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More "Overrate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... produced an immense sum of misery to private citizens. The Northern invaders had brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was natural that a man who lived in times like these should overrate the importance of those measures by which a nation is rendered formidable to its neighbours, and undervalue those which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... anatomy in Signorelli's executioners, to see what an advance he had already made upon any previous painting. (I limit, of course, this assertion to painting only, for in sculpture Donatello had years before given free gesture and perfect anatomy to his statues.) It would be impossible to overrate the excellence and beauty of drawing in the splendid swing of the bodies, the flexibility of the limbs, the sinewy elasticity of the leg muscles, and above all, the subtle suggestion of muscular movement under the loose skin of the backs. ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... to be given by Canada on the one hand, and British Columbia and Vancouver Island on the other. A complete Intercolonial railway system had long been looked forward to by those interested in our North American Provinces, and it would be impossible to overrate the importance to this country of an inter-oceanic railway between the Atlantic and Pacific. By such a communication, and the electric telegraph, so great a revolution would be effected in the commerce of the world as had been brought about by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. It was unnecessary ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... overrate you," was the elector's reply. "I appreciate you—that is all; and I want you for a counsellor. You know how a reigning prince is surrounded by flatterers; how his follies are heralded to the world as virtues; and, above all, you know how many snares are ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... him with an amused smile. People in love do so overrate trifles; but she was really of opinion that he should ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... you make yourself miserable for nothing. You expect too much. She is a petted, pampered, feted young lady of fortune, the daughter of a Croesus; do you think she can always think of you? Who are you that she should spare you so much time? You overrate yourself; you—you idiot." People stopped in the streets to look at the old man, who was walking so rapidly and gesticulating so excitedly. When Von Barwig saw that he was observed, he calmed down. "It's all right," he said. "To-morrow! ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... pouting conduct is a great deal too young Reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does Singularity is only pardonable in old age Smile, where you cannot strike To govern mankind, one must not overrate them Too like, and too exact a picture of human nature Vanity, interest, and absurdity, always display Warm and young thanks, not old and cold ones Writing anything that may deserve to be read Young men are ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... me that men do not rightly understand either their store or their strength, but overrate the one and underrate the other. Hence it follows, that either from an extravagant estimate of the value of the arts which they possess, they seek no further; or else from too mean an estimate of their own powers, they spend their strength in small matters and never put it fairly to ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... however, that we greatly overrate these powers. In the first place, few Japanese claim any acquaintance with the entire 50,000 characters; only the educated make any pretense of knowing more than a few hundred, and a vast majority even of learned men do not know more than 10,000 characters. Some Japanese newspapers have undertaken ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... upon "home"—what a world does the very name convey to one who has never known what it is!—much as Moore's "Peri" regarded Paradise, and as the lost angels may wistfully think of the heaven from which they were expelled. Perhaps they overrate its attributes, imagining, as they do, that it is a blissful state of being, for ever debarred to them; but they do have such feelings—the dregs, probably, ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... kind friend," said Haldane cheerily to Mrs. Arnot while Laura was writing; "you overrate the danger. I feel that I shall return again, and if I do not, there are many ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... is praised and sought for in any given time. Such complacency is found in its most extreme form among those reformers or even religious leaders who are {112} devoted to the saving of men; for these come to overrate their wares through the very act of pressing them upon others. Matthew Arnold never tires of illustrating this from the Liberal propaganda of ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... this office the character of his history took its complexion. At a time when books were rare and difficult to be procured, lecturers who had truth to communicate fresh drawn from the fountain, held an influence which in these days it is as difficult to imagine as, however, it is impossible to overrate. Students from all Europe flocked to the feet of a celebrated professor, who became the leader of a party by the mere fact ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,—barred ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... if there are any real and peculiar sources of trial and difficulty in this pursuit, that they should be distinctly known and acknowledged at the outset. Count the cost before going to war. It is even better policy to overrate, than to underrate it. Let us see then what the ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... for me to overrate the value of Mrs Reichardt's assistance. Indeed had it not been for her, circumstanced as I was at this particular period, I should in all probability have perished. Her exhortations saved me from despair, when our position seemed to have grown quite desperate. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... the well-known war of the French and English, Braddock's defeat, the heroism of Washington, the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada and the northwestern territory to Great Britain. It is impossible to overrate the importance of these events upon the future of America. The result was that the region east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River was the property of Great Britain and the inheritance of the English race. The great northwest was ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... insuperable argument against Lipsius, and the rest of the critics who named Quintilian as a candidate for the honour of this elegant composition. Can it be imagined that a writer of fair integrity, would in his great work speak of Bassus as he deserved, and in the Dialogue overrate him beyond all proportion? Duplicity was not a part of ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Sketches of Paris, observes, "It is certainly of much value in the life of an American gentleman to visit these old countries, if it were only to form a just estimate of his own, which he is continually liable to mistake, and always to overrate without objects of comparison; 'nimium se aestimet necesse est, qui se nemini comparat.' He will always think himself wise who sees nobody wiser; and to know the customs and institutions of foreign countries, which one cannot ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... careful, however, not to overrate the points of resemblance which the deep-sea investigations have placed in a strong light. They have been supposed by some naturalists to warrant a conclusion expressed in these words: "We are still living in the Cretaceous epoch;" a doctrine which has led to ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... on the eve of an election the importance of which it would be impossible to overrate. Yet a few days, and it will be decided whether the people of the United States shall condemn their own conduct, by cashiering an Administration which they called upon to make war on the rebellious slaveholders of the South, or support that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... exceeds the shopman's, but there is no servant, no black coat and silk hat, no middle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman "Sir," and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he despises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined to overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much noisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less restrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his will. The serf ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... endure half slave and half free. He believed that the South, appealing to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice the Union before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace he begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to 1852. History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him that the war on the Union was postponed to a date ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... upstairs Many are very willing, and very few able Perseverance has surprising effects Pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too young Reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does Singularity is only pardonable in old age Smile, where you cannot strike To govern mankind, one must not overrate them Too like, and too exact a picture of human nature Vanity, interest, and absurdity, always display Warm and young thanks, not old and cold ones Writing anything that may deserve to be read Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough Young people are very apt to ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... of the imports is stated at 3,088,811 dollars: the exports for the same year at 6,270,197 dollars. For the current year, I am credibly assured that an addition of one-third to these last amounts will not much overrate the enormous increase to which, should peace continue, each year must add for many seasons to come, since the influx of planters to Alabama is clearing the cane-brake with a rapidity unprecedented even in this country: the Indian reserves are all coming into cultivation as fast as they are vacated; ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... continued the Pathfinder. "Jasper has the gift of honesty; and it is too rare a gift to be trifled with, like a Mingo's conscience. No, no; off hands, or we shall see which can make the stoutest battle; you and your men of the 55th, or the Sarpent here, and Killdeer, with Jasper and his crew. You overrate your force, Lieutenant Muir, as much ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... fresh censor on the completion of each issue. To place a man in permanent absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger, It is almost inevitable that he should come to overrate the importance of those opinions, to take himself with far too much seriousness, and in the end adopt the dogma of his own infallibility. The liberty to summon this or that man-of-letters to a supposititious bar of justice is apt to beget in the self-appointed judge ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Merton pensive, and not disposed to overrate human nature. 'But there can't be many fellows like Jephson,' he said. 'I wonder how much the six figures run to?' But that question was never answered to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... that. You overrate your sex—and mine. We don't deserve such generosity. The proof is, we reward those who ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons, the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it. The artillery supported the attack admirably. 'They did nobly,' said one who led the advance. 'It is impossible to overrate the value of their support. They ceased also exactly at the right moment. One more shell would have hit us.' Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried. The British losses ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that she, as well as the young man, might eventually discover that he was not of common clay and predestined to be commonplace. But she said, in all sincerity, "Mr. Atwood, I'm sure I wish you twice the success you crave in life, and I've no reason to think you overrate your power to achieve it; but you greatly overrate me. It would be no condescension on my part to give you my friendship; and no doubt if you attain much of the success you covet you will be ready enough to forget my existence. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the heavens, not for purposes of divination, but prompted by a scientific spirit as an intellectual discipline that might help them to solve the mysteries of the universe." It is possible, however, to overrate the "scientific spirit" of the Greeks, who, like the Japanese in our own day, were accomplished borrowers from other civilizations. That astronomy had humble beginnings in Greece as elsewhere is highly probable. The late Mr. Andrew Lang wrote in this connection: "The very ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... presently found. For we found a newly drowned man who had just chanced to miss this great dawn in which we rejoiced. We found him lying in a pool of water, among brown weeds in the dark shadow of the timberings. You must not overrate the horrors of the former days; in those days it was scarcely more common to see death in England than it would be to-day. This dead man was a sailor from the Rother Adler, the great German battleship that—had we but known it—lay not four miles away along the coast amidst ploughed-up mountains ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... about what is before you. You have been sending despatchers' orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter. Remember you are working with ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... childhood he had regarded as powers in the ideal world, and in some instances as representing the eternities of human speculation, since their names had perhaps dawned upon his mind in concurrence with the very earliest suggestion of topics which they had treated, should overrate their intrinsic grandeur. Hazlitt accordingly is styled "The great thinker." But had he been such potentially, there was an absolute bar to his achievement of that station in act and consummation. No man can be a great thinker in our days upon large and elaborate questions without being ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... no, I did not overrate it. I can no longer attempt to conceal from myself that this woman has conceived a passion for me. It is monstrous, but it is true. Again, tonight, I awoke from the mesmeric trance to find my hand in hers, and to suffer that odious feeling which urges me to ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... We have communicated with him, and we expect him back tonight. In his absence it falls to me to thank you most unreservedly both on behalf of the Government and the nation for what you have done. It would be difficult to overrate its importance." ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... some theoretical knowledge of frontier warfare, though he had never yet been called on to raise his hand in anger against a fellow-creature. He saw that Hurry did not overrate the strength of this position in a military point of view, since it would not be easy to attack it without exposing the assailants to the fire of the besieged. A good deal of art had also been manifested in the disposition of the timber of which the building ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Lindsay's evidence on this point (Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 174) seems quite conclusive. It is impossible to overrate the value of the work of Giotto in the Bargello, both for its own intrinsic beauty, and as being executed in this year, which is not only that in which the Divina Commedia opens, but, as I think, the culminating period in the history of the art of ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... long-faced Boer horse soon evolved in the mountains of Basutoland into a round-headed pony, so it is in a few generations with human mountaineers, irrespective of their breed. This is almost certainly to overrate the effects of environment. At the same time, in the present state of our knowledge, it would be premature either to affirm or deny that in the very long run round-headedness goes ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... frequent place in my code of false grammar. The one who seems to be now taking the lead in fame and revenue, filled with glad wonder at his own popularity, is SAMUEL KIRKHAM. Upon this gentleman's performance, I shall therefore bestow a few brief observations. If I do not overrate this author's literary importance, a fair exhibition of the character of his grammar, may be made an instructive lesson to some of our modern literati. The book is a striking sample of a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... will do that," answered the girl steadily. "Whatever your power over Maurice may be, it is not strong enough for that; you overrate it." ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Miss Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend upon it, your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered. You don't know what ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... you, for your kind and friendly letter. You overrate, I am sure, the value of my speech, it was quite unpremeditated and its merit, if any, consists I presume in its directness and brevity. It mortified me to see that some of the newspaper writers speak of it as the "taking ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... hand tightly pressed on her heart as she spoke, and Albinia exclaimed, 'You shall not see it; you overrate your strength; it is ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences and the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of losing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it goes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this particular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little circle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may retain his place among them as preacher or teacher, he is willing to forego his birthright of free explanation; ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... it turns adrift, as it were, the innumerable habitues who, according to their different degrees of intimacy, or the accidents of their social habits, made Holland House their regular and constant resort. It is impossible to overrate the privation, the blank, which it will make to the old friends and associates, political and personal, to whom Holland House has always been open like a home, and there cannot be a sadder sight than to see the curtain suddenly fall upon a scene so brilliant ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... rare and difficult to be procured, lecturers who had truth to communicate fresh drawn from the fountain, held an influence which in these days it is as difficult to imagine as, however, it is impossible to overrate. Students from all Europe flocked to the feet of a celebrated professor, who became the leader of a party by the mere fact ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... and you never know into what studio your beloved one may go, or by whom it will be criticised. And apart from this latter consideration, pride in your own work and love of truth ought, and I hope will, actuate to noble effort; but mind, do not overrate what is done, in your pride of heart, for those into whose hands it will come later will assuredly ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... would be difficult to overrate the value of the lessons which might be derived from a faithful study of the history of this strange and mighty city: a history which, in spite of the labor of countless chroniclers, remains in vague and disputable outline,—barred ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... "You overrate my power. I certainly should soon weary of conquests were I making them. Women are different from men in this respect. Where in history do we read of a man who was satiated with conquest? Well, here we are at home. Won't you come in? Papa will ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... without conformity? Our real weakness is not our ignorance; we know the good, but lack the will and purpose to live it out. And this is because the thought of truth and goodness excites no such strength of feeling as that of some lower gratification. We cannot perhaps overrate the value of intellect; we certainly underrate the value of emotion and feeling. "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth." It does not require great intellect, it does require intense feeling to be a hero. We slander the emotions by calling people emotional because they ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... "home"—what a world does the very name convey to one who has never known what it is!—much as Moore's "Peri" regarded Paradise, and as the lost angels may wistfully think of the heaven from which they were expelled. Perhaps they overrate its attributes, imagining, as they do, that it is a blissful state of being, for ever debarred to them; but they do have such feelings—the dregs, probably, of their ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... State of the Fine Arts State of the Common People; Agricultural Wages Wages of Manufacturers Labour of Children in Factories Wages of different Classes of Artisans Number of Paupers Benefits derived by the Common People from the Progress of Civilisation Delusion which leads Men to overrate the Happiness of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... political purposes in 1840 deceived you. At the same time, I will not deny that military glory would, more than any other merit, even now strengthen a Government, and that military humiliation would inevitably destroy one. Nor must you overrate the unpopularity of the last war. Only a few even of the higher classes understood its motives. "Que diable veut cette guerre?" said my country neighbour to me; "si c'etait contre les Anglais—mais avec les Anglais, et pour le Grand Turc, qu'est-ce que ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... was rendered, by her age and inexperience, if not by sex, more helpless and dependent than I; but had I not been prone to overrate the difficulties which I should encounter? Had I not deemed unjustly of her constancy and force of mind? Marriage would render her property joint, and would not compel me to take up my abode in the woods, to abide forever in one spot, to shackle my curiosity, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... think it would be impossible to overrate the gain that might follow if we had about us only what gave pleasure to the maker of it and gives pleasure to its user, that being the simplest of all rules about decoration. One thing, at least, I think it would do for us: there is no surer test of a great country than how near it stands to its ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Port Hudson, the fighting work was done by the Hartford, Richmond, Mississippi, and Monongahela; of which only the last named, and least powerful, was built after the war began. It would be difficult to overrate the value, material and moral, of the early successes which led the way to the opening of the great river, due to having the ships and officers ready. So the important advantages obtained by the capture of Port ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Arthur Hallam's views on religious feeling; this was the master-idea of his mind, and it would not be easy to overrate its importance. "My son, give me thine heart;"—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God;"—"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." He expresses the same general idea in these words, remarkable in themselves, still more so as being the thought of ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Miscalculate—but still in opposite ways. You, for example, overrate your age By twenty years, whilst on the other band, I, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... religion, naturally blunts the delicacy of the senses, by requiring reverence to be paid to ugliness, and familiarizing the eye to it in moments of strong and pure feeling; I do not think we can overrate the probable evil results of this enforced discordance ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. She's quite ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... lives near, of credit enough. It answers certain purposes every now and then to send people to represent particular interests to England; and, in nearly all these cases, John Bull receives them with open arms, and, with his national gullibility, is often apt to overrate them. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Board Schools and the "masters" of the public schools. Too much is put in, not enough drawn out from the child's own mind. The teacher cannot think much of individual natures, when faced with a class of sixty. Yet it would be difficult to overrate the service of the Board Schools as training grounds for manners, and anyone who has known the change in our army within twenty-five years will understand what I mean. At fourteen the boy has often reached his highest mental ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... attempted its imitation in practice. The fabrication of imposing and lovely facades at Orvieto, at Siena, at Cremona, and at Crema, glorious screens which masked the poverty of the edifice, and corresponded in no point to the organism of the structure, taught them to overrate mere surface-beauty. Their wonderful creativeness in all the arts which can be subordinated to architectural effect seduced them further. Nothing, for instance, taken by itself alone, can be more satisfactory than the facade of the Certosa at Pavia; but it is not, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... made by us in this respect, but generally the mistake is in believing that a piece will be successful which, however, proves to be a failure; we overrate the public taste, or fail to take into account matters quite foreign to the qualities of an entertainment which nevertheless determine ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... "you overrate my influence, and underrate the Prince's judgment, if you imagine aught save personal merit would weigh with him. Your son shall have every opportunity of deserving his notice, but whether it be favourable or not must ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in Signorelli's executioners, to see what an advance he had already made upon any previous painting. (I limit, of course, this assertion to painting only, for in sculpture Donatello had years before given free gesture and perfect anatomy to his statues.) It would be impossible to overrate the excellence and beauty of drawing in the splendid swing of the bodies, the flexibility of the limbs, the sinewy elasticity of the leg muscles, and above all, the subtle suggestion of muscular movement under the loose skin of the backs. There is here, even more than in ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... mean to overrate you," said the old man, smiling, "but you seem to me pretty well worth while any girl's taking. Not that you can't become more so—and will, I thoroughly believe. It's not so much what you've done this ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... afterwards becomes the Christian type of the Bride, in the 'Song of Solomon,' involved with an ideal of all that is purest in the life of a nun, and brightest in the death of a martyr. It is scarcely possible to overrate the influence of the conceptions formed of her, in ennobling the sentiments of Christian women of the higher orders;—to their practical common sense, as the mistresses of a household or a nation, her example may have been ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... reproach her with exaggerated timidity, it became more and more evident that her personal fears were due simply to that nervous susceptibility which even men of reputed courage have often displayed in situations of sudden and wholly unfamiliar peril. Her tendency to overrate all dangers, not merely as they affected herself, but as they might involve others, and above all her husband, I ascribed to the ideas and habits of thought now for so many centuries hereditary among a people in whom the fear ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... size. The bed of the valley, dotted with farms and groups of farm-houses, appeared to be thickly populated; but as a farmer's residence rarely consists of less than six buildings—sometimes even eight—a stranger would naturally overrate the number of inhabitants. The production of grain, also, is much less than would be supposed from the amount of land under cultivation, owing to the heads being so light. The valley of the Maan, apparently a rich and populous region, is in reality rather the reverse. In relation to its ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... she said simply; "I am proud. Me you overrate, but my wishes and my hopes you do not overrate. Only,—" and she hesitated, "why to-night; why ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... with reason, for the careless grace of the surroundings, the absence of any useless restraint or obligation as to hour or duration, has a charm for thousands whom a long concert or the inevitable five acts at the Français could not tempt. It would be difficult to overrate the influence such an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must have on the taste and character. The absence of a sordid spirit, the curse of our material day and generation, the contact with intellects trained to incase their thoughts in serried verse or crisp and lucid prose, ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... break it of an inclination for romping or other games. The same is true of the emotions—fear, for instance. In many cases, logically planned efforts may be altogether out of relationship to the result. Above all, great weight must be laid upon the consideration that there is a tendency to overrate the effect of education in the form of precept as compared with the effect of example. A child may receive the best of instruction without result, if in its own environment it is continually seeing something precisely the opposite ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... it. This story is founded upon sheer ignorance. It is my solemn conviction that I have not proselyted a dozen individuals; for the very conclusive reason that no conversions were necessary. Their sentiments were familiar to me long before they knew my own. My opponents abundantly overrate my influence, in acknowledging that I have overthrown, in a single year, the concentrated energies of the mightiest men in the land, and the perpetual labors of fifteen years. They shall not make me vain. Such a concession ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... just as I was about to accompany General Loring's command on an expedition to the enemy's works in front, or I would have before thanked you for the interest you take in my welfare, and your too flattering expressions of my ability. Indeed, you overrate me much, and I feel humbled when I weigh myself by your standard. I am, however, very grateful for your confidence, and I can answer for my sincerity in the earnest endeavour I make to advance the cause I have so much at heart, though conscious of the slow progress I make. I was ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... practical wisdom in driving the mental screw, to be careful how you allow it to dwell too constantly upon any one topic. If you allow yourself to think too much of any subject, you will get a partial craze upon that; you will come to vastly overrate its importance. You will make yourself uncomfortable about it. There once was a man who mused long upon the notorious fact that almost all human beings stoop consider ably. Few hold themselves as upright as they ought. And this notion took such hold upon the poor ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... him. If any suitor ventured to ask any favour directly from the King, the answer was, "Have you spoken to my Lord President?" One bold man ventured to say that the Lord President got all the money of the court. "Well," replied His Majesty "he deserves it all." [460] We shall scarcely overrate the amount of the minister's gains, if we put them at thirty thousand pounds a year: and it must be remembered that fortunes of thirty thousand pounds a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds a year now are. It is probable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Captain Dave. You always overrate my services, and forget that they are but the consequence of the kindness that you have shown to me. But I have no intention of going. It was but a passing thought. I have but one friend who could procure me a berth as a volunteer, and as it is to him ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... You overrate my power, which is a pageant. This Cap is not the Monarch's crown; these robes Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags; Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these But lent to the poor puppet, who must play Its part with all its empire in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... up my literary ideas, and do the best I can, very gladly," said Van Berg. "But you greatly underrate yourself and overrate my ability. I am still but on the edge of this wilderness of knowledge myself, and in crossing a wilderness ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... University possessed the legal knowledge, which the monarchs liked to have on their side, and was therefore favoured by them. Thus, in 1231 (Wood, Annals, i. 205), "the King sent out his Breve to the Mayor and Burghers commanding them not to overrate their houses"; and thus gradually the University got the command of the police, obtained privileges which enslaved the city, and became masters where they had once been despised, starveling scholars. ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... can unceasingly add to their roominess and resource. In all time to come he can cause them to continue to exceed breadth after breadth. Oh, who can conceive how great his mental being is able to become? Who can comprehend how elevated a life it is possible for him to live? Who can be liable to overrate the vastness of the destiny for ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... time to do such things and the tender-hearted Melanchthon found nothing to blame in it. It is not easy to speak of Calvin with enthusiasm, as it comes natural to speak of the genial, whole-souled, many-sided, mirth-and-song-loving Luther. Nevertheless it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind owe to Calvin. The spiritual father of Coligny, of William the Silent, and of Cromwell must occupy a foremost rank among the champions of modern democracy. Perhaps not one of the mediaeval popes was more despotic in temper than Calvin; but it is ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... throws no dust in his own eyes: his is a healthy rapture, a torch lighted by the feelings, but which the reason holds upright and steady. His native favorites he enjoys as no Englishman or German could, but he does not overrate them. Nor does he overrate Voltaire, whom he calls "the Frenchman par excellence," and of whom he is proud as the literary sovereign of his age. At the same time, in articles directly devoted to Joubert, as well as by frequent citations of his judgments, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... the year following the disaster of Bull Run. He was an admirable organizer and a good theoretical strategist; his care for his men won their affection; and sometimes in the field he struck heavy and effective blows. But he was always prone to overrate the enemy's resources and underrate his own; he was slow to follow up a success; and he lacked the bulldog grip by which Grant won. Right on the heels of his failure in the seven-days' fight in the Peninsula, he wrote ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... political and social condition have not been too highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and duty which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the spirit and efforts ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... thank you, but I can't let you overrate that. Any help I have given was merely by the way. You must remember I was in need of some occupation, and I assure you it has been very much ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... the same with all contemporary notorieties. In all free governments, especially, it is the habit to overrate the dramatis personae of the hour. How empty to us are now the names of the great politicians of the last generation, as Crawford and Lowndes!—yet it is but a few years since these men filled in the public ear as large a space as Clay or Calhoun afterwards, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... sonnet difficult to overrate in thought—probably in this respect unsurpassable, but easy to overrate as regards its workmanship. Of course there is ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... on my mood. Just been buying a greyhound bitch at Drewsteignton. I'm going coursing presently. A kennel will amuse me. I spend most of my time with dogs. They never change. I turn to them naturally. But they overrate humanity." ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... on an ass did meet an angel. Which of these two, Paulo judice, had seen the heavenly spirit? marry, the prophet. But it was not so. The man, his vision cloyed with sin, saw nought. The poor despised creature saw all. Nor is this recorded as miraculous. Poor proud things, we overrate ourselves. The angel had slain the prophet and spared the ass, but for that creature's clearer vision of essences divine. He said so, methinks. But in sooth I read it many years agone. Why did God spare repentant Nineveh? Because in ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... attend to that. That is one truth. Its companion truth is this: you will be victorious over temptation as the new Master has sway. Your new Master will attend to that. Great and cunning and strong is the tempter. Do not underrate him. But greater is He that is in you. You cannot overrate Him. He got the victory at every turn during those thirty-three years, and will get it for you as many years and turns as shall make out the span of your life. Your one business will be to let Him have ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... ballads, and he might have been puffed up to his future injury, had not his father thus unceremoniously taken the wind out of his sails. There was little danger now, however. After such a severe handling, he was not likely to overrate his poetical talents. It had the effect also to turn his attention to prose writing, which is more substantial and remunerative than poetry, and in this he became distinguished, as we ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... the ingenuity or judgment of no one man is equal to that of the world at large, which is the fruit of the experience and ability of all mankind. Even where a man is right in a particular notion, he will be apt to overrate the importance of his discovery, to the detriment of his affairs. Action requires co-operation, but in general if you set your face against custom, people will set their faces against you. They cannot tell whether you are right or wrong, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... err indeed were I to dwell exclusively on science as lending interest and charm to our leisure hours. Far from this, it would be impossible to overrate the importance of scientific training on the wise ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... and he is well satisfied with his success. He has had millions of readers; he has been well paid; he has had good friends; he has enjoyed life. He is happy in telling us how he did it. He does not overrate himself. He believes some of his work is good: at least it is honest, pure, sound work which has pleased millions of readers. Much of his work he knows to be poor stuff, and he says so at once. He makes no pretence to genius; he does not claim to be a ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this war: despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it was much greater than the wars ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... employed by the great English railway systems. Wearing the blue-and-white brassard of the L. C. are whole battalions of engineers and firemen, bridge-builders, signal-men, freight handlers, clerks, and navvies, all of them experts at their particular jobs. It is impossible to overrate the services which these railway men have performed. They build and staff the new lines which are constantly being constructed; they repair destroyed sections of track, restore blown-up bridges; in short, keep in order the ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... the case of slow-breeding animals, which unite for each birth, we must not overrate the effects of intercrosses in retarding natural selection; for I can bring a considerable catalogue of facts, showing that within the same area, varieties of the same animal can long remain distinct, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... question of interest, which," (says he,) "you may create for yourselves[257]." I entreat you to do nothing of the kind. Whatever advantages may result to an advanced student from adopting this practice, to you it must be fraught with unmingled evil. You will be tempted to overrate the importance of everything you discover which suits your present purpose: you will disregard all that looks in a different direction: you will be disappointed if you meet with nothing ad rem: you will get a habit of slurring over ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... self-relying and self-contained; a well-bred gentleman without a jot of effeminacy. Plucky as a mastiff, high-blooded as a racer, enterprising but reflective, cool, keen, and as composed as daring. Few men talk less; few by manner and conduct suggest more. One fault you will pardon, a tendency to overrate the writer ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... place, to consider our behaviour to our inferiors, in which condescension can never be too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they really do. The qualities of the mind do, in reality, establish the ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... as sick-headache. The nerves which move the eyes in various directions lie next to the pituitary. If, in its expansion, it moves sufficiently outward, it may press upon, irritate them or paralyze, and so evolve various eye disturbances in association with the headache. No one can overrate this conception of migraine, for a number of men of genius have suffered from sick-headache and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... dear, what controversy can she have read?' cried I. 'It does not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you certainly overrate her merit.'—'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the savage; and I am now employed in reading the controversy in Religious ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... has flatterers. They overrate me." The accompanying shrug of his great shoulders had an affectation of humility. "Now, if I had a pair of legs—but I haven't. And if I had I shouldn't be an East-Sider. For the maimed, the crippled, the diseased, it is pleasantest to be in residence on the East Side. You have company. You may ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... will not take my disadvantages for more, or my advantages for less, than they are honestly worth. At Carbury Park you often said that you would never marry; and I have said the same myself. So, as we neither of us overrate the possibilities of happiness in marriage, perhaps we might, if you would be a little forbearing with me, succeed in proving that we have greatly underrated them. As for the prudence of the step, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... that greatest of African travellers, seems to be of opinion that untravelled men are prone to overrate the lion, both as to his appearance and courage. From him we learn that when a lion is met with in the day-time—a circumstance by no means uncommon in Africa—the traveller will be disappointed with the appearance of the animal which they had been accustomed to hear styled "noble" and "majestic"; ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... have been utterly ruined. The very meaning of compromise is that each party gives up his chance of complete success, in order to be secured against the chance of utter failure. And, as men of sanguine minds always overrate the chances in their own favour, every fair compromise is sure to be severely censured on both sides. I conceive that, in a case so dark and complicated as this, the compromise which we recommend is sufficiently vindicated, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loss. Some soils are very much opener and more porous than others; in such soils, of course, the loss by drainage will be greatest. We are apt at first sight, however, knowing the great solubility of nitrates, to overrate this source of loss. We have to remember that while nitrates are constantly being washed down to the lower layers of the soil, there is likewise an upward compensating movement of the soil-water constantly ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... as to the state of public sentiment and feeling. Unless a change to a very considerable extent be affected in the public mind, I think a dissolution would rather strengthen than weaken the ex-Council party. I am confident I do not overrate their strength—and it is a dangerous, though common error, to underrate the strength of an adversary. They are likewise organizing their party, and exciting the public mind to such a degree as to prevent any sentiments or measures from the present ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... I had set myself, I wish, of course, that I could have performed it more to my own satisfaction and that of my readers. This is a feeling which almost every one must have at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... protestations, no matter how incapable they might be of fulfilling the one or authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud, independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities, but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally helpless. We may value these our faithful allies, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... certificates vouchsafed by state papers, and instruments of such like order, that Sybel's reliability was chiefly due. Once admit the value of these vouchers (and their corroborative weight none can deny), and it becomes difficult to overrate the importance of Sybel's still unconcluded ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... kindness leads you to overrate my importance," Austen replied, with mingled feelings. Victoria's confidence in her father made the situation all the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... allege that we Incline to overrate the Sea, I answer, "We do not; Apart from being coloured blue, It has its uses not a few— I cannot think what we should do If ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... her living, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments. I must needs say, that her mind had a noble prospect: her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance, than can be found below. This made her not overrate the honors of her station, or the learning of the schools, of which she was an excellent judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion's sake, remarked to her, that 'it was too great an honor for him, that a visitant of her quality, who was allied ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... possible to overrate the blessings likely to flow from Colonies where drink and opium will be unprocurable, where vice will be repressed, where greed will receive little encouragement and have few opportunities to grow, and where the comparative absence of poverty ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... make yourself miserable for nothing. You expect too much. She is a petted, pampered, feted young lady of fortune, the daughter of a Croesus; do you think she can always think of you? Who are you that she should spare you so much time? You overrate yourself; you—you idiot." People stopped in the streets to look at the old man, who was walking so rapidly and gesticulating so excitedly. When Von Barwig saw that he was observed, he calmed down. "It's all right," he said. "To-morrow! I ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... old friend, and the degree of Salemina's attachment had been exaggerated; something that is very likely to happen in the gossip of a New England town, where they always incline to underestimate the feeling of the man, and overrate that of the woman, in any love affair. 'I guess she'd take him if she could get him' is the spoken or unspoken attitude of the public in rural or ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were in a few months ruthlessly blighted. Perhaps he relied too much on his genius and reputation. It is easy for men of ability to overrate their importance. Regarding himself, perhaps, as indispensable to the Messenger, he may have relaxed in vigilant self-restraint. It has been claimed that he resigned the editorship in order to accept a more lucrative offer in New York; ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... people who allege that we Incline to overrate the Sea, I answer, "We do not; Apart from being coloured blue, It has its uses not a few— I cannot think what we should do If ever 'the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... coat and silk hat, no middle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman "Sir," and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he despises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined to overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much noisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less restrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his will. The serf still bulks large in him. The whole trend ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Loring's command on an expedition to the enemy's works in front, or I would have before thanked you for the interest you take in my welfare, and your too flattering expressions of my ability. Indeed, you overrate me much, and I feel humbled when I weigh myself by your standard. I am, however, very grateful for your confidence, and I can answer for my sincerity in the earnest endeavour I make to advance the cause I have so much at heart, though conscious of the slow progress ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... require. New and undisciplined forces are often confounded at the evolutions, and strategic and tactical combinations of a regular army, and lose all confidence in their leaders and in themselves. But, when placed behind a breastwork, they even overrate their security. They can then coolly look upon the approaching columns, and, unmoved by glittering armor and bristling bayonets, will exert all their skill in the use of their weapons. The superior accuracy ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... and the installment of a fresh censor on the completion of each issue. To place a man in permanent absolute control of a certain number of pages, in which to express his opinions, is to place him in a position of great personal danger, It is almost inevitable that he should come to overrate the importance of those opinions, to take himself with far too much seriousness, and in the end adopt the dogma of his own infallibility. The liberty to summon this or that man-of-letters to a supposititious bar of justice is apt ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... predicted by a less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping philosophers. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the justice of the part I have taken, yet, until I have other lights than one side of the debate has furnished me, I must see things, and feel them too, as I see and feel them. I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant ascendency, as they affect Ireland,—or of Indianism, as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia,—or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe and the state of human ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... burst into a peal of merry laughter. "Oh Mags!" they cried, "we never did think before that you were conceited. You certainly overrate even your powers when you imagine that you will get Mr. Cardew to change ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... hypocritical. It is the natural product of the political spirit, which is incessantly thinking of present consequences and the immediately feasible. There is nothing in the mere dread of losing it, to hinder influence from being well employed, so far as it goes. But one can hardly overrate the ill consequences of this particular kind of management, this unspoken bargaining with the little circle of his fellows which constitutes the world of a man. If he may retain his place among them as preacher or teacher, he is willing ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... almost insupportable. I felt that it was wiser not to dwell on it, and yet I could not cast it from me. My only, my great resource was prayer—great and supporting it was. Let any one, placed as I was, try it, and they will find that I in no way overrate it. Whenever I felt the miserable depressing feeling coming on, I fled instantly to that great source of comfort, of all true happiness, and ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... very few able Perseverance has surprising effects Pettish, pouting conduct is a great deal too young Reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does Singularity is only pardonable in old age Smile, where you cannot strike To govern mankind, one must not overrate them Too like, and too exact a picture of human nature Vanity, interest, and absurdity, always display Warm and young thanks, not old and cold ones Writing anything that may deserve to be read Young men are as apt to think themselves ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... the one or authenticating the other! The truth is that the Spaniard is a proud, independent, and grave personage; possessing many excellent qualities, but quite conscious of their existence, and not unapt to overrate them.... Yet with all this, there was much about the air and manner of the Spaniards to deserve and command our regard. The Portuguese are a people that require rousing; they are indolent, lazy, and generally helpless. ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... your invective, when I say that it is extremely doubtful if the public at large, to which I am ready at all times to pay homage, ever saw a general officer in his native buff. And this I hold to be the reason why it is so prone to overrate the mightiness of some of those warriors who dash up Broadway on parade days, decked out in such a profuseness of feathers. Indeed it has come to my knowledge that the greatest of generals, when presented with that natural ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... everyone by yourself, count," Fergus said slowly. "You overrate my qualities, and forget the fact that I am, after all, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... sighted two islands, on which, after taking possession of them, he hoisted the Venetian as well as the English flag. "He calls himself the grand admiral, walks abroad in silk attire, and Englishmen run after him like madmen."[9] It is easy to overrate the reliability of such letters as those of Pasqualigo and Raimondo, and Pasqualigo's statement that Cabot sailed from Bristol to this new land, coasted for 300 leagues along it, and returned within a period of three months, is impossible to accept. At the same time, the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... affords an insuperable argument against Lipsius, and the rest of the critics who named Quintilian as a candidate for the honour of this elegant composition. Can it be imagined that a writer of fair integrity, would in his great work speak of Bassus as he deserved, and in the Dialogue overrate him beyond all proportion? Duplicity was not a part ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... to overrate the importance to George Sand of a conclusion that gave her back her old home of Nohant, and secured to her the permanent companionship of her children. The present pecuniary arrangement left M. Dudevant some hold over Maurice and his education, ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... that men do not rightly understand either their store or their strength, but overrate the one and underrate the other. Hence it follows, that either from an extravagant estimate of the value of the arts which they possess, they seek no further; or else from too mean an estimate of their own powers, they spend their strength in small matters and never put it fairly to the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... could not endure half slave and half free. He believed that the South, appealing to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice the Union before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace he begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to 1852. History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him that the war on the Union was postponed to a date when ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... is capable of shaking it a little out of its stupid refuges of lies and ignominious wrappages, and of intimating to it afar off that there is still a Veracity in Things, and a Mendacity in Sham Things,' and so forth, in the well-known strain.[17] It is impossible to overrate the truly supreme importance of the violent break-up of Europe which followed the death of the Emperor Charles VI., and in many respects 1740 is as important a date in the history of Western societies as 1789. Most of us would probably find the importance of this epoch in its destructive contribution, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... very lovely, witty, proud, and 'fanciful' girl. She afterwards becomes the Christian type of the Bride, in the 'Song of Solomon,' involved with an ideal of all that is purest in the life of a nun, and brightest in the death of a martyr. It is scarcely possible to overrate the influence of the conceptions formed of her, in ennobling the sentiments of Christian women of the higher orders;—to their practical common sense, as the mistresses of a household or a nation, her example may ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... pressed on her heart as she spoke, and Albinia exclaimed, 'You shall not see it; you overrate your strength; it is my business ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which condescension can never be too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they really do. The qualities of the ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Melanchthon found nothing to blame in it. It is not easy to speak of Calvin with enthusiasm, as it comes natural to speak of the genial, whole-souled, many-sided, mirth-and-song-loving Luther. Nevertheless it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind owe to Calvin. The spiritual father of Coligny, of William the Silent, and of Cromwell must occupy a foremost rank among the champions of modern democracy. Perhaps not one of the ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Dave. You always overrate my services, and forget that they are but the consequence of the kindness that you have shown to me. But I have no intention of going. It was but a passing thought. I have but one friend who could procure me a berth as a volunteer, and as it is to him I must look for an introduction ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... testimony of others, and in judging of chances and probability, we must not expect our pupils to proceed very rapidly. There is more danger that they should overrate, than that they should undervalue, the evidence of others; because, as we formerly stated, we take it for granted, that they have had little experience of falsehood. We should, to preserve them from credulity, excite them in all ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... neither the realism nor the literature is derived from classical models. The work is essentially original. It is also essentially popular. Indeed, it is something of a party pamphlet; and in one place we see the Emperor and his cabinet doing duty as a conclave of the damned. It would be easy to overrate the artistic value of the Chloudof Psalter, but as a document it is of the highest importance, because it brings out clearly the opposition between the official art of the iconoclasts that leaned on the Hellenistic tradition and borrowed bluntly from Bagdad, and the vital art that drew its ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... to a minority. The public was, indeed, inclined rather to overrate than to underrate the benefits which might be derived by England from the Indian trade. What was the most effectual mode of extending that trade was a question which excited general interest, and which was answered in very ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... publish again, I should like to bring out more fully the bearing of the Augsburg Confession on the Thirty-nine Articles. I perhaps overrate the importance of this point, but it seems to me to put Tract 90 in great measure under the sanction of the Archbishop and Bishop of London. If you think of doing anything more about Tract 90, perhaps (which would be far better) you would take this ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... titles are all in the superlative, and his addresses full of wondering interjections. His object is more to please than to speak the truth. His art is nothing but delightful trickery by means of smoothing words and complacent looks. He would make men fools by teaching them to overrate their abilities. Those who walk in the vale of humility amid the modest flowers of virtue and favoured with the presence of the Holy One, he would lift into the Utopian heights of vanity and pride, that they might fall into the condemnation of the Devil. He gathers all good ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal school, the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... companion truth is this: you will be victorious over temptation as the new Master has sway. Your new Master will attend to that. Great and cunning and strong is the tempter. Do not underrate him. But greater is He that is in you. You cannot overrate Him. He got the victory at every turn during those thirty-three years, and will get it for you as many years and turns as shall make out the span of your life. Your one business will be to let Him have ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... in his clever Sketches of Paris, observes, "It is certainly of much value in the life of an American gentleman to visit these old countries, if it were only to form a just estimate of his own, which he is continually liable to mistake, and always to overrate without objects of comparison; 'nimium se aestimet necesse est, qui se nemini comparat.' He will always think himself wise who sees nobody wiser; and to know the customs and institutions of foreign countries, which one cannot ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... at him with an amused smile. People in love do so overrate trifles; but she was really of opinion that he should ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... misunderstand you, sir," I answered; "and I sincerely congratulate you that matters are no worse; though you greatly overrate the danger. I doubt if even a lion would have the heart to hurt Miss Mordaunt, were she ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... village of equal size. The bed of the valley, dotted with farms and groups of farm-houses, appeared to be thickly populated; but as a farmer's residence rarely consists of less than six buildings—sometimes even eight—a stranger would naturally overrate the number of inhabitants. The production of grain, also, is much less than would be supposed from the amount of land under cultivation, owing to the heads being so light. The valley of the Maan, apparently a rich and populous region, is in reality rather the reverse. In relation ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Stephenson observed at the engineer's meeting: "Mr. Smith had worked from a platform which might have been raised by others, as Watt had done, and as other great men had done; but he had made a stride in advance which was almost tantamount to a new invention. It was impossible to overrate the advantages which this and other countries had derived from his untiring and devoted patience in prosecuting the invention to a successful issue." Baron Charles Dupin compared the farmer Smith with the barber Arkwright: "He had the same perseverance and the same indomitable courage. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... moreover one or two coincidences in his extant work point to an acquaintance with the Apostle's writings. His leanings, like those of Marcion and Valentinus, were generally in the opposite direction to Judaism. His tendency would be not to underrate but to overrate St Paul. At the same time such passages as 1 Tim. iv. 3, where the prohibition of marriage is denounced as a heresy, were a stumbling-block. They must therefore be excised as interpolations, or the Epistles containing them must ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... Bayard, chap. 61.—"This prince," says Lord Herbert, who was not disposed to overrate the talents, any more than the virtues, of Ferdinand, "was thought the most active and politique of his time. No man knew better how to serve his turn on everybody, or to make their ends conduce to his." Life of Henry VIII., ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... unimpaired?"—"You have lived," said she, "to see my obligations to Sir Launcelot Greaves accumulated in such a manner, that a whole life spent in acknowledgment will scarce suffice to demonstrate a due sense of his goodness."—"You greatly overrate my services, which have been rather the duties of common humanity, than the efforts of a generous passion, too noble to be thus evinced;—but let not my unseasonable transports detain you a moment longer on this detested scene. Give me leave to hand you into the coach, and commit you to the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... lady,' I protested, 'I fear you overrate my poor ability. It is quite true that if I had been called in on the night of the robbery, my chances of success would have been infinitely greater than they ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... a grain of truth in what you say, although you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor even a little one, but I have always observed much and painted a good deal myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an artist's career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian princes, and am merely ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... long period unchanged, while within the same period, several of these species, by migrating into new countries and coming into competition with foreign associates, might become modified; so that we must not overrate the accuracy of organic change as a measure ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... more evident that her personal fears were due simply to that nervous susceptibility which even men of reputed courage have often displayed in situations of sudden and wholly unfamiliar peril. Her tendency to overrate all dangers, not merely as they affected herself, but as they might involve others, and above all her husband, I ascribed to the ideas and habits of thought now for so many centuries hereditary among a people in whom the fear of annihilation—and ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... erected, and bore witness to a more advanced civilization. We meet with them again, however, in Palestine, but we must traverse many miles before we find other examples at Peshawur and in the valley of Cabul. It is difficult to overrate the importance of these facts, or to explain these gaps. Are they, however, so complete as has been supposed? The few travellers who have crossed Afghanistan and Daghestan have seen tumuli which may have ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... saw at a glance that if Avenel did not overrate the relative strength of parties, his seat could ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... next year, on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." There was no one better fitted to write such a course; he felt with them and was of them. But if this enabled him to present them sympathetically, it also caused him to overrate them, and in some cases to descend to the standpoint of their own partial views. He is wrong in his estimate of Swift, and too eulogistic of Addison; but he is thoroughly English ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... publican shuts up shop and ceases to diffuse liquid poison, he does not invite the world to put up the shutters; neither will I. Actors overrate themselves ridiculously," added she; "I am not of that importance to the world, nor the world to me. I fling away a dirty old glove instead of soiling my fingers filling it with more guineas, and the ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... us in this respect, but generally the mistake is in believing that a piece will be successful which, however, proves to be a failure; we overrate the public taste, or fail to take into account matters quite foreign to the qualities of an entertainment which ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... survived generations of intense absorption in material progress and the distractions that modern life offers to the possessors of newly-acquired wealth; the pride of the people in their independence, and their natural tendency to overrate it in comparison; with the conditions of other countries; the contrasts furnished by a society fond of reproducing European habits, yet retaining a simplicity and freshness of its own: these and other features in the progress of the United States for over a century may be found expressed in ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... literature, whether they do not wish to see the bill of fare? I appeal to monthly critics, whether a preface that gives a view of the pretensions of the writer is not a good thing? The author may overvalue his subject, and very naturally may overrate the manner in which it is treated; but still he will explain his views, and facilitate the useful and necessary art which the French call reading with the thumb. We call this hunting a book, a term certainly invented by a sportsman. I leave the reader to choose which he pleases, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... add to their roominess and resource. In all time to come he can cause them to continue to exceed breadth after breadth. Oh, who can conceive how great his mental being is able to become? Who can comprehend how elevated a life it is possible for him to live? Who can be liable to overrate the vastness of the destiny ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... been living in Germany during the war I would have felt a powerful tendency to defend the cause of the Allies, to excuse their misdeeds, to overrate their ability, while being highly critical and censorious of ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... distinguish (no matter what the rank) the refined from the low, better than if she had been brought up under the hundred-handed Briareus of fashionable education. Lady Vargrave, indeed, like most persons of modest pretensions and imperfect cultivation, was rather inclined to overrate the advantages to be derived from book-knowledge; and she was never better pleased than when she saw Evelyn opening the monthly parcel from London, and delightedly poring over volumes which Lady Vargrave innocently believed to be reservoirs ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... money-changers, his enlarged and accomplished mind sought in Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoyment, and for new views of government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favorite studies. He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... gratifications and consummate in hypocrisy. The evidence which accompanied this delusion would be irresistible to one whose passion had perverted his judgment, whose jealousy with regard to me had already been excited, and who, therefore, would not fail to overrate the force of this evidence. What fatal act of despair or of vengeance might not ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... leads you to overrate my importance," Austen replied, with mingled feelings. Victoria's confidence in her father made the situation all the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at Smyrna, and then at Constantinople,—were mainly through the press, in which he was eminently useful. He had a clear conviction, in devoting his life to giving the Armenians an evangelical literature, that he was doing the work to which his Master called him. Nor did he overrate the importance of this branch of the work. His missionary experience in another field was of much value in guarding him against mistakes. At Pera, in addition to his literary labors, he preached statedly in modern Greek ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... thou. My strength I do not rashly overrate. Slave am I here, at any rate, If thine, or whose, it matters not, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... ignorance. The weakness is moral, rather than intellectual, that makes us expect that the first flush of a great pleasure, a newly-attained joy or success, will continue unabated. The poor man, probably, does not overrate the gratification of newly-attained wealth; what he fails to allow for is the deadening effect of an unbroken experience of ease and plenty. The author of "Romola" says of the hero and the heroine, in the early moments of their affection, that they could not look forward to ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... "Madame," said Enguerrand, "you overrate my political knowledge in that appeal; but, honestly speaking, I subscribe to your reasonings. I agree with you that the empire sorely needs the support of men of honour; it has one cause of rot which now undermines it,—dishonest ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... instinct of the theatre fully developed in his blood, nor such a congenital lack of that instinct as to be wholly inapprehensive of any technical difficulties or problems. The intelligent novice, standing between these extremes, tends, as a rule, to overrate the efficacy of theoretical instruction, and to expect of analytic criticism more than ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... by King: but before we examine his statements, let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony; lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... poor figure in life, his having been Senior Wrangler or University scholar is never mentioned but with derision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge in those of a later date. I hope that I do not overrate my own place in the estimation of society. Such as it is, I would not give a halfpenny to add to the consideration which I enjoy, all the consideration that I should derive from having been Senior Wrangler. But I often regret, and even acutely, my want of a Senior Wrangler's ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... simplicity and symmetry were kept before the eyes of a society whose influence on mankind was destined to be prodigious from other causes, as the characteristics of an ideal and absolutely perfect law. It is impossible to overrate the importance to a nation or profession of having a distinct object to aim at in the pursuit of improvement. The secret of Bentham's immense influence in England during the past thirty years is his success in placing ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... London. This missive (whether signed by Lebrun is not stated) met Chauvelin on his way from London to Dover; but it produced no change whatever in his plans. He proceeded on his way to Paris, passing Maret in the night near Abbeville. To assign much importance to his "despatch" is to overrate both his errand and his position at Paris. Maret was only one of the head clerks at the French Foreign Office and had no right to sign official despatches. If he really was charged by Lebrun to tender ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of the different parts of the machine, the central authority should endeavour, so far as is possible, to realise the circumstances attendant on the government of the dependency; whilst the local agent should be constantly on the watch lest he should overrate the importance of some local issue, or fail to appreciate fully the difficulties which beset the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... trivial accidents. There could be no better example of this happy faculty than the little paper entitled "Night Sketches," included among the Twice-Told Tales. This small dissertation is about nothing at all, and to call attention to it is almost to overrate its importance. This fact is equally true, indeed, of a great many of its companions, which give even the most appreciative critic a singular feeling of his own indiscretion—almost of his own cruelty. They ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... have presented a close parallel to the Mikado. A powerful rival to the king himself, this spiritual lord governed Yopaa, one of the chief cities of the kingdom, with absolute dominion. It is impossible, we are told, to overrate the reverence in which he was held. He was looked on as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold nor the sun to shine upon. He profaned his sanctity if he even touched the ground with his foot. The officers who ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Austrian volunteers, uhlans, two squadrons of which he himself commanded. The declaration made by this officer was thoroughly explicit, and conveys the exact idea of the valour displayed by the Italians in that terrible fight. Those who incline to overrate the advantages obtained by the Austrians on Sunday last must not forget that if Lamarmora had thought proper to persist in holding the positions of Valeggio, Volta, and Goito, the Austrians could not have prevented him. It seems the Austrian general-in-chief shared ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... much about what is before you. You have been sending despatchers' orders for years yourself. You know how many lives are held every minute in the despatchers' hand. Don't overrate your responsibility and grow nervous over it; and don't ever underestimate it. As long as you keep yourself fit for your work, and do the best you can, you may sleep with a clear conscience. Report to Mr. Baxter. Remember you are working ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... untrue, and painful to both of us. You overrate my capacity for love. I don't possess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... piece of practical wisdom in driving the mental screw, to be careful how you allow it to dwell too constantly upon any one topic. If you allow yourself to think too much of any subject, you will get a partial craze upon that; you will come to vastly overrate its importance. You will make yourself uncomfortable about it. There once was a man who mused long upon the notorious fact that almost all human beings stoop consider ably. Few hold themselves as upright as they ought. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... States. As to the famous regiments of Sicily, and the ancient legions of Naples and Milan, a distinguished Venetian envoy, who had seen all the camps and courts of Christendom, and was certainly not disposed to overrate the Hollanders at the expense of the Italians, if any rivalry between them had been possible, declared that every private soldier in the republic was fit to be a captain in any Italian army; while, on the other hand, there was scarcely an Italian ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of commerce are surpassed in importance by those of its effects which are intellectual and moral. It is hardly possible to overrate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. Commerce is now, what war once was, the principal source ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... same is true of the emotions—fear, for instance. In many cases, logically planned efforts may be altogether out of relationship to the result. Above all, great weight must be laid upon the consideration that there is a tendency to overrate the effect of education in the form of precept as compared with the effect of example. A child may receive the best of instruction without result, if in its own environment it is continually seeing something precisely the opposite of that which ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... impossible to overrate the difference between such a condition of mind, and that of the modern artist, who either does not know his business at all, or knows it only to recognize his own inferiority to every ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... instruction in conduct and doctrine for all bishops, was a work that Alfred could not afford to leave untranslated. For this translation Alfred wrote a Preface, the historical value of which it would be hard to overrate. In it he describes vividly the intellectual ruin that the Danes had wrought, and develops at the same time his plan for ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... can admit is profit. For, if labor cannot find its reward in its own product, very far from encouraging it, it should be abandoned as soon as possible, and, if this same labor results in a net product, it is absurd to add to this net product a gratuitous gift, and thus overrate the value of the service. Applying this principle, I say then: If the merchant service calls only for ten thousand sailors, it should not be asked to support fifteen thousand; the shortest course for the government is to put five thousand conscripts on State vessels, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the regions sacred to "Blue Books"? Whereas it was to the certificates vouchsafed by state papers, and instruments of such like order, that Sybel's reliability was chiefly due. Once admit the value of these vouchers (and their corroborative weight none can deny), and it becomes difficult to overrate the importance of Sybel's still unconcluded ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... by Wesley that his preaching rarely affected the rich and the educated. It was over the ignorant and the credulous that it exercised its most appalling power, and it is difficult to overrate the mental anguish it must sometimes have produced. Timid and desponding natures unable to convince themselves that they had undergone a supernatural change, gentle and affectionate natures who believed that those who were dearest to them were descending into everlasting fire, must have often ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... not know me, boys. You overrate me. If I have any success in speaking, it is not because I have any greater abilities than you have. I have a taste for such discussions; I love to speak on the questions; and I desire to do it just as well as I can, and to improve upon it every week, and that is half the battle. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... controversy can she have read?' cried I. 'It does not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you certainly overrate her merit.'—'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson Crusoe ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... "No, I do not overrate you," was the elector's reply. "I appreciate you—that is all; and I want you for a counsellor. You know how a reigning prince is surrounded by flatterers; how his follies are heralded to the world as virtues; ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... evidence on this point (Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 174) seems quite conclusive. It is impossible to overrate the value of the work of Giotto in the Bargello, both for its own intrinsic beauty, and as being executed in this year, which is not only that in which the Divina Commedia opens, but, as I think, the culminating ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... that this development takes place not only long before the pollen-tubes have reached the ovules, but even before the placentae and ovules have been formed; so that with these orchids the pollen apparently acts directly on the ovarium. On the other hand, we must not overrate the efficacy of pollen in this respect; for in the case of hybridised plants it might be argued that an embryo had been formed and had affected the surrounding tissues of the mother-plant before it perished at a very early age. Again, it is well known that with many plants ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... as you all know, is the Latin translation of the Holy Scriptures, and that, instead of saying "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"—Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas—the wise and witty king really said:"Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas." Gentlemen, it is impossible to overrate the importance of the subject. After all the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people. A land may be covered with historic trophies, with museums of science and galleries of art, with universities and with libraries; the people ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... I think it would be impossible to overrate the gain that might follow if we had about us only what gave pleasure to the maker of it and gives pleasure to its user, that being the simplest of all rules about decoration. One thing, at least, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... to speak coherently. It was his suggestion that I should come round to you, and of course I at once saw the propriety of it, for certainly the incident is a very singular one, though he appears to completely overrate its importance. If you would only come back with me in my brougham, you would at least be able to soothe him, though I can hardly hope that you will be able to explain this ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly of little value; not merely because they overrate their own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like what florists style the breaking of a seedling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... appearance, which seemed to him to indicate profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected, Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery certainly did not overrate William's sufferings. No minutes in his life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself entirely and fundamentally other than Mr. Hilbery thought him. Everything ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... said Haldane cheerily to Mrs. Arnot while Laura was writing; "you overrate the danger. I feel that I shall return again, and if I do not, there are ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... is your fault and not Mr. Sandford's," said her mother, "though I rather think you overrate the difference." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... writing from London, in 1844, says, "It is hardly possible to overrate the value of this [cheap postage] in regard to the exertion of moral power. At a trifling expense one can carry on a correspondence with all parts of the kingdom. It saves time, facilitates business, and brings kindred ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... the public schools. Too much is put in, not enough drawn out from the child's own mind. The teacher cannot think much of individual natures, when faced with a class of sixty. Yet it would be difficult to overrate the service of the Board Schools as training grounds for manners, and anyone who has known the change in our army within twenty-five years will understand what I mean. At fourteen the boy has often reached his highest mental and spiritual development. When he leaves school, shades of the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Marston; you overrate the danger. Depend upon it, your respected parent will be quite a different man in a week, though it may be a month or more before he is fully recovered. You don't know ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... executioners, to see what an advance he had already made upon any previous painting. (I limit, of course, this assertion to painting only, for in sculpture Donatello had years before given free gesture and perfect anatomy to his statues.) It would be impossible to overrate the excellence and beauty of drawing in the splendid swing of the bodies, the flexibility of the limbs, the sinewy elasticity of the leg muscles, and above all, the subtle suggestion of muscular movement under the loose skin ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... not overrate my powers. You must not forget that I am the slave of Justice. You may be asking more than is in my power to grant. What can you advance to show that I should be justified in ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... familiarly, who sits in a diligence alongside of a count-colonel of hussars,[4323] can appreciate his companion or his interlocutor, weigh his ideas, test his merit and esteem him at his correct value, and I am sure that he does not overrate him.—Now that the nobles have lost their special capacities and the Third-Estate have acquired general competence, and as they are on the same level in education and competence, the inequality which separates them has become offensive because it has become ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... natural defect, or the narrowness of their range of ideas. To such minds objects present themselves clothed in but few properties; and as, therefore, few analogies between one object and another occur to them, they almost invariably overrate the degree of importance of those few: while one whose fancy takes a wider range, perceives and remembers so many analogies tending to conflicting conclusions, that he is much less likely to lay undue stress on any of them. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... Bentley, thank you, but I can't let you overrate that. Any help I have given was merely by the way. You must remember I was in need of some occupation, and I assure you it has been very much ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
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