"Depreciate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and at Saumur. But the ecclesiastical remains of Le Mans are far from being the whole of its attractions. Its military and civil antiquities are endless, and they are more characteristic. We have not the least wish to depreciate Chartres. It is a highly interesting city; it contains a magnificent cathedral and several other remarkable buildings. But it ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... have any reader interpret the materialism of "The Nihilism of Socialism" into a disposition to deny or depreciate the great and beneficent influence that Christianity has had in the past. I should be greatly chagrined to be accused of irreverence in discussing religion. Irreverence is ever a sign of a narrow intellectual horizon and a limited vision. The scoffer is the product of the limited knowledge characteristic ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... hundred, and one-sixth in capacity of production. It is deserving the serious notice of all proprietors of existing machines, that machines are now introducing into the trade of such power of production as must still more than ever depreciate (in the absence of an immensely increased demand) the value of ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... the shoulders signifies vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an inclination to depreciate values. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... is only a "scientist." How that name tends continually to depreciate itself as the pursuit of physical science is divorced more and more completely from a knowledge of literature, from a knowledge of the humanities! And a scientist is a poor guide to an acquaintance with man, civilised or uncivilised. To come to the study of any race ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... called upon when I suddenly left England. I had no hope of seeing you, but it was the homage of gratitude and adoration. Great events have happened since we last met. I have realised my dreams, dreams which I sometimes fancied you, and you alone, did not depreciate or discredit, and, in the sweetness of your charity, would not have been ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... of Northmoor, Mr. Rollstone continued to cap with more magnificent experiences, so that, though he never pretended to view himself in the light of a participator in the grandeur he described, he continued, quite unintentionally, so to depreciate the glories of Northmoor, that Mrs. Morton began to recollect how far above him her sphere had become, and to decide against his future admission to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... page, were subjected to severe observance of the ancient and rigorous discipline of a feudal retainer. To these, Roland Graeme was of course an object of envy, and, in consequence, of dislike and detraction; but the youth possessed qualities which it was impossible to depreciate. Pride, and a sense of early ambition, did for him what severity and constant instruction did for others. In truth, the youthful Roland displayed that early flexibility both of body and mind, which renders exercise, either mental or bodily, rather matter ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Saracen. p. 278, 279. Liutprand was disposed to depreciate the Greek power, yet he owns that Nicephorus led against Assyria an army of eighty ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... all this may appear to some, others, I doubt not, will feel and acknowledge the truth of it; nay, may, perhaps, think I have not treated the subject with decent solemnity; but surely a man may speak truth with a smiling countenance. In reality, to depreciate a book maliciously, or even wantonly, is at least a very ill-natured office; and a morose snarling critic may, I believe, be suspected to be ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... faith in our fellows, especially, perhaps, if we live under conditions somewhat hard and narrow; the greater animosity behind is, at all events, valuable to give force and relief and staying power to a sentiment of generous conviction. But however we may depreciate its origin, the conviction was there, widespread in the townships: young Ormiston would "get clear"; the case for the defence might be heard over every bushel of oats ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... she had not gone through this preliminary process; and the farmers' wives and daughters treated it all as a matter of course, replying with a good deal of independent humour to the customer, who, once having discovered where good butter and fresh eggs were to be sold, came time after time to depreciate the articles she always ended in taking. There was leisure for all this kind of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... always appeal with special confidence to this weighty testimonial. A veteran profligate converted into a sober and exemplary citizen was a witness for the truth whose evidence it was difficult either to discard or to depreciate. Nor were such vouchers rare either in the second or third century. A learned minister of the Church could now venture to affirm that Christian communities were to be found composed of men "reclaimed from ten thousand vices," [276:1] and that these societies, compared ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil, Plautus, and Terence, because they derived so much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks also borrowed from one another. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission of art to add to its ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... feeling of malice or ill-will, but simply by a regard for truth, and a desire to point out to his countrymen the harm which has resulted from the perusal of his works;—he is not one of those who would depreciate the talents of Scott—he admires his talents, both as a prose writer and a poet; as a poet especially he admires him, and believes him to have been by far the greatest, with perhaps the exception of Mickiewicz, who only wrote for ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... where you might be of such assistance to us Lisbeth. A boy with only an aunt here and there is unbalanced, so to speak; he requires the stronger influence of an uncle. Not," I continued hastily, "that I would depreciate aunts—by the way, he has but one, I believe?" Lisbeth ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... after having, as it were, run the full course, to be recalled from the winning—crease to the barriers. For what blessing has life to offer? Should we not rather say what labour? But granting that it has, at any rate it has after all a limit either to enjoyment or to existence. I don't wish to depreciate life, as many men and good philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having lived, for I have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain. But I quit life as I would an inn, not as I would a home. For nature has given us a place of entertainment, ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... was of course bad, the company stupid, and the conversation turned solely upon Mrs. Pullens's exploits, with occasional attempts of Mrs. Jekyll to depreciate the merits of some of her discoveries. At length the hour of departure arrived, to Mary's great relief, as she thought any change must be for the better. Not so Grizzy, who was charmed and confounded by all she had seen, and ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Venice, by world-historical memories and by works of art as yet unrivalled. The spirit of the Venetian Republic still lives in that unique building. Architects may tell us that its Gothic arcades are melodramatic; sculptors may depreciate the decorative work of Sansovino; painters may assert that the genius of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese shines elsewhere with greater lustre. Yet the poet clings with ever-deepening admiration to the sea-born palace of the ancient mistress of the sea, and the historian ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base motives to the worthiest actions; they resolve virtue and vice into constitution. In short, they endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, or between the species of men and that of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Confucius, which the Chinese people endeavor to carry out to a letter, has played a large part in producing this effect. Instead of unfolding the possibilities of the future, he recapitulated the virtues and achievements of the past. I am not attempting to depreciate the inestimable service, which his system of philosophy has rendered toward enhancing the standard of rectitude among his disciples. But for him Asia might have sunk into the depths of moral chaos. This much at least must be said in justification of his doctrine, that evidently it was ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... depreciate modern languages when compared with ancient. The latter are regarded as furnishing a type of excellence to which the former cannot attain. But the truth seems to be that modern languages, if through the loss of inflections and genders they lack some power or beauty or expressiveness ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... enough, and besides they've all grown so religious, or think they have, they wouldn't stand for divorce. Anyhow it would be so hard on 'The Family'!...Still....But why, Gora dear, do you depreciate yourself? It seems to me that you are just the type that a certain sort of man would appreciate—fall in love with. I've heard even American men who play about in society comment on your looks, different as you are from sport and fluff and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... inability to move one's self; for as far as appetite is concerned, it gives the greatest satisfaction. Certainly fat and sugar would be more to one's taste; in fact those seem to me to be the great stand-by for one in this extraordinary continent: not that I mean to depreciate the farinaceous food; but the want of sugar and fat in all substances obtainable here is so great that they become almost valueless to us as articles of food, without ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... doubtless offensive to Dryden's jealousy of dramatic fame, as well as to his political principles. Nor was he probably insensible to the affected praise bestowed on Jonson, whose merit, it was fashionable to say, he had attempted to depreciate. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... from the people of Ilium coming rather late to offer their condolence, he said to them by way of banter, as if the affair had already faded from his memory, "And I heartily condole with you on the loss of your renowned countryman, Hector." He so much affected to depreciate Germanicus, that he spoke of his achievements as utterly insignificant, and railed at his most glorious victories as ruinous to the state; complaining of him also to the senate for going to Alexandria without his knowledge, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... quickly over the different happenings of the night, and tried to figure out a reason for the various ghostly manifestations. That they were the work of some one endeavoring to depreciate the value of the property, ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... and useful arts communicate, without the ease of life which wealth and plenty secure, without the traditions of a civilized past, emerging slowly from a state of utter rawness, each nation could barely do more than gain and keep a difficult hold upon existence. To depreciate the work achieved for humanity during the Middle Ages would be ridiculous. Yet we may point out that it was done unconsciously—that it was a gradual and instinctive process of becoming. The reason, in a word, was not awake; the mind of man was ignorant ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... imagination should have so far deceived him, is strange; but it is stranger still that some of his friends should have given credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such undoubted proofs that it was totally fallacious; though it is by no means surprising that those who wish to depreciate him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this circumstance, and insisted upon ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Nova Spanha, sent and had conveyed to me on the twenty-ninth day of the month of October in the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight, by Christovao Ponze de Leon, notary of his camp, I say that I cannot help being amazed again and again at seeing how his Grace attempts to depreciate my actions and give luster to his own—those on the one side being so different from those on the other, and done in sight of his camp yonder and of this fleet stationed here. When there are, however, so many noblemen and gentlemen of such reputation for sincerity and truth, his Grace will not ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... specimens of the actual "world" so "created," not mere pastiches and plaster models of them, are still to be had, and of the very best! But the fact is, thirdly, that Mr Arnold, as all men so often do, and as he not very seldom did, was clearly trying not so much to extol one thing as to depreciate another. Probably in his heart of hearts (which is generally a much wiser heart than that according to which the mouth speaks and the pen writes) he knew his failure. At any rate, he never attempted anything of the kind again, and Merope, that ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... will not have you depreciate her in order to cry up my wife. On the contrary, I admit that Madame Karpathy is a very beautiful woman; indeed to some person's tastes, she might appear the ideal ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... thousand. He alleged that the apprehension of troubles which might arise at the death of king Charles induced him to transgress this limitation; and he hoped that the new parliament would be more favourable. His enemies, however, made a fresh handle of this step to depreciate his character in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... admit your inference," said Vincent; "and before I leave this question, I cannot help remarking upon the folly of the superficial, who imagine, by studying human motives, that philosophers wish to depreciate human actions. To direct our admiration to a proper point, is surely not to destroy it; yet how angry inconsiderate enthusiasts are, when we assign real, in the place of exaggerated feelings. Thus the advocates for the doctrine of utility—the most benevolent, because the most ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shame, but with that smiling composure and great self-consciousness which is ever ready to do justice to others, and demands at the same time a just recognition of its own claims. Voltaire might exalt himself to the clouds, he could not depreciate the king. He often made him angry, however, and this gratified the malice of ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... a rival was worthy of praise; to be silent where it would be easy to depreciate; to win her from him, not because of my own greater worth, but in spite of the worst she could know of me. That would, in my opinion, be a conquest ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... clear apprehension of the limitations of his work. He baptized with water, the symbol and means of outward cleansing. He does not depreciate his position or the importance of his baptism, but his whole soul bows in reverence before the coming Messiah, whose great office was to transcend his, as the wide Mediterranean surpassed the little ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... immediately refuted this imprudent negation. General Drouot completely refuted the marshal in the following sitting.... "I have heard with regret," said he, "what had been said to diminish the glory of our armies, exaggerate our disasters, or depreciate our resources. I will say what I think, what I fear, and what I hope. On my frankness you may depend. My attachment to the Emperor cannot be doubted: but before all things, and above all things, I love my country." The general ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... mean? Why do I dread him? How! The slave of fear? Why is my heart so inclined to think ill of him? Do I seek to depreciate? She has mentioned him several times; has expected, with a kind of eagerness, he would resemble her Louisa; has hoped he and I should be friends. 'Did not I hope the same?' Oliver, she has tortured me! All benevolence as she is, she has put me on ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... well the public should know; but I believe there would be no such antidote to it as for people to be fully made aware how and where it is spreading. That is the role I have all along proposed to myself: not to declaim against any man or any system, not to depreciate or disguise the truth, but simply to describe. I cannot imagine a more legitimate method of ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... the people for more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk.[59] The wealthy inhabitants oppos'd any addition, being against all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the prejudice of all creditors. We had discuss'd this point in our Junto, where I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that the first small sum struck in 1723 had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... compete with machine-made goods. Many of these local craftsmen have attained a high standard of artistic skill in making up silk, wool, linen, cotton, carpets, brass, iron, silver, wood, ivory and other materials. But their arts must necessarily decay or depreciate if the local markets are flooded with cheap products from factories, and there a question of serious ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... gentle woman who tried to act as if blind to all that he was in contrast with herself, to show him deference, kindness, and good will when perhaps she felt toward him somewhat as she did toward Jane, overwhelmed him with humility and grief. It is the essence of deep, unselfish love to depreciate itself and exalt its object. There was a superiority in Alida which Holcroft was learning to recognize more clearly every day, and he had not a trace of vanity to sustain him. Now he was in a mood to wrong and ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the United States in a commanding position in regard to the use of silver. If that metal had continued to maintain its supremacy upon the ratio then established between gold and silver coin, there could have arisen no demand for the coinage of silver. If, on the other hand, silver should depreciate, the government might, at its pleasure, use, or it might decline to ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... brought ruin on my plans, and cast down that work which I had labored all my life to finish. Yet I will advise this, as being your most immediate plan. Smooth down this France as best you may. Remit more taxes, as I said. Depreciate the value of these shares gently, but rapidly as you can. Institute great numbers of perpetual annuities. Juggle, temporize, postpone, get for yourself all the time you can. Trade for the people's ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... anyone else. The last place in the choir and refectory was the one which she selected. She could not bear to be addressed as the Foundress, saying that she was a worthless creature who did nothing but offend God. Never was she heard to speak of herself, except to depreciate her own merit. She followed the common rule with regard to food and rising, except, indeed, that she often anticipated the hour of the latter, early as it was. Although she had received the gift of uninterrupted prayer, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... us, she said to herself, to exaggerate the value of the gift which we bestow, but rather to depreciate it, for it is never generous to magnify ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... could Burke, from temper or waywardness of judgment, attempt to depreciate a speech which may be said to have contained the first luminous statement of the principles of commerce, with the most judicious views of their application to details, that had ever, at that period, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... be the regular pilot of the harbour; a post, be it known, of no small profit; and, in his eyes, at least, invested with immense importance. Our unceremonious entrance, therefore, was regarded as highly insulting, and tending to depreciate both the dignity ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... heart yearned pitifully over him, but she noticed with relief that he spoke in problematical fashion, as if the love were more a possibility of the future than a present fact. Men of Hector Darcy's type set an exaggerated value on anything which belongs to themselves, the while they unconsciously depreciate what is denied them. Peggy understood that the very fact of her refusal of himself had lessened her attractions in his sight, and the knowledge brought with it ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... his scholars, who took a lively interest in his glory. Three of these he taught to rival Aristotle, and it became their mutual interest to depreciate his merits. Unfortunately one day Plato found himself in his school without these three favourite scholars. Aristotle flies to him—a crowd gathers and enters with him. The idol whose oracles they wished to overturn was presented to them. He was then a respectable old man, the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the precautions usual at the age of eighty, he might have lived longer, but in private as in public life, he despised caution. He was one of those statesmen whom modern critics, on the watch for the partially obsolete and with the complexity of present problems always before them, tend to depreciate. He had the first quality which is necessary for popularity: he was readily intelligible. In addition he was prompt, combative, and magnanimous; shrewd, but never subtle; sensible, but not imaginative. He had no ideas which he wished to carry out; ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... been by Ernest's altered manner, I was disposed to do justice to his merits, and the more Richard seemed desirous to depreciate him, the more I was willing to exalt him. If he was capable of the meanness of envy, I was resolved to punish him. I did him injustice. He was not envious, but jealous; and it is impossible for jealousy and justice ever to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... permission to use the land and the already accumulated capital of the country." The national capital is invested chiefly in perishable objects such as houses, factories, railways, steamships, mines, &c., which depreciate unless kept in proper repair. There is wear and tear in capital as in everything else. Capital is lost and destroyed every day. Lastly, the national capital is growing, and must continue growing, in accordance with the growing capital requirements of the time and the growing number of its inhabitants, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... mention of the number of curious and fugitive pamphlets of the day, which were written in order to depreciate and exterminate the Roman Catholic religion? Some of these had at least the merit of tartness ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... agricultural products. And commerce too, by exchanging the products of individuals and of countries, enhances the value of labor, and increases the comfort of man. They are all essential to each other. I have no disposition to magnify or depreciate either, but my proposition is, that the soil is the source from which human wealth springs. In addition to these pursuits, society requires what are termed liberal professions. They are not producers, though they may contribute, by diffusing knowledge, ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... medicine-man, priest, augur—useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be carefully watched by all who value freedom of thought and person, lest with opportunity he develop into a persecutor of the worst type. Not content with blackguarding the audience to whom his work should most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work itself and its author in his finest vein of irony. Having argued that our best and highest knowledge is that of whose possession we are most ignorant, he proceeds: "Above all, let no unwary reader do me the injustice ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... Gold may depreciate, stocks rise or fall, and business values change so as to leave the market in panic, but every man on the street or in the store knows that one value forever remains permanent, unvarying, and that is character. Every other asset may be swept away and success still achieved if this remain; ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... his quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself; they neither awed him to silence nor to caution; they neither provoked him to petulance, nor depressed him to complaint. While the distributors of literary fame were endeavouring to depreciate and degrade him, he either despised or defied them, wrote on as he had written before, and never turned aside to quiet them by civility, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... person unless he be very near," and by the assistance of a glass, had increased to such an extent that Prince George had to be appointed Regent, and there were not wanting those who chose the opportunity to laugh at and depreciate the ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... wine, and driven its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... which are unprepared or unable to maintain themselves against foreign competition. In the case of such industries, it is maintained, the removal of protection might result in economic disaster. Factories would have to close, investments would depreciate, and numerous laborers would be ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... created by the bank itself, and to do this without extreme embarrassment, without absolute distress, is, in my judgment, impossible. I hesitate not to say, that, as this veto travels to the West, it will depreciate the value of every man's property from the Atlantic States to the capital of Missouri. Its effects will be felt in the price of lands, the great and leading article of Western property, in the price of crops, in the products ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... knew his closeness in trade, and attributed to it his failure to negotiate for the Old Charlie buildings,—so to call them. They began to depreciate Belles Demoiselles. If a north wind blew, it was too cold to ride. If a shower had fallen, it was too muddy to drive. In the morning the garden was wet. In the evening the grasshopper was a burden. ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Lydia, to whom he dedicated his fables. The writings of this great man, in whatever light we consider them, will be equally entitled to our admiration. But we are well aware, that the very mention of him as a writer of fables, may depreciate him in the eyes of some. To such we shall propose a question, "Whether this species of writing has not been more beneficial to mankind; or whether it has not produced more important events, than ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... Bonaparte or General Desaix; they know as well as myself that theirs are names so respected that they can never be affected by such detractions, and that it would be as vain to dispute the praise due to the Chief who planned the battle was to attempt to depreciate the brilliant share which General Kellerman had in its successful result. I will add to the above a ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... for me to depreciate form," replied the cardinal; "and in business there are no mere ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... be no breach of hospitality, Sire, to hang the princess' fool," spoke the condemned man with no sign of waning confidence, "yet it would seem to depreciate the duke's gift. Your Majesty should hang the one and spare the other. 'Tis a matter of logic," he went on quickly, "to point out where the duke's gift ends and the princess' fool begins. A gift is a gift until ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... admit that in popular government the ballot is the most potent means for all moral and social reforms. As members of society, we are deeply interested in all the social problems with which you have grappled so long unsuccessfully. We do not intend to depreciate your efforts, but you have attempted to do an impossible thing; to represent the whole by one-half, and because we are the other half we ask you to recognize our rights as citizens ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... sensible novelist hesitate? Does a shoe-maker depreciate leather? Would you saw off the tree-branch you sit on? Now, on this subject, anybody's opinion (full-grown) is as good as another's. Let the footman bring down word that love is the drawing-room topic, and the cook will cry out, "What ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... Her father and I are somewhat better judges, I should suppose, than a young man who is not a student in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purpose in life. Not that I wish to wound or depreciate you, Roger. There is, I may say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mind and pursuit. If my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... a hundred different shapes—in all cases the orator must be cautioned that none of these methods is complete without the aid of sublimity,—unless, indeed, it be our object to excite pity, or to depreciate an opponent's argument. In all other uses of amplification, if you subtract the element of sublimity you will take as it were the soul from the body. No sooner is the support of sublimity removed than the whole becomes lifeless, nerveless, ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... than they are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom—nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace—why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... historical: it does not relate actual occurrences, but rather points a moral in the form of a narrative. In the New Testament the overgreat emphasis which he thought James placed on works as against faith caused him to depreciate this Epistle and to question its apostolic authorship. Luther also knew that in the earliest centuries of the Christian era the question had been raised whether Second Peter, Jude, James, Revelation, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... her navy, strengthening, extending, and protecting her commerce, seizing maritime positions,—in a word, founding and rearing her sea power upon the ruins of that of her rivals, friend and foe alike? It is not to depreciate the gains of others that the eye fixes on England's naval growth; their gains but bring out more clearly the immenseness of hers. It was a gain to France to have a friend rather than an enemy in her rear, though her navy ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... mind burst out before they are considered. In the tumult of business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no man sits down by design to depreciate his own character. Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose kindness he desires to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... eschatological world-renouncing element with which it entered into the world, so that its being is destroyed where this is omitted. A few words may be devoted to this question. The Gospel possesses properties which oppose every positive religion, because they depreciate it, and these properties form the kernel of the Gospel. The disposition which is devoted to God, humble, ardent and sincere in its love to God and to the brethren, is, as an abiding habit, law, and at the same time, a gift of the Gospel, and also finally ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... depreciate your own cousin, if you like. But I know what I shall do. I shall let her wear all my best things. How fortunate it is, Richard, that we're exactly of a size! O, I am so glad we brought Kitty along! If she should marry and settle down in Boston—no, I hope she could get her ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... infantry. That the picturesque effect produced by these Bashi Bazouks (conspicuous among whom were the Albanian levies) was heightened by the addition of the regulars, in their soiled garments and woollen great coats, I cannot pretend to say; yet let no one endeavour to depreciate the Turkish infantry who has not seen them plodding gallantly on beneath a broiling sun, and in a country which, by its stony roughness, would tax the energies of ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... specimen of the way to give legitimate help to the student. Trench's books I delight in. The Revision by Five Clergymen is an assistance. There was a review in the Quarterly the other day on the Greek Testament, very nearly an excellent one. The ordinary use of folio commentaries I don't wish to depreciate, but I think it far less valuable than the diligent study for oneself with the best grammatical aids of the original text. I always assume an acquaintance with the true mind and spirit of the Church of England as a substratum of interpretation. I like Westcott's book on the "Introduction to the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 45—"The objections, then, against meat-eating are threefold—intellectual, moral, and physical. Its tendency is to check intellectual activity, to depreciate moral sentiment, and to derange ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... tanned by outdoor exercise, was that of a man who wields his special kind of power with a due sense of its importance, and yet wields it easily. Nature having endowed the Van Tromps with every excellence but that of good looks, it was Miss Lucilla's tendency to depreciate beauty; but she was too much a woman not to be sensible of the charms of six feet two, with proportionate width of shoulder, and a way of standing straight and looking straight, incompatible with anything but "acting straight," that was full of a fine dominance. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... about to say a few words upon the aims of this society: and I should be sorry either to exaggerate or to depreciate our legitimate pretensions. It would be altogether impossible to speak too strongly of the importance of the great questions in which our membership of the society shows us to be interested. It would, I fear, be easy enough to make ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... millions of the non-Jewish population.... To isolate the village from the town, the towns of the West and South from the towns and villages of the Centre and the East, is to disturb intentionally the economic life of the country, to undermine credit and depreciate the ...
— The Shield • Various
... succeeded in about equal ratios. The men occupying the most important commercial positions in New York to-day are self-made, whose only education has come to them from contact with that greatest college of all, the business world. Far be it from me to depreciate the value of a college education. I believe in its advantages too firmly. But no young man need feel hampered because of the lack of it. If business qualities are in him they will come to the surface. ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... An absolute distinction may never be drawn, not even subjectively. Suppose that A has something to say about his fellow craftsman B, and suppose that certain achievements of B are to be valued. If now A has been working in the same field as B he must not depreciate too much the value of B's work, since otherwise his own work is in danger of the same low valuation. Objectively the converse is true: for if A bulls the general efficiency of his trade, it doesn't serve his conceit, since we find simply that the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... since then, and your dollar in greenbacks is worth no more to-day than it was on the 18th of March, 1870; and no act of yours has even tended to advance the value of that greenback to par in gold, while every affirmative act of yours since that time has tended to depreciate its value ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... rebellious husband who is admired and courted, however. A curious trait of human nature compels admiration for whatever is harmful, and forces us, in spite of our better judgment, to depreciate the useful and beneficent. The coats-of-arms of all countries are crowded with eagles and lions, that never yet did any good, living or dead; orators enlarge on the fine qualities of these birds and beasts, and hold them up as models, while using ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... originate, start, found. Belief, faith, persuasion, conviction, tenet, creed. Belittle, decry, depreciate, disparage. Bind, secure, fetter, shackle, gyve. Bit, jot, mite, particle, grain, atom, speck, mote, whit, iota, tittle, scintilla. Bluff, blunt, outspoken, downright, brusk, curt, crusty. Boast, brag, vaunt, vapor, gasconade. Body, corpse, remains, relics, carcass, cadaver, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... knowledge, rather than those visionary musings which he thought a dangerous indulgence of imagination. He could not put the compositions of Collins among the mere curiosities of literature, but he permitted himself to depreciate habits of mental excursion which he had ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... derived, to attain some future apparent good. Value is the price that will be given for the use of a man's power. To honour a man is to acknowledge his power; to dishonour him is to depreciate it. The public worth of a man is the value set on ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... "I do not depreciate, certainly, the profession of the artist," replied the Judge, "nor the value of his agency: in its best meaning, his is as noble as any; but is it this pure bent, this noble view of it, which impels you, which animates you? Sara, examine your own heart; it is vanity and selfish ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... of restoring goods held in deposit. Because the latter might be lost in two ways. First, unavoidably: i.e. either through a natural cause, for instance if an animal held in deposit were to die or depreciate in value; or through an extrinsic cause, for instance, if it were taken by an enemy, or devoured by a beast (in which case, however, a man was bound to restore to the owner what was left of the animal thus slain): ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... again, are we to cry down man for the sake of crying up nature? Why are we to depreciate the dweller that we may magnify the dwelling-place? Is not, man (to say the least) one of the works of God? Did not God make, both man and nature? And does not Revelation (which our author holds in so deep ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... ardent, melancholy," she writes, "a passionate admirer of nature, he seems born to give and share happiness. This man would forget the universe in the sweetness of private virtues. Capable of sublime impulses and unvarying affections, the vulgar, who like to depreciate what it cannot equal, accuse him of being a dreamer. Of sweet countenance, elegant figure, there is always in his attire that care, neatness, and propriety, which announce respect of self as well as of others. Whilst the dregs ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... business. We do not think the sermon ought to be considered the main business. When a pastor at the beginning of the first prayer says "O God!" he has entered upon the most important duty of the service. We would not depreciate the sermon, but we plead for more attention to the "preliminaries." If a minister cannot get the attention of the people for prayer or Bible reading, it is his own fault. Much of the interest of a service depends upon how it ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... must have reached us from Plutarch; and there is something malicious in our nature which inclines us to form comparative estimates, usually with a view to elevate one great man at the cost of another, whom we would secretly depreciate. Our political parties at home have often indulged in these fallacious parallels, and Pitt and Fox once balanced the scales, not by the standard weights and measures which ought to have been used, but by the adroitness of the hand that pressed down the scale. In literature, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... intelligence on this subject from Paris. It may be of some importance to you to learn, that our plan for calling in the old paper and emitting new, was not attended with all the success that was expected. The old paper was indeed redeemed, but the new beginning to depreciate, most of the States thought it prudent to take it ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... and, in her next letter, Miss Elvan left the subject untouched. Bertha was glad of this. "A Ministering Angel" seemed to her by no means a very remarkable production, and she liked much better to say nothing about it than to depreciate the painter; for to do this would have been like seeking to confirm Rosamund in her attitude towards Norbert Franks, which was not at ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... no equipage: Nobody pretended that he wanted pride: the reason therefore was easy to be guessed at.' And then did she boast of, and my brother praised her for, refusing him: and both joined on all occasions to depreciate him, and not seldom made the occasions; their displeasure against him causing every subject to run into this, if ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... our pen abase you More than it must—to call you feminine! Exemption I am sure you would not claim, Being subject to the common influence; Shining on earth as do the stars in heaven. Your sov'reign beauty, ladies, our austerity Cannot depreciate, nor would do so, For we have not in view a superhuman kind, Such poison,[H] therefore, far from you be set, For here we see the one, the great Diana, Who is to you as sun amongst the stars. Wit, words, learning and art, And whatsoe'er ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... elevation in the northern part of the city where the University now stands. This was part of the tract of 150 acres known as Effingham and owned by John A. Smith. On the plea that the location of a Negro school would depreciate the remainder of his property, the owner refused to sell any part of it. After much argument, General Howard asked him to state his price for the whole farm. The rate given was one thousand dollars an acre, making a total valuation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... often a good thing that the voice of man may be hushed in order that the sweeter and deeper music of the word of God, sounding from no human lips, may reach our hearts. Of course I am not going to depreciate preachers and books and religious literature and the thought and the acts of good and wise men who have been interpreters of God's meaning and will to their brethren, but the human ministration of the divine word, like every other help to knowing God, may become a hindrance instead ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... various external circumstances) is capable—this consolation those may draw from history who stand in need of it; and it is craved by envy, vexed at what is great and transcendent, striving, therefore, to depreciate it and to find some flaw in it. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones; in consideration of which the possession of a throne ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... new-return'd To his own country in the twentieth year, After such hardship. But prepare me, nurse, A bed, for solitary I must sleep, Since she is iron, and feels not for me. 200 Him answer'd then prudent Penelope. I neither magnify thee, sir! nor yet Depreciate thee, nor is my wonder such As hurries me at once into thy arms, Though my remembrance perfectly retains, Such as he was, Ulysses, when he sail'd On board his bark from Ithaca—Go, nurse, Prepare his bed, but not within the walls Of his own chamber built with his ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... "I didn't depreciate the currency. Three pounds a week is little enough these times for the girl who fell from grace through the chief glory ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... you know how to do, as well as the best; not to put a was for a were, an are for an is, and to be able to speak in mood and tense, and such like valuable parts of education: so that, my dear, you can have no reason to look upon that sex in so high a light, as to depreciate your own: and yet you must not be proud nor conceited neither; but make ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... by my rashness! since, had I not erred, my mother, at least, could never have been thought hard-hearted and unforgiving. Am I not then answerable, not only for my own faults, but for the consequences of them; which tend to depreciate and bring disgrace upon a maternal character never before called ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... valuable compositions that have been produced in every department of learning, have corresponded with your Majesty's gracious wishes and encouragement, and have rendered the name of Britain famous in every quarter of the globe. If there be any persons who, in these respects, would depreciate the present times, in comparison with those which have preceded them, it may safely be asserted, that such persons have not duly attended to the history of literature. The course of my studies has enabled me to speak with some confidence on the subject; and to say, that your majesty's ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... the affectionate speech. She knew its exact value, but was not inclined to depreciate it in her own estimation. Just then she would rather have been left alone with her mother than with any one else, unless she could be left quite ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... appearance. The years had not yet given his features the flabby look which sooner or later mars most Jewish faces, and the fine formation of his brow round about the eyes gave him an expression of countenance that inspired confidence. He did not seem in the least inclined to depreciate my intention of trying my luck in Paris as a composer of opera; he allowed me to read him my libretto for Rienzi, and really listened up to the end of the third act. He kept the two acts that were complete, saying that he wished ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... depreciate, discredit, underestimate, carp at, derogate from, dishonor, underrate, decry, detract from, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... mind: he had been so long resident in England, and so intimately connected with Englishmen, that he was not obvious to any of the commonplace ridicule thrown upon Hibernians; and he had lived with men who were too well informed and liberal to misjudge or depreciate a sister country. He had found, from experience, that, however reserved the English may be in manner, they are warm at heart; that, however averse they may be from forming new acquaintance, their esteem and confidence once gained, they make the most solid ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... then, and in her subtle but potent workings on the human soul that we shall find at least one antidote for the undue and portentous tension of our day. To say this is not to depreciate science, but to put it in its rightful setting. Nor is it to depreciate culture, but to bring it into due perspective, and to vitalise it. Nor is it to depreciate art, but to endow it with glow, with ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... I used in writing of the Religio Poetae, and affirm with an emphasis which I only wish to strengthen, that, here and everywhere, and never more than in the exquisite passage which Mr. Gosse only quotes to depreciate, the prose of Patmore is the prose of a poet; not prose 'incompletely executed,' and aspiring after the 'nobler order' of poetry, but adequate and achieved prose, of a very rare kind. Thought, in him, is of the very substance of poetry, and is sustained throughout ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Parity between the two Cases, sufficient to justify my bringing in the one, as an Illustration of the other. There is no Knowledge more certain, than what Mankind commonly have of Good and Evil; and he who, in order to serve any private Scheme of Religion, goes about to depreciate this Knowledge, robs Mankind of all Truth and Certainty whatever, and in the End subjects his own darling Schemes to the same Uncertainty; for if we cannot judge of the Fitness, of plain moral Truth and Duty, neither can we of any Scheme ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... who depreciate their own qualities, have the appearance of being more refined in their characters, because they are not thought to speak with a view to gain but to avoid grandeur: one very common trait in such characters is their denying common current opinions, as Socrates used to do. There are ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... qualities, he disputes the place of honor among the elect of the "younger" school (whose members are not so young as they are painted); and he is the worshiped idol of still younger Frenchmen who envy, depreciate, and industriously imitate his fascinating and dangerously luring art. He has traveled far on the path of his particular destiny; not since Wagner has any modern music-maker perfected a style so saturated with personality—there are far fewer derivations in his art than in the art of Strauss, ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... "Do not depreciate your efforts. They have been invaluable to me. Remember, it was you who greatly confirmed my suspicions of Anderson. I did acquire some facts myself; but it was due to the information which you imparted to me that I was enabled to join together several ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... assertions to the furthest extreme, and make the most unwarrantable deductions from them. It must be acknowledged that Bunyan does not treat Fowler and his doctrines with fairness, and that, if the latter may be thought to depreciate unduly the sacrifice of the Death of Christ as an expiation for man's guilt, and to lay too great a stress on the moral faculties remaining in the soul after the Fall, Bunyan errs still more widely ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... payable in silver at six shillings and eight pence the ounce, or in gold at its comparative value. Bills of a new form were issued, purporting to be for ounces of silver, which were to be received in payment of all debts, with this proviso, that if they should depreciate between the time of contract and of payment, a proportional addition should be ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... assertion that seemed to me the most strange in Miss Martineau's work, was, that Mr Carlisle, the author of "Sartor Resartus", was the most read of any English author. Without intending to depreciate the works of Mr Carlisle, I felt convinced from my own knowledge, that this could not be a fact, for Mr Carlisle's works are not suited to the Americans. I, therefore, determined to ascertain how far it was correct. I went to the publishers, and inquired ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... This tendency to depreciate the past was due in a measure to the preference, natural to lively minds, for deductive over inductive methods of thought. It is so much easier and pleasanter to assume a few plausible general principles and meditate upon them, than to amass and ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell |
