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Intrinsic   Listen
noun
Intrinsic  n.  A genuine quality. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Intrinsic" Quotes from Famous Books



... bear some proportion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the immediate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature. None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under a government purely arbitrary. But although there are some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many improvements to make it a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who are of that opinion would ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of papers, over which he intreats you to cast an eye. On perusing them, they prove to be letters from various eminent authors, whose names are, more or less, familiar to you. These documents are more interesting as autographs than from any intrinsic literary merit, for they all refer to remittances for various amounts, and regret politely that the writer is not in a position to obtain permanent employment for his correspondent. While you are reading them, your visitor pays assiduous court to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... Mont-Saint- Michel and Chartres, I was profoundly convinced that this privately printed, jealously guarded volume should be withdrawn from its hiding-place amongst the bibliographical treasures of collectors and amateurs and given that wide publicity demanded alike by its intrinsic nature and the cause ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... splendid figure in the world. He is not qualified, because he is an interested party, and, either from an exaggerated estimate of his child's merits, or from a selfish shrinking from the cost it might require to mature them, is anxious to arrive at a conclusion not founded upon the intrinsic claims of ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... gambler in human lives. They were his chips, by which he gained or lost, and of themselves were void of intrinsic value. The world was the table whereon he played; the game rouge et noir, with the whirl of predatory commercialism as the wheel, and the ball weighted to drop where he might direct. He carried millions on margin, and with them carried the destinies, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... notion involved in a sacrifice is that of giving. The value of the gift is not, however, the intrinsic worth of the thing given, nor even the pleasure or advantage the recipient derives therefrom, but, singularly enough, the amount of pain the giver experiences in depriving himself of it! This is also often seen in ordinary transactions. A rich man who subscribes a hundred dollars to a charity, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... CHRISTIANITY.—The causes of the spread and triumph of Christianity lie ultimately in the need which men feel of religion, especially in times of dread and distress, and in the intrinsic excellence which was felt to belong to Christianity. In the first and second centuries the dreary feeling engendered by the hollow skepticism that prevailed was favorable to the Christian cause. There was a void to be filled, and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... efforts were successful, and the incredulous Robert beheld his uncle invert his precious burden and send a clinking, intrinsic shower of coin to ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... constitutional nature of moral obligations, though he differed from them with respect to things indifferent, and opposed their morose contempt for custom, though he did not allow that the gratification of mere external wants, or that external good fortune, had any intrinsic value. He comprised everything which could make life happy in virtue alone (Cic. Acad. i. 10), and called it the only good which deserved to be striven after and praised for its own sake (Cic. de Fin. iii. 6, 8), and taught that the attainment of it must inevitably ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... dress'd and decorated, at an extraordinary expence:——and inimitably perform'd in all its parts, by Betterton, Booth, Barry, and Oldfield. Yet it brought but few, and slender audiences.——To say truth, 'twas a fine Poem; but not an extraordinary Play. Notwithstanding the intrinsic merit of this piece, and the countenance it met with from the most ingenious men of the age, yet it languished on the stage, and was soon neglected. Mr. Addison wrote the Prologue, in which he rallies the vitiated taste of the public, in preferring the unideal entertainment of an Opera, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... contemporary paintings with which the early Christians adorned their places of worship and the sepulchres of their dead in the basilicas and catacombs of Rome, are very curious and interesting for their antiquity and their associations, and as illustrations of faith; but they present no intrinsic beauty or worth. They are not only clumsy and childish designs ill executed, but they are rendered unintelligible to all save the initiated in such hieroglyphics, by offering an elaborate ground-work of type, antitype, and symbol, on which the artist probably spent a large part ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... place only dispense Such various pleasures to the sense: Here health itself does live, That salt of life, which does to all a relish give, Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth, The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health. The tree life, when it in Eden stood, Did its immortal head to heaven rear; It lasted a tall cedar till the flood; Now a small thorny shrub it does appear; Nor will it thrive ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... more woe Spare the persons while you lash the crimes Steady assurance, with seeming modesty Suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgive Take the hue of the company you are with Taking up adventitious, proves their want of intrinsic merit The present moments are the only ones we are sure of Those whom you can make like themselves better Timidity and diffidence To be heard with success, you must be heard with pleasure To be pleased ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger

... heavenly Temple, The Master-Builder hath a niche for thee; And thou must pass beneath His forming chisel, If thou a goodly, polished stone wouldst be. Bless God for every stroke that severs from thee The gross and earthy, bringing to the light The intrinsic worth His Spirit hath wrought in thee,— The gem His hand ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... of learning, and yet has to touch upon all three provinces, it is important to keep it from straying too far into any of them, and this is one of the most difficult tasks that I have ever enterprised. The temptation to dilate upon the beauty and intrinsic interest of the MSS. and upon the characteristic scripts of different ages and countries is hard to resist. And, indeed, without some slight elucidation of such matters my readers may be ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James

... to every interest in this matter, and a vexed question set at rest, perhaps forever, by a reasonable compromise of conflicting opinions. Hitherto, after being offered at public sale, lands have been disposed of at one uniform price, whatever difference there might be in their intrinsic value. The leading considerations urged in favor of the measure referred to are that in almost all the land districts, and particularly in those in which the lands have been long surveyed and exposed to sale, there are still remaining numerous ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... friends of Cicero were still alive, our candor would acknowledge that, except in purity of language, their intrinsic merit was excelled by the school of Papinian and Ulpian. The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience, and the advantage both of method and materials is naturally assumed by the most recent authors. The civilians of the reign of the Antonines had studied the works of their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... frost of the winter had carried off the aged proprietor of Hellingsley, that contiguous estate which Lord Monmouth so much coveted, the possession of which was indeed one of the few objects of his life, and to secure which he was prepared to pay far beyond its intrinsic value, great as that undoubtedly was. Yet Lord Monmouth did not become its possessor. Long as his mind had been intent upon the subject, skilful as had been his combinations to secure his prey, and unlimited the means which were to achieve his purpose, another stepped ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... prepossessions due to the contemporary state of society and to their own class position, which to some degree unconsciously dictated their conclusions. So far as I can do this satisfactorily, I hope that I may throw some light upon the intrinsic value of the creed, and the place which it should occupy ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... great degree, upon the selection of books for its shelves. Two dangers are to be avoided. The first, and greatest, is the selection of books calculated to degrade the morals or intellect of the reader. This danger is apparent, and to be shunned needs but to be seen. Books, of more or less intrinsic value, are so abundant and cheap, that common men must go out of their way to gather a large collection that shall not contain works of real merit. But the object should be to exclude all worthless and pernicious works, and meet ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... the narrow and illiberal policy which has heretofore retarded the prosperity of these fine islands, will necessarily be superseded by more expanded views, and enable them to maintain the rank and importance to which their intrinsic worth entitles them. The spirit of independence which has recently diffused its influence through the Spanish colonies on the American continent, has also darted its rays across the Pacific, and beamed with enlivening ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... of Great Britain or Italy, should we utterly refuse to open it because Baird or Thackeray could give us more accurate information on that identical theme? Would not the Camanche's criticisms possess some value as his, quite apart from their intrinsic worth or worthlessness? Might they not afford some insight into Indian modes of thought, if none into ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... as a reaction required to set right the over-specialization of recent minds thoughtful only of some little branch of knowledge. Just in proportion as one esteems "authority" will one give heed to the pronouncement of the presidential address before the British Association, yet for its own intrinsic sake it is a piece of work which cannot ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... mere accident of birth, to achieve greatness. That he is one of the most exalted of Scotland's aristocracy, a great territorial magnate, and