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More "Reasoner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... erudite matters. Shrewdness is keenness or sagacity, often with a somewhat evil bias, as ready to take advantage of duller intellects. Perspicacity is the power to see clearly through that which is difficult or involved. We speak of the acuteness of an observer or a reasoner, the insight and discernment of a student, a clergyman, or a merchant, the sagacity of a hound, the keenness of a debater, the shrewdness of a usurer, the penetration, perspicacity, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... very plain—to a deductive reasoner—from the girl's attitude toward him that she had fallen into relations of uncommon friendliness with this Maitland, young as Anisty believed their acquaintance to be. There had plainly been a flirtation—wherein ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... in connection with the principle; the phenomenon as related to the law; all this not by the slow and sure process of science, but by the sudden and searching flashes of imaginative double vision. He had neither the patience nor the method of the inductive reasoner; he passed from one thought to another not by logical steps but by airy flights, which left no footprints. This mode of intellectual action when found united with natural sagacity becomes poetry, philosophy, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the amount of one day's work, has fewer rights than another who pays the amount of three days, why should not the man who pays ten days have more rights than the other who only pays the earnings of three days? This kind of reasoning had little weight with the Chamber, but it made the reasoner very popular with the throng in the galleries. Even within the Assembly, influence gradually came to the man who had a parcel of immutable axioms and postulates, and who was ready with a deduction and a phrase ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... converted, for having during a whole month guarded every approach to his cabin, and having during that time detected no one in taking food to him, they were convinced that for that time at least he had lived without food. The sceptical reasoner of the present day would probably regard the test ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... carriage. We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... own mother, wife, sisters, daughters and many of his best friends belong to the feminine half of humanity, any man who is a careful observer, a logical reasoner, and an adequate writer ought to be able to say something of worth and interest to the women and girls to whom he is permitted to address himself. If in this volume the author is able to impart to others, in a small degree, the beneficent influence he has received ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... was not a jot of romance in Dave Brainerd's make-up, and not a great depth of imagination; but he was the keenest man on a trail, and the clearest reasoner among a large number of picked and tried detectives. It amused me to think that both had been similarly impressed by this man as he had been set before us; but I made no comment, and to draw away from a subject which I felt it beyond our province ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... grown insolent since I had seized the money; and being desirous to shake off the yoke of a governor, 'Do you know, Mr. Brinon,' said I, 'that I don't like a blockhead to set up for a reasoner? Do you go to supper, if you please; but take care that I have post-horses ready before daybreak.' The moment he mentioned cards and dice, I felt the money burn in my pocket. I was somewhat surprised, however, to find the room where the ordinary was served ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of them? It may not be enough to prove at once that the syllogism is defective: still less is it a sufficient warrant for establishing an opposite syllogism. But it does seem to be enough to give the scientific reasoner pause, and to make him go over the line of his argument again and again and yet again, with the suspicion that there is (as how well there may ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the outset. 'It is folly to suppose,' he says, 'that the murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been consummated soon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... eminent in Bayle were equally so in Warburton. In his early studies he had particularly applied himself to logic; and was not only a vigorous reasoner, but one practised in all the finesse of dialectics. He had wit, fertile indeed, rather than delicate; and a vast body of erudition, collected in the uninterrupted studies of twenty years. But it was the SECRET PRINCIPLE, or, as ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... maritime member of the Israelitish confederacy, and calling forth from Deborah the rebuke that the sons of Dan tarried in ships when the land stood in need of defenders. And now comes the most extravagant of the vagaries of the etymological reasoner: he suggests a connection between Dan, Danube, Danai, and Danes, and so establishes the English nation's descent ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... thought had been working in him ever since. A copy of Mr. Judson's tract which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his own country. Meantime three simpler minds—Moung Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing—had been thoroughly convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, resolved to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... which yet had not oppressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of original combinations and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits were too eager to be always cautions. His abilities gave him a haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify, and his impatience of opposition disposed ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man who enters into the genius of that age can reasonably doubt of this prelate's sincerity. The spirit of superstition was so prevalent, that it infallibly caught every careless reasoner, much more every one whose interest, and honour, and ambition were engaged to support it. All the wretched literature of the times was enlisted on that side: some faint glimmerings of common sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of ignorance, or what was worse, the illusions of perverted ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Paul is a very keen and cogent reasoner. Like a powerful logician who is confident that he has the truth upon his side, and like a pureminded man who has no sinister ends to gain, he often takes his stand upon the same ground with his opponent, adopts his positions, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... powerful and logical reasoner. He was a very successful advocate when at the Bar and he was always a strong antagonist in debate and very effective as a campaign speaker. He stuck closely to his subject. He had a gift of sarcasm with which he could make an adversary feel exceedingly uncomfortable, although he rarely indulged ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... itself, though nobody is capable of comprehending it, and of which we therefore can have no experience. Yet he will assert, that thinking persons seldom are convinced by thinking. This is odd language for a reasoner. When another philosopher or divine attempts to prove a God in their own way, Dr. Priestley can readily see his fallacies and absurdities. Dr. Clarke, the former great champion of God Almighty, is made very light of. ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... Astute reasoner! the dilemma is very just, and is very formidable; and upon the one or other of its horns, has been transfixed every adventurer that has hitherto gone forth on the knight-errantry of speculation. Every man who lays claim to a direct knowledge of something different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... contains good physiology as well as good common sense, written by an acute observer and a logical reasoner, who has the courage of his convictions and is a master of English style."—D.A. Sargent, M.D., ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... great stretch of all his young frame he fell back on the catalogue he was looking through, while Ancrum went on turning over a copy of 'The Reasoner,' a vigorous Secularist paper of the day, which he had found on the counter, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sense in insisting on man's limitations because he can not be a mother, than on woman's because she can be. Surely maternity is an added power and development of some of the most tender sentiments of the human heart and not a "limitation." "Yes," says another pertinacious reasoner, "but it unfits woman for much of the world's work." Yes, and it fits her for much of the world's work; a large share of human legislation would be better done by her because of this ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... evident dream analogies belongs finally (without, however, completing my list of them) the peculiar logic that appears quite conventional to the wanderer or the dreamer, but seldom satisfies the reader or the careful reasoner. As examples, I mention that the dead lion will be called to life again if the wanderer marries the woman that he recently took; and that they put the two lovers that they want to punish for incest, after they have carefully removed all the clothes from their bodies, into a prison where ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... the lovely young reasoner a look expressive of his affectionate wonder at her inspired perception of legal possibilities, the old lawyer said, that the first thing in order was a meeting between herself and Miss PENDRAGON; which, as it could scarcely take place (all things ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... forward by various newspapers or private individuals, there were one or two which were feasible enough to attract the attention of the public. One which appeared in The Times, over the signature of an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date, attempted to deal with the matter in a critical and semi-scientific manner. An extract must suffice, although the curious can see the whole letter in the issue ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... countenance. A question of momentous importance was to be decided. "To be or not to be" was the final answer. Each solution involved a corresponding number of conflicting doubts and anxieties, and left scarcely any choice in the mind of the reasoner. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... Common sense sympathizes with the impressions of things on ordinary minds in ordinary circumstances: genius catches the glancing combinations presented to the eye of fancy, under the influence of passion. It is the province of the didactic reasoner to take cognizance of those results of human nature which are constantly repeated and always the same, which follow one another in regular succession, which are acted upon by large classes of men, and embodied in received ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... predominated in him, and when not on duty he was disposed to be rollicking and free and easy. He was not hard to approach by his inferiors, but he was not always discriminating in the language he used to them. He did not seem to be a deliberate thinker or reasoner, and often gave the impression that his decisions or opinions were off-hand and not the result of reflection. In the quiet of camp he seemed to be less able to combine or plan great movements than in emergencies in the field. In a battle he often showed the excitement of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the worst reasoner, analyzer, and metaphysician that ever was born; and therefore whatever I say on the subject can be worth very little, as a reply to your question, but may furnish you with some data for making a ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the position and prospects of the speaker. But how much moral considerations were apt to be present to his mind, I do not know. He was mostly known—so we of the North thought—as an impracticable reasoner. Miss Martineau said, "He was like a ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... time which displays Mr Campbell's character for discernment and candor. Aaron Pardee, a gentleman residing in the vicinity, an unbeliever in the gospel, attracted by Campbell's abilities as a reasoner, and won by his fairness in argument, resolved to obtain an interview and propose freely his difficulties. Mr. Campbell received him with such frankness that he opened his case at once, saying, 'I discover, Mr. Campbell, you are well prepared ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... as by display of the pistol the individual whose life is attacked says: "Desist or be shot." To be effective the warning in either case must be more than an idle threat. Even the most unearthly reasoner among the gallows-downing unfortunates would hardly expect to frighten away an assassin who knew the pistol to be unloaded. Of course these queer illogicians can not be made to understand that their position commits them to absolute non-resistance to any kind of aggression, and ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... criticism of the highest order. 'The author,' writes one, 'is a scientifically trained critic. He has learned to argue and to weigh evidence.' 'The book,' adds a second, 'proceeds from a man of ability, a scholar and a reasoner.' 'His scholarship,' says this same reviewer again, 'is apparent throughout.' 'Along with a wide and minute scholarship,' he writes in yet another place, 'the unknown writer shows great acuteness.' Again a third reviewer, of ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... Park, two stand out with special prominence, by reason of their unusual mental qualities. They differed widely from each other. One was a born actor and imitator, who loved human partnership in his daily affairs. The other was an original thinker and reasoner, with a genius for invention, and at all times impatient of training and restraint. The first was named Rajah, the latter ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... in this manner Mrs. Hunter yielded. Indeed she was not a little perplexed over the girl who had been so passive and subservient. She was not a profound reasoner upon any subject, nor could she understand how one step, even though Mara had been driven to it by hard necessity, led to many others. The girl had begun to assert her individual life, and her nature, once awakened, was proving a strong one. Deepening and widening experience perplexed and troubled ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... like one of my father's—so naive an imitation of that subtle reasoner's use of the rhetorical figure called Antanaclasis (or repetition of the same words in a different sense)—that I laughed and my mother smiled. But she smiled reverently, not thinking of the Antanaclasis, as, laying her hand ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no reply, I take the opportunity of the break in our conversation to say to my readers, that I know there was no satisfactory following out of an argument on either side in the passage of words I have just given. Even the closest reasoner finds it next to impossible to attend to all the suggestions in his own mind, not one of which he is willing to lose, to attend at the same time to everything his antagonist says or suggests, that he may do him ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... am not reasoner enough to persuade you that all women have souls. Very likely in Persia and India they have not. I only want you to believe that there may be women so fortunate as to possess a modicum of immortality. Well, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... replied, blushing faintly; "and I suppose that implies a certain moderate development of the logical faculties. In HIS generation, people didn't apply the logical faculties to the grounds of belief; they took those for granted; but within his own limits, my father is still an acute reasoner. And then he had always the ethical and social interests. Those two things—a love of logic, and a love of right—are the forces that tend to make us what we call religious. Worldly people don't care for fundamental questions of the universe ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... A reasoner among the troop, more daring than the others, and shocked that someone might doubt his soul, observed the interlocutor with sight-vanes pointed at a quarter circle from two different stations, and at the third spoke thusly: "You believe then, Sir, that ...
— Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas • Voltaire
... rewrote and enlarged "Darwin among the Machines" for the Reasoner, a paper published in London by Mr. G. J. Holyoake. It appeared July 1, 1865, under the heading, "The Mechanical Creation," and can be seen in the British Museum. I again rewrote and enlarged it, till it assumed the form ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... literature there is no need to go; it is sufficient to observe its outstanding features. They correspond in the main to the temper of the master mind, Socinus, a man who in the absence of imaginative genius displayed remarkable talent as a reasoner, and a liberal disposition considerably in advance of his times. The later Socinian writings, preserved in eight large volumes issued by the 'Polish Brethren' (Amsterdam, 1666), exhibit in addition the results of much diligent research and scholarship, in which the wide variety ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... obedience, hostile to religion and to established law. Evidence indeed abounds, even if the true cause be not proved. But it is not to these symptoms that we must impute the permanent danger and the irrepressible conflict. As much might be made good against monarchy, and an unsympathising reasoner might in the same way argue that religion is intolerant, that conscience makes cowards, that piety rejoices in fraud. Recent experience has added little to the observations of those who witnessed the decline after Pericles, of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... find the mass man of the old civilization, he is in the broad way of the surface consciousness, and in his midst there dwells the specialized individuals who are approaching the central zones of mind; they are called the scientist, the physicist, the materialist, the agnostic, the mentalist, the reasoner, and the atheist, all true and perfect for their type but all more or less unconscious of the latent states of mind within themselves and the universe to which they ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... the poet, and the formularist, the echoes of whose teachings had influenced him even in his obscure home. A start of aversion appeared in his fancy to move them at sight of those other sons of the place, the form in the full-bottomed wig, statesman, rake, reasoner, and sceptic; the smoothly shaven historian so ironically civil to Christianity; with others of the same incredulous temper, who knew each quad as well as the faithful, and took equal ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... results, however, did not satisfy him, as he was convinced that the interposition of the non-magnetic metals, especially of copper, did have an effect, but that his apparatus was not suitable for making it visible. It is to be regretted that so sound a reasoner and so careful an experimenter had not the great advantage of the assistance of such suitable instruments for this class of research as the mirror-galvanometer and the telephone. But, although he could not practically demonstrate the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... cases of progressive modification which are cited from among the Invertebrata appear to me to have a foundation less open to criticism than these; and if this be so, no careful reasoner would, I think, be inclined to lay very great stress upon them. Among the Vertebrata, however, there are a few examples which appear to be far ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... in wailing weakness born, No horns protect him, and no plumes adorn; No finer powers of nostril, ear, or eye, Teach the young Reasoner to pursue or fly.— 120 Nerved with fine touch above the bestial throngs, The hand, first gift of Heaven! to man belongs; Untipt with claws the circling fingers close, With rival points the bending thumbs oppose, Trace the nice lines of Form with sense refined, And ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... state in Greece, to build up the fabric of her material greatness—these were the objects for which he was ready to devote the best energies of heart and brain, and if need were, to lay down his life. He might be skilled in every elegant accomplishment, an acute reasoner, an orator, a musician, a poet; and to some extent he was all of these. But before all else he was in the highest sense a practical man, finding in strenuous action his chief glory and pride. And such a man was the last to melt into ecstasies over the high notes of a singer, or dream ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... Reasoner," published by Bradlaugh was paying expenses, and there was a fair demand for his intellectual wares. When he lectured in the provinces, there were the usual warnings from pastors to their flocks which served to lessen the advertising expenses of the lecture. Many of those warned ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... pneumatics could have named the cause of the disease, and thence inferred the remedy immediately. By many measurements of triangles, one might find their area always equal to their height multiplied by half their base, and one might formulate an empirical law to that effect. But a reasoner saves himself all this trouble, by seeing that it is the essence (pro hac vice) of a triangle to be the half of a parallelogram whose area is the height into the entire base. To see this he must invent additional ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... is the motto of the savage philosophy of causation. The untutored reasoner speculates on the principles of the Egyptian clergy, as described by Herodotus.(1) "The Egyptians have discovered more omens and prodigies than any other men; for when aught prodigious occurs, they keep good watch, and write down what follows; and then, if ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... if I must say which I most love, the point becomes less difficult of decision. I would prefer each in its season, or rather the two united, with a gradual change in their influence. Let the youth commence with the first in the ascendant, and close with the last. He who begins life too cold a reasoner may end it a calculating egotist; and he who is ruled solely by his imagination is in danger of having his mind so ripened as to bring forth the fruits of a visionary. Had it pleased heaven to have ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... divided upon the absurd modern principle of regarding every clever man who cannot make up his mind as an impartial judge, and regarding every clever man who can make up his mind as a servile fanatic. As it is, we seem to regard it as a positive objection to a reasoner that he has taken one side or the other. We regard it (in other words) as a positive objection to a reasoner that he has contrived to reach the object of his reasoning. We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want still better reasons? Well, here they are. My dear Geronte, marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense. Parents make inquiries about a young man. If the Leander—who is supplied by some friend, or caught in a ball-room—is ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... understand the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inherit eternal life, unless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was not some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly worth considering. Principles are like logic, which never yet made a good reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if they did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is any temptation to appeal to them. They are like fire, good servants but bad masters. As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as from want of principle. ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... method of reasoning leads the minds of many ignorant and unsuspecting persons away from the right ways of God. The guilty reasoner justifies taxation, fines, imprisonment and wars in the history ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various
... belonged. One or more churches bear his name, and it is thrown into the scale of theological belief as if it added great strength to the party which claims him. That he was a man of extraordinary endowments and deep spiritual nature was not questioned, nor that he was a most acute reasoner, who could unfold a proposition into its consequences as patiently, as convincingly, as a palaeontologist extorts its confession from a fossil fragment. But it was maintained that so many dehumanizing ideas were mixed up with his conceptions of man, and so ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... prudence and expense; the curious women who fell in love with him, and whom he had gently, tactfully to keep at arm's length. She remembered the eager discussions in the Temple Debating Society, or at the "Moots" of Gray's Inn, her successes there as an orator and a close reasoner; how boy students formed ardent friendships for her and prophesied her future success in Parliament, would have her promise to take them into the Cabinet which David was to form when an electorate swept him into power and sent ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... continue to glitter for a while, but it will finally cease to exist. If the brain vampyrizes the heart, that is to say, if it absorbs the greater part of the life principle, which ought to go to develop love and virtue in the heart, man may become a great reasoner, a scientist, arguer, and sophist; but he will not become wise, and his intellect will perish in this life or in the state after death. We often see very intellectual people becoming criminals, and even ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... entertains no ill-will towards the Gypsies; why should he, were he a mere carnal reasoner? He has known them for upwards of twenty years, in various countries, and they never injured a hair of his head, or deprived him of a shred of his raiment; but he is not deceived as to the motive of their forbearance: they thought him a ROM, and on this ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... investigation; still less is it the relation which a man would bear to a truth that he had learnt from others originally, however much he had made it his own thereafter: but it is that of one who is not a thinker, or a learner, or a reasoner, but who is simply an attester, a witness. And so He stands before us, and says, 'The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life. Believe Me, and believe the words, for no other reason, primarily, than because I speak them.' In these two respects, then, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... expressed a deep, remarkable truth, when he affirmed that the value of the human soul may be known by the depth of its fall and the height of its flight. But still, the devil take the whole of this idiotical day and that equivocal reasoner—the reporter Platonov, and his own—Lichonin's—absurd outburst of chivalry! Just as though, in reality, this had not taken place in real life, but in Chernishevski's novel, What's to be done? And how, devil take it, with what eyes will I look ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the great prophet. Luther regards the Law of Moses as divine; it is to him just as much the Word of God as any other portion of the Scriptures. To save their faces in a debate they must concede this point, but they charge Luther with being a most disorderly reasoner, driven about in his public utterances by momentary impulses: He will set up a rule to-day which he knocks down to-morrow. He will cite the same Principle for or against a matter. He is so erratic that he ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... way the closest reasoner, if he is not inventive, may find himself at a loss. What is the result? Instead of making us discover proofs, they are dictated to us; instead of teaching us to reason, our ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... remind you that one of the greatest boons ever given to the great investigators of the world came through delays. Time is a wonderful reasoner. It is also a great modifier of events. Darwin was prevented for twenty years in promulgating his great thesis; some of the most marvelous inventions took years to bring out and develop into such a state as ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma—refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857, I had no answer ready, and I do not think that any one else had. A year later, we reproached ourselves with dullness for being perplexed by such an inquiry. My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin,' was, "How extremely ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... it is," continued Mr. Balloon, "Mr. German has a head. He's an intellectual giant, I hardly know whether he is greater as a subjective preacher, or in the luminous objectivity of his argumentum ad hominem. As an instructive reasoner, too, he is perfectly great. With what synthetical power he refuted the Homoiousian theory. I tell you Homoiousianism will be nowhere ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Don Rodrigo de Santillan. He was a shrewd reasoner and well-informed. He knew how the justice of Castile was kept on the alert by the persistent plottings of the Portuguese Pretender, Don Antonio, sometime Prior of Crato. He was intimate with the past ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... be said that this heresiarch attempted to overturn the creed of the Church. He was neither a profound thinker nor a logical reasoner; and he certainly had not maturely studied the science of theology. But he possessed an ardent temperament, and he seems to have mistaken the suggestions of his own fanaticism for the dictates of inspiration. The doctrine of the personal reign of Christ during the millennium appears to have ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... to the untameable. The former had once led, and hoped to lead again. Alvan was a revolutionist in imagination, the workman's friend in rational sympathy, their leader upon mathematical calculation, but a lawyer, a reasoner in law, and therefore of necessity a cousin germane, leaning to become an ally, of the Philistines—the founders and main supporters of his book of the Law. And so, between the nature of his blood, and the inclination of his mind, Alvan set his heart on a damsel of the Philistines, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... days. His skepticism in fact became acute, and sought relief in public expression. As a compositor Franklin was engaged in setting up one of the many religious treatises then pouring out against the deists, and as the author's arguments seemed insufficient to the young reasoner, he wrote and printed a rejoinder. This is the pamphlet called "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which he inscribed to his friend Ralph, and whose printing he afterwards regretted as ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... lesser writers on witchcraft. During the early eighties John Brinley, Henry Hallywell, and Richard Bovet launched their little boats into the sea of controversy. Brinley was a bold plagiarist of Bernard, Hallywell a logical but dull reasoner from the Bible, Bovet a ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... depression—enter the smug, comfortable presence of Judge Nahum Dickensheets, at present senior counsel of the North Chicago Street Railway. He was a very mountain of a man physically—smooth-faced, agreeably clothed, hard and yet ingratiating of eye, a thinker, a reasoner. Swanson knew much of him by reputation and otherwise, although personally they were no more than ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... effect of all bold, original, and powerful thinking, that it either discovers the truth, or detects where error lies; and the only crime with which Mr. Godwin can be charged as a political and moral reasoner is, that he has displayed a more ardent spirit, and a more independent activity of thought than others, in establishing the fallacy (if fallacy it be) of an old popular prejudice that the Just and True were one, by "championing it to the Outrance," and in the final result placing the Gothic ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... a newspaper writer, we think him unequalled by any living man; and in the general strength, clearness, and quickness of his intellect, we think all who knew him well will agree with us that he was not excelled by any editor in the country." He was not a profound reasoner: his imagination and brilliant fancy played the wildest tricks with his logic; yet, considering the way by which he reached them, it is remarkable that his conclusions were so often correct. The tendency of his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... misery." But in these words, and in others to the same purport, Mr. Fisher assumes that the nature of the black is incapable of such improvement as to make what he calls the necessary condition of servitude needless in the interest of either race. We are surprised that so good a reasoner should speak of the ignorance of the black as a natural disqualification for independence, and the more so, because, in another passage, Mr. Fisher says, with truth, "We darken his mind with ignorance." That some form of subjection ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... was still another reason why his captain had chosen him for the work he had in mind. Though not so quick or clever as Roy, Henry was a keen observer and close reasoner. Moreover, he was entirely dependable, was very discreet, and being the largest boy in the party, was best fitted to take care of himself if ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in his correspondence at this period remarks upon Madison's timidity, which was due to his concern about Virginia State politics. Any arrangement that might enable Hamilton to cross swords with an opponent on the floor of the House could not be attractive to Madison, who was a lucid reasoner but not an impressive speaker. Hamilton was both of these, and he possessed an intellectual brilliancy which Madison lacked. Ames, who respected Madison's abilities and who regarded him as the leading member ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... Fathers and the Schoolmen and the Reformers till he knows them by heart, and till he has been able to digest all that is true to Scripture and to experience in them into his rich and ripe book. A powerful reasoner, a severe, bald, muscular writer, John Owen in all these respects stands at the very opposite pole to that of John Bunyan. The author of the Holy War had no learning, but he had a mind of immense natural sagacity, combined with a habit of close and deep observation of human ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... remonstrance that the 'Saturday Review' was forced to reply in corresponding terms, though declining to withdraw its charges. The whole world of contemporary journalism is arraigned for its subserviency to popular prejudices. The 'Record' is lashed for its religious rancour, and the 'Reasoner' for its vapid version of popular infidelity, though it is contemptuously preferred, in point of spirit, to the 'Record.' Fitzjames flies occasionally at higher game. The 'Times,' if he is to be believed, is conspicuous for the trick of spinning empty verbiage out of vapid popular commonplaces, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... compiled from Leonardo's bewildered manuscripts, written strangely, as his manner was, from right to left, have imagined a rigid order in his inquiries. But this rigid order was little in accordance with the restlessness of his character; and if we think of him as the mere reasoner who subjects design to anatomy, and composition to mathematical rules, we shall hardly have of him that impression which those about him received from him. Poring over his crucibles, making experiments with colour, trying, by a strange variation of the alchemist's dream, to discover the secret, not ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... but few can explain—Time and Space, and Being and Cause, and consciousness and choice, and the moral law—Bacon is content with a loose and superficial treatment of them. Bacon certainly was not a metaphysician, nor an exact and lucid reasoner. With wonderful flashes of sure intuition or happy anticipation, his mind was deficient in the powers which deal with the deeper problems of thought, just as it was deficient in the mathematical faculty. The subtlety, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... B. C. 450, during that eventful and stirring period intervening between the battle of Thermopylae and the commencement of the five years' truce with Sparta, followed by the death of Cimon (B. C. 449), this eminent and most accomplished reasoner resided in Athens [247]. His doctrines were those most cherished by Pericles, who ranked the philosopher among his intimate friends. After an absence of some years, he again returned to Athens; and we shall then find him subjected ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indignation at the execution of Charles. His contempt for Salmasius's pedantry is quite genuine; and he revels in ecstasies of savage glee when taunting the apologist of tyranny with his own notorious subjection to a tyrannical wife. But the reviler in Milton is too far ahead of the reasoner. He seems to set more store by his personalities than by his principles. On the question of the legality of Charles's execution he has indeed little argument to offer; and his views on the wider question of the general ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... it is that a Christian is not called a doer, a reasoner, an objector, and perverse disputer, but a believer. Be thou an example to "the believers;" and, "believers" were "added to ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... great rashness to prescribe limits, as it were, to infinite wisdom, and to affirm that man's salvation could not possibly have been wrought in any other way than by the incarnation and satisfaction of the Son of God.[246] A Christian reasoner may well concede that he can form no conjecture in what variety of modes redeeming love might have been manifested. He has no need to build theories upon what alone is possible, when the far nobler argument is set before him, to trace the wisdom and the fitness of the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... a safe platform to begin with; but he is an unsafe guide when he walks away from it. His arguments in this case are an illustration of his own declaration: "An adept in logic may be a very poor reasoner." ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... discourse with that wise reasoner, and unfortunate practitioner, who thought that brevity was the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, puts ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... recorded by every faithful historian of the great and the little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken the place of the household gods of the ancients, and whoever does not share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and annoying reasoner,—he is ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... addresses to her daughter, and Captain Lovelock had a grotesque theory that she had set her heart upon seeing this young lady come into six thousand a year. Miss Evers's devoted swain had never struck Bernard as a brilliant reasoner, but our friend suddenly found himself regarding him as one of the inspired. The form of depravity into which the New England conscience had lapsed on Mrs. Vivian's part was an undue appreciation of a possible son-in-law's income! In this illuminating discovery everything ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... tears, and "so did she, almost," he declares. He refused to go to Berlin; absolute power appeared to him more arbitrary and less indulgent in the hands of Frederick than with Catherine. "It is said that at Petersburg Diderot is considered a tiresome reasoner," wrote the King of Prussia to D' Alembert in January, 1774; "he is incessantly harping on the same things. All I know is that I couldn't stand the reading of his, books, intrepid reader as I am; there is a self-sufficient tone and an arrogance in them which revolts my sense of freedom." The ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... live Safe, and at ease, yet fluctuates in his mind How things are swayed; how, chiefly, those discerned In heaven sublime—to SUPERSTITION back Lapses, and fears a tyrant host, and then Conceives, dull reasoner, they can all things do, While yet himself nor knows what may be done, Nor what may never, nature powers defined Stamping on all, and bounds that none can pass: Hence wide, and wider errs he ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... never-failing good sense. It must be allowed that he is deficient in depth; that he skims over rather than dives into the subjects of which he treats; that he had too great command of the plausible to be a patient investigator or a sound reasoner. Yet if he has less originality of thought than others, if he does not grapple with his subject, if he is unequal to a regular and lengthened disquisition, if he is frequently inconsistent in his opinions, we must remember that mere soundness ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... and enjoyment of religion. It is clear that they have a passion, sublimated and glorified indeed, but still a passion, for Christ. This is the mightiest impulse to that exaltation of His person against which the calm and consummate reasoner contends in vain. Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made! The soul is touched with the strong necessity of loving; and its power becomes intense and inappeasable in proportion to the capacity of the heart; and yet some of the greatest of those have reposed so supremely in the innate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... of these tormentors that Bruin had submerged his body in the water; and so Pouchskin concluded, and also Ivan—though both were puzzled by the odd behaviour of the bear, in swimming open-mouthed, and at intervals snapping his jaws as he did. Alexis, however, was a better reasoner; and soon discovered the why and the wherefore of these mysterious demonstrations. Alexis saw that the surface of the water was thickly coated with something; and, on scrutinising it more closely, he made out this something to be a swarm ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... which he continued to weave, for enwrapping his own judgment, such reasoner omitted wholly to cross the warp of combined result. He neglected that vastly-important filament—proper and value-enhancing handling of his valuable production; the reality that southern cotton, sugar and rice ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... theologian on whose head no learned academy had laid its hand of patronage, or let fall its anointing dews, but who, whether confronting the fanatics of his time or the distinguished latitudinarian divines, showed himself so powerful a reasoner, so acute and clear and practical a thinker, and so mighty in his knowledge of the Scriptures—Bunyan himself, in his position and merits as a theologian, furnishes a standing monument of the power ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... logical. In these discussions we cannot hope to drive an unsound theory to a logical contradiction. A reasoner, apart from mere slips, only involves himself in a contradiction when he is shying at a reductio ad absurdum. The substantial reason for rejecting a philosophical theory is the 'absurdum' to which it ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... itself, becomes important, when it serves to bring to light the intentions and characters of men. The foreigner, who believed that Othello, on the stage, was enraged for the loss of his handkerchief, was not more mistaken, than the reasoner who imputes any of the more vehement passions of men to the impressions ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... carries it out, to deduce certain laws and develop the principles which underlie them. Wherever it is deemed possible to do so, it is planned to have the boy make these discoveries for himself, so as to encourage him to become a thinker and a reasoner instead of a ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... companion's reasoning. Might he be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong; and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, to fall into error through the over-refinement of his logic,—his preference for a subtle and bizarre explanation when a plainer and more ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bayle were equally so in Warburton. In his early studies he had particularly applied himself to logic; and was not only a vigorous reasoner, but one practised in all the finesse of dialectics. He had wit, fertile indeed, rather than delicate; and a vast body of erudition, collected in the uninterrupted studies of twenty years. But it was the SECRET PRINCIPLE, or, as he calls it, "the Academic ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... David Hume. An accomplished reasoner and a profound thinker, he lacked the invaluable quality of imagination. This is the underlying defect of his history. Important and novel as are Hume's doctrines, his method was also deductive, and, like Adam Smith, he rests little on experience. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... many suggestions put forward by various newspapers or private individuals, there were one or two which were feasible enough to attract the attention of the public. One which appeared in The Times, over the signature of an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date, attempted to deal with the matter in a critical and semi-scientific manner. An extract must suffice, although the curious can see the whole letter in the issue of the 3rd ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trend of Cowperwood's outward vicissitudes as heralded by the newspapers and the local gossip with as much interest and bias and enthusiasm for him as her powerful physical and affectional nature would permit. She was no great reasoner where affection entered in, but shrewd enough without it; and, although she saw him often and he told her much—as much as his natural caution would permit—she yet gathered from the newspapers and private ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... strangely, as his manner was, from right to left, have imagined a rigid order in his inquiries. But this rigid order was little in accordance with the restlessness of his character; and if we think of him as the mere reasoner who subjects design to anatomy, and composition to mathematical rules, we shall hardly have of him that impression which those about him received from him. Poring over his crucibles, making experiments with colour, trying, by a strange variation of the alchemist's dream, to discover ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... mass man of the old civilization, he is in the broad way of the surface consciousness, and in his midst there dwells the specialized individuals who are approaching the central zones of mind; they are called the scientist, the physicist, the materialist, the agnostic, the mentalist, the reasoner, and the atheist, all true and perfect for their type but all more or less unconscious of the latent states of mind within themselves and the universe to which they must ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... to be displayed by proving the deformity, the reproach, and the misery of all deviations from it. Yet it is to be remembered, that the laws of mere morality are of no coercive power; and, however they may, by conviction, of their fitness please the reasoner in the shade, when the passions stagnate without impulse, and the appetites are secluded from their objects, they will be of little force against the ardour of desire, or the vehemence of rage, amidst the pleasures ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... "Ah, prosaic reasoner," retorted Bearwarden, who saw that this, like so many other things, had reminded Ayrault of Sylvia, "that is but small consolation for having lost it now, though I suppose our lot is not so hard as if we ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... singular felicity of combining brilliancy of execution with never-failing good sense. It must be allowed that he is deficient in depth; that he skims over rather than dives into the subjects of which he treats; that he had too great command of the plausible to be a patient investigator or a sound reasoner. Yet if he has less originality of thought than others, if he does not grapple with his subject, if he is unequal to a regular and lengthened disquisition, if he is frequently inconsistent in his opinions, we must remember that ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... vision, and all the imperfections of mental apparatus, the wise men will not disdain even partial glimpses of a scene too vast and intricate to be comprehended in a single map. To complain that Emerson is no systematic reasoner is to miss the secret of most of those who have given powerful impulses to the spiritual ethics of an age. It is not a syllogism that turns the heart towards purification of life and aim; it is not the logically enchained ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... jocular, and the young one very pleasant. You would have imagined you had been at some comedy had you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could 'pepper the highest,' and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really the highest reasoner." ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of reasoning adds nothing to knowledge (in the reasoner). It only displays what was there before, and brings to conscious possession what before was unconscious." And again: "Mind can do its work without knowing it. Consciousness is the light that lightens the process, not ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Supreme Court of Georgia, and from that period down to the time of his death the name of his firm appears in nearly every volume of the reports, indicating the wide extent of his business. . . . As a lawyer, while not aspiring to be a brilliant advocate, he was a most profound and able reasoner, thoroughly versed and grounded in the knowledge of the common law, well prepared with a knowledge of current decisions and in the learning that grows out of them. . . . In his social intercourse he was a gentleman of the purest and most refined type. . . . At his own home, at the homes ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... of worship and creed is simple, it is difficult to make converts, and the Indian is a clear reasoner. I once had a conversation with one of the chiefs on the subject. After we had conversed some time, he said, 'You believe in one God—so do we; you call him one name—we call him another; we don't speak the same language, that is the reason. You say, suppose you do good, you go ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... it is not to be a verbal manipulation of phrases whose coming together is not inquired into, it must be a connected train of thought. But such a connection of thoughts cannot be conceived or understood without reference to the purpose of a reasoner, who selects what he requires from the totality of 'truths.' If, then, 'Logic' has merely to contemplate this eternal and immutable system of truth in its integrity, and forbids all selection from it for a merely human purpose, how can it either justify, or even understand, the drawing ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... a passage of Locke in favour of their doctrine, who seemed to doubt "whether it might not have pleased God to bestow a power of thinking on matter." But with the highest veneration for this great reasoner, the founder of modern philosophical logic, I think there is little of his usual strength of mind in this doubt. It appears to me that he might as well have asked whether it might not have pleased God to make ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... to exist. If the brain vampyrizes the heart, that is to say, if it absorbs the greater part of the life principle, which ought to go to develop love and virtue in the heart, man may become a great reasoner, a scientist, arguer, and sophist; but he will not become wise, and his intellect will perish in this life or in the state after death. We often see very intellectual people becoming criminals, and even lunatics are often very cunning. That which a man may call his ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... no I have a future, as personally I hold to be the case and not altogether without evidence, certainly I have had a past, though, so far as I know, in this world only; a fact, if it be a fact, from which can be deduced all kinds of arguments according to the taste of the reasoner. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the outset. 'It is folly to suppose,' he says, 'that the murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to have enabled ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... move in, it is contemptible to pure reason, for it has not been constructed by a philosophic legislator according to a principle, but successive generations have arranged it according to their multiple and ever-changing needs. It is not the work of logic, but of history, and the young reasoner shrugs his shoulders at the sight of this old building, whose site is arbitrary, whose architecture is incoherent, and whose inconveniences are obvious. . . . The majority of young people, above all those who have ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... of his writings is singularly modern. His work was mostly done before Dalton had announced the atomic theory; and yet Smithson saw clearly that a law of definite proportions must exist, although he did not attempt to account for it. His ability as a reasoner is best shown in his paper on the Kirkdale Bone Cave, which Penn had sought to interpret by reference to the Noachian Deluge. A clearer and more complete demolition of Penn's views could hardly be written to-day. ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... suspect him of deceit. But they were finally converted, for having during a whole month guarded every approach to his cabin, and having during that time detected no one in taking food to him, they were convinced that for that time at least he had lived without food. The sceptical reasoner of the present day would probably regard ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... upon Madison's timidity, which was due to his concern about Virginia State politics. Any arrangement that might enable Hamilton to cross swords with an opponent on the floor of the House could not be attractive to Madison, who was a lucid reasoner but not an impressive speaker. Hamilton was both of these, and he possessed an intellectual brilliancy which Madison lacked. Ames, who respected Madison's abilities and who regarded him as the leading member of the House, wrote that "he speaks low, his person is ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... should come to peaceable conclusions, Ensign Dudley," interrupted the other, rising erect in his saddle, with an air of appeased dignity; "for I have ever found you a discreet and consequent reasoner, and one who is never known to resist conviction, when truth is pressed with understanding. That the men from over sea are not often so well gifted as some—we will say, for the sake of a convenient illustration, as ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of delusion which he continued to weave, for enwrapping his own judgment, such reasoner omitted wholly to cross the warp of combined result. He neglected that vastly-important filament—proper and value-enhancing handling of his valuable production; the reality that southern cotton, sugar and rice had become so great a factor in national wealth, mainly ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... coincidence in his unexpectedly finding himself in such favorable conditions for making her acquaintance. For the rest—if there was any rest—he would simply trust to fate. And so, believing himself a cool, sagacious reasoner, but being actually, as far as Miss Dows was concerned, as blind, fatuous, and unreasoning as any of her previous admirers, he rode complacently forward until he reached the lane that led to the ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... adopted by the Arabs." With due respect for the astronomical knowledge of those who hold this view, all I can say is that this is a novel, and nothing but a novel, without any facts to support it, and that the few facts which are known to us do not enable a careful reasoner to go beyond the conclusions stated many years ago by Colebrooke, that the "Hindus had undoubtedly made some progress at an early period in the astronomy cultivated by them for the regulation of time. Their calendar, ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... his native land: has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another "first-rate,"—all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner, very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"—has more thought and equal energy,—a mind seldom or never at rest,—is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... about with every wind of doctrine," like clouds which, possessing no solidity, are driven in every direction through the atmosphere. Persons of this description are easily persuaded by a plausible reasoner, that his opinions are true, and with equal facility submit to the next artful sophist, who avows even contrary sentiments. The natural effect of this inconstancy will be, a disregard of ALL truth, and a ready admission of every sceptical principle. When the mind is ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... is the mark of a feeble understanding. It reveals a pusillanimous reasoner, who suffers himself to be alarmed by consequences; a superstitious creature, who thinks he is honouring God by the fetters which he imposes on his reason; a kind of unbeliever who is afraid of unmasking himself ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... imaginative nature,—indeed, is so welded with it, that insight and analysis serve each other, and cool reason gives solidity to ecstatic experience. Perhaps as a seer Dr. Bushnell may be more certain of recognition than as a reasoner. Whatever may be thought of the orthodoxy of the doctrines he has rationalized, there can be no doubt as to the reality of the spiritual states he has described. His intellectual method may be wrong or incomplete, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... hostile attitude, not of their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the reluctance with which the most combative enter it unless they are consciously strong, is well ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... ever complain that he wanted 'the strength of bulls, the fur of bears?'[2] Or could it be worth while to meet his complaints in a serious poem? Pope, in short, is not merely a bad reasoner, but he wants that deep moral earnestness which gives a profound interest to Johnson's satires—the best productions of his school—and the deeply pathetic religious feeling ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... come to that third point which I said I should deal with here, but which I have not yet touched upon. Every logical reasoner who admits the power of will must admit not only the possibility of miracles, but also the actual fact of their daily and hourly occurrence. Every exertion of the human will is a miracle in the strictest sense of the word; only it takes place privately, within the ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... view has nothing to inflame; and a matter frivolous in itself, becomes important, when it serves to bring to light the intentions and characters of men. The foreigner, who believed that Othello, on the stage, was enraged for the loss of his handkerchief, was not more mistaken, than the reasoner who imputes any of the more vehement passions of men to the impressions of mere profit ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... the central mystery of mysteries—the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own case as an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of our experience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of my duties than ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for powers or acquisitions. The wit whose vivacity condemns slower tongues to silence, the scholar whose knowledge allows no man to fancy that he instructs him, the critick who suffers no fallacy to pass undetected, and the reasoner who condemns the idle to thought, and the negligent to attention, are generally praised and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... though nobody is capable of comprehending it, and of which we therefore can have no experience. Yet he will assert, that thinking persons seldom are convinced by thinking. This is odd language for a reasoner. When another philosopher or divine attempts to prove a God in their own way, Dr. Priestley can readily see his fallacies and absurdities. Dr. Clarke, the former great champion of God Almighty, is made very light of. He thought, foolish man, to prove the ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... who would condemn a man who has killed his assassin, because homicide is forbidden, would be as iniquitous as he was poor reasoner. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... indeed, but an evidence conclusive only on a presupposition or series of presuppositions, evidence that is supplemented by an act of imagination, or by the grace of faith, shall we say? At any rate, the fact is, that the genius of the great reasoner, of this great master of the abstract and deductive sciences, turned theologian, carrying the methods of thought there formed into the things of faith, was after all of the imaginative order. Now hear what he says of imagination: Cette ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... somewhat impartial writer, is the only political foreign reasoner who has done justice to Canada; but it is par parenthese only; and even his powers of mind and of reasoning, nurtured as they have been in republicanism, fail to convince fearless hearts that democracy is a ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... had meanwhile been looking on at a distance. Too keen an observer, too subtle a reasoner to doubt the secret source of the movements then agitating France to its centre, he was yet unable to foresee the turn that all these intrigues were about to take. He could hardly doubt that Spain was playing a dark and desperate game with the unfortunate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... which to form a conjecture. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think, when you have had more experience, you will find yourself able to work out a problem of this kind. What is required is constructive imagination and a rigorous exactness in reasoning. Now, you are a good reasoner, and you have recently shown me that you have the necessary imagination; you merely lack experience in the use of your faculties. When you learn my purpose in having these things made—as you will before long—you will probably be surprised that their use did not occur to you. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... should place him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies in argument, or by exaggerated statements of facts. But, if while he ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... disclosing a new truth to the world, illustrated and enforced his subject by a variety of happy demonstrations. I must add one of them, not only on account of its striking nature, but also because it exemplifies Ptolemy's acuteness. If the earth were flat, said this ingenious reasoner, sunset must necessarily take place at the same instant, no matter in what country the observer may happen to be placed. Ptolemy, however, proved that the time of sunset did vary greatly as the observer's longitude ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hospitality, and the dignified courtesy, which both of them showed. No matter of the outside; this was in the grain. If mind had lacked much opportunity, it had also made good use of a little; his host, Mr. Carleton found, had been a great leader, was well acquainted with history, and a very intelligent reasoner upon it; and both he and his sister showed a strong and quick aptitude for intellectual subjects of conversation. No doubt aunt Miriam's courtesy had not been taught by a dancing- master, and her brown ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... whole order of her system, by a compliance with our pride and folly, to conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this method we owe the discovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and rational happiness we enjoy. We have something fairer play than a reasoner could have expected formerly; and we derive advantages from it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... we read of poor heathens using this language, it is our duty to pity them, for it is plain enough to any sober reasoner, that nothing is so vain as to talk of this glory being a real and substantial good; for there is no better reason for my being happy because my name is celebrated, than because any thing else is celebrated which, accidentally, ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Mr. Lestiboudois. Here we have a consistent reasoner! a logical arguer! There is nothing in his conclusions which cannot be found in his premises. He asks nothing in practice which he does not justify in theory. His principles may perchance be false, and this is the point in question. But ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... general idea in the mind, and that all the littleness and individuality is in nature. This is an essentially false view of the subject. This grandeur, this general effect, is indeed always combined with the details, or what our theoretical reasoner would designate as littleness in nature: and so it ought to be in art, as far as art can follow nature with prudence and profit. What is the fault of Denner's style?—It is, that he does not give this combination ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... towards the Gypsies; why should he, were he a mere carnal reasoner? He has known them for upwards of twenty years, in various countries, and they never injured a hair of his head, or deprived him of a shred of his raiment; but he is not deceived as to the motive of their forbearance: they thought him a ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... or his own guards, who I supposed would not deceive him. In this manner I dealt with him, because I knew him to be a scholar."—TURNER'S MEMOIRS, p. 80. The English officer allowed the strength of the reasoning; but that concise reasoner, Cromwell, soon put an end to the dilemma: "Sir James Turner must give his parole, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... born about 315, Zeno about 350, though the dates are uncertain. Dissereret: was a deep reasoner. Bentl. missing the meaning conj. definiret. Peracute moveretur: Bentl. partiretur; this with definiret above well illustrates his licence in emendations. Halm ought not to have doubted the soundness of the text, the words refer not to the emotional, but to the intellectual ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... agree with me if I could so effectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be allowed to convert the turtles—I mean I had no money in my pocket. ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... the Parliament, it was intended for the Assembly. It was a challenge to them. The Reverend gentlemen had refused to consider the Doctrine of Divorce when propounded by their contemporary, a private layman and reasoner. They had thought it worthy only of denunciation as an impious paradox, destructive of morality and social order. What would they now say to the same Doctrine exhibited to them, chapter and verse, as ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... applies to the most erudite matters. Shrewdness is keenness or sagacity, often with a somewhat evil bias, as ready to take advantage of duller intellects. Perspicacity is the power to see clearly through that which is difficult or involved. We speak of the acuteness of an observer or a reasoner, the insight and discernment of a student, a clergyman, or a merchant, the sagacity of a hound, the keenness of a debater, the shrewdness of a usurer, the penetration, perspicacity, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... disposed to be rollicking and free and easy. He was not hard to approach by his inferiors, but he was not always discriminating in the language he used to them. He did not seem to be a deliberate thinker or reasoner, and often gave the impression that his decisions or opinions were off-hand and not the result of reflection. In the quiet of camp he seemed to be less able to combine or plan great movements than in emergencies in the field. In a battle he often showed the excitement ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... ergo propter hoc, is the motto of the savage philosophy of causation. The untutored reasoner speculates on the principles of the Egyptian clergy, as described by Herodotus.(1) "The Egyptians have discovered more omens and prodigies than any other men; for when aught prodigious occurs, they keep good watch, and write down what follows; and then, if anything like the prodigy ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... another reason why his captain had chosen him for the work he had in mind. Though not so quick or clever as Roy, Henry was a keen observer and close reasoner. Moreover, he was entirely dependable, was very discreet, and being the largest boy in the party, was best fitted to take care of himself if he ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... them so strangely together, was, "some how or other," to work out something good: in short, there is nothing so convenient as this "some how or other" way of accommodating one's self to circumstances; it is the main-stay of a heedless actor, and tardy reasoner, like Dolph Heyliger; and he who can, in this loose, easy way, link foregone evil to anticipated good, possesses a secret of happiness almost equal to the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... therefore, that it is a love for scientific caution, and not mere personal affection for a bantling of my own, which leads me still to think that the change of phrase is of importance, and that the sooner it is made, the sooner shall we get rid of a number of pitfalls which beset the reasoner upon the facts and theories ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Testament writers, in obedience to a theory, either about the impossibility of the supernatural, or about the fatal and final issues of human death, are victims of prejudice, in the strictest meaning of the word; and are no more logical than the well-known and proverbial reasoner who, when told that facts were against him, with sublime confidence in his own infallibility, is reported to have said, 'So much the worse for the facts.' Let us deal with evidence, and not with theory, when we are talking ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... taste of onions. He stands on a safe platform to begin with; but he is an unsafe guide when he walks away from it. His arguments in this case are an illustration of his own declaration: "An adept in logic may be a very poor reasoner." ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... of a great scholar who has read the Fathers and the Schoolmen and the Reformers till he knows them by heart, and till he has been able to digest all that is true to Scripture and to experience in them into his rich and ripe book. A powerful reasoner, a severe, bald, muscular writer, John Owen in all these respects stands at the very opposite pole to that of John Bunyan. The author of the Holy War had no learning, but he had a mind of immense natural sagacity, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... perhaps fatal receptivity, she was already soaking up the atmosphere of his philosophy. He was always in revolt against accepting things because he was expected to; but, like most executant artists, he was no reasoner, just a mere instinctive kicker against the pricks. He would lose himself in delight with a sunset, a scent, a tune, a new caress, in a rush of pity for a beggar or a blind man, a rush of aversion from a man with large feet or a long nose, of hatred for a woman with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... particularly eloquent, and went out of the usual course of a chairman, by requesting, almost as a personal favour to himself, that the delegates would adopt the recommendation of the Hampden Club. Mr. Cobbett then rose, and, in a speech replete with every argument which this most clear and powerful reasoner could suggest, proposed the first resolution, that the meeting should adopt the recommendation of the Hampden Club, and agree to recommend the reformers to petition to the extent of householder suffrage only; urging, as Major ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... is quite genuine; and he revels in ecstasies of savage glee when taunting the apologist of tyranny with his own notorious subjection to a tyrannical wife. But the reviler in Milton is too far ahead of the reasoner. He seems to set more store by his personalities than by his principles. On the question of the legality of Charles's execution he has indeed little argument to offer; and his views on the wider question of the general responsibility of kings, sound and noble in themselves, suffer from ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... an arch smile, shaking her finger at her nephew, "you are a fallacious reasoner. Do you know what that means? I can't help laughing still at the trouble I used to have in trying to find out the meaning of that word fallacious, when I was at Miss Dullandoor's seminary for young ladies—hi! Hi! Some of us were excessively young ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... easily overruled by the authors of his promotion, who wanted a person that would be subservient to all their designs; wherein they were not disappointed. As to his other accomplishments, he was what we usually call a piece of a scholar, and a good logical reasoner; if this were not too often allayed, by a fallacious way of managing an argument, which made him apt to deceive the unwary, and sometimes ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... unscrupulous libertinism. With the blood of his gallant adversary and his country's idol on his hands, the penalties of debt and treason hanging over him, the fertility of an acute intellect wasted on vain expedients,—an outlaw, an adventurer, a plausible reasoner with one sex and fascinating betrayer of the other, poor, bereaved, contemned,—one holy, loyal sentiment lingered in his perverted soul,—love for the fair, gifted, gentle being who called him father. The only disinterested sympathy his letters breathe is for her; and the feeling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... oppressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of original combinations and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits were too eager to be always cautions. His abilities gave him a haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify, and his impatience of opposition ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... approach to man, the Negro. You believe firmly in Number and in Motion, a force and a result both inexplicable, incomprehensible, to the existence of which I may apply the logical dilemma which, as we have seen, prevents you from believing in God. Powerful reasoner that you are, you do not need that I should prove to you that the Infinite must everywhere be like unto Itself, and that, necessarily, it is One. God alone is Infinite, for surely there cannot be two Infinities, two Ones. If, to make use of human terms, anything demonstrated ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... which he belonged. One or more churches bear his name, and it is thrown into the scale of theological belief as if it added great strength to the party which claims him. That he was a man of extraordinary endowments and deep spiritual nature was not questioned, nor that he was a most acute reasoner, who could unfold a proposition into its consequences as patiently, as convincingly, as a palaeontologist extorts its confession from a fossil fragment. But it was maintained that so many dehumanizing ideas were mixed up with his conceptions ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... And if to this the case should fall, The adventurer's honour would be small! This posting seems to me a trap, Or riddle for some greenish chap; I therefore leave the whole to you.' The doubtful reasoner onward hies. With heart resolved, in spite of eyes, The other boldly dashes through; Nor depth of flood nor force Can stop his onward course. He finds the elephant of stone; He lifts it all alone; Without a breathing stop, He bears it to the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... might possibly have brought him to retract his syllabus. But it must be remembered that he despised the Oxford dons with all his heart; and they were probably aware of this. He was a dexterous, impassioned reasoner, whom they little cared to encounter in argument on such a topic. During his short period of residence, moreover, he had not shown himself so tractable as to secure the good wishes of superiors, who prefer conformity to incommensurable genius. It is likely that ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... handling its materials, and in no sphere, above the simplest, can the mind move without this power of firmly holding and molding facts and relations, phenomena and interior promptings and suggestions. To the forensic reasoner, to the practical master-worker in whatever sphere, such a power is essential not less than to the ideal artist or to the weaver of fictions. Imagination is thus the abstract action, that is, the most intense action, of ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Law, in their very essence, consist of restrictions on freedom, and freedom is the greatest of political goods.[46] A hasty reasoner might conclude without further ado that Law and government are evils which must be abolished if freedom is our goal. But this consequence, true or false, cannot be proved so simply. In this chapter we shall examine the arguments of Anarchists against law and the State. We shall ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... is every week more dear to me. I am glad that you think poor Nannie well off. She has an inquiring mind, and though before coming here she had received no religious instruction and had not even a Bible, she is now constantly asking me questions which prove her to be a first-rate thinker and reasoner. She went to the theatre last night and came home quite disgusted, saying to herself, "I shouldn't like to die in the midst of such gayeties as these." She urged me to tell her if I thought it wrong for her to go, but I would not, because I did not want ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Society says by that law: "If you kill one of us you die," just as by display of the pistol the individual whose life is attacked says: "Desist or be shot." To be effective the warning in either case must be more than an idle threat. Even the most unearthly reasoner among the gallows-downing unfortunates would hardly expect to frighten away an assassin who knew the pistol to be unloaded. Of course these queer illogicians can not be made to understand that their position commits them to absolute non-resistance to any kind of aggression, and ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... unequalled by any living man; and in the general strength, clearness, and quickness of his intellect, we think all who knew him well will agree with us that he was not excelled by any editor in the country." He was not a profound reasoner: his imagination and brilliant fancy played the wildest tricks with his logic; yet, considering the way by which he reached them, it is remarkable that his conclusions were so often correct. The tendency of his mind was to extremes. A zealous Calvinistic church-member, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... poetry, 'Upon whom should they be bestowed but upon the murderer!'—and thereupon it came out, in a fine torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner, as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the great and noble of the land. We held our peace, and meekly signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions—firstly, because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young gentleman; and secondly, because ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... reasoner, analyzer, and metaphysician that ever was born; and therefore whatever I say on the subject can be worth very little, as a reply to your question, but may furnish you with some data for making a theory ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... always vulgar; his cadences false, his voice unharmonious, and his action ungraceful. Nobody heard him with patience; and the young fellows used to joke upon him, and repeat his inaccuracies. The late Duke of Argyle, though the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever knew in my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... 'Saturday Review' was forced to reply in corresponding terms, though declining to withdraw its charges. The whole world of contemporary journalism is arraigned for its subserviency to popular prejudices. The 'Record' is lashed for its religious rancour, and the 'Reasoner' for its vapid version of popular infidelity, though it is contemptuously preferred, in point of spirit, to the 'Record.' Fitzjames flies occasionally at higher game. The 'Times,' if he is to be believed, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... absurd modern principle of regarding every clever man who cannot make up his mind as an impartial judge, and regarding every clever man who can make up his mind as a servile fanatic. As it is, we seem to regard it as a positive objection to a reasoner that he has taken one side or the other. We regard it (in other words) as a positive objection to a reasoner that he has contrived to reach the object of his reasoning. We call a man a bigot or a slave of ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... were more before the public than he, and yet he loved privacy more than publicity. He had acquaintances numberless, and facile and gracious manners, but his heart was open to very few. His eloquence was luxuriant and efflorescent, but he was also a close and compact reasoner. He had a vein of playful exaggeration in his common speech, but his temperament was earnest, impassioned, almost melancholy. The more nearly one knew Mr. Choate, the more cause had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... certainty with those of the mathematics, yet they have much better claims in this respect than, to judge from the conduct of men in particular situations, we should be disposed to allow them. The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject. Men, upon too many occasions, do not give their own understandings fair play; but, yielding to some untoward bias, they entangle themselves in words ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... which fell in his way chimed in with this primary belief, and next came the question of the Scripture revelation, which he argued over with much metaphysical power and acuteness, being a very powerful reasoner, and well trained in the literature of his own country. Meantime three simpler minds—Moung Thaahlah, Moung Byaay, and Moung Ing—had been thoroughly convinced, and, though aware that they would expose themselves to considerable danger, resolved to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... official business are an Essay on Government, which seems to us exceedingly childish, and an Account of the United Provinces, which we value as a masterpiece in its kind. Whoever compares these two treatises will probably agree with us in thinking that Temple was not a very deep or accurate reasoner, but was an excellent observer, that he had no call to philosophical speculation, but that he was qualified to excel as a writer of Memoirs ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
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