"In practice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... insecurity upon the long line of communications from Nice to Genoa. The same plan was advocated by him against the Spanish peninsula in later years.[36] Of this conception it may be said that it is sound in principle, but in practice depends largely upon the distance from the centre of the enemy's power at which its execution is attempted. Upon the Spanish coast, in 1808, in the hands of Lord Cochrane, it was undoubtedly a most effective secondary operation; but when ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Companions, in all their several postures. Now you may rejoice in the sweet remembrance, how sumptuous that you were, in Apparel, meat and drink, and all other ornaments that my Lady Bride, and Madam Spend-all, first invented and brought in practice. Now you may tickle your fancies with the pleasures that were used there, by dansing, maskerading, Fire-works, playing upon Instruments, singing, leaping, and all other sort of gambals, that youth being back'd with Bacchus strength uses either ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... must have none of the old customs of the island put in practice, understand that. We want to save the ship if we can, or the lives of those on board. Come, lads, they are fellow-creatures— seamen like ourselves, in distress. Where is the faint-hearted coward who would leave ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... subject of women. I've always had a horror of being married for a living or for a home or as an experiment or a springboard. My notion's been that I wouldn't trust a woman who wasn't independent. And theoretically I still think that's sound. But it doesn't work out in practice. A man has to have been in love to be able to speak the last ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... are not, as is often supposed, essentials of the crime of piracy.) But wide as is the legal distinction between the authorized warfare of the privateer and the unauthorized violence of the pirate, in practice it was very difficult to keep the privateer and his crew, far from the eye of authority, within the bounds of legal conduct, or to prevent him from broadening out his operations into piracy, especially if ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... wife and mother, with life's multiplied experiences, a wider outlook now opens before her, with added wisdom for the responsibilities involved in public life. In all her endeavors she has been nobly sustained by her husband, Mr. William Harbert, a successful lawyer, many years in practice in Chicago, whose clear judgment and generous sympathies have made his services invaluable in the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the beings who inhabit them are impaired for the purposes of art in the degree to which their abstract nature is felt as stripping them of complete humanity. For this reason in dealing with such simple types, being natures all of one strain, it has been found best in practice to import into them individually some quality widely common to men in addition to that limited quality they possess by their conception. Some touch of weakness in an angel, some touch of pity in a devil, some unmerited misfortune in an Ariel, bring them home to our bosoms; just as the ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... is up to his neck in practice, my boy, he has no time to gratify his private curiosity. Things shoot across him and he gets a glimpse of them, only to recall them, perhaps, at some quiet moment like this. But I've always felt, Manson, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... courteous respect. The only guest not tolerated was intolerance; though strict justice might add, that these "Illuminati" were as unconscious of their special cant as smokers are of the perfume of their weed, and that a professed declaration of universal independence turned out in practice ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... still in practice in Birmingham, however, and, of course, knew the ancient family tradition anent the twin succession. Whether he was prompted by revenge or merely self-advertisement ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... point of all the parties interested meeting, the Marquess' courage somewhat misgave him. Not that any particular reason occurred to him which would have induced him to yield one jot of the theory of his sentiments, but the putting them in practice rather made him nervous. In short, he was as convinced as ever that he was an ill-used man, of great influence and abilities; but then he remembered his agreeable sinecure and his dignified office, and he might not succeed. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... 'besides, Mamma wished us all to be alike down to the little ones, so I will make the best of it, and trim it like any London milliner. But, Anne, you must consider it is a great improvement in me to allow that respectable people must be neat. I used to allow it in theory, but not in practice.' ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... distorted form, and might have produced much worse effects. For my own part, I have no other mode of conduct but that of writing and of speaking the simple truth; being convinced there is no shade of disguise, artifice, or falsehood, that is not immoral in principle, and pernicious in practice. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... "to free them from the heavy, unchristian yoke of the parsons and to lead them into evangelical liberty." He had already abolished the Mass in his castle and given shelter to some of Luther's followers. But Franz, in undertaking to put the gospel, as he understood it, in practice by arms, had other than religious motives. His admiration of Luther probably had but little to do with his anxiety to put down a hated ecclesiastical ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... it might be argued, being double-edged, will ultimately right themselves. But it is otherwise in practice. Such folk as the pastor's harpy relatives will generally have a boat, and will never have paid for it; such men as the pastor may have sometimes paid for a boat, but they will never have one. It is there as it is with us at home: the measure of the abuse of either system is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its best to secure good births. That implies a distinct bar to the marriage and reproduction of the halt and the blind, the bearers of transmissible diseases and the like. And women being economically independent will have a far freer choice in wedlock than they have now. Now they must in practice marry men who can more or less keep them, they must subordinate every other consideration to that. Under Socialism they will certainly look less to a man's means and acquisitive gifts, and more to the finer qualities ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... of the fundamental importance of economic facts in determining the politics and beliefs of an age or nation, I do not think that non-economic factors can be neglected without risks of errors which may be fatal in practice. ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... saying that he is not responsible as a Roman Catholic for the extravagances that Dr. Pusey dwells upon? He is, it seems to us, and he is not. No doubt the Roman Catholic system is in practice a wide one, and he has a right, which we are glad to see that he is disposed to exercise, to maintain the claims of moderation and soberness, and to decline to submit his judgment to the fashionable ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... muscular around the osseous elements of the shoulder apparatus, forms a study for the surgeon as well in the abnormal condition of these parts, as in their normal arrangement; for in practice he discovers that that very mechanical principle upon which both orders of structures (the osseous and muscular) are grouped together for normal articular action, becomes, when the parts are deranged by fracture or, other ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... operations, and associates in it, perchance, a fallen fair one, or an incipient Greek, 38 put up in the Bench. Horse-dealers, money scriveners, bill doers, attorneys, &c. have either the means of setting up again, or some new system of roguery to be put in practice, in fresh time and place, which may conduct them to the harbour of Fortune, or waft them over the herring pond at the expence of the public purse. The disinterested Profligate here either consumes, corrupts, and festers, under the brandy fever and despair, or is put up by a gambler, who sells ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... results of observation; in experimentation; in comparison and classification. It is peculiarly rich in opportunities to gain skill in discriminating between important and unimportant data,—one of the most vital of all the steps in the process of sound reasoning. In practice, a datum may at first sight seem trivial, when in reality it is very significant. Skill in estimating values comes only with experience in estimating values, and in applying these estimates in practice, and in observing and correcting ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... grinned—the superior grin of one who knows his superior strength, "Like a great many principles that are excellent in theory, your plan will not work in practice." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... physical danger, to engage in any species of dissipation or intemperance, to ruthlessly waste in any way the physical energies which God has given us, to recklessly weaken, sicken, mar, or injure our bodies is as much a sin as to violate the commands of the Decalogue, or deny in practice the principles of the moral law. God will not hold such an offender guiltless. The visitation of His retribution is and will be upon such transgressors. It is our duty to be healthy, to obey the physical laws of our being, to possess sound and active bodies. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... would produce only a certain amount of work—that is, the weight of a clock in descending or a spring in uncoiling returns theoretically the amount of work expended in raising or coiling it, and in no possible way can it do more. In practice, on account of friction, etc., we know it does less. This law, being invariable, of course limits us, as it did Archimedes and Pythagoras; we have simply utilized sources of power that their clumsy workmen allowed to escape. Of the four principal sources—food, fuel, wind, and tide—including ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... to put in practice her own theory. Much as she liked an evening visit to the cottage, she never paid one unasked. Often, indeed, when pressed by Hortense to come, she would refuse, because Robert did not second, or but slightly ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... looked upon as an apprenticeship for the fuller existence. The very fact that their earthly homes, even the Pharaoh's palaces, were only built of sun-baked bricks made of mud, shows that they carried out in practice the saying in the Bible about having no abiding cities here. Their tombs were their lasting cities and they were built to endure ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Senate of a duality of the Executive, which, extended, would require a President for every sectional interest. Such ideas were never popular at the North. I do not think they would operate very well in practice at the South. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... cares for her brother had borne fruit in him; how he learnt from her to reverence goodness, and cleave to the right; and how he looked up to her, because her words were few, and her deeds consistent. More right in theory, than steady in practice was Lionel; very unformed, left untrained by those whose duty it was to watch him; but the seeds had been sown, and be his future life what it might, it could not but bear the impress of the years she had spent in ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... desk, when they were rewarded by finding the nest and eggs of a "feather-poke" (long-tailed tit), or some other rare bird, which he always took home and preserved in his study, as a trophy till the following year. No questions were asked as to how the decorations were obtained, but in practice the process was as follows. On the day before, between school hours, certain of the younger boys were sent round the town to beg flowers, and then, later on, followed what, as we should have said, the present hypercritical generation would call, at the very ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... purposes, and never without the advantage of numbers or position—with such an enemy the strategic science of civilized nations loses much of its importance, and finds but rarely, and only in peculiar localities, an opportunity to be put in practice. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... politeness," says La Bruy,re, "though we cannot tell where to fix it in practice. It observes received usages and customs, is bound to times and places, and is not the same thing in the two sexes or in different conditions. Wit alone cannot obtain it: it is acquired and brought to perfection by emulation. Some dispositions alone are susceptible ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... as it consists in practice, will be defined in my Instructions for the schools. And the theory connected with that practice is set down in the three lectures at the end of the first course I delivered—those on Line, ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... neglect the rest, as if God said a thing to us in nature, and Christ unsaid it; and, when men wish a thing, it is not hard to find texts in Scripture which may be ingeniously perverted to suit their purpose. The error then being so common in practice, of believing that Christ came to gain for us easier terms of admittance into heaven than we had before (whereas, in fact, instead of making obedience less strict, He has enabled us to obey God more strictly, and instead of gaining easier terms of admittance, He ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... applied was the Reform Bill. Before the introduction of that measure, electioneering was a simple process, hardly deserving the name of an art; it has now arrived at the rank of a science, the great beauty of which is, that, although complicated in practice, it is most easy of acquirement. Under the old system boroughs were bought by wholesale, scot and lot; now the traffic is done by retail. Formerly there was but one seller; at present there must be some thousands at least—all to be bargained with, all to be bought. Thus the "agency" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... and many-sided thing as practical education, it is deeply gratifying to find a clear and definite leading purpose that prevails throughout and a set of mutually related and supporting principles which in practice contribute to the realization ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... gradually risen a system of fagging, such as is or was practised in the great English public schools—enforced services exacted from the younger lads—which at the time Myles came to Devlen had, in the five or six years it had been in practice, grown to be an absolute though unwritten law of the body—a law supported by all the prestige of long-continued usage. At that time the bachelors numbered but thirteen, yet they exercised over the rest of the sixty-four squires and pages a rule of iron, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... insisted on staying there. In a way she understood his feelings. He loved her so much, she supposed, that he hated the idea of her exchanging a single word with another man. This, in the abstract, was gratifying; but in practice it distressed her. She wished she were some sort of foreigner, so that nobody could talk to her. But then they would look at her, and that probably would produce much the same results. It was a hard world ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... said, "it is very easy to say 'Do what is right and never mind what comes of it;' but we should all find it very hard to follow it in practice if we had a choice like that before us. Well, you tell your brother when you hear of him, Clinton, that we all think better of him than before, and that whether he is a sergeant's son or a captain's we shall welcome him heartily back, and be proud ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... the scrupulousness of chaste souls will carry them, will not feel surprised that, after the example of many other saints, he had put in practice such severe mortification, to shield himself from the slightest taint on his purity. His lively and agreeable turn of mind are apparent in the way in which he taunted his body when suffering from extreme cold; this also shows how much self-possession he had under the severest trials, and by what ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... indeed, of all projectors of new Utopias is that they propose a change of human nature. The criticism really suggests a sound criterion. Unless the change proposed be practicable, the Utopia will doubtless be impossible. And unless some practicable change be proposed, the Utopia, even were it embodied in practice, would be useless. If the sole result of raising wages were an increase in the consumption of gin, wages might as well stay at a minimum. But the tacit assumption that all changes of human nature are impracticable is simply a cynical and unproved assertion. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... he said, "that in some vague, undefined, constitutional way I am responsible for the police service of the United Kingdom. But happily my direct charge does not in practice extend beyond England. The centre of disturbance appears to be on the northern side of the Border, within the jurisdiction of the Secretary for Scotland. It is possible that my right honourable friend who holds that office, and whom I am pleased to see here with us, will answer ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... the greatest and most earnest teachers of morality of the present day. Every word that Mr. Ruskin writes is so evidently from the depth of his own good heart, and every doctrine that he enunciates so pure in theory and so true in practice, that a difference with him upon the final teaching of Shakspere's work cannot be too cautiously expressed. But the estimate of this which he has given in the third Lecture of "Sesame and Lilies"[1] is ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... part it is clear that there were some Indians who could justly, according to Queen Isabella, be made slaves. By this time, therefore, at any rate the question had been solved, whether by the learned in the law, theologians and canonists, I know not, but certainly in practice, that the Indians taken in war could be made slaves. The whole of this transaction is very remarkable, and, in some measure, inexplicable, on the facts before us. There is nothing to show that the slaves given to Roldan's followers were made slaves in a different ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... an inductive demonstration of unalterable natural laws and propensities may be likened to the scientific legislator who undertakes to codify prevailing usages: he turns an elastic custom, constantly modified in practice by needs and sentiments, into an unbending statute, when the bare unvarnished statement of the principle produces an outcry. Natural processes will not bear calm philosophic explanations that are understood to imply approval ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... that a good deal should be overlooked in a Melmotte, and that the philanthropy of his great designs should be allowed to cover a multitude of sins. I do not know that the theory was ever so plainly put forward as it was done by the ingenious and courageous writer in 'The Mob'; but in practice it has commanded the assent ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... information and useful services, or both, might be exchanged. Southey interprets it in the former sense, and regards it as an anticipation of the Royal Society. That was the view of Evelyn, who says that Ralegh put this 'fountain of communication in practice.' How is not remembered. At any rate, in the second sense he energetically applied the principle in his own conduct. Not less from kindness than from the wish to secure personal adherents, he was generally helpful. Now, his client ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... that power, dark in purpose, are clear in practice. It strives to seal forever the fate of those it has enslaved. It strives to break the ties that unite the free. And it strives to capture—to exploit for its own greater power—all forces of change in the world, especially the needs of the hungry and ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... remarkable to me that in a country, occupied in the greater part of its area by a sparse and anything but wealthy population, whose predominant characteristic is as far as possible removed from the spirit of enterprise, an educational system so complete in its theory and so capable of adaptation in practice should have been originally organized, and have maintained in what, with all allowances, must still be called successful operation for so long a period as twenty-five years. It shows what can be accomplished by the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the press in the greatest abhorrence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of the splendid abilities of the Honourable Mover, but I tell him at once, his scheme is too good to be practicable. It savours of Utopia. It looks well in theory, but it won't do in practice. It will not do, I repeat, Sir, in practice; and so the advocates of the measure will find, if, unfortunately, it should find its way through Parliament. (Cheers.) The source of that corruption to which the Honourable Member alludes, is in the minds of the people; so rank and ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... with fixed forms and ceremonies, with carrying out the rigidly prescribed ordinances of a church or sect. The artist, on the other hand, we think of as free in thought and untrammelled by convention in practice; his tendency is towards licence. Art and ritual, it is quite true, have diverged to-day; but the title of this book is chosen advisedly. Its object is to show that these two divergent developments have a common root, and that neither can be understood without the other. ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... upper classes are supported by the lower classes, and those of the latter are destroyed by poverty." This philosophy has few avowed partisans; but it has over every other the indisputable advantage of demonstration in practice. Not long since France heard it advocated in the Chamber of Deputies, in the course of the discussion on the electoral reform,—POVERTY WILL ALWAYS EXIST. That is the political aphorism with which the minister of state ground to powder the arguments of M. Arago. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... loving Saviour. Her faith was very simple, and founded on experience. She had prayed, and had been answered. She had sought Jesus in sorrow, and had been comforted. The theologian can give the why and how and wherefore of this happy condition, but in practice he can arrive at it only by the same short road. One result of her prayer was that she went to sleep that night in perfect peace, while most of her companions in misfortune sat anxiously watching what appeared to be ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... been considering of various schemes—providing the men could be kept under command—which might be put in practice for the general safety, in hopes that the Smeaton might be able to pick up the boats to leeward, when they were obliged to leave the rock. He was, accordingly, about to address the artificers on the perilous nature of their circumstances, and to propose that all hands should unstrip ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the mob, were murdered before any protection could be given them. At the time the act of barbarity was judged, even by English observers, with more leniency than it deserved (because cruelty can have no excuse), so great was the disgust excited by the most odious system of espionage ever put in practice. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... slave, no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotsman there but myself; so that for two years, though I often pleased myself with the imagination, yet I never had the least encouraging prospect of putting it in practice. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... danger with inexperienced and untrained soldiers at our back. For this reason I submit the proposition that most of them live without arms and away from forts; but that the hardiest and those most in need of a livelihood be registered and kept in practice. They themselves will fight better by devoting their leisure to this single business; and the rest will the more easily farm, manage ships, and attend to the other pursuits of peace, if they are not forced to be called out for service, but ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... crowd. It was an unwritten rule at the Manor that members of the House cricket or football Elevens were exempt from fagging. But the common law of fagging at Harrow holds that any lower boy is bound to obey the Monitors, provided such obedience is not contrary to the rules of the school. In practice, however, no boy is fagged outside his own house, except for ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... call Philip Joy a coward?" cried the soldier, impatiently. "Methinks it is so long since I struck a blow worthy of a man, that I long to be doing, if only to keep my hand in practice." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... evil, as in practice it had begun to show itself, pressed with equal injustice on the party who suffered from it (viz., the nation), and the party who seemed to reap its benefit. This was the fact that as yet no separation had taken place between the royal peculiar revenue, and that of the nation. The advance ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... be done by," and agreed with Hamilton, that "a government in which every man may aspire to any office was free enough for all purposes"; and judging from what they saw at home, they looked upon Anti-Federalism not only as erroneous in theory, but as disreputable in practice. "The name of Democrat," writes a fierce old gentleman to his son, "is despised; it is synonymous with infamy." Out of New England a greater social change was going forward. Already appeared that impatience of all restraint which is so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... the motion, which was supported by only three speakers, six members not voting on either side. In this debate the seppuku, or hara-kiri, was called "the very shrine of the Japanese national spirit, and the embodiment in practice of devotion to principle," "a great ornament to the empire," "a pillar of the constitution," "a valuable institution, tending to the honour of the nobles, and based on a compassionate feeling towards the official caste," "a pillar of religion and a spur ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... According to him we should have set fire to everything, and reduced to one heap of ashes the pope and the princes who supported him. Nothing equals the rage of this phrenetic man, who was not satisfied with exhaling his fury in horrid declamations, but who was for putting all in practice. He raised his excesses to the height by inveighing against the vow of chastity, and in marrying publicly Catherine de Bore, a nun, whom he enticed, with eight others, from their convents. He had prepared the minds of the people ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of a portion of citizens who are guilty of no crime,—such as injustice must be completely condemned. In practice, such a policy has always borne and always will bear fruits of evil. The very existence of such an injustice corrupts and puts in jeopardy the social body which tolerates it.... No benefits which may be derived by individual ...
— The Shield • Various
... oz., and 4 eighths of gold to the twenty-two quintals. The number of haciendas and furnaces for extracting the metal from the ore was twenty, and the processes which they use in that state are the patio and the furnace; the last is the most general. Finally, there has been put in practice a third system, by the house of Manning and M'Intosh, for the purpose of separating the silver by means of the precipitate of copper. The consumptions of the last year, 1849, amount to $544,194, notwithstanding which the notices omit the returns of various mines, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... this; the rules of grammar have not been sought for where they are only to be found, in the laws that govern matter and thought. Arbitrary rules have been adopted which will never apply in practice, except in special cases, and the attempt to bind language down to them is as absurd as to undertake to chain thought, or stop the waters of Niagara with a straw. Language will go on, and keep pace with the mind, and grammar should explain it so as ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... is, of course, not an arbitrary rule, nor one that is justified by its success in practice: its point is that unnecessary units in a sign-language mean nothing. Signs that serve one purpose are logically equivalent, and signs that serve ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... should be always THE book, THE CHIEF book to us, not merely in theory, but also in practice, such like books seem to me the most useful for the growth of the inner man. Yet one has to be cautious in the choice, and to guard against reading ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... which every one has upon his lips, but no one considers himself bound to follow, or expects to see followed by anybody else, so also has Zoology its dogmas, which are as universally acknowledged, as they are disregarded in practice. Such a dogma as this is the supposition tacitly made by Agassiz. Of a hundred who feel themselves compelled to give their systematic confession of faith as the introduction to a Manual or Monographic Memoir, ninety-nine will commence ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... the evolution of geologic science, and noted its present form, let us go on to observe the way in which it is still swayed by the crude hypotheses it set out with; so that even now, doctrines long since abandoned as untenable in theory, continue in practice to mould the ideas of geologists, and to foster sundry beliefs that are logically indefensible. We shall see, both how those simple sweeping conceptions with which the science commenced, are those which every student is apt at first to seize hold of, and how several influences conspire to ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... luminous circle of rational perception is surrounded by a misty penumbra of illusion. Common sense itself may be said to admit this, since the greatest stickler for the enlightenment of our age will be found in practice to accuse most of his acquaintance at some time or another of falling ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... justify it, as the French soldiers, unaccustomed to such enterprises, conceived themselves protected by the severity of the winter against any surprise. John de Werth, a master in this species of warfare, which he had often put in practice against Gustavus Horn, conducted the enterprise, and succeeded, contrary ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education and he could do 'most any thing, and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... this resolution is to avail ourselves of the interesting occasion of the Greek revolution to make our protest against the doctrines of the Allied Powers, both as they are laid down in principle and as they are applied in practice. I think it right, too, Sir, not to be unseasonable in the expression of our regard, and, as far as that goes, in a manifestation of our sympathy with a long oppressed and now struggling people. I am not of those who would, in the hour of utmost peril, withhold ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... kind, but the gigantic turkeys and the big cattle and sheep did exceedingly well, and many other varieties previously unknown were gradually developed with the aid of Sir Wilfrid Athelstone, who found every opportunity to apply his theories in practice. ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... pull a load of double that weight, six horses a load of three times that weight. Yet, strictly speaking, such is not the case. For the inference is based on the assumption that the four horses pull alike in amount and direction, which in practice can scarcely ever be the case. It so happens that we are frequently led in our reckonings to results which diverge widely from reality. But the fault is not the fault of mathematics; for mathematics always gives back to us exactly what we have put into it. The ratio was constant according to that ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... appeared, this time with a face even longer; so that at first I supposed him to have discovered a plot worse than Chastel's; but it turned out that he had discovered nothing. The Spaniard had spent the morning in lounging and the afternoon in practice at the Louvre, and from first to last had conducted himself in the most innocent manner possible. On this I rallied Maignan on his mare's nest, and was inclined to dismiss the matter as such; still, before ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... principle," says Judge Pitman, "license laws were found no less inefficient in practice." Meantime, the battle against the liquor traffic had been going on in various parts of the State. In 1835, a law was secured by which the office of county commissioner (the licensing authority) was made an elective office; heretofore it had been held by appointment. This gave the people of each ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... rupture a vessel, the consequence of which will be, from the effusion of blood within the substance of the brain, or on its surface, fatal apoplexy." From inquiries he had made among his professional brethren who had been many years in practice in the Metropolis, it appeared to him that the votaries of the drama were by no means so subject to apoplexy or nervous headache before the adoption of gas-lights. Some of his medical friends were of opinion that the air of the theatre was very considerably ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... deemed important in practice, although they assist us in spelling only a small portion of the words of our language. This useful art is to be chiefly acquired by studying the spelling-book and dictionary, and by strict ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... the improvements now in practice in the system of employment in Manchester, owe their origin to short, earnest sentences spoken by Mr. Carson. Many and many yet to be carried into execution, take their birth from that stern, thoughtful mind, which submitted to be taught ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... within the Faculty, but also the practical demonstration it furnished of the Faculty's lack of real power. The reasons for this go back once more to the act establishing the University, which allowed the Regents to delegate to the Faculties only such authority as they saw fit, in practice not any too much, for the Regents maintained apparently a close and personal supervision over the University. This was shown by the habit of some members of the Board, notably Major Kearsley of Detroit, of conducting final oral examinations ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... so much of hits and runs, Of strikes and fouls and bases, That we, the poor admiring ones, Could hardly hold our faces; His boasting never found an end, His bat was always ready, And every day he had to spend Some hours in practice steady. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... are evacuated from the field hospital to a base hospital in motor ambulances or by a combination of motor ambulances and railway trains. Theoretically, this should be done within a day or two with all cases except the very gravest. In practice, the men frequently lie in field hospitals for weeks before the opportunity of evacuation is found. The base hospitals are in cities or large towns, and serve as clearing-houses. They are well out of the military ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... trained, by political equality. Six months in this country would do more to disabuse Mr. Mill, in these matters, than years of mere reading; and it is a positive injury to his large ideas that he should not take the opportunity of testing them on the only soil where they are being put in practice. Whenever he shall come, his welcome is secure. In the mean time, all that we Americans can do to testify to his deserts is to reprint his writings beautifully, as these are printed,—and to read them universally, as these will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... effect of their original disposition than of their form of government; for though in England we were accustomed from our childhood to consider every man in France as liable to wake and find himself in the Bastille, or at Mont St. Michel, this formidable despotism existed more in theory than in practice; and if courtiers and men of letters were intimidated by it, the mass of the people troubled themselves very little about Lettres de Cachet. The revenge or suspicion of Ministers might sometimes pursue those who aimed at their ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... respect of incidents and methods is an essential factor in maintaining the interest of a detective story. Hence it may be worth while to mention that Thorndyke's method of producing the track chart, described in Chapters II and III, has been actually used in practice. It is a modification of one devised by me many years ago when I was crossing Ashanti to the city of Bontuku, the whereabouts of which in the far interior was then only vaguely known. My instructions were to fix the positions of all towns, villages, rivers and mountains as accurately ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... assistance in the beginning, and, as usual, was well up in the theory of the thing, though he did not shine in practice. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... blame them, Smellpriest," said the squire, "for disguising themselves? Now, suppose the tables were turned upon us, that Popery got the ascendant, and that Papists started upon the same principles against us that we put in practice against them; suppose that Popish soldiers were halloed on against our parsons, and all other Protestants conspicuous for an attachment to their religion, and anxious to put down the persecution under which we suffered; why, hang it, could you blame the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Anthony, who was rather enjoying himself, "even granting that, you know that in practice life never presents problems as clear cut, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... resolutions and established laws is immoral, and greatly injurious to the cause of legal loyalty and general subordination in the minds of the people. But then a statesman should consider that these very contraventions of law in practice point out to him the places in the body politic which need a remodelling of the law. You acknowledge a certain necessity for indirect representation in the present day, and that such representation has been instinctively obtained by means contrary to law; why then ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... idea or aim which each one aspires toward and tries to realize will be colored by his own peculiar tendencies, still, in substance, in practice, they will agree if they are inspired ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... narrow, more local, more transitory, this secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from real science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed in practice; though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... works out in practice. The unctions of ordination are scarcely dry on your hands till you begin to realise what you never realised before—viz., that in the most literal sense of the word you ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... very difficult and very dangerous, but they are questions with which, consciously or unconsciously, every one is obliged to deal. The contrasts between the rigidity of theological formulae and actual life are on this subject very great, though in practice, and by the many ingenious subtleties that constitute the science of casuistry, many theologians have attempted to evade them. A striking passage from the pen of Cardinal Newman will bring these contrasts ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... assertion, and all ground of dispute would be removed. We will take another case. Those who hold strong Protestant views frequently say, that the "religion of the Bible is the religion of Protestants." This, for most purposes, expresses their meaning forcibly and well, and the mind, in practice, usually supplies the necessary limitations. It does not, however, always happen that these limitations are consciously present to the mind, or that the person who practically receives the right impression might not be greatly puzzled by the subtle ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... The blunder is the beginning of nearly all our present troubles. The nineteenth century was the very reverse of normal. It suffered a most unnatural strain in the combination of political equality in theory with extreme economic inequality in practice. Capitalism was not a normalcy but an abnormalcy. Property is normal, and is more normal in proportion as it is universal. Slavery may be normal and even natural, in the sense that a bad habit may be second nature. But Capitalism was never anything so human as a habit; we ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... proposing or contemplating war, or any steps that lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people, who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace, to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and good-will—rights recognized time out of mind by all the ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... trick which the 'coon puts in practice for catching the small turtles of the creek. We were not inclined to give credence to the story, but Jake almost swore to it. It is certainly curious if true, but it smacks very much of Buffon. It may be remarked, however, that the knowledge which the plantation negroes have of the ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... And thy advice this night I'll put in practice. Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver, Let us into the city presently, To sort some gentlemen ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... the two troops would be already defeated before the first saber cut and would disentangle itself for flight. With actual shock, all would be thrown into confusion. A real charge on the one part or the other would cause mutual extermination. In practice the victor scarcely loses ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... told her he'd made a will leaving everything to her. For that matter the lawyers say he didn't—not that I should ever believe anything a lawyer said. They always mean something you wouldn't expect from their words. They do it, I believe, to keep in practice for trials, you know, where they have to make the witnesses say what they don't mean, poor things. And what I shall have put into my mouth by them, if I'm called as a witness against poor David, doesn't bear thinking of. But the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... almost invariably to those other sins of blasphemy and irreverence which curdled the very blood in his veins. Again and again had his heart burned within him to go forth amongst the people himself; to take upon himself and put in practice the office of evangelist, which he knew to be a God-appointed ministry, and yet which was so seldom worthily fulfilled, and himself to proclaim aloud the gospel, that all might have news of the Son of God, yet might be taught to reverence the holy sacraments more rather than less ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... by squads, the men being instructed to take positions anywhere on the firing line where they may find an opening. However, explain to the men that whenever possible units should take their positions on the firing line as a whole, but that in practice it is very often impossible to do this, and that the drill is being given so as to practice the noncommissioned officers in commanding mixed units on the firing line and also to give the privates practice in banding themselves into groups and obeying the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... effectuated by a fresh act of that virtue.(1290) St. Alphonsus teaches that every man is obliged to make an act of charity at least once a month, but he is contradicted by other eminent moralists. In practice it is well to insist on frequent acts of charity because such acts not only confirm and preserve the state of grace, but render our good works incomparably more meritorious in the sight of God. Hence, too, the importance of making a "good intention" every morning ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... high jump, which promised to be the best thing (next to the three-legged race) that day. Four fellows were in for it, and of these Shute and Catherall were two of the best jumpers Parkhurst had ever had; and it was well known all over the school that in practice each had jumped exactly 5 foot 4 inches. Who would win now? The two outsiders were soon got rid of, one at 4 foot 10 inches, and the other at 5 foot; and the real interest of the event began when Shute and ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... more profitably employed than in authorship. Little apology was necessary, for of all literary men, poets are best calculated to write on the Fine Arts: and the genius of Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music, is often associated in one mind, in love of the subjects at least, if not in practice. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... With him the question between Church schools and national schools is complicated by one which is common to other nations—whether attendance shall be compulsory or voluntary only. The tendency is toward the former, which has long been in practice in some of the States of the Union; and it seems not unlikely that Christendom will, before many years, revert, in this important matter, to the Spartan view that children are the property of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... falters more when left alone. Altogether, it is a cruel calamity for the world to have such a person to depend upon. I wish someone would show how much he appeals to the multitude—the mere mob. He is still a socialist in practice; and if anyone will read the Robespierre papers, he will see that there is a deliberate design to make the poor—the persons without property—rule. One man whom I afterwards knew (Julien de Paris), and who had been a philanthropist exalte, states, in one of his reports to the Committee ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... a new-modeling and rewriting of Swinton's Word-Analysis, first published in 1871. It has grown out of a large amount of testimony to the effect that the older book, while valuable as a manual of methods, in the hands of teachers, is deficient in practice-work ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... Penn owned all the land and the colonists were to be his tenants. He was compelled, however, to give his people free government. The laws were to be made by him with the assent of the people or their delegates. In practice this of course meant that the people were to elect a legislature and Penn would have a veto, as we now call it, on such acts as the legislature should pass. He had power to appoint magistrates, judges, and some other officers, and to grant pardons. Though, by the charter, proprietor of ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... impossible to effect in practice automatic enforcement of the law, especially in the sphere of political crimes, because of the unlimited power of pardon vested in the hands of our public men, it would seem judicious to err upon the side of mercy rather than upon that of severity. Better ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja |
