"Hypercritical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frank, her sister quaint and not given much to speech. Madeline thought she would like to have these women near her if she were ill or in trouble. And she reproached herself for a fastidiousness, a hypercritical sense of refinement that could not help distinguishing what these ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... another thing. The same objection would apply to the use of the word Standard; so that the only form of the first question of Ethics would be, What is morality? What does it consist in? [The remark is just, but somewhat hypercritical. The illustration from Chemical testing is not true in fact; the test of gold is some essential attribute of gold, as its weight. And when we wish to determine as to a certain act, whether it is a moral act, we compare it with what we deem the essential quality of moral acts—Utility, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... he arranged himself in the chair, "is an extremely pleasant place if one takes it as it is, and does not quarrel with it. One must not be intolerant, and one must not be hypercritical. See it all and make allowances for the weakness of the human beings who ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... value if rural sociology is a real thing. There is far too much theorising about the countryman and the countrywoman, far too much idealising of them and far too much rating of them as clods. If country people of all lands are free-spoken let us be neither hypercritical nor hypocritical. A big gap seems to yawn between the paddy-field peasant in his breech clout and the immaculate clubman, but what difference is there between the savour of the average Bon song and of many a smoking-room jest which is not to the credit of the peasant? ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... please him; she lived for nothing but to please him; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to please, not in the least because he was hypercritical and exacting, but because he was indifferent. Constance, in order to satisfy her desire of pleasing, had to make fifty efforts, in the hope that he might chance to notice one. He was a good man, amazingly industrious—when once Constance had got him ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... in Europe, the temper of the eighteenth century was cold, dissatisfied, and hypercritical. Old principles were called in question, and the literary man, the statesman, the philosopher, and the theologian found their tasks to be mainly those of attack or defence. The opinions of the nation and the sentiments which they prompted were neither speculative nor ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... destruction, and charred marks upon the handsome sideboard and table showed where glowing cigarette stumps had suffered a negligent demise. The spaniel was allowed to worry bits of food that left marks on the rug; his owner ate without appetite and in a hypercritical mood that took no account of the wasteful attempts to please her. Quite regardless of the patient little Jap, she alternately found fault with him and discussed with her guest matters of so frank a nature that Lorelei was often ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... Articles, viz. Discovery of some of Shakspeare's Manuscripts, with Extracts therefrom; Shakspearian Deeds and other Relics; Shakspeare's Knowledge of Geography and the Classics vindicated from Hypercritical and Pedantic Commentators; Curious Old Song, by John Grange; Notes on the Tempest, Gentlemen of Verona, and Merry Wives of Windsor; Shakspeare and Bartholomew Fair; Dr. William Kenrick's Lectures ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... seldom marry canaries, nor do the latter drink ginger beer to any considerable extent. But George will not notice these discrepancies. He is not hypercritical." ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... you into the commission of a great wrong upon an innocent woman, it is a sacred duty to your victim, as well as my privilege as your betrothed, to alleviate her suffering as much as possible, and to repair the injury for which you are responsible. When human life and reputation are at stake, hypercritical fastidiousness is less pardonable than the deplorable mistake ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a minute—only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next his heart—or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... methods of politicians was followed by a strong animosity towards those who crossed his political path and some of those who went along beside it. He became hypercritical of those with whom he associated and allowed a natural germ of cynicism to develop and flourish within him. Little by little he has withdrawn from the active combat, a philosopher in politics enamored of public life but unwilling to ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... is a science founded in our nature, referable to our ideas of time, relation, method; imperfect, doubtless, as to the system by which it is represented; but surely we can speak of error in that which is error's criterion! All this is hypercritical, but hypercriticism must be ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... fancy I am a hypercritical old fogy!" he said, and sighed a little, while once more the anxious look crept into his face. "Just now I wish devoutly I was ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... episode which I observed last summer, and which I have endeavored to picture as true to the life as possible in the accompanying presentment The sceptic will perhaps remark on examination that the scene is characterized by somewhat too free a license to warrant the ideal of a "picnic." But he is hypercritical. There are picnics and picnics—picnics of high and of low degree. Do I not recall more than one notorious festive outing of the "next lower than the angels" in which the personnel seemed about similarly proportioned, and the fun and attraction ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... further influence on the progress of science than is now exerted by the large and converging bodies of evidence which leave no other rational theory open to us than that such transmutation has taken place. Therefore, it seems to me, the hypercritical objection which we are considering is really founded on a misconception of scientific method, and of what it is that justifies a scientific doctrine. Assuredly, in the case of every theory, as distinguished from a demonstration, ...
— The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution • George John Romanes
... been unknown to me: at home Father was strict, Ananta often severe. But Sri Yukteswar's training cannot be described as other than drastic. A perfectionist, my guru was hypercritical of his disciples, whether in matters of moment or in ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the note over with hypercritical sensitiveness to its defects, but decided that it must do. Besides, she had used the last sheet of note-paper in the rack on her desk; more was not obtainable without a trip to the living-room. Then in desperation she appended, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... questions involved are intensely interesting, hence my queries. I hope they do not read as if I were hypercritical or sceptical. ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... are trifles—mere spots on the sun one might say, were but the surface on which they appear altogether sunlike—and I leave them without additional remark except that, although it may perhaps have been hypercritical to point them out, still the language of a new philosophy, claiming to supersede all old ones, ought to be proof even against hypercriticism. I pass on to a generalisation, termed by Mr. Mill 'the key to Comte's other generalisations: one on which ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... being again deemed hypercritical, while on this subject, the misapplication of terms, I must question the correctness of the phrase "Under the circumstance." A thing must be in or amidst its circum-stances; it cannot be under them. I admit the commonness of the expression, but ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... am I, that I should satirize my brethren?—Yet, wo is me—if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart. Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "tu quoque:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it. Heaven send to him that writes, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... thirdly, she doesn't seem to be "beckoning;" and, fourthly, though the horse is being pulled back, probably on the "curb," yet, if the author means that the carriage is being pulled up against the pavement, then why didn't he say so, and write it "kerb?" I like being a trifle hypercritical just now and then, says THE BARON ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... appeared at breakfast, for Clay's was not a house wherein one felt encouraged to coddle themselves without exceptional reason, and to all but a suspicious or hypercritical ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... apparent those gifts that were to make him a power among men. It was with a lofty but trembling hope that the young novice began his first service that June morning, before a congregation known to be hypercritical, composed as it was of seasoned city communicants, hardened listeners and watchers, who would appraise his vestments, voice, manner, appearance, and sermon, in the light of ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... to it, [Footnote: As You Like It.] because the design and import of his picture required them. Here he considered himself entitled to take the greatest liberties. He had not to do with a hair-splitting, hypercritical age like ours, which is always seeking in poetry for something else than poetry; his audience entered the theatre, not to learn true chronology, geography, and natural history, but to witness a ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... ways responsible for the atmosphere. Merely in her conversation she can be of service or dis-service. It may be simply a good joke which she is telling, but if the joke misrepresents the school she will, perhaps, do lasting harm. If she is hypercritical—and there is nothing so contagious as criticism—she influences people in the direction of her thought; she sets a current of criticism in motion. A student frequently gives vent to an opinion that is only half-baked—it is well, ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... organization, the New York Court of Appeals declares no state in the Union has authority to enact, because the Constitution of the United States forbids its enactment. The Court recognizes the need for a change in the Law. "We desire," says the Court, "to present no purely technical or hypercritical obstacles to any plan for the beneficent reformation of a branch of our jurisprudence in which, it may be conceded, reform is a consummation devoutly to be wished." It presents forcibly, appreciatively, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... business in Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' employ. It was open to the lenient to believe that she depended on some mysterious private income. There were people who preferred to try to believe this, but there were those who, in some occult way, knew exactly where her income came from. There were, in fact, hypercritical persons who did not know or notice her, but she had quite an entertaining, smart circle which neither suspicions nor beliefs prevented from placing her in their visiting lists. Coombe DID keep it up in the most perfect manner, some of them said admiringly among themselves. He showed ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had appeared equal to "Mary Barton"?' Then the style of the book is slovenly, and given to a kind of phraseology which would be vulgar even as colloquial English. Oh, it is a powerful book in many ways. You are not to set me down as hypercritical. Probably the author will, write herself clear of many of her faults: she has strength enough. As to 'In Memoriam,' I have seen it, I have read it—dear Mr. Kenyon had the goodness to send it to me by an American traveller—and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... a heavy run just now against the "physical force" doctrine. It seems to me that some of its opponents are somewhat hypercritical. For many, many years romancists persisted in attributing to their principal heroes every point of bodily perfection and accomplishment; no one thought then of caviling at such a well-understood and established type. That most fertile and meritorious of writers, for instance, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... "He is certainly hypercritical, yet I have found him kind and gentlemanly, even courteous. Our correspondence is entirely attributable to the fact that I ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... wrong. I will not be hypercritical, or I might suggest that in that case the words would have been "thither wend;" but I maintain that the change is contrary to the sense. The spirit of Hermione never could have been intended to say that the child should be left ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... at his snowballs;—perhaps after all he had been hypercritical, perhaps one or two of those pages might be rescued and smoothed out and made to answer. After all, who else would be the better or the worse for it? All the public wanted of him was a piquant flavour ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner |
