"Undiscerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... works had been loudly applauded by undiscerning people, but he was now heartily ashamed of them, and hoped in the end to do something altogether different from Sordello and Paracelsus. He had strong ambition and great confidence in himself, and ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... of letters have been known to have risen from their death-bed to destroy their MSS. So solicitous have they been not to venture their posthumous reputation in the hands of undiscerning friends. Colardeau, the elegant versifier of Pope's epistle of Eliosa to Abelard, had not yet destroyed what he had written of a translation of Tasso. At the approach of death, he recollected his unfinished labour; he knew that his friends would not have the courage to annihilate ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... destroying her last chance of ever being owned or claimed by her parents; she would have understood that, although she loved the child very dearly, she was committing a most cruel act. But she thought only of how she loved her. Yet, undiscerning as she was, she was puzzled about her daughter's happiness. If she was really so happy, why did she spend long hours in reverie—why sit with folded hands, looking with such sad eyes at the passing clouds? That did not look like happiness. Why those heavy sighs, and the color that ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... be glad to see "the mare," and I longed for the free sunlit world of which she was a part, as for a tonic. But this was, of course, impossible. So long as hard undiscerning materialism ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... violation of the highest code of ethics. Presents, presents, nothing but presents, of every kind and degree, from the solid silver tea-set of exquisitely fluted pattern to the excruciatingly ugly bit of bric-a-brac which has captivated the undiscerning eye of some dear friend. After every ring at the door-bell appears the maid with a fresh parcel wrapped in snow-white paper fastened with a dainty ribbon, and on each occasion my dear Josie's eyes sparkle more ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... of Simon, Lord Lovat. "As they were associates in crime, so they were companions in sepulchre," observes a modern writer, "being buried in the same grave."[398] But the more discriminative judge of the human heart will spurn so rash, and undiscerning a remark; and marvel that, in the course of one contest, characters so differing in principle, so unlike in every attribute of the heart, and viewed, even by their enemies, with sentiments so totally opposite, should thus be mingled ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... too-elaborate epistles of BEMBO, secretary to Leo X., and the more elegant correspondence of ANNIBAL CARO; a work which, though posthumous, and published by an affectionate nephew, and therefore too undiscerning a publisher, is ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... himself to speak and act as in the presence of "an innumerable company of angels, and of the spirits of just men made perfect, and of God the Judge of all;" the consciousness of their approbation cheers and gladdens his soul, under the scoffs and reproaches of an undiscerning world, and to his delighted ear, their united praises form a harmony which a few discordant ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... some with honours crown'd; Unlike successes equal merits found: So her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns. And, undiscerning, scatters ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... of such people as yourself and Marianne will make amends for the regard of Lady Middleton and her mother. If their praise is censure, your censure may be praise, for they are not more undiscerning, than you are prejudiced ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... next meeting of the Re-Echo Club there was achieved a vindication of the limerick. "It has been said," remarked the President of the Re-Echo Club, "by ignorant and undiscerning would-be critics that the Limerick is not among the classic and best forms of poetry, and, indeed, some have gone so far as to say that it ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... philosophers, pursued the characteristic feminine course of clinging to the subject on which she was informed. The undiscerning have called this habit of mind irrelevant, but wrongly. The feminine intellect leaps like a grasshopper; the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... answer. We were oppressed by the injustice of the world, surprised to perceive how long we had lived under its burden without realising our unfortunate state, annoyed by the uneasy suspicion of our undiscerning stupidity. Donkin assured us it was all our "good 'eartedness," but we would not be consoled by such shallow sophistry. We were men enough to courageously admit to ourselves our intellectual shortcomings; though from that time we refrained from kicking him, tweaking his nose, or from accidentally ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... attendance at Bela's dinner, and a full house at night. To their undiscerning eyes Bela seemed to be her old self. That is to say, she was not moping over what had happened. A wise man would have guessed that she was taking it much too quietly; he would have seen the danger signals in that unnaturally quick eye. Bela had dropped her usual air of reserve. To-night she seemed ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... whose Care Heaven has entrusted its dear Emilia, guide her still forward in the Paths of Virtue, defend her from the Insolence and Wrongs of this undiscerning World; at length when we must no more converse with such Purity on Earth, lead her gently hence innocent and unreprovable to a better Place, where by an easie Transition from what she now is, she may shine forth an Angel ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... an ecstasy of joyful anticipation of the rapid and triumphal entrance into Paris, was a repetition of Vienna. True, in the beginning, Americans, mistaken for Englishmen by some of the undiscerning, had been roughly treated, but a hint from those in high authority changed that. In like manner, well-meaning patriots who persisted in indiscriminately mobbing all members of the yellow race were urged to ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... undiscerning, such fits of silence, even of gloom, were natural enough in a man whose life was spent largely in the service of the sick and suffering among humanity. He was probably worried over some difficult case, Sir Richard concluded, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... very liable to sick-headaches, and that it was a very unfortunate thing for her, because he didn't enjoy going into company with her, and it seemed odd to go so much alone, when they were just married. Augustine was glad in his heart that he had married so undiscerning a woman; but as the glosses and civilities of the honeymoon wore away, he discovered that a beautiful young woman, who has lived all her life to be caressed and waited on, might prove quite a hard mistress in domestic life. Marie never had ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "Appear! "Good were it to be ever here. "If thou wilt, let me build to thee "Service-tabernacles three, "Where, forever in thy presence, "In ecstatic acquiescence, "Far alike from thriftless learning "And ignorance's undiscerning, "I may worship and remain!" Thus at the show above me, gazing With upturned eyes, I felt my brain Glutted with the glory, blazing Throughout its whole mass, over and under Until at length it burst asunder And out of it bodily there streamed, The too-much glory, as it seemed, ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... to poverty without dismay. Perhaps I make light of its evils because I have never tried them. I am indeed a weak and undiscerning creature. Yet nothing but experience will correct my error, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... has its root In reason, is judicious, manly, free; Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, And licks the foot that treads it in the dust. Were kingship as true treasure as it seems, Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish, I would not be a king to be beloved Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning praise, Where love is more attachment to the throne, Not to the man who fills ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... scythe; or he creates a service wholly new, as when he bids a landscape depict itself on a photographic plate. He, and his twin brother, the discoverer, have eyes to read a lesson that Nature has held for ages under the undiscerning gaze of other men. Where an ordinary observer sees, or thinks he sees, diversity, a Franklin detects identity, as in the famous experiment here recounted which proves lightning to be one and the same with a charge of the Leyden jar. Of a later ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... after it had been resented. Dorothea had thought that she could have been patient with John Milton, but she had never imagined him behaving in this way; and for a moment Mr. Casaubon seemed to be stupidly undiscerning and odiously unjust. Pity, that "new-born babe" which was by-and-by to rule many a storm within her, did not "stride the blast" on this occasion. With her first words, uttered in a tone that shook him, she startled ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... that had been made to me, since the day of my dining with the bishop! My heart bounded while he spoke! It was with difficulty I could contain my joy; and the effort must have been much greater, had not the brother of Olivia been the dull undiscerning Hector Mowbray. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... shuddered at the sound of her husband's voice. She did not uncover her face. The trusted secret agent of the late Baron Stott-Wartenheim looked at her for a time with a heavy, persistent, undiscerning glance. The torn evening paper was lying at her feet. It could not have told her much. Mr Verloc felt the need of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... invincibility about his appearance which, combined with his swiftness in action and the devastating severity of all his attacks, served to win for him the submissive respect of almost every dog he met. Occasionally, and upon a first meeting, some careless, undiscerning dog would overlook these qualities. The same dog never made the same ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... and the thought was like death to him, for without fame—without raising himself a name and a position above the common masses—he felt he could not live. Again, he would lay the whole blame on the undiscerning publishers to whom his poetry had been sent; he would anathematize them all with the fierce bitterness of a soul which was, alas! unsubdued in many respects by the softening and humbling influences of the religion of Christ. He had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... litter for pig-sties; and since these things still seemed to go on almost as well after the enclosure as before it, how should the people have imagined that their ancient mode of life had been cut off at the roots, and that it had really begun to die where it stood, under their undiscerning eyes? ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... blighted by hearing of some adventurous soul who, having escaped to the Union army, had been pursued and returned again to bondage. Yet hope survived all these disasters which gathered around the fate of their unfortunate brethren, who were remanded to slavery through the undiscerning folly of those who were strengthening the hands which were dealing their deadliest blows at the heart of the Nation. But slavery had cast such a glamour over the Nation, and so warped the consciences of men, that they failed to read aright ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... of Christ is not one whit less idolatrous than the Buddhist who worships a bronze statue of Amida Butzu. All that the common people are capable of seeing is the soul-envelope, for the soul itself they are unable to appreciate. Spiritually they are undiscerning, because imaginatively ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most, as an uncertain obscurity which mankind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I would for his want of a musical ear, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... made a dash for the attic, our story of which had stirred them deeply. It was necessary to restrain them somewhat. In the first place, our attic was not a possession to be pawed over by careless and undiscerning childhood. Besides, it was hot up there under the roof, and gray with the dust of years. It was a place for a cool, rainy day and not for a ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... conscience of the sinner blind the eyes of the onlookers. People are sentimental; and bastinado wrongdoing not according to its harmfulness, but according to the infamy that has come to attach to it. Undiscerning, they chastise with scorpions the old authentic sins, but spare the new. They do not see that blackmail is piracy, that embezzlement is theft, that speculation is gambling that deleterious adulteration is murder. The cloven hoof hides in patent leather; and today, as in Hosea's time, the people ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... than Cooper; no one has caught and reproduced more broadly and accurately the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and even the aspects of Nature in this our Western world. He was a patriot to the very core of his heart; he loved his country with a fervid, but not an undiscerning love: it was an intelligent, vigilant, discriminating affection that bound his heart to his native land; and thus, while no man defended his country more vigorously when it was in the right, no one reproved its faults more courageously, or gave warning and advice ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... hoodwink, dazzle, put one's eyes out; throw dust into one's eyes, pull the wool over one's eyes; jeter de la poudre aux yeux [Fr.]; screen from sight &c (hide) 528. Adj. blind; eyeless, sightless, visionless; dark; stone-blind, sand- blind, stark-blind; undiscerning^; dimsighted &c 443. blind as a bat, blind as a buzzard, blind as a beetle, blind as a mole, blind as an owl; wall-eyed. blinded &c v.. Adv. blindly, blindfold, blindfolded; darkly. Phr. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... I thought they were gone past returning Till Time should go back on his tracks, Those days of a child's undiscerning But fervent devotion to wax; Could a heart, though admittedly restive, Recapture that innocent mood At sixty next birthday? I'm blest if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... frequent allusions to it under the name of atheism,(380) in contemporary sermons and theological books, proves its existence. Indeed the reaction contained the very elements which were likely to foster unbelief among undiscerning minds. The court set a sad example of impurity; and the excessive claims of the churchmen, alien to the spirit of political and religious liberty, were calculated to generate an antipathy to the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... the quality of goodness.[305] But that constancy, O Arjuna, by which one holds to religion, desire, and profit, through attachment, desiring fruit, that constancy, O son of Pritha, is of the quality of passion. That through which an undiscerning person abandons not sleep, fear, sorrow, despondency, and folly, that constancy is deemed to be of the quality of darkness. Hear now from me, O bull of Bharata's race, of the three kinds of happiness. That in which one findeth pleasure ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Johnson has sideways staggered, With the old wolf inside of him unfed; And Savage roamed, with visage lean and haggard, Longing for bread. And next in note, Dear worthy Goldsmith with his gaudy coat, Unheeded by the undiscerning folks; There Garrick too has sped, And, light of heart, he cracked his playful jokes— Yet though he walked, on Foote he cracked them not; And Steele, and Fielding, Butler, Swift, and Pope— Who filled the world with laughter, joy, and hope; And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... justified. They found Fanny in a state of utter consternation, and even Mrs Grove not quite able to conceal how much she was put about. Mrs Tilman had been taken suddenly ill again, and even the undiscerning Fanny could not fail to understand the nature of her illness, when she found her unable to speak, with a black bottle lying on the bed beside her. Mrs Grove was inclined to make light of the matter, saying ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson |
