as the sunlight. There was an underestimate made on the amount of liquids required, for the town was dry about thirty minutes; but a regular train was run through from Wichita ahead of time, and the embarrassment overcome. There was an opposition line of railroad ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... Robledo—means are of no consequence in this world. What I want is results. Only don't underestimate your man. He will shoot, and I think he will ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... One must not underrate the magnificence of this long-headed idea, one must not underestimate its giant possibilities in the matter of trooping the Church solidly together and keeping it so. It squelches independent inquiry, and makes such a thing impossible, profane, criminal, it authoritatively settles every dispute that can arise. It ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all comers, with the perfect certainty of shining as he vanquished them. It is true that he could have continued them by carefully omitting Lord Henry from their midst; but he was by no means a fool, and did not underestimate the intelligence of those about him. Thus he realised the damaging effect it would be sure to have on his prestige, if he persistently manoeuvred to leave Lord Henry out; and he knew well enough how quickly women notice such things,—they ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... toward the building of complete school systems in the South. Normal schools and colleges were founded for the freedmen, and teachers trained there to man the public schools. There was the inevitable tendency of war to underestimate the prejudice of the master and the ignorance of the slave, and all seemed clear sailing out of the wreckage of the storm. Meantime, starting in this decade yet especially developing from 1885 to 1895, began the industrial revolution of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... which I think it is well to meet. He urges that "the history of religious phenomena exemplifies in the most striking manner the continuity of modern and primitive culture; but there is a tendency on the part of students to underestimate this continuity, and, by explaining it away on a theory of survivals, to lose the only opportunity we have of deducing the permanent elements of ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... persons now accept the conclusions of the Institutes, it is natural to underestimate the power that they exercised in their own day. This book was the most effective weapon of Protestantism. This was partly because of the style, but, still more because of the faultless logic. [Sidenote: His logic] The success of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... not underestimate the troubles of the man of affairs. I have lived with politicians,—with socialist politicians whose good-will was abundant and intentions constructive. The petty vexations pile up into mountains; the distracting ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... Marne settled the controversy in favor of France and her allies," he continued. "Earl Kitchener predicted a three-year war, and I believe he did not underestimate it. ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... reserve, much inferior in armament to the first line, brought the strength up to about 280,000 men. But this figure is probably an underestimate. Volunteers were enrolled in immense numbers. Some of them were men who had been exempted in the first conscription; others were Serbs from Austrian territory. The United States sent back thousands of Austrian and Macedonian Serbs who ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... full of tears. "You make too much of my poor efforts. You underestimate the effect of praise ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... desire to place at his disposition an instrument the value of which I am confident you will not underestimate. The 'Echo de la Bievre,' a specialist paper, can have a decisive influence on the election ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... his letter in its personal relation to herself had not thrilled her would be to underestimate the warmth of her friendship for him; if there was more than friendship, she would not admit it. There had been a moment when, shaken and stirred by his throbbing words, she had laid down his letter and had asked herself, palpitating, "has love come to me—at last?" But she had not answered ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... theoretic side, of rules, kinds of blow and counters, arts of drawing out and tiring an opponent, hindering but not injuring him, defensive and offensive tactics, etc., and it addresses chiefly the fundamental muscles in both training and conflict. I do not underestimate the many and great difficulties of proper purgation, but I know from both personal practise and observation that ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... sceptical about "bargains" in your search. Relatively few people underestimate the value of their possessions. Perhaps they are really willing to sell at a sacrifice "because father can't stand the cold winters any more" or "because we like to feel the place is in good hands." But it would seem more reasonable that father's declining years in Florida ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... inclination now to underestimate the effect of the Renaissance. The writers of that age were unsparingly contemptuous of their predecessors, and their verdict was for long accepted almost without question. The reaction against this has led to an undue extolling of the Middle Ages. It is true enough that many ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... confronted with six months of desperate winter on the plateau of Unaga. It was an outlook that demanded all the strength of his simple faith. He was equal to the tasks lying before him, but not for one moment did he underestimate them. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... haste slowly and with supreme discretion and self-control. He appeared to have thoroughly acquainted himself with the immense difficulties which beset an uprising of the blacks. Not once, I think, did he underestimate the strength of his foes. A past grand master in the art of intrigue among the servile population, he was equally adept in knowledge of the weak spots for attack in the defences of the slave system, knew perfectly where the masters could best be taken at a disadvantage. All the facts of his ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... had a career," he said, smiling gently, "you couldn't ruin it. You both overestimate and underestimate the world's opinion, Honora. As my wife, it will not treat you cruelly. And as for my career, as you call it, it has merely consisted in doing as best I could the work that has come to me. I have tried to serve well those who have employed me, and if my services be of value to them, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from these facts. We are all too apt to measure the gains of our pupils by their proficiency in directly reproducing in a recitation or an examination such matters as they may have learned, and inarticulate power in them is something of which we always underestimate the value. The boy who tells us, "I know the answer, but I can't say what it is," we treat as practically identical with him who knows absolutely nothing about the answer at all. But this is a great mistake. It is but a small part of our experience in life that we are ever able ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... underestimate this: we ourselves, we free spirits, are already a "Transvaluation of all Values," an incarnate declaration of war against and triumph over all old concepts of "true" and "untrue." The most precious discernments into ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... The American crew lost double in proportion to their enemy; but it did not fail to inflict a very severe punishment, and it must be added under a very considerable disadvantage, which there has been a tendency recently to underestimate. The loss of the head sails, and all that followed, is part of the fortune of war; of that unforeseeable, which great leaders admit may derange even the surest calculations. It is not, therefore, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... we seek to do full justice to the animal, let us not underestimate the vast differences between it and man. The true evolutionist takes no low view of man's present actual attainments; in his possibilities he has a larger faith than that of the disbeliever in evolution. In intelligence and thought, in will power and freedom of choice, in one ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... by Governor Curtin. To accept would be fatal to our interests in the mills. It may become an imperative duty to accept; but this war will last long, or I much underestimate the difficulties of overcoming a gallant people waging a defensive war in a country where every road and ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the resource of our own will to fall back upon, we underestimate the unsurpassed horror and anguish of such moments as this in youth, when we know only the will of others, and that this will is inexorable against us. Rousseau dared not expose himself to the fulfilment of his master's menace, and he ran away (1728). But for this, wrote the unhappy ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... here advocated implies no underestimate of little things; it only condemns want of discrimination among them. Even the painstaking German scientist is no devotee to all things that are little. Carrying on his investigation with reference to some definite problem, he is concerned only with ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... business—and I insist, Mr. Cleggett, that I am a plain business man, nothing more—I find it absolutely necessary not to communicate all my information to the layman until the case is quite perfect in all its points. But do not get the notion, Mr. Cleggett, that I underestimate the part that you have taken in the case of Logan Black. You have helped me, Mr. Cleggett. When I have my secretary prepare the case of Logan Black for magazine and newspaper publication I shall have your name mentioned as that of a person ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... stronger factor in the sexual life of women than of men. I realize the cruelty of a civilization in which war and its accessories create an artificial excess of women over men, and in consequence deprive hundreds of thousands of women of motherhood. I do not think I underestimate that cruelty or its tragic consequences. I admit the "right" of women to the exercise of their vocation and the fulfilment of ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... it on the authority of the Redemptionist Fathers, who were not likely to underestimate their adversaries, that in 1719 the Algerines who, "among all the Barbary maritime Powers are much the strongest," had but twenty-five galleons of eighteen to sixty guns, besides caravels and brigantines; and it appears ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... underestimate the gravity of the situation, or to assume that the most numerous and conservative nation on the globe has been suddenly transformed from foreign haters to foreign lovers. The world may again have occasion to realize that the momentum of countless myriads is an awful force even against the resources ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... head at Carey sorrowfully, and continued. "You said a minute ago, Carey, that I had brains. You did not underestimate me. I have. I would not have come to you this morning if I did not have the goods on you. Not much. I don't hold you that ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... where the doctor made his first slip. It never pays to underestimate your enemy. Hoffman certainly had a good story, and he told it well, but after thirteen years in the Secret Service I shouldn't trust the Archbishop of Canterbury till I'd proved his credentials. I agreed to dine at Parelli's, but I took the precaution of having two of my own men there ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... cause to complain of ill-treatment, this one has. Appreciate means, to estimate justly—to set the true value on men or things, their worth, beauty, or advantages of any sort whatsoever. Thus, an overestimate is no more appreciation than is an underestimate; hence it follows that such expressions as, "I appreciate it, or her, or him, highly," can not be correct. We value, or prize, things highly, not appreciate them highly. This word is also very improperly made to do service for rise, or increase, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... According to Admiral Sims, Allied destroyers, about 500 in all, were credited with the certain destruction of 34 enemy submarines; yachts, patrol craft, etc., over 3000 altogether, sank 31; whereas about 100 Allied submarines sank probably 20.[1] Since 202 submarines were destroyed, this may be an underestimate of the results accomplished by each type, but it indicates relative efficiency. Submarines kept the enemy beneath the surface, led him to stay farther away from the coast, and also, owing to the disastrous consequences that might ensue ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... muttered the elder man, gravely. Then, as he got up and bade his young assistant good night, the somberness had returned to his eyes and the weight to his shoulders. He did not underestimate his responsibility nor the nature of his task, and he felt the coming of nameless and unknown events ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Power in the world too great or too sacred to be used by Goodness for the suppression of Evil. Religion—true religion—not forms or ceremonies, but inspired purpose—should take possession of the governments of the world and enforce justice! The purified individual soul we may not underestimate. These are the swept and garnished habitations in which the angels dwell, and look with unpolluted eyes upon the world. But this is not all. To make a few virtuous where the many are vicious is to place goodness at a disadvantage. To teach the people patience and innocence in the midst ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... herself with such engaging toys? Vivacity and prettiness and cruelty are the ordinary attributes of kittenhood. So you amused yourself. And I submitted with clear eyes, because I could not help it. Yes, I who am by nature not disposed to underestimate my personal importance—I submitted, because your mockery was more desirable than the adoration of any other woman. And all this helped to make a master-poet of me. Eh, why not, when such monstrous passions spoke through ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... wolves taught their fair pursuers to underestimate the ferocious nature of the beasts, as ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Balboa, first of Europeans (1513), set eyes upon the great South Sea. It soon became only too certain that the Portuguese had won in the race for the land of cloves, pepper, and nutmegs. But, in the absence of knowledge of the true dimensions of the earth and with an underestimate of its size generally prevailing, the information that the Spice Islands lay far to the east of India revived in the mind of Magellan the original project of Columbus to seek the land of spices by the westward ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... no possibility of an accurate chronological chart, the worker may undertake more than he can do, thus delaying work which should have been done by others. On the other hand, he may underestimate his capacity, and be left idle because work he should have done has been assigned to others. Either of these leads to a sense of insecurity, to wavering attention, to "hit or miss" guess work, "rule-of-thumb methods," which are the signs of ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... Turkish soldier's bravery, and his unusual ability to endure hardship. No one who has wrangled with a minor Turkish official, and experienced the impassive resistance he is able to interpose to anything he doesn't want to do, will underestimate what this quality might become, translated into the rugged physique and impassivity of the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... morality of the past, and it is important, even in order to understand the morality of the present, that we should be able to put ourselves in the place of those for whom birth control was immoral. To speak of birth control as having been immoral in the past is, indeed, to underestimate the case; it was not only immoral, it was unnatural, it was even irreligious, it was almost criminal. We must remember that throughout the Christian world the Divine Command, "Increase and Multiply," has seemed to echo down the ages from the beginning of the world. It was the authoritative command ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... is now beyond question that Thomas made all those elaborate preparations to attack an enemy of less than half his own strength, under the belief that his adversary was at least equal in strength to himself. That Hood then knew his own exact strength is a matter of course, and that he did not underestimate the strength of his adversary is almost equally certain. During the two weeks in which his army lay in front of Nashville, if not before, he must have ascertained very closely the strength of the Union forces in his front. Hence Hood's "siege" of Nashville for two weeks could not be regarded ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... has returned to the seat of Government. The itinerary appears to have been somewhat prematurely cut short; but no one is likely to so ridiculously underestimate the sterling qualities of His Honour as to conceive the possibility of his absence when difficulty and danger imperatively command his presence at the head of public affairs. The conclusions which Mr. Kruger has derived from converse with his faithful ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... not underestimate the difficulties that we face in this mutual effort among our close neighbors, but the free states of this hemisphere, working in close collaboration, have begun to make this alliance a living reality. Today it is feeding one out of every four school age children in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... We should not underestimate the value of meditation and silence to the public speaker. These are necessary for original and profound thinking, for the cultivation of the imagination, and for the accumulation of thought. But conversation offers an immediate outlet for this stored-up knowledge, testing it ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser |
