"Biased" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... times, both among Catholics and Protestants. As to its results, we must bear in mind that, while there is no need to attribute the mass of stories regarding miraculous cures to conscious fraud, there was without doubt, at a later period, no small admixture of belief biased by self-interest, with much pious invention and suppression of facts. Enormous revenues flowed into various monasteries and churches in all parts of Europe from relics noted for their healing powers. Every cathedral, every great abbey, and nearly every parish ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... reply, they could not fail to find therein an implied abrogation of purely ceremonial observances comprized in the code of rabbinical rules and the numerous traditions associated with the law. But to make the subject clearer to their biased minds, Jesus gave them illustrations, which may be classed as parabolic. "No man also," said He, "seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... be that having lost faith in His Excellency's probity and capacity to hold the high office of Viceroy of India, I now read his speeches with a biased mind, but the speech His Excellency delivered at the time of opening of the council shows to me a mental attitude which makes association with him or his Government impossible ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... suffrage to Negroes upon the passing of the property qualifications, the author gives some valuable information, showing the restriction of Negro suffrage culminating with their disfranchisement in Pennsylvania but falls into the attitude of a biased writer in making such remarks as "New York was not a State that suffered greatly from the presence of the Negro" to account for its action on the question. Again on page 87 he says: "Up to about this time the Negroes had not been a serious ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... to his Cause; upon which the Judge said: "If you had Confessed the Truth it would have Biased me in your Favor; as it is, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... technical as the indirect evidence that tells—the cadences of the voice, the breathing, the silences, the atmosphere. There is no denying that I did somehow acquire a vague impression that Courtney is not so large a figure in his wife's eyes as he might be. I may have been biased by my previous conception of his character, or I may have misinterpreted the impalpable, indescribable signs that I remarked in her. But, once more, how do I know that her not caring for him would postulate ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... could not be expected to countenance it. Perhaps it was as well that they could not be present. They were not worldly young fellows, but fraternizing with dairy-folk would have struck unpleasantly upon their biased niceness, apart from their ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... never more be dimmed by age, nor marred by ignorance;—that the spirit can never more be darkened by even a passing shadow from the body of sin;—that the will can never for a moment be mastered, nor even biased by temptation;—that the heart can never be chilled by unreturned kindness;—that the blessed society can never be diminished by death, nor divided in spirit, but that, along with saints and angels, all God's works shall ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... B.C.; lost his possessions during a revolution at Megara, in which the democrats overpowered the aristocrats, to which party he belonged; compelled to live in exile, he found solace in the writing of poetry full of a practical and prudential wisdom, bitterly biased against democracy, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... unanimous in denunciation of the plan and conduct of the whole movement; and it arraigned the President for the fault of his inferior, calling him to trial before a jury that daily was becoming more biased and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... with the War Office. It was clear she thought that organisation ought to have taken better care of Teddy. She had a curious effect of feeling that something was being kept back from her. It was manifest too that she was disposed to regard Mr. Britling as biased in favour ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Workingman's party but which became known as the Agrarian party. The majority endeavored to rectify their position in the community by an address to the people. "We take this opportunity," they said, "to aver, whatever may be said to the contrary by ignorant or designing individuals or biased presses, that we have no desire or intention of disturbing the rights of property in individuals or the public." In the meantime Robert Dale Owen and Fanny Wright organized a party of their own, endorsing an extreme form of state paternalism over children. This State ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... myself with the army ants. From a broader, less biased point of view, I realized that credit should be given to the rove-beetles for having established themselves in a zone of such constant danger, and for being able to ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... vice-admiralty court to sit at Halifax without a jury as an alternative to the colonial vice-admiralty courts whose juries were notoriously biased against the customs officers and whose judges often were colonials engaged in ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... relationship. In 1881 third cousins produced more than any nearer relationship."[83] Mr. Huth forgets that he is basing these statements on five and nine families respectively, and does not take into consideration the probability that if the returns are biased, as he suspects, this bias would affect the more distantly related, relatively more than the first cousin marriages, for the same reason that this would be true of the cases collected by Dr. Bemiss.[84] Combining the figures of the two censal years helps to correct ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... as they are in endeavouring to train efficient laymen into equally efficient priests, usually assume that the best way to know about Christianity is to study Christian books. It is the worst way, because these books are naturally biased in favour of it. It is better to study any religion by seeing what the attackers have to say against it. Then a personal judgment ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... against the whole organized power of the state, which they can only do successfully if they happen to have a strong public opinion on their side. In view of the influence which the state can always exercise on the press, public opinion is likely to be biased against them, particularly when a nominally progressive government is in power. There will no longer be the possibility of divergences between the policies of different railways. Railway men in England derived advantages for many years from the comparatively liberal ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... fault-finding but truth. The critic should be more than a censor or caviler. He should discover and make known whatever is commendable or excellent. At its best, criticism is not a mere record of general impressions but the statement of an intelligent judgment. It is not biased or vitiated by prejudice, ignorance, or self-interest; but, proceeding according to well-defined principles, it is able to trace the steps by which it ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... recognized by our statute, that no person is suitable as a Juror, who is biased either by interest or prejudice. Now whether I am the impartial Jurist, is not for me to say: but I wish to discuss the subject fairly. I hope some few will be enabled to see their own interest: at any rate, dismiss prejudice, ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... the chaos there darted flashes of light, like rapier thrusts, words that looked and stabbed, heroic laughter. Gradually an impression emerged from his first reading, perhaps through the biased scheme of the selections. Voluntarily or involuntarily the German editors had selected those pieces of French which could seem to establish by the testimony of the French themselves the failings of the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... wrote was not only dull, but biased and unjust as well. It was true capital was leaving the country rapidly, but what other course had it? To stay and attempt to carry on industry in the midst of the demoralization was obviously impractical. The plants remained and when a way ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... everything. It was on this point that the last of all misunderstandings between me and Davies was dissipated. At Bensersiel he had been influenced more than he owned by my arguments about Memmert; but at that time (as I hinted) he was biased by a radical prejudice. The channel theory had become a sort of religion with him, promising double salvation—not only avoidance of the Dollmanns, but success in the quest by methods in which he was past master. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... exposed to the avarice or resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus removed from his obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal of the Praetorian praefect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that the integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest was concerned, or his affections were engaged, the strictest regulations were established, to exclude any person, without the special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the province where he was born; and to prohibit the governor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of agreeing on a common report, would publish majority and minority reports. What matters is that opinions of qualified experts are at all drawn up and published, so that discussion is as much as possible free from the effects of the biased speeches of interested statesmen and other politicians and their press. The report or reports would also be of use when an armistice at least had been agreed upon and a conference for the conclusion of a peace is sitting. And even if the work of the invited ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... information having transpired, he was immediately led to the piano-stool by his hostess, who was frequently biased in her social judgments by Mildred Delaplane. Peter played Cyril Scott's "Song from the East," and then, sure of Miss Delaplane's interest, an Etude of Scriabine, an old favorite of his which seemed to express the mood of ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... must object to this evidence as biased. Of course the dog would not tell the truth against his own ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... the days went on in Dorade, and they were thrown constantly into each other's society, Major Keene began to monopolize much more of Cecil Tresilyan's thoughts than she would have allowed if she could have helped it; for, though she considered Mr. Fullarton's testimony unfairly biased by prejudice, she could not doubt that Royston was by no means the most eligible object to centre her young affections upon. He carefully avoided discussion or display of any of his peculiar opinions in her presence, and on such occasions seemed inclined to soften his habitually ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... dark columns had settled down in the cotton-yards, public squares, Carrollton suburb and Jackson Barracks, Callender House—you may guess by whose indirection—had come to the notice of a once criminal lawyer, now the plumed and emblazoned general-in-chief, to whom, said his victims (possibly biased), no offense or offender was too small ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... passed the bigoted censorship of Holy Church. His religious instruction had been served to him with the seal of infallible authority. Of other systems of theology he had been permitted only the Vatican's biased interpretation, for the curse of Holy Church rested upon them. Of current philosophical thought, of Bible criticism and the results of independent scriptural research, he knew practically nothing—little beyond what the explorer had told him in their memorable talks a few weeks before in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... way and had undergone a certain amount of reconciliation with his brother. Lady Amelia had seceded to her mother, as had also Mrs. Toff, the old housekeeper. Lady Susanna was wavering, having had her mind biased by the objectionable conduct of the Dean and his daughter. Lady Sarah was more stanch. Lady Sarah had never yet given way; she never did give way; and, in her very heart, she was the best friend that Mary had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... prejudices in our judgments of one another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking characters—because I am too proud of my character as a man, to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biased against squalid poverty—I was unacquainted with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... recourse. And yet, were this notion duly and generally considered, it might be attended with no bad effects; as good education, good inclinations, and established virtue, would be the principally-sought-after qualities; and not money, when a man (not biased by mere personal attractions) was looking round him for a partner in his fortunes, and for a mother of his future children, which are to be the heirs of his possessions, and to enjoy the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... and the Acadians has been told many times, but most of the treatises on the subject are unsatisfactory from the historical point of view, either because of the biased attitude taken by the authors or because of their inadequate use of original sources. The present writer has deliberately avoided consulting secondary works. The following titles, however, are here suggested for the benefit of the reader who wishes to become ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... to the type, as soon as these changes come to an end. It is a real average, being the sum of the contribution of all the members of the strain. Improved races have only an apparent average, which is in fact biased by the exclusion of whole groups of individuals. If left to themselves, their appearance changes, and the real average soon returns. This is the common ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... writer already quoted, is something too scurrilous and too apparently biased to be altogether a trustworthy authority. He seems to have been the type of gossip (still to be met in London clubs) who can always tell with circumstance how the duchess came to have a black baby, and the exact ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... environment must both be perceived.'' But each individual method of "comprehension'' is different. And it is uncertain whether this is purely physical, whether only the memory assists (so that the attention in biased by what has been last perceived), whether imagination is at work or an especial psychical activity must be presupposed in compounding the larger elements. The fact is that men may perceived an enormous variety ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the story of Atlantis is not a geological event but an ancient astronomical myth, is rather imprudent. Mr. Massey, notwithstanding his rare intuitional faculties and great learning, is one of those writers in whom the intensity of research bent into one direction has biased his otherwise clear understanding. Because Hercules is now a constellation it does not follow that there never was a hero of this name. Because the Noachian Universal Deluge is now proved a fiction ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... Arizona. Nothing is more calculated to incite among our younger men the love for athletic sports than such competitions, when conducted in a fair and sportsmanlike manner. I must beg of you not to allow yourselves to be biased towards indulging in any unseemly noise in case your favorite should be worsted. What we want is a fair field and no favoritism, and while we hope our boy will win, none of you, I am sure, would wish in any way to feel that either man was given any undue ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... the reader at first as biased and unfair. "That was the way people lived in those ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Ranger," she said. "That's what I fear. It'll bring trouble on us. Besides, like everybody here, he's biased. He can't see anything good in Steele. Yet he says: 'More power to him!' I'm mystified, and, ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... experienced but had the reputation of being severe, and from its very commencement I could see that the perusal of the depositions taken in the magistrates' court, where it will be remembered I was not defended, had undoubtedly biased his mind against me. As for the jury, they were a respectable-looking quiet set of men, who might be relied upon to do justice according to their lights. Of those who were called from the panel and answered to ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... between families are on account of business," she said. "That's why they're so sordid. Certainly the Lambs seem a sordid lot to me, though of course I'm biased." And with that she began to sketch a history of the commercial antagonism that had risen between the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... difficult to get at the facts in the more complicated cases—as must always be true under similar circumstances; for ordinarily it is necessary to back up the superior officer who makes the charge, and yet it is always possible that this superior officer is consciously or unconsciously biased against his subordinate. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... John's description of his spirited cousin, thinking, too, how different was his opinion of her from that which his mother evidently entertained. Still, if Mrs. Livingstone was prejudiced, John Jr. might also be somewhat biased, so he would not yet make up his mind; but on one thing he was resolved—she should be invited, and for fear of contingencies, he would carry ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... 1899, indicated that he had been convicted on the most flimsy and uncertain evidence, largely conjectural in character, while there was strong evidence in his favor. Yet the judges of the court-martial seemed biased against him, and by a vote of three judges to two, he was again found guilty - "of treason, with extenuating circumstances," as ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... be necessary," cry the other side. "All men are privately influenced by women; each has his wife, sister, or female friends, and is too much biased by these relations to fail of representing their interests; and, if this is not enough, let them propose and enforce their wishes with the pen. The beauty of home would be destroyed, the delicacy of the sex be violated, the dignity of halls of legislation degraded, by an attempt to ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... following somewhat ingenious play upon words. Lallemand, Labedogure, Drouot, and Ney they called Las Quatre Pairs fides (perfides), which in pronunciation may equally mean the four faithful peers or the four perfidious men. The infamous Vandamme and another were called Pair-siffles, the biased peers, or the biased pair, or (persiffles) men made objects of derision. It was thus the lower orders behaved while the, existence of France was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... gasp. She had lived this moment in anticipation for weeks. She had always known that sooner or later this would happen. She had read his plays over and over again, and was convinced that they were wonderful. Of course, hers was a biased view, but then Elsa Doland also admired them; and Elsa's opinion was one that carried weight. Elsa was another of those people who were bound to succeed suddenly. Even old Mr. Faucitt, who was a stern judge of acting and rather inclined to consider that nowadays there was no ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... proportion of common dreams; but the psycho-analytic technique embodies a fallacious assumption that there is a transcendental symbolizing activity in the Unconscious, as it were a language of dreams. This gives rise to a biased "will to interpret." The alleged meaning may thus often be the work of the interpreter's mind although not that in the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... fiction. The reader, provided he uses literature temperately, has much less need to beware of the novel, which he reads frankly for entertainment, than of the history full of "things that are not so," of the biased biography, of science "popularized" out of all likeness to nature, of absurd theories in sociology or cosmology, of silly and crude ideas masquerading as philosophy, of the out-and-out falsehood of fake travellers ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Constitution to secure a fair trial. On such a trial it declares that "the Chief Justice shall preside." This was doubtless because the framers of the Constitution believed it to be possible that the Vice-President might be biased by the fact that "in case of the removal of the President from office ... the same shall devolve ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... opinions are twofold, moral and intellectual. Of these, the moral do not fall within the compass of this work. They may be classed under two general heads: Indifference to the attainment of truth, and Bias; of which last the most common case is that in which we are biased by our wishes; but the liability is almost as great to the undue adoption of a conclusion which is disagreeable to us, as of one which is agreeable, if it be of a nature to bring into action any of the stronger passions. Persons of timid character are the more predisposed to believe any statement, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... press to have an agent in every place to which the telegraph penetrates: therefore the telegraphic operators often act as its purveyors. It is for their interest to send something; and their judgment of what is important is not only biased, but is formed by purely local standards. Our news, therefore, is largely set in motion by telegraphic operators, by agents trained to regard only the accidental, the startling, the abnormal, as news; it is picked up by sharp prowlers about town, whose pay depends ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Muzzey's American History, therefore, is not a balanced and unprejudiced account of the rise and progress of the United States, but such a treatise as he believes that the American mind will absorb, and such a story as conforms with the biased minds of pseudo-American historians who do not desire to publish to posterity the achievements of all the people of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... desire that patients should thoroughly understand the methods and principles of the New-School of Healing and should exercise their own intelligence as to its merits as compared with the old, and, being once thoroughly convinced—not by faith, or fear, or fashion, nor yet biased by the unfair influence of the false prestige of a legalized monopoly detrimental to the interest of the people—they should forthwith honestly test the new deliverance by faithfully following my advice and instruction, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... applied for a position as dramatic critic upon a newspaper. The editor recognized her ability and her knowledge of the drama, but he said he was afraid to employ a woman in such a department, lest her feelings should prevent her telling the exact truth. She would be biased herself, and praise the things she liked, and then she would have her personal favorites among the actors. The young lady who believed herself capable ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... now more than suspected that in his own home Haldane would find much that was depressing and enervating. Worse than all, he would have to contend with an excitable and ungoverned nature, already sadly warped and biased wrongly. "What will be the final result?" sighed the old gentleman to himself. But he soon fell back hopefully on his belief that the Lord had begun a good work and would ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... numerous suitors. That Leighton Douglass loved the woman, not the heiress, she knew beyond the possibility of cavil or doubt, and when, after mature deliberation, she promised her hand to Mr. Dunbar, she had felt equally sure that no mercenary consideration biased his choice or inspired his professions ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and dispassionately consider, is the mutual, social, civic, and industrial adjustment upon common ground of two races, differing widely in characteristics and diverse in physical peculiarities, but alike suspicious and alike jealous, and alike more or less biased and prejudiced each toward the other. Without doubt the physical peculiarities of the Negro, which are perhaps the most superficial of all the distinctions, are nevertheless the most difficult of adjustment. While I do not believe that a ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... principle from whence their hatred flows. 'For the fear of the Lord is to hate evil:' wherefore, where this grace is wanting for a root in the soul, there it must of necessity swerve in the letting out of this passion; because the soul, where grace in wanting, is not at liberty to act simply, but is biased by the power of sin; that, while grace is absent, is present in the soul. And hence it is that this passion, which, when acted well, is a virtue, is so abused, and made to exercise its force against that for which God never ordained it, nor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Money is alluring, and there is a pleasure in gratifying a friend; but let not a fortune buy your peace, nor sell your happiness. Neither be too much biased by a friend, or any one's advice, in a matter of so great consequence to yourself. Perhaps she is worthy your love, and, if I could think she was, I would not say a single thing to discourage you. Be cautious, Aaron; weigh the matter well. Should your generous ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... and wrote in Latin some edifying books of devotion. Two of his sons joined the Jesuit order. He died at Brussels in 1618. Stanyhurst viewed Ireland entirely from the English standpoint, and in his Description and History is, consciously or unconsciously, greatly biased against ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... "America lost the opportunity for reconciliation immediately after my victory at Saratoga. Since then, as you say, the land has become a waste of widows, beggars and orphans. Then came the French Alliance, a sacrifice of the great interests, as well as the religion of this country to the biased views of a proud, ancient, crafty and priest-ridden nation. I always thought this a defensive war until the French joined in the combination. Now I look with disfavor upon this peril to our dominion, this ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... accordance with their bodily needs, rather than to meet the exigencies of business, even to aid a declining industry, may have a fair opportunity to judge comparative merits and draw sound conclusions based upon scientific facts, rather than misleading statements or the biased dictates of custom. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... electronic text of Father Ryan's poems, I was struck by the biased nature of the memoir included. While I will not gainsay anyone's right to their beliefs, I believe it is clearly evident from the poems themselves that Father Ryan believed strongly in the Southern Cause, and I do not believe his reaction was entirely emotional, as seems ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... object to the religious training of their children, "because," say they, "there is danger of having their minds biased by some particular creed; they should be left, therefore, to themselves till they are capable of making a choice, and then let them choose their creed." This is all a miserable subterfuge, and in direct opposition to the explicit command of God and the whole tenor of the gospel plan ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... clever boy in a druggist's shop would have known how to treat it, upon the advice of an old, old apothecary, who had full authority from my guardians to run up a most furious account against me for medicine. This being the regular mode of payment, inevitably, and unconsciously, he was biased to a mode of treatment; namely, by drastic medicines varied without end, which fearfully exasperated the complaint. This complaint, as I now know, was the simplest possible derangement of the liver, a torpor in its action that might have been put to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... The San Reve, biased of her jealous fears, had foreseen in the message to Steamboat Dan some such end as this. It was all so plain and sure to the angry, heart-broken San Reve. The false Storri had done what he might to cover ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... day after day, the women who had fanned the flames of dissension, and had completely demoralized the anti-slavery ranks. As my first view of Mrs. Mott was through his prejudices, no prepossessions in her favor biased my judgment. When first introduced to her at our hotel in Great Queen Street, with the other ladies from Boston and Philadelphia who were delegates to the World's Convention, I felt somewhat embarrassed, as I was the only lady present who represented the "Birney faction," though ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... me, somewhat better than you, know life, too. I have lived it, naked, taken it up in both my hands and looked at it, and tasted it, the flesh and the blood of it, and, being purely an intellectual, I have been biased by neither passion nor prejudice. All of which is necessary for clear concepts, and all of which you lack. Ah! a really ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biased by obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... that the materials of which they are formed are not individually beautiful and can not be wrought into combinations that are beautiful. The veneration and the affection which some of these men felt for the scenes they were speaking of, heated their fancies and biased their judgment; but the pleasant falsities they wrote were full of honest sincerity, at any rate. Others wrote as they did, because they feared it would be unpopular to write otherwise. Others were hypocrites and deliberately meant ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Alfred nor Hallam Tennyson thought so. How much their opinions were biased by the fact that they were descendants of the firstborn son, we can not say. Anyway, the descendants of the second son, the Honorable Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, have made no protest of which I can learn, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... well Rose-Marie knew what Mrs. Volsky meant by her twisted sentence. Only too well she understood that Ella would never allow herself to be biased by another's judgment,—that Ella would not allow herself to be moved by another's plea. And yet she set Lily gently down upon the floor and rose to ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... reflect credit upon the land of their birth. And this is the conviction of her northern sister, the first of nine generations to be born beyond the borders of the old Bay State, so she can hardly be accused of a biased opinion. ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... settled in their teens, and from which they can by no possibility be drawn. It is because the formation of new habits becomes increasingly difficult after the sixteenth or seventeenth year that narrow prejudices and biased opinions should be avoided by participation in the broadest variety of activities and associations. Before the conflicting moods and tendencies are finally welded into a consistent whole the girl or boy should make a part of his personality as many sources of enthusiasm, as many kinds of ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... woolly-headed one's physical advantages in weight and strength, in height and reach, in being used to the climate and the glare, the odds were all with Hassan Ah. Then he sized up the moral odds; and though a biased audience might be at first supposed to weigh against him too, the sight of all those Arabs waiting to see him beaten ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... she tried to smile the sympathetic yet wise and tolerant smile with which she was accustomed to listen to the necessarily biased and incomplete view of the poor. She didn't ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... longer existed. It became clear to him that the English Church was England; and although he knew in his heart that Monseigneur Cripps was suffering from a sense of grievance and that his criticism of Roman policy was too obviously biased, it pleased him to believe that ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... exclusively, the news of his vicinage, as gathered by him for his own paper. This constitutes the large fountain from which our American news supply is drawn. But, as in the case of the foreign official agencies, if there be danger that an individual member is biased, or if the matter be one of high importance, our own trained and salaried staff men do the reporting. For this purpose, as well as for administrative work, there is a bureau in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... having conversed with numerous officers and privates who were wounded in that engagement, I am satisfied that gross injustice has been done the noble raw recruits of the 106th and 108th Ohio Regiments. I am not biased in the least on account of their being Cincinnati men, although I confess to a city pride; and I feel the greatest satisfaction in telling you that those regiments acted in the most heroic manner. That a few acted cowardly and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... wonder when we recollect that nothing in the world has so absolute a fixity of purpose as an aristocracy. The mass of the people may be led astray by ignorance or passion; the mind of a king may be biased, and his perseverance in his designs may be shaken—besides which a king is not immortal—but an aristocratic body is too numerous to be led astray by the blandishments of intrigue, and yet not numerous enough to yield readily to the intoxicating influence of unreflecting ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... practise its old frauds any longer. Men have become extremely wary of Rome. That is what hurts. The Catholic writer to whom we referred sums up the situation thus: Since Luther "all Protestant mankind descending by ordinary generation have come into the world with a mentality biased, perverted, and prejudiced." That is Rome's way of looking at the matter. The truth is: the world is forewarned, hence forearmed against the pleas of Rome. It pays only an indifferent attention to vilifications of Luther that come from that quarter, because it expects no encomiums ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... single cases in which we can know that our fellow-men are weak in intellect, or erring in judgment, or perverse in feeling, or misled by passion, or biased by selfish interest, as a general fact we are not competent to decide these matters, in regard to those who ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... his control. Certain of the Regents were particularly aggressive, especially Levi Bishop, the Detroit member of the Board, who for a long period wrote anonymous articles on the University in a Detroit paper, giving his biased view of all that happened in the Regents' meetings. The Ann Arbor Regent, Donald MacIntyre, whose banking office became the unofficial center of University affairs, also proved himself unfriendly ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... economist, strongly biased in favor of one mode of government, can contemplate dispassionately an ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... biased with passion, but Mary entreated him to be calm. She set the matter in the best light. Both had been angry and behaved as angry people usually do, saying and doing things which in their saner moods they would have avoided. Alternately scolding and beseeching, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... had reason to question the desirability of being a rich young man, since the conscientious and analytical young person by his side had returned an unfavorable answer to a certain matrimonial proposition on his part, alleging her inability to determine how far her affections were biased by sordidness. So Mr. Dilke shook his head and took a sidelong glance at his companion's pretty profile. "No, money cannot," he returned promptly in refutation of her statement, "all mine cannot give me the one thing that makes the rest ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... just," she remarked, "but he might be biased in a matter of this kind. What way do you see out ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... of the book, I found necessary to write as it is largely to get my readers into a proper mental attitude for a reasonable recognition and understanding of what follows it. There are so many wrong teachings and biased ideas in the premises that these had to be counteracted or removed, to a degree, at least, before the rest of the copy could be rightly read. My experience is, that the preface, as it stands, has been the means of putting ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... whilst others are better for one of terror and reproof? It might conceivably be so; and we shall, I think, more and more suspect it to be so as we go on. And if it be so, how can any possible judge or critic help being biased in favor of the religion by which his own needs are best met? He aspires to impartiality; but he is too close to the struggle not to be to some degree a participant, and he is sure to approve most warmly those fruits of piety in others which ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... quote the charming lines which may be applied to him more justly, than other pages in which his character is believed to have been traced, but in which we only find it distorted, and in such false proportions as are given in a profile drawn upon an elastic tissue, which has been pulled athwart, biased by contrary movements during the whole progress of the sketch. [Footnote: These extracts, with many that succeed them, in which the character of Chopin is described, are taken from Lucrezia Floriani, a novel by Madame Sand, in which the leading ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... influence known as public opinion augurs success. A clever criminal lawyer, be he prosecutor or lawyer for the defendant, knows that all the preparation in the world is of no account provided his case is to come before a stupid or biased judge, or a prejudiced or obstinate jury. Therefore, each side, in a legal battle of importance, studies, as well as it can, the character, connections, and cast of mind of the different judges who may be called upon to hear ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... reality, he foresaw he would get tired of her in that time, and did not want to tie himself so that he could not leave her when he wished. At first, the girl had rebelled against this delay, for she was strongly biased by her religious training, and looked with horror on the state of wickedness in which she was living. But Gaston laughed at her scruples, and as time went on, her finer feelings became blunted, and she accepted the position to which she was ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... stout partisanship as Macaulay shows for the Whigs, by the hero worship that Carlyle expresses, or by the exaggerated praise and blame that Ruskin sometimes bestows. On the other hand, Arnold loses what these men gain; for while his intellect is less biased than theirs, it is also less colored and less warmed by the glow ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... individuals, and scenes of polished life, were subjects which he had neither opportunities to observe, inclination to consider, nor discernment to distinguish. All his maxims were the suggestions of pedantry and prejudice; so that his perception was obscured, his judgment biased, his address awkward, and his conversation absurd and unentertaining: yet such as I have represented this tutor, are the greatest part of those animals who lead raw boys about the world, under the denomination of travelling governors. Peregrine, therefore, being perfectly ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... he sees only one side of the question. The white man should be supreme and the Negro should merely have freedom of body with no guarantee that even this would not be of doubtful tenure. Reconstruction studies will always be valueless as long as they are prosecuted by men of biased minds. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... such firm integrity, in the midst of party spirit as much superior to its influence as mortal man could be! and if sympathy with his friends, and the sense that public men must pull together to effect any purpose may, as Lord Webb Seymour asserts, have swayed Horner, or biased him a little from his original theoretic course, still it never was from any selfish or in the slightest degree corrupt or unworthy motive. I much admire Lord Webb Seymour's letter to Horner, and not less Horner's candid, honest, and temperate answer. What ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... dreamt-of fortune came would be more welcome if there were an heir to whom to leave it. What was the good of being rich, if the money went to collateral relatives? There was his nephew Savinien, a disagreeable urchin whom he looked on with indifference; and he was biased regarding his brother, who had all but failed several times in business, and to whose aid he had come to save the honor of the name. The mistress had not hesitated to help him, and had prevented the signature of "Desvarennes" being ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... order to reject, not to examine, them. Silence is His answer to ingrained prejudice masquerading as honest inquiry. It is ever so. There is small chance of truth at the goal if there be foregone conclusions or biased questions at the starting-point. 'If I ask you, ye will not answer.' They had taken refuge in judicious but self-condemning silence when He had asked them the origin of John's mission and the meaning of the One Hundred and Tenth Psalm, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... difficult matter to see the precise share of blame to be attached to Wolfe; and, notwithstanding the biased account of Glumford and the strong spirit of party then existing in the country, no rational man could for a moment term the event of a sudden fray a premeditated murder, or the violence of the aggrieved the black offence of a wilful criminal. Wolfe, therefore, soon obtained ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
