"Common people" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he was about two pike-lengths from the gate, the balcony above it, which was full of people, fell; some were killed, others crippled or maimed, and others bruised. Among them were friars and lay-brothers, negroes and whites. With these events, the common people began ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... Chosen People of the Lord! It bred in them scorn of the Gentiles, for which there was no solvent in the Roman polity, the Roman citizenship, the Roman peace.—There must have been always noble protest-ants among them. The common people,—as the picture in the Gospels shows,—were ready enough to fraternize humanly with Gentiles and Romans; but the fact remains that at the time Judaism gave birth to Christianity, this narrow fierce antagonism to all other religions ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... produced in Ireland on the mind of common people by the action of Government in enforcing the ultimate sanction of law which the members of that same Government by their action and by their inaction had brought into contempt. In England, in the meanwhile, a new Military Service Bill was going through the House, and naturally attempts ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... providence of God. And many that were prevailed on by them suffered the punishments of their folly; for Felix brought them back, and then punished them. Moreover, there came out of Egypt [20] about this time to Jerusalem one that said he was a prophet, and advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city, and at the distance of five furlongs. He said further, that he would show them from hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down; and he ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... though not correctly, yet well enough to make my thoughts avail in the cultivated society here, where it is much spoken. But to know the common people, and to feel truly in Italy, I ought to speak and understand the spoken Italian well, and I am now cultivating this sedulously. If I remain, I shall have, for many reasons, advantages for observation and enjoyment, such as are seldom ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... has had more than a century of capitalism. The workers have had ample opportunity to see the system at work. The people of all the great capitalist countries—the common people—have borne the burdens and felt the crushing weight of capitalism—in its enslavement of little children; in its underpaying of women; in long hours of unremitting, monotonous toil; in the dreadful housing; ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... what's going to happen over there," she asserted. "They do say that royalties are everywhere, going about like common people. You'd better have a good ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the great success which those called Methodists[1348] have. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregations; a practice, for which they will be praised by men of sense[1349]. To insist against drunkenness as a crime, because ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Rollo very much, was to see the wooden shoes that were worn by the common people in the streets. These shoes appeared to Rollo to be very large and clumsy; but even the little children wore them, and the noise that they made, clattering about the pavements with ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... anybody; she's quite different from common people. How I wish she'd hurry and come out again. She promised to kiss her hand to me from the horse's back, Papa. Won't that ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... regarded it as the first attempt which had ever been witnessed on an extensive scale to establish the principles of Atheism, as the first attempt to popularize these principles by means of a literature addressed and adapted to the common people, and as the first systematic attempt to undermine the foundations, and to innovate on the very substance of Morals.[24] But if we compare the first with the new Encyclopedie,—the former concocted by ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... [18] The common people, who at Athens were as superstitious as everywhere else, took delight in oracles, especially when they were favourable, and Cleon served them up to suit their taste and to advance his ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... three sides of the building; the small rooms under the lowest, answered to our present boxes and were called rooms; the yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use, and where the common people stood to see the exhibition; from which circumstance they are called by Shakspeare "the groundlings," and by Ben Jonson, "the understanding gentlemen of the ground." The stage was erected in the area, with its back to the gateway ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... scavenger, and the wise men taught the people to respect him as a means of preserving the race undiminished. The common people have always a profound contempt for the beings who do their dirty work, and contempt with them goes before enmity. In this the Egyptians would only show that they were a Southern people, and so had much dirty work to do. And in this connection I must say, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... thy gentleness be shown to women and to those that creep on the floor (little children) and to poets, and be not violent to the common people." ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... expired and the new Kan year appeared; then they took the statue of Bolon-Zacab to the temple and the other idol to the heap of stones at the east side of the village, where it was to remain during the year, doubtless intended as a constant reminder to the common people of ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... plebians were merely trenches, in which were deposited some gourds of maize and wine, and the place filled with stones. In some parts of Panama and Darien only the chiefs and lords received funeral rites. Among the common people a person feeling his end approaching either went himself or was led to the woods by his wife, family, or friends, who, supplying him with some cake or ears of corn and a gourd of water, then left him to die alone or to be assisted ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... monotonous uniformity threatens the social world. Even as it is, everybody who entertains his friends at dinner is much the same as everybody else, be he in Monmouth or Macedon. Distinctive characteristics of race are found more easily in the common people, who are less amenable to the change of fashion than their superiors. Baroness B—— had a complete repertory of robber stories, some of which are so characteristic that I ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... common people treat the priests respectfully, but once I heard several attacking one warmly on the score of eternal punishment. "Sara," said one, "per cento anni, per cinque cento, per mille o forse per dieci mille anni, ma non sara eterna; perche il Dio e un uomo ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... mild; he would have no difficulty in finding another partner, if not of his own sex, then the other—why not? he asked himself. The owner of a ledge like that one might afford luxuries beyond those of the common people. In this way he ruminated, standing with his hands in pockets alongside the boat he was expected ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... servants. They seem to show that he sprang from servants or common people rather than from lords and masters, for he deals with them very gently. It must be understood that servants, bond and free, were born unto the same house and served it for generations; and so down to modern England, where the old nurse and the tottering old gardener often nursed and ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... felt to-day that the air was cold or the wind piercing; happiness created summer in their hearts, and they felt not that it was winter. On every side the windows were open, and beautiful women were awaiting the appearance of their adored sovereign with as much curiosity and impatience as the common people in the streets, who were longing to ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Europeans have never possessed a healthy house, because at all times common people have had to work day after day to satisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary leisure or money to build, or to have built, the home of their dreams. And they can have no houses, and will inhabit hovels as long as ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... towne. And their dayes being expired, if any man remaine there, they are euill vsed and imprisoned. The Chinians are very suspitious, and doe not trust strangers. It is thought that the king doth not know that any strangers come into his countrey. And further it is credibly reported that the common people see their king very seldome or not at all, nor may not looke vp to that place where he sitteth. And when he rideth abroad he is caried vpon a great chaire or serrion gilded very faire, wherein there is made a little house, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... All the preference given him, consists in this; that when a ship arrives, he is allowed to go first on board, and to make the bargain, if they have any thing to barter. They are commonly good-natured men, disposed to make and preserve peace among the common people. In every other respect they live and act like the rest, get drunk, commit fornication, and, when there is, as they say, a necessity for it, murder; and are equally lazy and unclean. But they can use their tongues ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... head, to consult the Wise Woman. The Aldermen were all very fleshy, and carried gold-headed canes which they swung very high at every step. They held their heads well back, and their chins stiff, and whenever they met common people they sniffed gently. They ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... "I have been mistaken about you; that is, not altogether, but in part. You are not rich folks, it seems, but you are not common people, and that I could have sworn. What I call a shame is, that some people I have known are not in your place and you in theirs—you with their estates and borough interest, they in this dingle with these carts and animals; but there is no help for these things. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... tents, and breathed, both day and night, the pure air of heaven. And when they became scattered abroad to colder climes, the open fire-place secured a full supply of pure air. But civilization has increased economies and conveniences far ahead of the knowledge needed by the common people for their healthful use. Tight sleeping-rooms, and close, air-tight stoves, are now starving and poisoning more than one half of this nation. It seems impossible to make people know their danger. And the remedy for this is the light of knowledge and intelligence which it ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... fully of the subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled "The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." It was well receiv'd by the common people in general; but the rich men dislik'd it, for it increas'd and strengthen'd the clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers among them that were able to answer it, their opposition slacken'd, and the point was carried by a majority in the House. My friends there, who conceiv'd ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... Oh! Do you like what I say? I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man's life is that that is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... twenty years are dispelled by a common sorrow. Love follows sympathy. Over this open grave the cypress and willow are indissolubly united, and into it are buried all sectional differences and hatreds. The North and the South rise from bended knees to embrace in the brotherhood of a common people and reunited country. Not this alone, but the humanity of the civilized world has been quickened and elevated, and the English-speaking people are nearer to-day in peace and unity than ever before. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... preventing Captain Preston from being murdered by the mob, "Government might be reconciled to the removal of the troops." There was much outside clamor, and those who indulged in it could not reconcile to themselves "six hundred regular troops giving way to two or three thousand common people, who, they say, would not have dared to attack them, if they had stood their ground"; and this class regarded the affair "as a successful bully." Colonel Barre, in the House of Commons, disposed of the question in a few words: "The officers agreed in sending the soldiers to Castle William; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... of this text consists in this, that it gives us an idea of the esoteric doctrine of the Egyptian priests, which was clearly pantheistic, and which certainly differed from the polytheistic worship of the common people. ...
— Egyptian Literature
... penny for a postage stamp. When he has paid it, he is simply allowed to take his own property where he wishes to take it, and do with it what he wishes to do. It is quite likely that this octroi may have something to do with the disinclination of the common people in France to part with small change as readily as do the Americans, and even the English. They must always have 'money in the pocket' if they want to bring a sausage and a bottle of beer through a 'barrier,' whereas an American is never called upon to pay cash down to his Government except ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... feel bound in honour to justify the trust he has placed in its patronage. I told him that all my friends, when they were in want of a doctor, would send for him; those who are my friends will do so. What the Hill does, plenty of common people down there will do also,—so that question is settled!" And ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know that Pepin had great excuses—if not for helping to destroy the Lombards—yet still for supporting the power of the Popes. It seemed to him—and perhaps it was—the only practical method of uniting the German tribes into one common people, and stopping the internecine wars by which they were tearing themselves to pieces. It seemed to him—and perhaps it was—the only practical method for civilizing and Christianizing the still wild tribes, Frisians, Saxons, and Sclaves, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... board of commissioners her majesty's government is responsible. Under these circumstances, my lords, I venture again to say, what I before said, that it is not a discreet act of authority to recall from power—to recall from such an important what not, is one thing; to excite the common people of the country to approach as near as possible to the commission of crime, and to do all the mischief that is possible to be done to the country, without exposing one's own person, is another thing; ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered just where it was most needed—among the operatives and "the common people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner, stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society. Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He always ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... little feet across the floors; these gentlemen being the rats, mice, and other gnawing, thieving, and crafty animals, of whom the citizens and housewives complain. When they saw the shrew-mouse they took fright, and all remained shyly at the threshold of their dens. Among these common people, in spite of the danger, one old infidel of the trotting, nibbling race of mice, advanced a little, and putting his nose in the air, had the courage to stare my lord shrew-mouse full in the face, although the latter was proudly squatted upon his rump, with his ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... was agreed to wait till Candlemas, when more Knights might be there, and meanwhile the same two men who had been chosen before watched the sword night and day; but at Candlemas it was the same thing, and at Easter. And when Pentecost came, the common people who were present, and saw Arthur pull out the sword, cried with one voice that he was their King, and they would kill any man who said differently. Then rich and poor fell on their knees before him, and ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... curious, and yet so unfailing, that Bootea, with her hyper-intuition should have found, selected this spiritual tutor from the horde of gurus, byragies, and yogis that were connecting links between the tremendous pantheon of grotesque gods and the common people. Here she had come to an intellectual, though no doubt an ascetic; one possessed of fierce fervour in his ministry. There would be no swaying of that will force developed to the keen flexible unflawed temper of ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... an answer of defiance, and made a Bushreen write in Arabic, upon a piece of thin board, a sort of proclamation, which was suspended to a tree in the public square; and a number of aged men were sent to different places to explain it to the common people. This proclamation called upon all the friends of Daisy to join him immediately; but to such as had no arms, or were afraid to enter into the war, permission was given to retire into any of the neighbouring ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... beauty was so felt by the Italians that their art revived, as we know, the almost lost idea of beauty, and the serious and successful pursuit of it. Cardinal Antonelli,[461] speaking to me about the education of the common people in Rome, said that they were illiterate, indeed, but whoever mingled with them at any public show, and heard them pass judgment on the beauty or ugliness of what came before them,—"e brutto," "e bello,"—would ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Come, come! In my country we have dancers, but they are paid for it. Our wives are never permitted to dance themselves. That is all very well for the common people!" ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... you have produced as precedents." No doubt princes have violated the law of this country: they have suffered for it. Nobles have violated the law: their privileges have not protected them from punishment. Common people have violated the law: they have been hanged for it. I know no human being exempt from the law. The law is the security of the people of England; it is the security of the people of India; it is the security of every person ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Judaism, and in its concentration of thought on ethical problems and on the moral life of the individual, it powerfully prepared for Christianity. It was not a religion, for it had neither any historical root nor any belief and practice definite enough for the guidance of the common people. Yet Christianity could not have ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... "Gude Wallace" has been ascribed to this age; and if scarcely bearing the impress of such antiquity, it may have had its prototype in another of similar strain. Many songs, according to the elder Scottish historians, were composed and sung among the common people both in celebration of Wallace ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... flower-pots; and then Mr. Cymon Tuggs; and then Miss Tuggs; and laughing, too, quite boisterously. But as the captain said, it didn't matter; who knew what they were, there? For all the people of the house knew, they might be common people. To which Mr. Joseph Tuggs responded, 'To be sure.' And then they went down the steep wooden steps a little further on, which led to the bottom of the cliff; and looked at the crabs, and the seaweed, and the eels, till it was more than fully ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... double-taxed to another set of landholders and another set of priests? Have men no self-interest, no avarice, no repugnance to public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive minds, no undisciplined habits? Is there nothing in the whole mob of irregular passions, which might precipitate some of the common people, in some places, to quarrel with a legal, because they feel it to be a burdensome imposition? According to these gentlemen, no offence can be committed by Papists but from zeal to their religion. To make room for the vices of Papists, they clear ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... their opinions, it only maddened them. They were determined not to change. They were determined not to confess that they had been wrong, and had mistaken the meaning of holy scripture. They were too proud to confess what Jesus told them, that they were no better than the poor ignorant common people whom they despised. And yet they knew in their hearts that He was right. When the Lord told them the parable of the vineyard, they answered, "God forbid!" they felt at once that the parable had to do with them—that they were the wicked husbandmen on whom He said their master would take vengeance: ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... this port that her sister had disembarked, Mrs. Luna further inquired whether he could imagine Olive doing anything in a first-rate way, as long as there were inferior ones. "Of course she likes bad ships—Boston steamers—just as she likes common people, and red-haired ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... it that preached to the 'common people,' and in the obscure little towns of Palestine eighteen centuries ago? Am I better than ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... His life on earth, Jesus was a welcome guest in humble homes in Judea and Galilee. "The common people heard Him gladly." His presence brought peace and comfort to the home. He is no longer with us in bodily presence; but He is the same Saviour still—"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Heb. 13:8. By His ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... at his disposal, the common people, who considered the revolution as depending on him, supported him as the representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire sway over the Jacobins, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the "pastime of gentlemen," "the sport of kings;" and though we may quote the phrases to-day with kindling sarcasm, yet they open a very different vision from that of the older inroads by unknown hordes, frenzied with the passion and the purpose of the brute. The usefulness of the common people was recognized, and they were allowed to continue to live and cultivate the ground; while all the great dukes and even the lesser nobles, having secured as many castles as possible, intrenched themselves in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... love is the narrow and intense form of that breaking down, just as what I call Salvation is its widest, most extensive form. We cast aside our reserves, our secrecies, our defences; we open ourselves; touches that would be intolerable from common people become a mystery of delight, acts of self-abasement and self-sacrifice are charged with symbolical pleasure. We cannot tell which of us is me, which you. Our imprisoned egoism looks out through this window, forgets its walls, and is for those ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... to consider the universal and visible Reformation in the Lives and Morals even of our common People, clearly evinced in this, that (thank Heaven) fewer legal Punishments succeed an entire Circuit, in our happy Days, than did a single Assize in former Reigns: And, without Question, this Reformation must still rise higher, in Proportion to the Lenity of our worthy Legislature, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... eminently noble, yet not so lovable as some which my memory cherishes, some not perhaps as architecturally or artistically perfect. But you know what individuality buildings have, especially those which are vast and dominating; and Wells is unique. As the common people ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Pilgrim's Progress were evidently meant for the cottage and the servants' hall. The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest description. In general, when the educated minority and the common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The Pilgrim's Progress is perhaps the only book about which the educated minority has come over to the opinion of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... had been stretched in the fashion that I have described, which it fitted exactly. Then he told me that in his country all the nobles wore such ornaments and that those who did so were called "ear-men" to distinguish them from the common people. Also he told me many other things too long to set out, which made me desire more than ever to see this empire with my eyes, for an empire and no less ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... and misery, and just kept himself from starvation by making and selling maps. To the common people he seemed a madman, and as he passed through the streets in his worn and threadbare garments children jeered and pointed fingers ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... grass-worn sidewalks, beside the antique houses, now closed and silent, which exhaled the evaporated perfume of the loves of other days. But it was the old quarter, more especially, that promptly received them with cordiality, this quarter of which the common people, instinctively touched, felt the grace of the legend, the profound myth of the couple, the beautiful young girl supporting the royal and rejuvenated master. The doctor was adored here for his goodness, and his companion quickly became popular, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... The son of a New England emigrant, he was born in the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio. He worked his way from the farm through the log school to college. His service on the towpath of the Ohio Canal, in the course of his education, became a strong adjunct to his popularity among the common people. He taught Latin and Greek after leaving college, studied law, worked into politics, and went to the front upon the call for troops. He left the war a major-general to enter Congress, in 1863, where he sat until his election to the Senate in 1880. He ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... Thomas Becket were left a riddle for history; the white flame of his audacious theocracy was frustrated, and his work cut short like a fairy tale left untold. But his memory passed into the care of the common people, and with them he was more active dead than alive—yes, even more busy. In the next chapter we shall consider what was meant in the Middle Ages by the common people, and how uncommon we should think it to-day. And in the last chapter we have already seen how in the Crusading age ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... the outrage inflicted on his mother and sister. The besieged, knowing they had no mercy to hope for, defended themselves bravely, but were obliged to yield to famine. After a month's blockade, the common people, having no food for themselves or their cattle, began to cry for mercy in the open streets, and their chiefs, intimidated by the general misery and unable to stand alone, consented to capitulate. Ali, whose intentions as to the fate of this unhappy ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... made, and, at a given signal, the Roman youths rushed in different directions to carry off the unmarried women. A great number were carried off at hap-hazard, by those into whose hands they severally fell: some of the common people, to whom the task had been assigned, conveyed to their homes certain women of surpassing beauty, who were destined for the leading senators. They say that one, far distinguished beyond the rest in form and beauty, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... seems to me, at present, great occasion to raise a 'United Party for Virtue,' by forming the virtuous and good of all nations into a regular body, to be governed by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to, than common people are to common laws. I at present, think, that whoever attempts this aright, and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God, and of meeting ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... public-house, where he was soon after taken into custody. He acknowledged the crime, and said he was weary of life, and deserved to be hanged. Here is an example of the miserable effects of good fortune upon a man who was unfit to use it, and of the strange superstition of the common people. The murderer will be ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... sciences, they are either very awkward or defective, though they have globes or spheres, and a smattering of the mathematics, and think they know more than all the world besides. But they know little of the motions of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are their common people, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think a great dragon has assaulted it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall a clattering with all the drums and kettles in the country, to fright the monster away, just as we do to hive a swarm ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... exhilaration and fiery persistence which possess all those who rediscover learning and drink deep. They knew the kind of selfless inspiration Wyclif knew when he was translating the Bible into the language of England's common people. They shared the elation and devotion ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... are beginning to see the pictures in the fire yourself. Well, he shall be a knight, but he shall not wear any armor and he shall not fight, and all the rest of the people we see shall be quite common people, mere tradesmen, a goldsmith and a tailor and a toy-maker and a cobbler and the like. But whether the young man is a knight or not, he and the pretty girl ought to know better than to look at each other in that ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... on me (of course without reason) as the cause of the accomplished murder? Remember, lord, that the greater philosopher a man is, the more difficult it is for him to answer the foolish questions of common people; what should I answer him were he to ask me why I calumniated Glaucus? But if thou suspect that I deceive thee, I say, pay me only when I point out the house in which Lygia lives; show me to-day only a part of thy liberality, so that if thou, lord (which ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... presidents when they were boys? Now that Justice Van Fleet is measuring human life solely by the gold standard, perhaps he can tell us what a juvenile Shakespeare or Webster is "worth." I have held to the opinion heretofore that blood could not be measured by boodle, that the children of the common people were of as much importance in the eye of the law as the progeny of the plutocrat—that the anguish of parents did not depend on the length of the purse; but Justice Van Fleet seems to agree with Kernan's weeping Canuck, that the more siller one ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... aristocrats, with the men of money. The trusts and monopolies have their greatest men in the churches. The ministers as a class are their slaves. What we need is a system that shall start from the common basis of socialism, founded on the rights of the common people—" ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... girl told me of a dance among the common people at Amsterdam, called the shepherd's dance. The two leaders are dressed as shepherd and shepherdess; they invent to the music all kinds of movements, descriptive of things that may happen in the field, and the rest were obliged to follow. I have never heard of any dance which ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Italians I had so far been acquainted with were simple people, my landlord and his family, and those who visited them, and I sometimes heard fragments of conversation which revealed the common people's mode of thought to me. In one house that I visited, the mistress discovered that her maid was not married to her so-called husband, a matter in which, for that matter, she was very blameless, since her parents had refused their consent, and she had afterwards ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei x), "the term piety is often used in connection with works of mercy, in the language of the common people; the reason for which I consider to be the fact that God Himself has declared that these works are more pleasing to Him than sacrifices. This custom has led to the application of the word 'pious' ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... this report, Nero trumped up an accusation against a sect, detested for their atrocities, whom the common people called Christians, and inflicted on them the most recondite punishments. Christ, the founder of this sect, had been capitally punished by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, in the reign of Tiberius; and this ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... than any five men have done in so short a time this sixty years. And, if it be not so, whence have come all these swarms and troops of Independents in Ministry, Armies, City, Country, Gentry, and amongst the Common People of all ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... absolutely necessary. She found comfort in this simulated delusion no doubt, just as a child enjoys a fairy-tale, knowing perfectly well all the time that it is not true. People in her own sphere said her mind was touched: the common people about her affirmed without hesitation that she was "daft." She rode no more, but she kept all the horses and dogs as usual. She cultivated a taste she had for antiquities; she wrote poetry—- ballad poetry—which people who were considered judges thought well of; and flinging these ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... the efforts of a few solitary, exceptional, rare individuals, not by the combined efforts of us all. You and I are as common, unprogressive, uninventive, indifferent mediocrities as we—the common people—always were. We have not contributed one iota to all this progress, and I often question whether mud; of it comes to us more fraught with good than evil. We claim the results without engaging in the work. We use the 'phone and worry because Central ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... its illustrations and its incessant discussion of the occurrences and questions of the war it is a "current history" and "running commentary" on the great event, and there is probably no literary agency of the day more effective in its influence respecting the war in the families of the common people. Most happy are we then to be able to say that this responsible power is exerted altogether on the side of loyalty. No paper in the land is more outspoken, more uncompromising for the Union, for the war, for even the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... awaiting her in the doorway, beside his wife, who greeted her with a cheery word, and bade her, laughingly, have no fear, for she knew all about professors, and really, in most things, they were no wiser than common people! Then, laughing mischievously in her husband's face, she gave him a little push down the steps, which came near upsetting both his balance and his dignity. But before he could turn to remonstrate she was volubly bidding him not to go off into a brown study over some plesiosaurus, ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... The dress of the common people is very like that of the Chinese, with loose and full sleeves, without buttons. The materials of which it is made are grass-cloths, silks, satins, or white cotton, from China. I should judge from the appearance of their persons, that they ought to be termed, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... men, leaving it to another to personate birds, beasts, and serpents. Him they call Icelos; and Phantasos is a third, who turns himself into rocks, waters, woods, and other things without life. These wait upon kings and great personages in their sleeping hours, while others move among the common people. Somnus chose, from all the brothers, Morpheus, to perform the command of Iris; then laid his head on his pillow and yielded himself to ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... of the strange pictures we have seen upon fans and lacquered ware are presented to view. One is struck by the partial nudity of men, women, and children, the extremely simple architecture of the dwelling-houses, the peculiar vegetation, the extraordinary salutations between the common people who meet each other upon the streets, the trading bazaars, and the queer toy-like articles which fill them; children flying kites in the shape of hideous yellow monsters. Each subject becomes a fresh study. Men drawing vehicles, like horses between ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the terrible ills which you speak of until some hero arises—some hero whose victories will bind not only the army to him, but will cause all the common people of Carthage—all her allies and tributaries—to look upon him as their ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... celebrated the Holy Communion once a month, and preached his practical sermons, transcribed from his own execrable manuscript by a sedulous clerk. "I like," he said, "to look down upon my congregation—to fire into them. The common people say I am a bould preacher, for I like to have my arms free, and to thump the pulpit." A lady dressed in crimson velvet he welcomed with the words, "Exactly the colour of my preaching cushion! I really can hardly keep my ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... safely. No one before Richelieu had known all the power of the kingdom, or had been able to gather it all up into the hands of the sovereign. The severity of his adminstration had cost many lives; the nobility had been humbled, and the common people had been loaded with taxes; but the grandeur of his political designs, such as the taking of La Rochelle, the destruction of the Huguenot party, and the weakening of the house of Austria, no less than his intrepidity in carrying them ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... spends many tens of thousands of taels each year upon these guardians of the people's peace. It seems to me that this should tell the world that the force of China is not a physical force, but the force of the law-abiding instinct of a happy common people, who, although living on the verge of misery and great hunger, live upright lives and do not try ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... south-west, in Devonshire and Cornwall, where, under the name of Castelton Danis, they are particularly found on the sea-coast. In the chalk-cliffs, near Uffington, in Berkshire, is carved an enormous figure of a horse, more than 300 feet in length; which, the common people say, was executed in commemoration of a victory that King Alfred gained over the Danes in that neighbourhood. On the heights, near Eddington, were shewn not long since the intrenchments, which, it was asserted, the Danes ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... German style. English manufacturers and all industries would be hampered by an elaborate system of excise which would flood our markets with German goods. Such art as England possesses would disappear. Arms would be prohibited. The common people, especially in Scotland and the North-West Provinces, would be encouraged to recruit in the native army under the command of German officers, and the Scottish regiments would maintain their proud ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... a chance to consolidate holdings and begin the evolution of modern States; in the marked change of attitude toward the old problems; in the awakening of a new interest in the present world; in the creation of new interests and new desires among the common people; in the awakening of a spirit of religious unity and of national consciousness; and especially in the awakening of a new intellectual life, which soon found expression in the organization of universities for study and in more extensive travel and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... of mankind have to receive the bible altogether on the credit of others. And who are their guides in this case? Answer, Translators and Commentators! And as these men made no pretentions to inspiration, unless the translation is substantially correct, as to matters of fact, how are the common people benefited by a ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... noble head should have been engraved on our smallest coin, a token of our universal daily need in hands that humbly break the bread their toil has earned. That head to me somewhat palpably wore the people's love like purple bays—the love of all those common people whom he so wisely loved and bore in ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the fifty-eighth year after its millennium and a half it will then begin to flourish. The practice at the same time following upon the theory will be proved by wonderful and incredible signs, so as to be open to mechanics and common people, and they will thoroughly understand how firm and immovable is that Paracelsic Art against the triflings of the Sophists; though meanwhile that sophistical science has to have its ineptitude propped up and fortified ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... understanding the character of the great working classes of the loyal States. That industry, which is the foundation of independence, and so of equity, they stigmatized as stupid drudgery, or as mean avarice. That general intelligence and independence of thought which schools for the common people and newspapers breed, they reviled as the incitement of unsettled zeal, running easily into fanaticism. They more thoroughly misunderstood the profound sentiment of loyality, the deep love of country, which pervaded the common people. If those who knew them best had never ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... upon the city, and upon the whole country, not only on the common people, but on everybody; the lucky star of the kingdom was extinguished. Even to many among the lords, everything looked black. They began to ask themselves and others, what would happen now? whether the king had the right to remain after the queen's death and rule over the country; ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the mosque, whose minarets towered above the walls and bastions of the fort,—its dome was beautifully proportioned, and inlaid with agate, jasper, and carnelian, besides being wonderfully painted with representations of strange animals unknown to the common people, but which the Moollah affirmed were all ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... part of it chosen by peers? Do you think, Sir, they ought to have such an influence?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should[166].' BOSWELL. 'But is there not reason to fear that the common people may be oppressed?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. Our great fear is from want of power in government. Such a storm of vulgar force has broke in.' BOSWELL. 'It has only roared.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it has roared, till the Judges in Westminster-Hall have been afraid to pronounce sentence in opposition ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... was branded as a 'religious dime novel.' Yet it has had fifty times the general vogue of Anatole France's pseudo-blasphemy which deals with the same period. Public taste is not always, necessarily, bad taste. 'The common people heard Him, gladly.' (The ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the citizen in the magnificence of the public buildings and grounds which he identifies with his nationality, but that popular restlessness is exhaled and dangerous passions drained off in the roominess which parks and gardens afford the common people. In the New World, it has not yet proved necessary to provide against popular discontents or to bribe popular patriotism with spectacles and state-parade; and if it were so, there is no government with an interest of its own separate from that of the people to adopt this policy. It has therefore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... got to advertise and you must show to the common people who are going to be your members, who are going to be interested in nut trees, that they are valuable; that an ordinary acre of nut trees is worth ten times the value of any crop of wheat raised in Illinois, and Illinois ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... who made the names of the common wild flowers. They were ordinary people, so far as any one knows, who gave to one flower the name of the Star of Bethlehem and to another and much commoner flower the tremendous title of the Eye of Day. If you cling to the snobbish notion that common people are prosaic, ask any common person for the local names of the flowers, names which vary not only from county to county, but even from ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... careful," declared the pretentious Bella. "I wouldn't take so much notice of that Hannah Lee. They are very common people. Her father is a blacksmith and her mother was a servant before she was married. And ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one. The poor are exalted and the rich are humbled. Tholuck says: "The cultivated heathen were offended at Christianity because the higher classes could no longer have precedence of the common people." A religion which teaches that all are upon one grand level under its influences will certainly teach us that all are equal in the presence of the law. Christianity is not only a stranger to despotism, but denounces it in the plainest terms. Its great founder said: "Whosoever ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... appearances of democratic government, effectively managed, directed, and controlled the town. Here was the handful of people who settled between them whether rates should go up or down, and to whom it did not seriously matter whether rates went up or down, provided that the interests of the common people were not too sharply set in antagonism to their own interests. Here were the privileged, who did what they liked on the condition of not offending each other. Here the populace was honestly and cynically and openly ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... him 'Uncle Cardinal.' It is like the common people who say 'Uncle Priest.' I have told you that a hundred times at least. And if the Cardinal has heard you singing, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... numbers of clergymen and multitudes of people assembled. Here, after the council, the pope mounted a platform which rose in the midst of a great open space, and around which extended a vast throng of knights, nobles, and common people. Peter the Hermit stood by the pope's side, and told the story of the miseries and humiliations of the Christians in Jerusalem in that fiery and fluent oratory which had stirred the soul of all Europe. Pope Urban followed in an impassioned address, recounting the sufferings of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... plutocrats, wrapped in the flag and proclaiming a crusade to inaugurate democracy in Germany, rallied to their support the professional classes of the United States and millions of the common people. ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... conclusion would be very far removed from the truth. Undoubtedly the prestige of the white man's civilisation gave a valuable leverage at first, as in the notable case of Ruatara. Undoubtedly also, many of the common people were simply swept along by the current when once it grew strong enough to make itself felt. But the earliest real converts were old men, delicate girls, consumptive lads, and wretched slaves, whose hearts were caught not by axes and blankets, but by ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... However, we of the upper classes are always tender-hearted; and he would certainly get off tolerably well if he were left to us: for, between ourselves, what is a paltry priest of Isis!—what Isis herself? But the common people are superstitious; they clamor for the blood of the sacrilegious one. It is dangerous not to give way ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom the common people call, in their picturesque language, wet blankets, spoil-sports, or kill-joys, are not necessarily hostile to the gaiety of the rest. They may only have, and, in fact, very often do have, nothing but the one fault of being out of tune with this gaiety. But even ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the wealth and power enjoyed by her ministers. At the very beginning of the reign of Henry the Eighth, a struggle took place between the clergy and the courts of law, in which the courts of law remained victorious. One of the bishops, on that occasion, declared that the common people entertained the strongest prejudices against his order, and that a clergyman had no chance of fair play before a lay tribunal. The London juries, he said, entertained such a spite to the Church that, if Abel were a priest, they would find him guilty of the murder of Cain. This was said a few ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... confined to the continent. She had neither ships for the transportation of her troops, nor money for their support in distant expeditions. Colbert saw both these wants, and saw that commerce only would supply them. The fertility of their country furnishes the French with commodities; the poverty of the common people keeps the price of labour low. By the obvious practice of selling much and buying little, it was apparent, that they would soon draw the wealth of other countries into their own; and, by carrying out their merchandise in their own vessels, a numerous body ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... an act of parricide or regicide, they would not follow him.' CHAP. XXIV. 1. Tsze-lu got Tsze-kao appointed governor of Pi. 2. The Master said, 'You are injuring a man's son.' 3. Tsze-lu said, 'There are (there) common people and officers; there are the altars of the spirits of the land and grain. Why must one read books before he can be considered to have learned?' 4. The Master said, 'It is on this account that I hate your glib-tongued people.' CHAP. XXV. 1. Tsze-lu, Tsang Hsi, Zan ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... wouldn't be living around hotels now, lonesome bachelors without a friend. I forgot to tell you, they're all single. No, never married. Even some of the most humpbacked married men you ever saw, who come in here dragging leg irons and looking a picture of the Common People, they're single, too. I've seen them slip wedding rings off their fingers to ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the common people are thus embalmed. But the bodies of prominent men and women are thus treated at government expense and unborn generations can look upon the ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... reverence and admiration, as can be properly understood only by those who have an opportunity of witnessing it. Indeed, few circumstances prove the great moral influence which the Irish priesthood possesses over the common people more forcibly, than the extraordinary respect paid by the latter to such as are designed for the "mission." The moment the determination is made, an incipient sanctity begins, as it were, to consecrate the young priest; and a high opinion of his ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Common people appear in some cases to have been merely salted and plunged in liquid pitch, others were simply salted and dried. Mummies prepared by these methods freely attract moisture—are ill preserved, and, therefore, as a matter of course, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... all the matter plain and open evident truth, which I said I took for truth. And it is yet a little more now than I told you before, when you took my proof yet but for a sophistical fancy, and said that, for all my reasoning that every man is a prisoner, yet you thought that, except those whom the common people call prisoners, there is else no man a very prisoner indeed. And now you grant yourself again for very substantial truth, that every man, though he be the greatest king upon earth, is set here by the ordinance ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... application to His hearers. In the context He describes the twofold treatment which that message had received; and so describes it as, in the description, to lay bare the inmost characteristics of the reception or rejection of the message. As to the former, He says that the mass of the common people, and the outcast publicans, 'justified God'; by which remarkable expression seems to be meant that their reception of John's message and baptism acknowledged God's righteousness in accusing them of sin ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... revenge, alone of all animals it clung to him, haunting him persistently among the dusky stone towers, when grown gentler than ever he dared not kill it. He moved unhurt in the famous menagerie of the castle, of which the common people were so much afraid, and let out the lions, themselves timid prisoners enough, through the streets during the fair. The incident suggested to the somewhat barren pen-men of the day a "morality" adapted from the old pagan books—a stage-play in which the God of Wine should ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army was raised with Prince Pojarski at ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... but I didn't know he meant to take you along. That's very kind of Dick. I s'pose you won't speak to common people ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same language even to this day. But when it was found that every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the observance of certain precepts, the name of genius then ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... gentle, loving, and affectionate. He was simple and homely, even to commonness. Fond of all common pleasures and enjoyments, he was anything but an austere man, or a bigot; for he was hearty, genial, and even "jolly." Luther was the common people's hero in his lifetime, and he remains so ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles |
