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More "Discernment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... descended upon the manse the next day and cross-questioned Mary, who, being a young person of considerable discernment and astuteness, told her story simple and truthfully, with an entire absence of complaint or bravado. Miss Cornelia was more favourably impressed than she had expected to be, but deemed it her duty to ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... be out-balanced by the unendurable thought that his commonplace efforts had not been sufficient to save her from the two evilly-disposed individuals who are, as he perceives, at this moment, neglecting no means within their power to accomplish his destruction." Accepting the discernment of these words, the maiden fled, first bestowing a look upon Ling which clearly indicated an honourable regard for himself, a high-minded desire that the affair might end profitably on his account, and an amiable hope that they should meet again, when these subjects could be expressed more ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... and overgrown, With a round full-moon face, that fairly shone As though to meet the simile's demand. And, cumbrous though he seemed, both eye and hand Were dowered with the discernment and deft skill Of the true artisan: He shaped at will, In his old father's shop, on rainy days, Little toy-wagons, and curved-runner sleighs; The trimmest bows and arrows—fashioned, too. Of "seasoned ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... this is the kind of answer Jones would give you. You get truth habitually from equals only; so my good Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me about the habitual candor of the young Etonian of high birth, or I have my own opinion of YOUR candor or discernment when you do. No. Tom Bowling is the soul of honor and has been true to Black-eyed Syousan since the last time they parted at Wapping Old Stairs; but do you suppose Tom is perfectly frank, familiar, and aboveboard ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like a boy in his Saturday hat and Sunday breeches. So in went a large new window; and now these changes have mysteriously offended Mrs. Walter, who says the town is laughing at me for trying to outdo the Cobbs. The highest animal is the only one who is divinely gifted with such noble discernment. But I am not sorry to have my place look its best. When they see it, they will perhaps understand why I was not to be driven out by a golden cracker on their family whip. They could not have bought my little woodland pasture, where for a generation has been ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... never lend themselves to very strict definition. Yet he may be credited with a certain measure of discernment in pardoning the indelicacy of Fletcher and Massinger, while he condemns that of Dryden, Etherege, or Sedley. Indelicacy in the older dramatists does not ignore worthier interests. Other topics attracted the earlier writers besides conjugal infidelity and the frailty of virgins, which were ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... of inhumation are capable of such variety as causes us already to foresee that the Necrophorus cannot employ fixed methods in performing his task. Exposed to fortuitous hazards, he must be able to modify his tactics within the limits of his modest discernment. To saw, to break, to disentangle, to lift, to shake, to displace: these are so many means which are indispensable to the grave-digger in a predicament. Deprived of these resources, reduced to uniformity of procedure, the insect would ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... oldest prayers of the Synagogue, repeated thrice daily, occurs this paragraph: 'Thou dost graciously bestow on man knowledge, and teachest mortals understanding; O let us be graciously endowed by Thee with knowledge, understanding, and discernment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, gracious Giver of Knowledge.' The intellect was to be turned to the service of the God from whom intelligence emanated. The Jewish estimate of intellect and learning led to some unamiable contempt of the fool and ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... to learn; relieved from the fear of criticism, he expanded, he glowed, he dogmatized. With Mrs. Lessingham he could not be entirely at his ease; her eye was occasionally disturbing to a pretender who did not lack discernment. But in walking about the museum with Mr. Bradshaw, he was the most brilliant of ciceroni. Jacob was not wholly credulous, for he had spoken of the young man with Mrs. Lessingham, but he found such companionship entertaining enough from time to time, and ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... impossible for me to be deterred from the path of duty by a fear that my motives could be misjudged or that political prejudices could defeat the just consideration of the merits of my conduct. The result has shewn how safe is this reliance upon the patriotic temper and enlightened discernment of the people. That measure has now been before them and has stood the test of all the severe analysis which its general importance, the interests it affected, and the apprehensions it excited were calculated to produce, and it now remains for Congress to consider what legislation has ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... of women and then in a rousing appeal to women the speaker said: "A few days since I was asked by a compiler of other people's thoughts to express for him my opinion of the greatest need of American women and I replied, 'self-respect.' ... The assumption that woman have neither discernment nor judgment and that any man is superior in all the qualities that make for strength, stability and sanity to any woman, simply because he is a man and she is a woman, is still altogether too common. The time has come when women must question themselves ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... perception—is explained by this indeterminateness and this choice. "But there is in this necessary poverty of conscious perception, something that is positive, that foretells spirit; it is, in the etymological sense of the word, discernment.'"[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 31 (Fr. p. 26).] The chief difficulty in dealing with the problems of Perception, is to explain "not how Perception arises, but how it is limited, since it should be the image of the whole and is in fact reduced to ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... "sufficient price." He saw the immense latent value of the fertile deserts of the Empire. He grasped the full meaning of the truth that the arrival of a population with money and industry instantly gives good land a value. His discernment showed him the absurdity of giving colonial lands away in indefinite areas to the first chance grabbers, and the mistake of supposing that wage labour would not be required in young countries. His theory, therefore, was that colonizing associations ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... be admitted to service near the Divine throne, the gates of wisdom were opened unto him, and the gates of understanding, and of discernment, of life, peace, and the Shekinah, of strength and power, of might, loveliness, and grace, of humility and fear of sin. Equipped by God with extraordinary wisdom, sagacity, judgment, knowledge, learning, compassionateness, love, kindness, grace, humility, strength, power, might, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake, which, within her knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies, blue. But she was overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, with much ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... with elevating their own idol with paeans and thanksgiving, before the gaze of a bedinned public, they persisted in shouting out their scorn and contempt at the pretensions of their unhappy neighbour. The public, with its usual discernment, gave implicit credence to both fables. Western Australia had met its contumelious detractors with silence; and the false statements were therefore looked upon as admitted and undeniable. But notwithstanding the injurious misrepresentations of enemies, and her own injurious silence, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... was white, in appearance she was short and squat, and she had a curiously disconnected habit of conversation, but for all that she was a person of great discernment, and uncommonly wide awake. She sided staunchly with Juliet in ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... dominions to his son Philip; together with his resolution to withdraw entirely from any concern in business or the affairs of this world, in order that he might spend the remainder of his days in retirement and solitude. Though it requires neither deep reflection nor extraordinary discernment to discover that the state of royalty is not exempt from cares and disappointment; though most of those who are exalted to a throne find solicitude, and satiety, and disgust to be their perpetual attendants in that envied preeminence, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... it," interposed Mr. Derby, with rare tact and discernment, "that both of you expect to be married, but not to each other as originally planned." Both Eleanor and Windomshire signified eager affirmation in more ways than one. "Then it seems to me a simple case of coincidence, ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... And Maga followed the German into the open, where she denounced him to some of the Zeitoonli who recently arrived. They took him and threw him back into the fire—where he remained. I begin to like these Zeitoonli. I even like the gipsies more than formerly. They are men of some discernment, and of action!" ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... family whose hereditary connection with Bethlem is so remarkable, it should be chronicled that Dr. James Monro was elected physician to Bethlem, 1728; he died 1752. His son describes him as "a man of admirable discernment, who treated insanity with an address that will not soon be equalled." Dr. John Monro succeeded his father in this post. "He limited his practice almost exclusively to insanity, and in the treatment of that disease ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... sentiments. The fact is, that the Tale of a Tub is a continued panegyrick on the Church of England, and a bitter satire on Popery, Calvinism, and every sect of dissenters. At the same time I am persuaded, that every reader of taste and discernment will perceive in many parts of Swift's other writings strong internal proofs of that style which characterises the Tale of a Tub; especially in the Publick Spirit of the Whigs. It is well known, that he ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... and taste: his critical knowledge of our language and poetry was such as few foreigners have possessed; and few of our countrymen could enjoy the theatre of Shakspeare and Garrick with more exquisite feeling and discernment. The consciousness of his own strength, and the assurance of my aid, emboldened him to imitate the example of Dr. Maty, whose Journal Britannique was esteemed and regretted; and to improve his model, by uniting with the transactions ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... frequently threw in broad dock-leaves, for him to take shelter under from the heat. He soon grew to know me, and would actually come at my call from the farthest end of the trough. He was very shy of others, and I was not sorry, for I wanted all his affection, and was proud of his discernment. This was thought so singular that I was often sent out with visitors, to show off my pet. I don't believe that the keeper of the hippopotamus can be prouder of his mud-loving monster than I was of ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... And the same discernment was shown when he was purchasing old furniture, brass, and so-called Sheffield plate to increase Otto's stock. If the articles offered could still boast of either handle, leg, or back of their original state and the price was fair, they were almost ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good, for I assure myself that while you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future lessons ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... seems that I have still some discernment, for just so I judged him. Well, what more do you ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... grand vizier made a report of divers important matters, on which the young king gave judgment with that admirable prudence and sagacity that surprised all the council. He next turned out several governors convicted of mal-administration, and put others in their room, with such wonderful and just discernment, as exalted the acclamations of every body, which were so much the more honourable, as flattery had no share in them. He at length left the council, accompanied by his father, and went to wait on his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... intrenchments behind the forms of politeness; he laid in a provision of formulas, and made lavish use of his stock of the catch-words coined at need in Paris to give fools the small change for the ore of great ideas and events. Among men of the world he was reputed a man of taste and discernment; and as a bigoted upholder of aristocratic opinions he was held up for a noble character. If by chance he slipped now and again into his old light-heartedness or levity, others were ready to discover an undercurrent of diplomatic intention beneath his inanity and silliness. "Oh! he only ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... condition of things in the South. I resolved not to let him do so. I had conscientiously endeavored to see Southern conditions as they were. I had not permitted any political considerations or any preconceived opinions on my part to obscure my perception and discernment in the slightest degree. I had told the truth, as I learned it and understood it, with the severest accuracy, and I thought it due to the country that the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... fearlessly to undertake whatsoever I think offers a common benefit to all, I enter on a path which, being hitherto untrodden by any, though it involve me in trouble and fatigue, may yet win me thanks from those who judge my efforts in a friendly spirit. And although my feeble discernment, my slender experience of current affairs, and imperfect knowledge of ancient events, render these efforts of mine defective and of no great utility, they may at least open the way to some other, who, with better parts and sounder reasoning and judgment, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... retraced his steps, and rode back into the woods. But the mist grew denser, the moon was altogether hidden, the roads were very bad, the ruts deep. Twice Grise nearly fell; laden as she was, she lost courage, and although she retained sufficient discernment to avoid running against trees, she could not prevent her riders from having to deal with huge branches which barred the road at the level of their heads and put them in great danger. Germain lost his hat in one of these encounters, and had great difficulty in ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... humanity on a novel basis. Democracy will have a great deal to do in the new Europe. It, too, had better refurbish its old watchwords. It has got to set itself patiently to the business of preventing future wars by the extension of its sympathies and its clear discernment of all that imperils its future development and progress. Above all, it has got to solve that most difficult problem of creating a Public Will and a Common Conscience in Europe, a conscience sensitive to the demands of a higher ethics, ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... the seminal principles of vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All those enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only the superficial appearances of action, related the events but omitted the causes, and were formed for such as delighted ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... therewith." Shocked at so rude an admonition, Henry III. answered, "It is God who made me king; and as I bear the title of Most Christian King, I have ever been very zealous for the preservation of the Catholic religion. . . . It appertains to me alone to decide, according to my discernment, what may contribute to the public weal, to make laws for to procure it, to interpret those laws, to change them, and to abolish them, just as I find it expedient. I have done so hitherto, and I shall still do so for the future;" and he dismissed the ambassadors. That very evening, on reflecting ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... begin from the cradle. Whoever has watched with any discernment the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at surrounding objects, knows very well that education does begin thus early, whether we intend it or not; and that these fingerings and suckings of everything it can lay hold ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... Baronet, "I am obliged to you for your opinion of my discernment, but you will at least give me credit for seeing ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... be a prevailing sentiment, that were it not for the advantages of Cape Town, Simon's Bay would, in every respect, be preferable for the royal dockyard, and the equipment of His Majesty's ships. It was remarked to me by an officer of discernment, captain of the flag ship, that instances of vessels being driven from their anchors by winds blowing into Simon's Bay, were exceedingly rare. He had observed that the strain upon the cables with these winds, was much ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... of restlessness did little Mistress Lucy Woodley go to bed in Rose's room that night. She was quite comforted on Edmund's account, for she had discernment enough to see that her mother and sister did not believe Diggory's dreadful narration; and she had been so unsettled and excited by Mr. Sylvester Enderby's notice, and by the way in which she had allowed her high spirits to get the better of her discretion, as well as ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his hanger by his side. Having reached about the middle of the church-yard, he observed, sure enough, something in white moving backwards and forwards; but the haziness of the night prevented his strict discernment of the figure's shape. As it appeared advancing towards him, a momentary trepidation seized him. He retreated a few steps; but, soon recovering himself, he resolutely cried out, "Who comes here?" No answer being made, he ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... for the editor to draw any comparison between the Scottish and Norwegian narratives; he, therefore, leaves it to the discernment of the reader to fix what medium ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... dogging his footsteps." I mean to say, I uttered the words in the most solemn manner. Little the woman knew that one may often be moved in the most distressing moments to a jest of this sort. She laughed heartily, being of quick discernment. And thus jauntily did I carry my knowledge of the lowering cloud. But I permitted myself no further sallies of that sort. I stayed expectantly by the window, and I dare say my bearing would have deceived the most alert. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... him derisively said, as she looked into his face: "Truly a most gallant husband and a gentleman! And so, forsooth, you would desert your wife because she has forgotten the memory of her dead boy—whom she never truly loved—and because she thirsts after pleasure and excitement! What wondrous discernment! What a wise judge of human nature!" Her ironical laugh ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... conduct of average human beings. A certain amount of conscience and of disinterested public spirit may fairly be calculated on in the citizens of any community ripe for representative government. But it would be ridiculous to expect such a degree of it, combined with such intellectual discernment, as would be proof against any plausible fallacy tending to make that which was for their class interest appear the dictate of justice and of the general good. We all know what specious fallacies may ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... acquaintance with a fact, or the sum total of our information. Our wisdom is our intellectual and spiritual discernment, to which our knowledge is one of the contributors. Knowledge comprises the materials; wisdom the ability to use them to practical advantage and to worthy or noble purpose. Knowledge is mental possession; wisdom is mental and ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... scenes of common danger. Go to Afghanistan and China, and you will find the feeling between officers and men as fine as ever it was in days of yore, whatever it may be at our large and gay stations, where they see so little of each other. [W. H. S.] The author's reputation for sagacity and discernment could not be made to rest upon the above remarks. His judgement was led astray by his lifelong association with and affection for the native troops. Lord William Bentinck took a far juster view of the situation, and understood far better the real nature of the ties which bind ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to one of his brothers when that gave him pleasure. When he (Karmath) saw that he had become absolute master of their minds, had assured himself of their obedience, and found out the degree of their intelligence and discernment, he began to lead them quite astray. He put before them arguments borrowed from the doctrines of the Dualists. They fell in easily with all that he proposed, and then he took away from them all religion and released them from all those duties of piety, devotion, and ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... the truth, Mrs. Flagg had not been particularly struck by the moral worth of her lodger, and this testimony led her to entertain doubts as to the discernment of her clerical visitor. ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances, therefore, cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be anything in the art which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute circumstantial parts which, according to the judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth or so ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... perfectly sensible that I expose myself to criticism, and perhaps to the mockery of many readers, who regard this matter as done with, and decried in the minds of philosophers, learned men, and many theologians. I must not reckon either on the approbation of the people, whose want of discernment prevents their being competent judges of this same. My aim is not to foment superstition, nor to feed the vain curiosity of visionaries, and those who believe without examination everything that is related to them as soon as they find therein anything marvelous and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... impropriety of such enticements, their impolicy very soon betrays itself, and when the men detect the fallacy, the result shows itself in the paucity of volunteers. The truth is, Jack, with all his vagaries, possesses a quick discernment in such matters, and is very seldom deceived by chaff. It will seldom, if ever, retard the proper manning of a ship to be very fastidious in choosing amongst the volunteers who offer. The best men ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Tony, and left him completely nonplussed by her uncanny discernment when, after he had stumbled through the revelation of his engagement to Doreen Neville, during one of the intervals, she promptly told him she had anticipated it long ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... reconstruction of our entire commercial system, as represented by his new Tariff. What courage was requisite to grapple with this giant difficulty! What practical skill; what patience and resolution; what exact yet extensive acquaintance with mercantile affairs; what a comprehensive discernment of consequences; what firm impartiality in deciding between vast conflicting interests, were here evinced! And observe—all these great measures, effecting a complete revolution in our domestic economy and policy—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... listened to this conversation with lowering brow. HER MAJESTY had but lately testified afresh to her wisdom and discernment by calling him to her councils; and yet there were men so lost to all sense of decency as to wrangle over the wages of a rat-catcher at Buckingham Palace or the turncock at Kensington. PLUNKET a little too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... merrily at the small invalid's powers of discernment, and were finally persuaded to attend the party which was barred to her. So they donned their daintiest dresses, robbed the greenhouse for their adornment, kissed the little sister fondly and hurried away into the night. Peace listened to the sound of ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... speech," say the Arabs. Even the English Unitarians were one day to have their Poet, and the best that could be said for them too was to be said. I admire this good lady's integrity, sincerity; her quick, sharp discernment to the depth it goes: her love also is great; nay, in fact it is too great: the host of illustrious obscure mortals whom she produces on you, of Preachers, Pamphleteers, Antislavers, Able Editors, and other Atlases bearing (unknown to us) the world on their ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... grows doctors and clergymen with almost equal success and profusion. There is in the national character a considerable share of the constituents that are valuable in both professions. Power of sympathy, good-nature, intuition, adroitness, discernment of character, and a gift for taking every man in his humour. Qualities that are perhaps beside the specialised requirements, but ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... right, and respected her for the discernment. "My love," he said, "I'm a self-centred, arrogant beast, and I don't like to think about it. But you'll make something of me if you think it worth while. But listen to me, Lucy. I'm going to talk to you seriously." Then he ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... virtue was increased, in another negligence stirred up, and in others conceit stopped, while all were persuaded to despise the plots of the devil, wondering at the grace which had been given to Antony by the Lord for the discernment of spirits. So the cells in the mountains were like tents filled with divine choirs, singing, discoursing, fasting, praying, rejoicing over the hope of the future, working that they might give ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... demands thirty qualifications (21), the priesthood twenty-four (22), while the Torah is acquired by forty-eight. And these are they: by audible study; by a listening ear (23); by distinct pronunciation; by understanding (24) and discernment of the heart; by awe, reverence, meekness, cheerfulness (25); by ministering to the sages, by attaching one's self to colleagues, by discussion with disciples; by sedateness; by knowledge of the Scripture and of the Mishnah; by moderation ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... passed between them, and as the said Mary Almira was a young lady of very pleasing face and form and agreeable manners, it is by no means improbable that he (Roswell) manifested to said Mary Almira that in those matters he was not wholly devoid of sensibility and discernment." The next morning Mary returned to Brattleboro with Mrs. Jonathan, and Roswell "did not then expect ever ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... reports with protestations of attachment and fidelity; and he took care to contrive occasions of adding marginal notes with his own hand, in which he adroitly displayed in a distinguished manner his devotion, discernment, and activity. All his reports in general bore the same stamp: with much of cunning, and much of talent, they offered to the eye a rare and valuable assemblage of quickness and judgment, of moderation and firmness: at every word you might discover ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... that come not within the discerning of sense. Now in regard to this bread, the Papists do overreach themselves. Did they but tell us that the change made was mystical and of faith,—not within the discernment of sense—we might then find it harder work to deal withal, and we must seek unto the Word of God only, and not unto our sense in any wise. But they go farther: they tell us the change is such, that there is no more the substance of bread left at all. [Note 2.] This therefore is ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... and delight there comes discernment, by which we not only discern whether this thing be white or black (because this alone belongs to the outer sense), and whether this thing be wholesome or hurtful (because this belongs to the inner sense), but also discern why this delights and give a reason therefor. And in this act we inquire ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... as soon believe the Buddhist Jataka as such a wholly irrational account of the ways of God with man. Just think of the palaeolithic man, who had no glimmering of moral discernment; think of the cave-men whose skulls we possess in scores, that bear eloquent testimony to their deplorable degradation—think of such creatures dying, and their mental and moral status stereotyped for ever. "Death ends our probation!" A precious revelation this! Where ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... the lecture hall. Both of them, in the case of the extreme realists, are being used as the store-room or the dissecting chamber of the experimental scientist. Supposing that an author's facts are supremely important, his discernment most acute, his ideas significant, still, before we condemn the public unheard, we are compelled to ask of him: Have you given to this material a form which it will accept? Have you addressed the public in a language which has a wide human appeal? Are you, in fact, a ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... magnificent, that Rome, enthralled, applauded. Beyond, on the Rhine, a city which is today Cologne, rose in honor of her sovereignty. To her wishes the senate was subservient, to her indiscretions blind. Claud, who meanwhile had been wholly sightless, suddenly showed signs of discernment. A woman, charged with illicit commerce, was brought to his tribunal. He condemned her, of course. "In my case," he explained, "matrimony has not been successful, but the fate that destined me to marry impure women destined me also to punish them." It was then ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... "A prodigious discernment, by the Host!" He seemed to incline rather tediously to irony. Then his face grew stern, and he lowered his voice until it was no more than a growling whisper. "Heed me, Messer Gonzaga. If the service you require be the slitting of a gullet or some kindred foul business, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... friendly faces, and made much of by all in the fort. He, being able to speak French fluently, made himself a great favorite with the men, and he enjoyed many long conversations with the Abbe, who was a man of much acumen and discernment, and saw more clearly the course which events were likely to take than did those ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... exist in France, and terrible the danger which it at once brought upon the neighbouring states. It was rendered the more formidable in the time of Louis XIV., from the extraordinary concentration of talent which his discernment or good fortune had collected around his throne, and the consummate talent, civil and military, with which affairs were directed. Turenne, Boufflers, and Conde, were his generals; Vauban was his engineer, Louvois and Torcy were his statesmen. The lustre of the exploits of these illustrious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... you wouldn't understand me if I should hint that Mrs. Parker has the consumption, and can't live always." Mary's looks plainly told that this remark had given her no idea whatever, and Sal continued, "I knew you wouldn't understand, for you haven't my discernment to begin with, and then you were never sent away to ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... one. It was the utterance of an experienced man; and in many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever it chooses;—a great gift, if directed to the discernment of the things needful and pertinent to its own work and being; a great weakness, if directed to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all things throughout the world, the men who look ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... a sense of justice, appreciation of moral firmness, sympathy for suffering innocence, the diffusion of refined sensibility, a discriminating discernment of what is really worthy of commemoration among men, a rectified taste, a generous public spirit, and gratitude for the light that surrounds and protects us against error, folly, and fanaticism, shall demand the rearing of a suitable monument to the memory of those who in 1692 preferred death ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... crowded together under a dirty shed near the levee, and the vessel from which they had been landed rode at anchor in the river. They were the scrawny, tough ponies of the plains, reasonably cheap, and it took no great discernment on my part to choose three of the strongest and most intelligent looking. We went next to a saddler's, where I selected three saddles and bridles of Spanish workmanship, and Mr. Clark agreed to have two of his servants meet us with the horses before Madame Bouvet's within the hour. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... attracts so much attention from the casual visitor as this slab of black basalt on its telescope-like pedestal. The hall itself, despite its profusion of strangely sculptured treasures, is never crowded, but before this stone you may almost always find some one standing, gazing with more or less of discernment at the strange characters that are graven neatly across its upturned, glass-protected face. A glance at this graven surface suffices to show that three sets of inscriptions are recorded there. The upper one, occupying ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... And the various parties, pointing out reciprocally to each other, the contradictions, improbabilities, and forgeries, accused one another of having established their belief on popular rumors, vague traditions, and absurd fables, invented without discernment, and admitted without examination by unknown, partial, or ignorant writers, at uncertain ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... had chosen a soft, creamy stuff which he informed Mattie must be trimmed with no end of lace. Phillis had received and executed the order with such skill and discernment that a most ravishing costume had been produced. But Grace, who had her own ideas on the subject of those "Challoner girls," had received the gift somewhat coldly, and had even seemed displeased when her father pinched her ear and told her that Archie's gown ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... intolerably was this discernment of the way in which—at least since their honeymoon—he must have been criticising and judging her—judging her by comparison with another woman. She seemed to see at a glance, the whole process of his mind, and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mother's wrappers very beautiful, but now look at this! Cynthia's face, too, in the dim, rosy light, looked very fair to the child, who had no discernment for those ravages of time of which adults either acquit themselves or by which they measure their own. She did not see the faded color of the woman's face at all; she did not see the spreading marks around mouth and eyes, or the faint parallels of care on the temples; ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... has thanked me again. She has scolded the parrot. She has smiled upon me as she retires to her room. It is enough. Nothing is said, but I am a man of sensibility and discernment, and I understand that she will not be offended if I seek to renew our friendship on a ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... demanding that Dorian should be at the head of the new Government. He is not a Demagogue, he has written no despatches, nor made any speeches, nor decreed any Utopian reforms after the manner of his colleagues. But, unlike them, he is a practical man of business, and this the working men have had discernment enough to discover. They are hardly to be blamed if they have accepted literally the rhetorical figures of Jules Favre. When he said that, rather than yield one stone of a French fortress, Paris would bury itself beneath ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. "How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... physiognomist might have suspected that she wanted the valuable quality of firmness, which in her position was especially necessary; for she already possessed a good fortune, and would inherit a considerable one. Her father, although a sailor of the old school, was not destitute of discernment, and thoroughly understanding her character, earnestly wished to see her married to a sensible, upright man, who would protect her and take good care of her property. He had therefore given every encouragement to Harry Caulfield, son of his old and esteemed friend, General ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... one set of dispositions which tend to his animal preservation, and to the continuance of his race; another which lead to society, and by inlisting him on the side of one tribe or community, frequently engage him in war and contention with the rest of mankind. His powers of discernment, or his intellectual faculties, which, under the appellation of reason, are distinguished from the analogous endowments of other animals, refer to the objects around him, either as they are subjects ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... who solicit my assistance, and to poor emigrants. But I will try to be more economical in future. Tell him so if you see him again, But is it not my duty to bestow as much in charity as I can?"—"Yes, Madame; but permit me to say that nothing requires greater discernment than the distribution of charity. If you had always sat upon a throne you might have always supposed that your bounty always fall into the hands of the deserving; but you cannot be ignorant that it oftener ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... a kind of infinite and eternal misery. Now, however, I see a goal, and when I have reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you seem to me to follow the opinion of Epicharmus,[7] a man of some discernment, and sharp enough for ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... be right that a combination should be formed to wipe him out of creation. He should be put down,—as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many years the man who deliberately and admiringly delineates such a person may have lived in this world, intellectually he cannot be more than about seven years old. And ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... John Eustace, who was somewhat nearly concerned in the matter, raised no objection to this proposal. There was ever something grand about these Eustaces. Sir Florian was a grand gentleman; but surely he must have been dull of intellect, slow of discernment, blear-eyed in his ways about the town, when he took Lizzie Greystock,—of all the women whom he could find in the world,—to be the purest, the truest, and the noblest. It has been said of Sir Florian that he did not believe in virtue. He freely expressed disbelief ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... society and of every individual member of society that general laws should be obeyed. It is obvious also, that there are many cases, in which the calculation of expediency involves details too numerous and too complicated to be fully understood by a mind of ordinary discernment, while the same mind can clearly perceive what course of conduct is in accordance with the strict rule of right. Still farther, in a question of conduct in which appetite, desire, or affection is concerned, we cannot take as calm and dispassionate a view of our true interest, as we should of the ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... the apt correlation of the arts which accounts for the acknowledgment by an English story writer that she got her style from Ruskin's "Principles of Drawing"; and of a landscape painter that to sculpture he owed his discernment of the forest secrets, by daily observing the long lines of statues in the corridor of the Royal Academy; or by the composer of pictures to the composer of music; or by the preacher that suggestions to discourse had come to him through the pictorial ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... how much I fear lest pride it be; But if that pride it be which thus inspires, Beware, ye dames! with nice discernment see Ye quench not too ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... of their embryo powers for the express purpose that during that interval they may be guided by our reason, and not by their own. We can not surrender this trust. But there is a way of faithfully fulfilling the duties of it—if we have discernment to see it, and skill to follow it—which will make the years of their childhood years of tranquillity and happiness, both to ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... chance to come he watched her, noting her every movement, her troubled smile, her air of being apart and above her surroundings. He noticed, too, the set face of the young man at her side and, with the discernment of one whose own interest is captive, saw the half-concealed longing in his eyes. He felt a quick antipathy to this young man. His assured position at the girl's side accentuated how far he himself was removed from ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... by the accession of a new member. His conversation abounded with novelty. His gaiety was almost boisterous, but was capable of yielding to a grave deportment when the occasion required it. His discernment was acute, but he was prone to view every object merely as supplying materials for mirth. His conceptions were ardent but ludicrous, and his memory, aided, as he honestly acknowledged, by his invention, was ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... respect of Time, you often fall into a greater, which is, that the Voice remains unaccompanied, and deprived of Harmony; and thereby becomes flat and tiresome to the best Judges. You will perhaps say in Excuse, that few Auditors have this Discernment, and that there are Numbers of the others, who blindly applaud every thing that has an Appearance of Novelty. But whose fault is this? An Audience that applauds what is blameable, cannot justify your ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... also, who in that sequester'd spot Attended diligent her aged Lord. Then thus Ulysses to his followers spake. Haste now, and, ent'ring, slay ye of the swine The best for our regale; myself, the while, Will prove my father, if his eye hath still 260 Discernment of me, or if absence long Have worn the knowledge of me from his mind. He said, and gave into his servants' care His arms; they swift proceeded to the house, And to the fruitful grove himself as swift To prove his father. Down he went at once Into the spacious garden-plot, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... able lawyer, and on many occasions exhibited a very clear and correct judicial discernment of intricate cases. It was one of his peculiarities that he never sat on the bench with his brother judges, but always at the clerk's table. Different reasons for this practice have been given, but the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... 'I will do none of these; but, by retiring into the quiet and untrodden forest, I will show my discernment of real good and ill. The holy ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... all rejoiced; and in one the love of virtue was increased, in another negligence stirred up, and in others conceit stopped, while all were persuaded to despise the plots of the devil, wondering at the grace which had been given to Antony by the Lord for the discernment of spirits. So the cells in the mountains were like tents filled with divine choirs, singing, discoursing, fasting, praying, rejoicing over the hope of the future, working that they might give alms thereof, and having love ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... prosperity. It is the part of a prudent manager to see all that is doing, and to foresee and direct all that should be done. The weakest capacity can perceive what is wrong after it has occurred; but discernment and discretion are necessary to anticipate and prevent confusion and disorder, by a well-regulated system of prompt and vigorous management. If time be wisely economised, and the useful affairs transacted ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... correct, that a good face is a letter of recommendation—poor John William Smith may be said to have come without a character! How little did I dream of the bright jewel hid in so plain and frail a casket: how often have I felt ashamed of my own want of discernment: what a lesson has it been never again to contract any sort of prejudice against a man from personal appearance! It was not till I had known him for nearly a year, owing partly to our unfrequent meetings, and his absence, that I began to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... that his genial egoism had not repelled her. Her instinct told her that he could be both kind and generous, that he was capable of unselfish impulses, and full, too, of a broad and tolerant humanity, yet there was something within her—some finer spiritual discernment—which rose to battle against the attraction he appeared to possess. He was not mental, he was not even superficially bookish, and yet because of a certain magnetic quality—a mere dominant virility—she found herself occupied, to the exclusion of her work, with ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Benoni, "it seems that I have still some discernment, for just so I judged him. Well, what more do you ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... he had replied. "As a rule I do not think there is any one in the world for whose discernment I have so much respect as I have for yours. But in this respect even ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... impossible to measure adequately the consequences of sexual indulgence. It is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both sexes. It results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. It is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. But the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical disease ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... infinitely sad one. It was the utterance of an experienced man; and in many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever it chooses;—a great gift, if directed to the discernment of the things needful and pertinent to its own work and being; a great weakness, if directed to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all things throughout the world, the men who look for the crooked will see the crooked, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... his tongue was active. The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon those with whom he lived, and indirectly on the whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel. His colloquial talents were indeed of the highest order. He had strong sense, quick discernment, wit, humour, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious anecdotes. As respected style, he spoke far better than he wrote. Every sentence which dropped from his lips was as correct in structure as the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of education. There were certain accomplishments, from which I was excluded, from the belief that they were unsuitable to my rank and station. I was permitted to acquire others, which, had she been actuated by true discernment, she would, perhaps, have discovered to be far more incompatible with a servile station. In proportion as my views were refined and enlarged by history and science, I was likely to contract a thirst of independence, and an impatience ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... imagined that they would give her up without a hard struggle. Seeing the old lady coming down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good old lady were truly distressing. Not having, like her daughter, the vigor of ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... would achieve that power in the work of preaching which is needed to turn the hearts of men towards God and goodness. Notwithstanding all that may be said as to the difficulties of the situation, we venture to think that the lines upon which confidence may be won back again are not impossible of discernment. ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... to remember that fate does not shower favours on all men, but 'if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible,' and his success was to a very great extent due to his stout heart and quick discernment. These qualities stood him in good stead at San Juan de Ulloa, when his few ships were overwhelmed by a much larger fleet. 'The name of Hawkins was so terrible that the Spaniards dared not give him warning ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... world values more highly. The low man, on the other hand, grovels in the dust and never rises to higher thoughts or nobler aims. Men could, if they would, distinguish the worthy from the unworthy, just as with a healthy palate they can tell good food from bad. But men's moral discernment has been blunted by a life of sensuality and sin, just as the physical palate loses its power of tasting when in a ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... a great silence among the Indians when Accomba had finished speaking. An Indian has great discernment, and not only can soon discover where the pathos of a story lies, but he will read as by intuition how much of it is true or false. Moreover, Michel's character was well known among them all, and his eccentricities had often excited their wonder and sometimes their censure. The poor ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... was no necessity, his requirements being always reasonable and only such as she was fully capable of meeting. She had a good mind, quick discernment and retentive memory, and she was quite resolved to be industrious and to keep her promise to her father to be a good girl in every way. Also her ambition was aroused to attempt to overtake her brother ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... of retribution, for Nature herself employs it; she uses pain to impress a lasting memory of her precepts. If to the shame of the preceding evening, unhappily too transient, the steward had joined some personal chastisement, perhaps the lesson might have been complete. The discernment with which such punishment needs to be administered is the greatest argument against it. Nature is never mistaken; but the teacher ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... In the Southampton country he came in contact with the then Bishop of Winchester, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, excellent Elphegus, still dimly decipherable to us as a man of great natural discernment, piety, and inborn veracity; a hero-soul, probably of real brotherhood with Olaf's own. He even made court visits to King Ethelred; one visit to him at Andover of a very serious nature. By Elphegus, as we can discover, he was introduced into the real depths of the Christian faith. Elphegus, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... without almost entirely engrossing it. She became the object of all desires: her clique was the centre of all intrigues, and those whom she loved became also the favourites of fortune.... Her intelligence, her wit, and the high opinion entertained for her discernment, won for her the admiration of all good people, who were persuaded that her esteem alone was enough to give them reputation. If, in this way, she governed people's minds, she was not less successful by means of her beauty; for although she had suffered ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... mighty energy and possessed of great discernment, Drona then said, 'Persons like the sons of Pandu never perish nor undergo discomfiture. Brave and skilled in every science, intelligent and with senses under control, virtuous and grateful and obedient to the virtuous Yudhishthira, ever following in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... become ribbonmen; their chief objects, however, at present, were to free themselves from the terrors of Captains Ussher and Greenough, and to prevent their landlords ejecting them for non-payment of rent. It would be supposed a man of Pat Brady's discernment, station, and character, would not have wished to belong to, or have been admitted by, so desperate a society; but he, nevertheless, was not only of them, but one of their leaders, and it can only be supposed that ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... inquisitive after the fashion of a sympathetic arch-angel. It appalled her to see people wrecking their lives by indecision, vacillation, incapacity, by poor judgment and crass stupidity. Her homely wisdom, the fruit of observant years, her native common sense, her strength and discernment were all at the service of the first comer. Responsibility, the bugbear of mankind, was as ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... For it is a fatal mistake to suppose that ugliness which is taken for beauty will answer all the purposes of beauty; the subtle relation between all kinds of truth and fitness in our life forbids that bad taste should ever be harmless to our moral sensibility or our intellectual discernment; and—more than that—as it is probable that fine musical harmonies have a sanative influence over our bodily organization, it is also probable that just coloring and lovely combinations of lines may be necessary to the complete well-being of our systems apart from any conscious ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Three conspired over whisky cocktails and a clean sheet of notepaper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This work is very like what men without discernment call politics before a general election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial friends, all the weak points in your opponents' organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... that, when we begin to consider these results which lie outside the life and organization of the Christian community, we need much discernment and discrimination, lest we ascribe to Christianity alone an influence and an efficiency which it only shares with Western thought and civilization. But it is not only impossible to separate these forces, in our endeavour ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... be corrupted in indolence, but to remedy that do not you think it would be proper to marry him? Your majesty might then admit him to your council, where he would learn by degrees the art of reigning, and so be prepared to receive your authority whenever in your discernment you shall ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... "I give you credit for more discernment than you admit. Confess that you think our marquis needs a stronger head beside him, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... kindly. 'The officer is speaking in your best interests. A man of taste and discernment, he knows what is best. His advice is ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... reflection. But surely we should discriminate between ignorance and defect of understanding. The truth was, they often neither comprehended the design nor conceived the utility of such works, but on subjects in any degree familiarised to their ideas, they generally testified not only acuteness of discernment but a large portion of good sense. I have always thought that the distinctions they shewed in their estimate of us, on first entering into our society, strongly displayed the latter quality: when they were led into our respective houses, at once to be astonished and awed ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... imprecation, to expect from the entreaties of his mother,—strove to forget the person of Lady Mary, and think only of her mind.—Her Ladyship, a little chagrin'd Sir James's proposals were not seconded by Mr. Powis, pretended immediate business into Oxfordshire.—The Baronet wants not discernment: he saw through her motive; and taking his opportunity, insinuated the violence of his son's passion, and likewise the great timidity it occasion'd—he even prevail'd on Lady Powis to propose returning with her to ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... die; and the learned Greek, who looked upon all religion with no little scepticism, was prepared to ridicule the idea of the burial of the Son of God; but the very circumstance which awakened such prejudices, suggested to those possessed of spiritual discernment discoveries of stupendous grandeur. Justice demands the punishment of transgressors; mercy pleads for their forgiveness: holiness requires the execution of God's threatenings; goodness insists on the fulfilment of His promises: and all these attributes are harmonized in ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... this conception of love peculiar to the hero only. The heroine's conception is its exact counterpart, and exactly fits it. The heroine as completely as the hero has freed herself from any discernment between good and evil. She recoils from abnormal impurity no more than from normal, and the climax of the book is her full indulgence ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... world of progress, we are told; but is there not some compensation for this in the acquisition of finer and more subtle perception of things hidden from the social, laughing, hurrying world? So it seems to me, and even though the nicer discernment bring pain, as it often does—as all refinement must—who would yield it for a grosser content ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... and relations, forbye the minister, we had my father's cousin, Mr Alexander Clues, that was then deacon convener, and a man of great potency in his way, and possessed of an influence in the town-council of which he was well worthy, being a person of good discernment, and well versed in matters appertaining to the guildry. Mr Clues, as we were mellowing over the toddy bowl, said, that by and by the council would be looking to me to fill up the first gap that ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... she said she was willing to take her oath on it at any time when required, and was certain, if the wretch Ridsley saw him, that he would make oath to the same purport, for that his walk was so peculiar no one of common discernment ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... his finger in his little book, and folded his arms picturesquely across his breast. It can hardly be determined whether his attitude, as he bent his sympathetic Italian eye upon Rowland, was a happy accident or the result of an exquisite spiritual discernment. To Rowland, at any rate, under the emotion of that moment, it seemed blessedly opportune. He rose and approached the monk, and laid his hand ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... that question,' said Miss Gardner, smiling. 'Quiet as she seems now, poor thing she has a character of her own, I can see, and plenty of discernment. To be so guarded, as she is, at her age, shows ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one of the worst of a long line of inappropriate colonial governors. He was a hot-headed, hot-hearted man who seemed to think that to play the part of a domineering, blustering bully was to show discretion and discernment in the duties of his office. He always acted under the conviction that he must always be in the right and every one else always in the wrong, and he blazed up into fantastic rages at the slightest show of opposition. As this was not the spirit in which to deal with the proud ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... has for several years seemed to us that such an impulse might be expected to come from the work of Mr. James Lane Allen. He has published few books as yet, but the number is sufficient to reveal a steadily increasing mastery of his art, and the quality such as to warrant readers of discernment in predicting for him a brilliant career and an assured place in the front rank of American writers. The Choir Invisible does not disappoint these expectations. It is not only the most ambitious of Mr. Allen's books, considered merely as to its sale, ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... Victory, as brave, as intrepid, and as great a hero as ever existed, a seaman's friend and the father of the fleet. The love of his country was engraven on his heart. He was most zealous for her honour and welfare, and his discernment was clear and decisive. His death was deservedly and deeply felt by every man in the fleet. I must not omit that when the Commander of the French fleet, Admiral Villeneuve, was brought alongside us instead of the Victory, he was informed it was ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... basalt on its telescope-like pedestal. The hall itself, despite its profusion of strangely sculptured treasures, is never crowded, but before this stone you may almost always find some one standing, gazing with more or less of discernment at the strange characters that are graven neatly across its upturned, glass-protected face. A glance at this graven surface suffices to show that three sets of inscriptions are recorded there. The upper one, occupying about one-fourth of the surface, is a pictured ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... "No person of common discernment who has read Dr. Buchanan's writings or conversed with him in relation to the topics which they treat, can have failed to recognize in him one of the very foremost thinkers of the day. He is certainly one of the most charming and instructive ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... of the day contains few things more interesting than these confessions. They relate to railroad accidents, and the confessor is manifestly a man not only of remarkable discernment, but likewise of rhetorical skill."—Stone and Webster Public ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... you will perceive that whatever has been done relating to Hobart in the conclusion of this arrangement for India, has received the sanction of his nearest relations, of persons whose affectionate friendship for Hobart, and just discernment of his interests, will readily be acknowledged by you. In a situation of peculiar delicacy and embarrassment, it has been a great satisfaction to me to have been able to submit every step which I have taken in this affair to the judgment of such ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Castlereagh, disguised as it was to men of his own day by a curious infelicity of expression; and the instinctive good sense of Englishmen never showed itself more remarkably than in their preference at this crisis of his cool judgement, his high courage, his discernment, and his will to the more showy brilliancy of Canning. His first work indeed as a minister was to meet the danger in which Canning had involved the country by his Orders in Council. On the 23rd of June, only ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... in such matters, they praised the beauty and symmetry of the rooms, and the richness of the furniture and ornaments. Afterward, a magnificent repast was served up, and the emperor made them sit with him, and was so much pleased with the wit, judgment, and discernment shown by the two princes that he said, "Were these my own children, and I had improved their talents by suitable education, they could not have been ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... number of both in this capital, that I might have spent a whole year in taking even a transient view of them; and, after all, some of them would have been overlooked. The most celebrated pieces, however, I have seen; and therefore my curiosity is satisfied. Perhaps, if I had the nice discernment and delicate sensibility of a true connoisseur, this superficial glimpse would have served only to whet my appetite, and to detain me the whole winter at Rome. In my progress through the Vatican, I was much pleased with the School of Athens, by Raphael, a piece which hath suffered ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... object in writing now is to tell you how pleased His Majesty is with the working of the German Hero Fund. He is enthusiastic about it and spoke in most complimentary terms of your discernment, as well as your generosity in founding it. He did not believe it would fill so important a place as it is doing. He told me of several cases that are really touching, and which would otherwise have been wholly unprovided for. One was that of a young man who ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... to which people on both sides were entitled and bound to submit. In this spirit he acted as a practical statesman, and wrote his history. If in his youth he had done homage to the honourable but impracticable local patriotism of the Achaeans, during his later years, with a clear discernment of inevitable necessity, he advocated in the community to which he belonged the policy of the closest adherence to Rome. It was a policy in the highest degree judicious and beyond doubt well-intentioned, but it was far from ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was not altogether pleased; he had made up his mind a month or two ago that Lady Fitzgerald was not the lawful wife of her husband; and had come to this conclusion on, as he still thought, sufficient evidence. But now he was proved to have been wrong; his character for shrewdness and discernment would be damaged, and his great ally and chum Mr. Die, the Chancery barrister, would be down on him with unmitigated sarcasm. A man who has been right so frequently as Mr. Prendergast, does not like to find that he is ever in the wrong. And then, had his ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Ah, my dear child, allow us the credit of our own discernment. And don't take offence at my familiarity. I am afraid I am spoilt ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... case I think it may. If the constitutional monarch be a man of singular discernment, of unprejudiced disposition, and great political knowledge, he may pick out from the ranks of the divided party its very best leader, even at a time when the party, if left to itself, would not ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... power and authority to select and adjust. By this I do not mean that a set of ecclesiastics will alone be adequate. Ecclesiastical vision, like all other highly specialized vision, is partial, and does not always see quite straight. There should also be called into play the business ability and discernment of men of large business interests or administrative gifts. Sooner or later the various religious organizations will have to meet, in some better way than any thus far formulated, this ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... character, without distinctive mark, showing itself in the various situations of life inconsistent, variable, unequal to strain, acting on the impulse, good or bad, of the moment; its fitful strength in moods of obstinacy or self-will showing that it lacks the higher qualities of rational discernment and self-control. ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Zadig for his acute and profound discernment. The news of this speech was carried even to the king and queen. Nothing was talked of but Zadig in the antechambers, the chambers, and the cabinet; and though many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burned as a sorcerer, the king ordered his officers to restore him the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Browns to arise. References in this article to the Chatham convention indicate that George Brown, editor of The Globe, knew what had been going on in Canada in May, 1858. Three weeks later, The Globe, with fine discernment, declared that if the tension between north and south continued, civil war would be inevitable and "no force that the south can raise can hold the slaves if the north wills that they be free."[3] On the day of Brown's execution The Globe said: ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... of tranquillity; he had himself shaved every day by a barber who had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was extremely sagacious; here is one of his sayings: "I have, in truth, some penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... then shall your conferences be kept with much blessing, and you be subject one to another in the fear of God. No one will then tenaciously hold his own opinion as the best, or as infallible, but every one will gladly take advantage of the other's discernment, and rather follow what is likely to attain the desired end, than his own private inclination. In the division of your labour consider yourselves as members of one body—that the eye cannot be supposed to do what the hand can, and the hand cannot ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... testimony. And the various parties, pointing out reciprocally to each other, the contradictions, improbabilities, and forgeries, accused one another of having established their belief on popular rumors, vague traditions, and absurd fables, invented without discernment, and admitted without examination by unknown, partial, or ignorant writers, at uncertain ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... intangible matters, and he began to distinguish and to cast out the base and parasitic prestidigitators who infested his house. He grew discerning, and was able to weed the tares from the wheat, and with this discernment came the conviction that it was his duty to violently expose those who sought to cheat him. He became a terror to the fraudulent, and by his vigorous denouncement of this and that performer raised storms of opposition; for it seemed that no trickster, no matter how ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... feigning, for his natural temper was careless and easy; the boisterous airs he assumed when he became the husband of Katharine being but in sport, or more properly speaking, affected by his excellent discernment, as the only means to overcome, in her own way, the passionate ways of the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the real key to control of Indian troops. Up a side-street there were a dozen troop-horses standing, and a British subaltern was making himself as inconspicuous as he could in the doorway of a store. It did not need much discernment to judge that those in authority were ready to deal swiftly with ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... Mother Bunch, who had more discernment, exclaimed: "Goodness, Agricola—how pale you are! Whatever ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Roe lays claim to the same spirit of discernment, tho' his title to that claim might be questionable on another ground. He is readily led into a conclusion that Mr. Wilkins must have visited the Northern towns to procure Mr. Cowen's nomination; when it happens that the committees in those towns had been chosen before his name had been mentioned ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... settlement. John Eustace, who was somewhat nearly concerned in the matter, raised no objection to this proposal. There was ever something grand about these Eustaces. Sir Florian was a grand gentleman; but surely he must have been dull of intellect, slow of discernment, blear-eyed in his ways about the town, when he took Lizzie Greystock,—of all the women whom he could find in the world,—to be the purest, the truest, and the noblest. It has been said of Sir Florian that he did not believe in virtue. He freely expressed disbelief in the virtue ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... glowed with discernment. With a meaning gleam in their depths, she said: "But, most high, there are no princes here. There is no one to whom the most gracious one could be sold. No one who could pay more than a dozen rubies. Women ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... is the artist? Toward no question has mankind's indolence and inertia of discernment proved more unyielding than toward this one. 'Such things are a gift,' humbly say the good people who are under the influence of an artist, and because cheerful and exalted effects, according to their good-natured view, must quite inevitably ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... uncleanliness, are quickly destructive to the silky coat, and constant watchfulness is necessary to protect the dog from all occasion for scratching. The diet is an important consideration always, and a nice discernment is imperative in balancing the proportions of meat and vegetable. Too much meat is prone to heat the blood, while too little induces eczema. Scraps of bread and green vegetables well mixed with gravy and finely-minced lean meat form the best ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... of opinion, common among those whose business or whose pleasure it is to look beneath the surface of things historical, that he was wanting in strength of character and in courage. He did not lack discernment as to what was wisest and best; but he was too easily influenced by others, or led by the hope of gaining some glittering prize which ambition coveted, to turn his back upon his own convictions. It was this weakness ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... as I said: but her greatest excellence is, that she is humble, and courteous, and faithful, and makes all her fellow-servants love her: My housekeeper, in particular, doats upon her; and you know, ladies, she is a woman of discernment: And, as for Mr. Longman, and Jonathan, here, if they thought themselves young enough, I am told, they would fight for her. Is it not true, Jonathan? Troth, sir, said he, an't please your honour, I never knew her peer, and all your honour's family are of the same mind. Do you hear now? said my ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... galled her intolerably was this discernment of the way in which—at least since their honeymoon—he must have been criticising and judging her—judging her by comparison with another woman. She seemed to see at a glance, the whole process of his mind, and her ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Supervision,[3192] murmuring, threatening, and showing their bloody pikes. That is the evidence of having done their work well. They boast of it to Petion, impress upon him how "just and attentive" they were,[3193] their discernment, the time given to the work, so many days and so many hours; they ask only for what is "due to them"; when the treasurer, on paying them, demands their names, they give them without the slightest hesitation. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... were marvels of discernment—and discretion, he had to add. But there were the women. Women were cats. To the best of them it would be great joy to catch the radiant, unimpeachable Paula as clay as any daughter of Eve. And any chance woman in the house, for ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Flowers. The First Lesson of the Boy and Girl on the Frontier. The Wife's School in the Heart of the Rocky Mountains. A Leaf from the Life of Washington. The Hero-Mothers of the Republic. A Patriot Woman and a Martyr. A Mother's Influence on the Life of Andrew Jackson. Woman's Discernment of a Boy's Genius. West, the Painter, and Webster, the Statesman. The Place where our Great Men Learned A. B. C. Miss M. and her Labors in Illinois. A Martyrdom in the Cause of Education. Woman as an Educator of Human Society. Incident in the Life of a Millionaire. What a Mother's Portrait Did. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... because they are good, but because they are old. The origin and development of Roman poetry made it certain that perfection must come late. He assumes that Augustus champions the moderns, and compliments him on the discernment which preferred a Virgil and a Varius (and so, by implication, a Horace) to the Plautuses and Terences ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Astute Filipinos, of quicker discernment than their fellows, did not fail to perceive the material advantages to be reaped from a religious system, quite apart from the religion itself, in the power of union and its pecuniary potentiality. As a result thereof there came into existence, at the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... flowing in from sight, hearing, touch, or interaction with others, and thus affecting him. He is wholly unaware that love is his very life; not only the general life of his whole body, and the general life of all his thoughts, but also the life of all their particulars. This a man of discernment can perceive when it is said: If you remove the affection which is from love, can you think anything, or do anything? Do not thought, speech, and action, grow cold in the measure in which the affection which is from ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Madam, or I should rather say, brought you to this house, merely that he might be present on this occasion, and with his discernment relieve me from a suspicion, that my own judgment is neither able to suppress nor ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... he should thus lose his crown. He was ever hoping that affairs would soon take such a turn that harmony would be restored to his distracted kingdom. Maria Antoinette, however, who had a much more clear discernment of the true state of affairs, soon felt convinced that reconciliation, unless effected by the arm of power, was hopeless, and she exerted all her influence to rouse the king to vigorous measures for escape. While firmly resolved never to abandon her husband ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... order to represent their own Haoma—although the conventional bore no similarity to the real plant—proves that they recognized a certain analogy in the conception of the two emblems. In point of fact the Persians have shown great discernment in their borrowing and adapting; and where they took Chaldeo-Assyrian art for model and for teaching, they only adopted such of those religious symbols common in the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, as ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... necessarily be concerned with reasoning or understanding - I mean, method is not identical with reasoning in the search for causes, still less is it the comprehension of the causes of things: it is the discernment of a true idea, by distinguishing it from other perceptions, and by investigating its nature, in order that we may so train our mind that it may, by a given standard, comprehend whatsoever is intelligible, by laying down certain ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... committee of the House on Library. The other members were Wm. D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, and Calvin T. Hurlburd, of New York. As chairman of the committee on the Library of the United States, to employ the language of its accomplished librarian, he had "a clear discernment and quick apprehension of all things that needed to be done;" he "threw his influence in favor of the ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... useless if it be not based upon wisdom . . . Counsel is worthless, when the strength of fortitude is lacking thereto . . . and fortitude is very weak if it be not supported by counsel . . . Knowledge is nought if it hath not the use of piety . . . and piety is very useless if it lack the discernment of knowledge . . . and assuredly, unless it has these virtues with it, fear itself rises up to the doing of no good action": from which it seems that it is possible to have one gift without another. Therefore the gifts of the Holy Ghost are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... handsome in person, though now somewhat advanced in years, and reputed brave and devout. He had filled some offices of responsibility to the satisfaction of Charles the Fifth, by whom he was now appointed to this post in Peru. The selection did no credit to the monarch's discernment. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... excellent livers and fearless temperaments, bestowed names befitting their sense of humor and adaptability. The official title of the Sioux was By-and-by; the dog was known as Fleas. Never had names more clearly described the objects to be represented, for they were excellent examples of cowboy discernment and aptitude. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... three considerations which claim our attention: An enlightened preacher, who discovers a very peculiar discernment in the selection of his subject; a conscience appalled and confounded on the recollection of its crimes and of that awful judgment where they must be weighed, a sinner alarmed, but not converted; a sinner who desires ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... Wakefield's conception of the sale of waste lands at a "sufficient price." He saw the immense latent value of the fertile deserts of the Empire. He grasped the full meaning of the truth that the arrival of a population with money and industry instantly gives good land a value. His discernment showed him the absurdity of giving colonial lands away in indefinite areas to the first chance grabbers, and the mistake of supposing that wage labour would not be required in young countries. His theory, therefore, was that colonizing associations should be formed in England—not ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... glistening, as if ready, at a breath of air, to break out into metallic ringing, like a million silver joy-bells. I mentioned the conceit to Polly, as we stood at the window, and she said it reminded her of Jean Paul. She is a woman of most remarkable discernment. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and more. He is a young man of some discernment," observed the old fellow, with a chuckle ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... punished or revenged them. Many have blamed him for this on the score of policy; but if it was not sense and calculation, it should be ascribed to good-nature. None, I presume, will impute it to weakness or want of discernment." ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... probably suffer by the intercourse with Persia through the Mediterranean, I at once rejected the proposal, and had afterwards the thanks of the Honourable the House of Commons for my propriety and political discernment. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... would have written his name in history as one of the most skilful strategists the world has known, whoever had held the seals of office in England. But Pitt's relation to all three was such as to entitle him to a large share in the credit of their deeds. It was his discernment that selected Wolfe to lead the attack on Quebec, and gave him the opportunity of dying a victor on the heights of Abraham. He had personally less to do with the successes in India than with the other great enterprises ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... admitted to service near the Divine throne, the gates of wisdom were opened unto him, and the gates of understanding, and of discernment, of life, peace, and the Shekinah, of strength and power, of might, loveliness, and grace, of humility and fear of sin. Equipped by God with extraordinary wisdom, sagacity, judgment, knowledge, learning, compassionateness, love, kindness, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... a man of keen discernment, quick apprehensions, and ready retort. In social intercourse he had wonderful powers of adapting himself to circumstances, and was alike an acceptable visitor in the families of the wealthy and refined, the humble and the uneducated, and a welcome guest at their tables. It ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... extreme view of the primary value of highly-wrought discipline which he encountered everywhere among Catholics, though not enough to blind him to the essential liberty of the Church, was enough to delay him in his progress to her. There can be little doubt that multitudes of men and women of less discernment and feebler will than his, have been and still are kept entirely out of the Church by the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... disappointing me. No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour, and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks, is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be sufficient to afford it. Come home however and take your chance. I long to see you, and to hear you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... in which we find more discernment of character and acquaintance with human nature than are usually discoverable in the first attempts of ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... with Tony, and left him completely nonplussed by her uncanny discernment when, after he had stumbled through the revelation of his engagement to Doreen Neville, during one of the intervals, she promptly told him she had anticipated it long ago and wished ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... mention here, a woman observed when I visited the Maraboutess, (addressing me), "You must send the medicine, for a Christian mou yakidtheb (never lies)." It is a pity that these people, who have discernment enough to see at times the moral superiority of Christians, should not look a little below the surface and inquire into its cause. Not, however, that all Europeans, (or myself,) deserve these high compliments of gratitude and love of truth, although, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood," she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she peculiarly ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... effecting this great object; but the emancipation of the Spanish Colonies, and the erection of independent States in their stead, has broken down the barrier which Spanish jealousy had erected. The rulers of these states are not devoid of discernment to perceive that the exclusion of European Nations from the shores of the Pacific would be productive of immense injury to themselves, and that by making their own territory the high-road to the countries which ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill
... possible that by reason of this grave taciturnity the clergyman won more surely upon the respect of his people. "He is engrossed," said they, "with greater matters; and in all secular affairs he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his inaptitude in current speech was construed by them into a delicate flattery. They greatly relished his didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a religion not so much of the sensibilities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... as before, distributing with a lavish hand all she could spare from her own household; careful of nothing but of guarding against imposition, which, though she sometimes unavoidably endured, her discernment, and the activity of her investigating diligence, saved her from suffering frequently. And the steadiness with which she repulsed those whom she detected in deceit, was a check upon tricks and fraud, though it could not wholly put a stop ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... wealth. Unhappy man would he be, who, walking his garden, should scent only the earthy savour of leaves dead or dying, never perceiving, and that afar off, the heavenly odour of roses fresh to-day from the Maker's hands. The discerning by spiritual aroma may lead to discernment by the eye, and to that careful scrutiny, and thence greater knowledge, of which the eye is instrument ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... was the custom, from the apostolic age, to read in their assemblies along with the law and the prophets. (Justin Martyr Apol., 1. 67.) Earnestness and sincerity are traits which will not be denied to the primitive Christians, and they were certainly not wanting in common discernment. Let any man show, if he can, how a spurious gospel, suddenly appearing somewhere after the apostolic days, could have been imposed upon the churches as genuine, not only where it originated, but everywhere else in Christendom. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... in discernment than the beasts of the field," she said, as she came up to him. "That boy is actually vexed because I will not go and play at Tom Tiddler's Ground with him. He positively expected that I would be Tiddler! Tiddler! Did you ever hear of such a name? It sounds ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... my dear," cries Booth, "you shall have it your way; I must confess I never yet found any reason to blame your discernment; and perhaps I have been in the wrong to give myself so ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... fragment that he draws from memory. His powers of association, and his knowledge of nature will pour out before him in greater or less number and appositeness the images from which to choose. His experience guides him to quick discernment in the combination, when made, of the parts that ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of creation. He should be put down,—as you would put down a tiger or a rattlesnake, if found at liberty somewhere in the Midland Counties. A more hateful character, to all who possess a grain of moral discernment, could not even be imagined. And it need not be shown that the conception of such a character is worthy only of a baby. However many years the man who deliberately and admiringly delineates such a person may have lived in this world, intellectually he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Imitate then, with discernment and judgment, the real perfections of the good company into which you may get; copy their politeness, their carriage, their address, and the easy and well-bred turn of their conversation; but remember that, let them shine ever so bright, their vices, if they have any, are ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... correspondence began. It was easy for a young woman of Dorothy's discernment to see that here was no case for a long-distance flirtation, if she had wanted one. From the moment when she had flung her left hand into Waldron's right, and that other moment when she had told him with absolute truth that she was not afraid with him beside her, he had taken her at her word. She ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... great talents, though deaf and dumb, who had been to a Deaf and Dumb Institution to be taught, with a view to become the master of a similar Institution in Russia, was asked the difference between intelligence and discernment? He said "Intelligence is a faculty, by which we distinguish good and evil, what is useful and what hurtful. I think discernment is the faculty of distinguishing the greater and less degrees of ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... expression. What that something was it would be hard to define, but perhaps the nearest approach to the truth would be to describe it as a light of purity which, notwithstanding the popular idea to the contrary, is quite as often to be found upon the faces of men as upon those of women. Any person of discernment looking on Colonel Quaritch must have felt that he was in the presence of a good man—not a prig or a milksop, but a man who had attained by virtue of thought and struggle that had left their marks upon him, a man whom it would not be well to tamper with, one to be respected by all, and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... distinguish the danger and the courage to meet it. Milner's worn face and prematurely grizzled hair told of the crushing weight which had rested upon him during three eventful years. A gentle scholar, he might have seemed more fitted for a life of academic calm than for the stormy part which the discernment of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned to him. The fine flower of an English university, low-voiced and urbane, it was difficult to imagine what impression he would produce upon those rugged types of which ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... led, and not chagrin, The hermit never spoke of what he'd seen; But, from the youth's discernment, strove to hide, Whate'er regarded love, and much beside, The softer sex, with all their magick charms, That fill the feeling bosom with alarms. As years advanced, the boy with care he taught; What suited ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... way, making them burn in a moment; but usually He gives them flashes of light which dazzle them, and lift them nearer to Himself. These persons appear much greater than those of whom I shall speak later, to those who are not possessed of a divine discernment, for they attain outwardly to a high degree of perfection, God eminently elevating their natural capacity, and replenishing it in an extraordinary manner; and yet they are never really brought to a state of annihilation to self, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... seized with a certain frenzy of strength and discernment at the danger he was in, and, as he carried the scow onward and across the woodland island, heavy as it was, he also noted a single small hickory tree on that farther margin, and threw himself against it and bent it down, and plunged his knife into the straining fibres so that ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... ever greater of its kind than that he manifested on this trying occasion, yet it fell to the earth, like the shedding scales of a serpent, before my simple discernment. Yet his words, his manner, did in some strange and unexplained way greatly exonerate Evelyn in my estimation, at least for a ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... here in the corner," said Simmy, with discernment, "and for heaven's sake don't talk ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... against the system, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good, for I assure myself that while you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an united and effective government, or which ought to await the future ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... so particularly magnanimous? Well, never mind! And now,' he continued, with melancholy triumph, uncovering a third rather large mass of clay, 'you shall behold something which will show you the humility and discernment of your friend. You will realise that he, like a true artist again, feels the need and ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... of psychometry is that in which the psychometer is able to sense the conditions existing underground, by means of a piece of mineral or metal which originally was located there. Some wonderful instances of phychometric discernment of mines, etc., have been recorded. In this phase of psychometry, all that is needed is a piece of the coal, mineral or metal which has come from the mine. Following up this psychic "lead" the psychometrist is able to describe the veins or strata of the ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... complains and impose an oath upon him who denies; and compromise is lawful between Muslims, except it be a compromise sanctioning an unlawful or forbidding a lawful thing. If he have done aught during the day, of which he is doubtful, the judge should reconsider it and apply his discernment to elucidating it, that (if he have erred) he may revert to the right, for to do justice is a religious obligation and to return to that which is right is better than perseverance in error. Then he should study the precedents and the law of the case and do equal justice between the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... are puzzled, and all the more so now that Juba has made his appearance. I think it certain that they have never actually met any representative of Juba's race before, but no doubt he bears, to their eyes, ethnological characteristics which escape our discernment, and it is likely that tradition has handed down to them facts about the inhabitants of the other side of their planet ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... what it requires. This I hope will ensure to me from Congress a kind construction of all my transactions; and it gives me no small pleasure, that my communications will pass through the hands of a gentleman, with whom I have acted in the earlier stages of this contest, and whose discernment and candor I had the good fortune ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... this with regard to ourselves. A man may become very earnest, may take in all the teaching he hears; he may be able to discern, for discernment is a gift; he may say, "That man helps me in this line, and that man in another direction, and a third man is remarkable for another gift;" yet, all the time, the carnal life may be living strongly in him, and when he gets into ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... comments, criticisms, and judgments which pass from man to man through a wide area and sometimes through long periods of time. The opinion which appears at first glance to be an expression of materialism often shows, upon closer study, an element of idealism or a touch of spiritual discernment. It is customary, for instance, to say of a man that he lives in his works; as if the enduring quality of his fame rested in and was dependent upon the tangible products of his genius or his skill. There is truth in the phrase even when its scope is limited to this obvious meaning; but ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... that either, monsieur. The welfare of my country before everything. God, who has given me the power, has, no doubt, willed that I should have that power for the good of all, and He has given me, at the same time, discernment. If the parliament were to order such ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be to see the songs for your life. But as I suppose you have no personal acquaintance in this parish, it would be presumption in me to expect that you will visit my cottage, but I will attend you in any part of the Forest if you will send me word. I am far from supposing that a person of your discernment,—d-n it, I'll blot out that, 'tis so like flattery. I say I don't think you would despise a shepherd's "humble cot an' hamely fare," as Burns hath it, yet though I would be extremely proud of a visit, yet hang me if I would know what to do wi' ye. I am surprised to find that the songs ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... sanctum, a fine spacious chamber, beautified with that simplicity which throws a wonderful dignity over all, and tends to show how in omission so much more refinement is to be discovered than in ornament. Touches of the vicar's keen discernment of those things which are worthy and noble were revealed on every hand—knowledge of this sort is older than ten thousand years. The room received one like a friend. The alcoves were filled with well-bound books, there was a superb Persian carpet, old gate-legged tables—oak ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... American banking system are found that distrust and jealousy of money power which seem inherent in democracies. The exercise of state jurisdiction over the existence of the Bank of North America suggested possible embarrassments, which could not escape the discernment of Hamilton, whose policy, as it was also that of the Federal party, was to strengthen the powers of the government in every vital branch ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... enricheth and embellisheth so much of the neighbourhood of our city. Our brethren of Salem in New Jersey have carried the art of banking to a still higher degree of perfection." It is really an admirable contrivance, which greatly redounds to the honour of the parties concerned; and shows a spirit of discernment and perseverance which is highly praiseworthy: if the Virginians would imitate your example, the state of their husbandry would greatly improve. I have not heard of any such association in any other parts of the continent; Pennsylvania hitherto seems to reign the unrivalled queen of these fair provinces. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
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