entitled to take a high place in the Council of the nation, are facts external and independent of his own intrinsic merits. But the same remark does not apply to the Duke's rare diplomatic and literary abilities, to the sageness of his wisdom, to the maturity end value of his experience, and to the kindly qualities of his heart. Pope spoke of an ancestor of his ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... Christian, but she may be the better cook. Now, to compare a great thing with a little, the State equally with the kitchen is a creation of this world,—there are no nationalities, nor kitchen-ranges either, beyond the grave. Civil government is a secular concern. The scope and aim intrinsic to it, and attainable by its own proper forces, is a certain temporal good. Suarez (De Legibus, III., xi., 7) sets forth that good to be,—"the natural happiness of the perfect human community, whereof the civil legislature has the care, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... for their own intrinsic value, and to induce the growth of other plants. "We are bitter," say the Lupins in an Italian work on agriculture; "but we enrich the earth which lacks other manure, and by our bitterness kill those insects which, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... way his subliminal clairvoyance. Among such methods, those most often employed are, as we all know, cards, coffee-grounds, pins, the lines of the hand, crystal globes, astrology, and so on. They possess no importance in themselves, no intrinsic virtue, and are worth exactly what the medium who uses them is worth. As ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... fashionable one, for work and exercise. She also urged that as woman was no longer in her minority, no longer "man's pretty idol before whom he bowed in chivalric gallantry," or "his petted slave whom he coaxed and gulled with sugar-plum privileges, whilst robbing her of intrinsic rights," but was emerging into her majority and claiming her rights as a human being, and waking up to a higher destiny: as she was beginning to answer the call to a life of useful exertion and honorable independence, it ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... the holiness of God mentioned together. In Ex. xxix. 43 we read, 'And the tent shall be made holy by my glory,' that glory of the Lord of which we afterwards read that it filled the house. The glory of an object, of a thing or person, is its intrinsic worth or excellence: to glorify is to remove everything that could hinder the full revelation of that excellence. In the Holiness of God His glory is hidden; in the glory of God His Holiness is manifested: His glory, ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... no higher jurisdiction than that of the select men of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... pleasantly, "we are talking a language I understand. Believe me, Jason, one of my chief motives in keeping this document was the hope that you might realize its intrinsic qualities." ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand

... "Votre tres humble serviteur, I'm not in jest," said I, "I'm sure, But from the bottom of my belly, I do in sober sadness tell you, I thought it was good reasoning, For us fictitious men to bring Brass counters made by William Wood Intrinsic as we flesh and blood; Then since we are but mimic men, Pray let us pay in mimic coin." Quoth he, "Thou lovest, Punch, to prate, And couldst for ever hold debate; But think'st thou I have nought ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... we only to be permitted to defend general principles, on condition that we draw no practical inferences from them? Is every other idea to yield precedence and empire to existing circumstances, and is the immediate and universal workableness of a policy to be the main test of its intrinsic fitness? ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... aesthetically pleasing but asymmetrical arrangements of space strongly suggests that the elements of large size, deep perspective, suggested movement, and intrinsic interest are in some way equivalent in their power to arouse those motor impulses which we believe to constitute the basis of aesthetic response. It is the purpose of these experiments to follow up the lines of these suggestions, ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... like the rowers, who never look toward the place whither they wish to go." The attempt of the Prince to sound Barneveld on this subject through the Princess-Dowager has already been mentioned, and has much intrinsic probability. Thenceforward, the republican form of government, the municipal oligarchies, began to consolidate their power. Yet although the people as such were not sovereigns, but subjects, and rarely spoken of by the aristocratic magistrates save with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Candidate, "have, as their most intrinsic foundation and substance, a simple unity, a soul, a—in one ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... butchering a lot of good material to no purpose. Your letter from Carlisle was pretty like yourself, sir, as I was pleased to see; the hand of Jekyll, not the hand of Hyde. I am for action quite unfit, and even a letter is beyond me; so pray take these scraps at a vast deal more than their intrinsic worth. I am in great spirits about David, Colvin agreeing with Henley, Fanny, and myself in thinking it far the most human of my labours hitherto. As to whether the long-eared British public may take to it, all think it more than doubtful; ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the matter. The battle was won. As soon as we were informed of this decision, we decided to sell only the copies we had in stock, and not to further reprint the pamphlet. Out-of-date as was much of its physiology, it was defended as a symbol, not for its intrinsic worth. We issued a ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... by the bishop 'his pious and honourable brethren,' he must, on mixing at this moment with the assemblage, have either doubted the truth of the episcopal appellation, or have given the citizens credit for that refinement of intrinsic worth which is of too elevated a nature to influence the character of the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... vapour which burns at a lower temperature than acetylene itself. Manifestly, therefore, the ideal diluent for acetylene is a substance which possesses as high a flame temperature as acetylene and a certain degree of intrinsic illuminating power, while the lower the flame temperature of the diluent and the less its intrinsic illuminating power, the less efficiently will the acetylene act as an enriching material. According to Love, Hempel, Wedding, and others, if acetylene is mixed ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... patria; y si fuese necessario algunos de sus hijos, sea para el bien de la nacion, y nunca en traicion de ella." Other versions of his last words have been given, but that given above seems the most authentic, not only from intrinsic probability, but from the fact that it was given, shortly after the execution, by the Mexican Dr. Reyes, who was present, to Dr. Basch. Loc. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... Hilgard has suggested, the historical datum that the majority of the most populous and powerful historical peoples of the world have been located on soils that thirst for water, may find its explanation in the intrinsic value of arid soils. From Babylon to the United States is a far cry; but it is one that shouts to the world the superlative merits of the soil that begs for water. To learn how to use the "desert" is to make it ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... it may be hoped, for the space given to this curious kind; the bulk of its production, the length of its popularity, and the intrinsic merit of some few of its better examples vindicate its position here. But a confession should take the place of the unnecessary excuse already partly made. The artificial fairy tale of the more regular kind was not, by the law of its ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... (kanaenae) in adoration of Laka was recited while gathering the woodland decorations for the altar. It is worthy of preservation for its intrinsic beauty, for the spirit of trustfulness it breathes. We remark the petitions it utters for the growth of tree and shrub, as if Laka had been the alma mater under whose influence ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... he kept intact the wad of notes necessary for her passage, and sought Devinne with a view to raising money on an article of great sentimental, and moderate intrinsic, value—the cigarette-case given him by his old chums at ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... comparative term, for it will readily be understood that in the case of a sudden flooding of the market with one class of stone, even if it should be one hitherto rare and precious, there would be an equally sudden drop in the intrinsic value of the jewel to such an extent as perhaps to wipe it out of the category of precious stones. For instance, rubies were discovered long before diamonds; then when diamonds were found these were considered much more valuable till their abundance made them common, and they became of little ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin

... influence. This belief was confirmed by his experience of women, which, having latterly been extended from the cultivated middle-class into the rural community, had taught him how much less was the intrinsic difference between the good and wise woman of one social stratum and the good and wise woman of another social stratum, than between the good and bad, the wise and the foolish, of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... our statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one time or other of their political career on both sides of each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive. But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... to like it at all. He was ready to recognise at this stage that such an engagement WOULD have tied his hands. The Luxembourg Gardens were incontestably just so adorable at this hour by reason—in addition to their intrinsic charm—of his not having taken it. The only engagement he had taken, when he looked the thing in the face, was to do what he ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... achieved without a battle, and by the special interposal of an omnipotent arm, Moses composed that celebrated song of thanksgiving which is recorded in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Exodus. It is remarkable, not only on account of its intrinsic excellency, but as being composed six hundred and forty-seven years before the birth of Homer, the best of heathen poets, and, therefore, the most ancient piece of poetical composition in the world. It is characterized ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... had inspired us with the highest respect and esteem for him; and we could not part with a person to whom we were under such obligations, and whom we had little prospect of ever seeing again, without feeling the most tender concern. The intrinsic value of the private presents we received from him, exclusive of the stores which might be carried to a public account, must have amounted, according to the current price of articles in that country, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... value of any book, or what is sometimes called its intrinsic value, or utility, consists in what it avails to gratify some desire or want of our nature. It depends, then, wholly upon its qualities in relation to our desires. That which contributes in ever so small ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... little hesitation, in the first place, of attributing it to the press of Vindelin de Spira—and, in the second place, of assigning no higher antiquity to it than that of the year 1471. It is however a book of some intrinsic curiosity, and of unquestionably great rarity. I saw it here for the first time. The present copy is a decidedly much-cropt folio; but in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... dissatisfaction gave us to one another the merit of originality, almost proved in one another a superior mind. It was not that either of us would have preferred to grill out our days in the plains; we always had a saving clause for the climate, the altitude, the scenery; it was Simla intrinsic, Simla as its other conditions made it, with which we found such liberal fault. Again I should have to explain Simla, at the length of an essay at least, to justify our condemnation. This difficulty ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... in building the walls of the royal tombs, there were deposited in certain parts within the walls objects now technically known as deposits. We do not know whether, in selecting these objects, the ancient Egyptian had regard to what he considered their intrinsic value, or whether, as was most probable, it was some religious motive that prompted his action. Often the objects thus deposited come under the designation of pottery, although the vases were sometimes shaped of stone and not of clay. Within such vases all kinds of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... a wonderful nine-days' bridge winnings at a country-house party. There were old Persian and Bokharan rugs and Worcester tea- services of glowing colour, and little treasures of antique silver that each enshrined a history or a memory in addition to its own intrinsic value. It amused her at times to think of the bygone craftsmen and artificers who had hammered and wrought and woven in far distant countries and ages, to produce the wonderful and beautiful things ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... Monthly is one of the standard publications of its class. It is not surpassed by any of its elders in the matter of chaste typography and beauty of illustration, while its literary conception and display are of intrinsic ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... hanker after. And were we to depute two special persons (to attend to the garden), the least permission given by them to any one to turn anything to improper uses, would, since there be so many things of intrinsic value, be tantamount to a reckless destruction of the gifts of heaven. So would it not be preferable to select several quiet, steady and experienced old matrons, out of those stationed in the grounds, and appoint them to put them in order ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the mystical and fantastic, these rooms possessed an intrinsic interest of their own. And some consciousness of this interest appeared to be at work within the Prophet's mind; for scarcely had he and his companion been assured of privacy, than he rose from the massive ivory chair which had been apportioned to him and from which he had made his ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... shake and shake, and yet it won't come to your mind. Now stop carping at me.—But God, how I hate you! Do you fear I shall swindle you? Do you think if you take me as I am, that that will abate you Somehow?—so sad, so intrinsic, so spiritual, yet so cautious, you Must have me all in your will and ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... which constitutes the reality of truth, it is certain that a true idea is distinguished from a false one, not so much by its extrinsic object as by its intrinsic nature. (2) If an architect conceives a building properly constructed, though such a building may never have existed, and amy never exist, nevertheless the idea is true; and the idea remains the same, whether it be put into execution or not. (69:3) On the other ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]

... denies a surviving pre-eminence to the potent moody, reverses the position between the driven and the driver. Poetry, however erratic, is less a servant of the bully Present, or pomlious Past, than History. The Muse of History has neither the same divination of the intrinsic nor the devotion to it, though truly, she has possession of all the positive matter and holds us faster ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... deep emotion. The new religion, as I have called the love of glory, is in its very essence a thing of this world, founded as it is on human esteem. The boundless curiosity of the Renaissance led back inevitably to an interest in life and to an acceptance of things for what they were,—for their intrinsic quality. The moment people stopped looking fixedly toward heaven their eyes fell upon the earth, and they began to see much on its surface that was pleasant. Their own faces and figures must have struck them as ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson

... that they are deficient in mental energy is the defect of education. I trust, therefore, that no offence will be assumed where no blame is attached. It has been a point much disputed, whether there be really an original and intrinsic difference in the mental powers of the two sexes, and it has been of course differently decided by the respective disputants. With this I shall have nothing to do; but these things are certain; that the minds of both are capable of much greater activity and more important ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... nations were to have lost the war it is utterly inconceivable that they would ever have defaulted upon that particular portion of their debt, because, being their foreign debt, it has a special standing and intrinsic security. ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... which was found engraved on a stone in the grove of the goddess Dea Dia, a few miles outside of Rome. This hymn the priests sang at the May festival of the goddess, when the farmers brought them the first fruits of the earth. It has no intrinsic literary merit, but it carries us back beyond the great wars with Carthage for supremacy in the western Mediterranean, beyond the contest with Pyrrhus for overlordship in Southern Italy, beyond the struggle for life with the Samnites in Central Italy, beyond even the founding ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... inquiring what is the best government possible, and it is admitted to be that in which the citizens are happy; and that, as we have already said, it is impossible to obtain happiness without virtue; it follows, that in the best-governed states, where the citizens are really men of intrinsic and not relative goodness, none of them should be permitted to exercise any mechanic employment or follow merchandise, as being ignoble and destructive to virtue; neither should they be husband-[1329a] ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle

... discriminating than they, has thus far failed to recognize, and in which, therefore, as by "right of discovery," they have a sort of proprietary interest. This, at least, is evident: our preference is not determined altogether by the intrinsic worth of the song; the mind is active, not passive, and gives to the music something from itself,—"the consecration and the ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... without the other. It is only when the two branches fully co-operate and supplement each other that "Biogeny" (or the science of the genesis of life in the widest sense) attains to the rank of a philosophic science. The connection between them is not external and superficial, but profound, intrinsic, and causal. This is a discovery made by recent research, and it is most clearly and correctly expressed in the comprehensive law which I have called "the fundamental law of organic evolution," or ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... transitions from one form to the other; and when a tissue is homogeneous it is much stouter. However, whether the drama should be written in prose is only a secondary question. The rank of a work is certain to be fixed, not according to its form, but according to its intrinsic value. In questions of this sort, there is only one solution. There is but one weight that can turn the scale in the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... of seventeen, and, in judging of their place in poetry, one is apt to be influenced by one's first feeling of amazement. Is it possible that the Rowley poems may owe much of their present distinction to the early astonishment that a boy should have written them, albeit they have great intrinsic excellencies such as may insure them a high place when the romance, intertwined with their history, has been long forgotten? But Chatterton is more talked of than read, and this has been so from the first. The antiques are all but unknown; certain of the acknowledged poems are remembered, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... be more suited for breakfast, luncheon, or supper dishes than to precede a heavy dinner, such, for instance, as the preparations of oysters when they have been also served before soup; but the recipes are included here for their intrinsic worth. ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... unless he be esteemed a gentleman, not to be ashamed, not to conceal the old family circumstances, not at any rate to be silent, is difficult. And the difficulty is certainly not less if fortunate circumstances rather than hard work and intrinsic merit have raised above his natural place an aspirant to high social position. Can it be expected that such a one when dining with a duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or bring into the light of day his grandfather's ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... muslins, and shawls and laces of very great value. Eighty thousand louis d'or in ready money; a service of gold plate of twenty covers, which formerly belonged to the Kings of France; two small boxes full of diamonds and brilliants, the intrinsic worth of which was estimated at forty-eight millions of livres—and a great number of jewels; among others, the crown diamond, called here the Regents', and in your country the Pitt Diamond, fell, with other riches, into the hands of the captors. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... opinions on the subject; one that it was a most generous thing in the Sawyer girls to take one of Aurelia's children to educate, the other that the education would be bought at a price wholly out of proportion to its intrinsic value. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... superiority to mankind which was the crown of their complacent brows. Eclipsed as they may be in the gross appreciation of the world by other people, who excel in this and that accomplishment, persons that nourish Nice Feelings and are intimate with the Fine Shades carry their own test of intrinsic value. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Moreover, He made, besides this, the diaphragm and the viscera and set up the bones of the breast and latticed them with the ribs." Q "How many ventricles are there in a man's head?" "Three, which contain five faculties, styled the intrinsic senses, to wit, common sense, imagination, the thinking faculty, perception and memory." Q "Describe to me the configuration of the bones."—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... been defined as one based on agriculture, traditional and essentially unchanging. It has needed no toleration and displayed no toleration for novelty and strangeness. Its beliefs have been on such a nature as to justify and sustain itself, and it has had an intrinsic hostility to any other beliefs. The God of its community has been a jealous god even when he was only a tribal and local god. Only very occasionally in history until the coming of the modern period do we find any human community relaxing from this ancient ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... In respect of the intrinsic character of the world-content thus perceived, Rudolf Steiner called this mode of perception, Imaginative perception, or, simply, Imagination. By so doing he invested this word with its due ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... poet—and the fact that I was interested in the ring of every phrase, that I dreaded the obvious in prose if not in plot, shows throughout. Probably the peculiar affection I feel for it depends more upon its age than upon any intrinsic merit. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... which were very foreign to the proud youth, had there been any other resource. But there was none, now or afterwards. Even when the young man, driven to reflection and insight by intolerable miseries, had begun to recognize the worth of his surly Rhadamanthine Father, and the intrinsic wisdom of much that he had meant with him, the Father hardly ever could, or could only by fits, completely recognize the Son's worth. Rugged suspicious Papa requires always to be humored, cajoled, even when our feeling towards him is genuine and loyal. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... Mollyborough, an absentee nobleman, and proprietor of the Tullystretchem estate. That the said Cornelius Dalton entered upon the farm of Cargah, with a handsome capital and abundant stock, as became a man bent on improving it, for both the intrinsic and external edification and comfort of himself and family. That the rent was originally very high; and, upon complaint of this, several well indited remonstrances, urged with most persuasive and enthusiastic eloquence, as the inditer hereof can testify, were most insignificantly and superciliously ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... merry light went out of the dark eyes, and Zizi said, coldly, "Then I will tell you. You are a burglar,—you did take valuables from Mr. Crane's house,—at least they were valuable to you, though perhaps of small intrinsic worth." ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells

... spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... arising upon the man, hath made day-light in his soul, and by these divine discoveries hath taught him to make the true parallel betwixt things that differ, and to put a just value upon them according to their intrinsic worth. But this divine illumination doth not consist in a mere notion of such things in the head, nor doth it subsist in enlightening the mind; but in such an impression of God upon the soul, as transforms and changes the heart into his ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... "Iliad"—this chef-d' oeuvre that is to be equitably rewarded—is really above price, that we do not know how to appraise it. If the public, who are free to purchase it, refuse to do so, it is clear that, the poem being unexchangeable, its intrinsic value will not be diminished; but that its exchangeable value, or its productive utility, will be reduced to zero, will be nothing at all. Then we must seek the amount of wages to be paid between infinity on the one ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... districts. Why particular trades settled in particular places it is often difficult to say; but one thing is certain, that when a trade has settled in any one spot, it is very difficult for another to oust it—impossible unless the second place possesses some very great intrinsic advantage. Commerce is curiously conservative in its homes, unless it is imperiously obliged to migrate. Partly from this cause, and partly from others, there are whole districts in England which cannot ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot

... ambiguity is often occasioned by confounding the intrinsic nature of an action, as determined by its consequence, with the motives of the actor, involving moral guilt or innocence. If poison be given with a view to destroy another, and it cures him of disease, the poisoner is guilty, but the act is beneficent in its results. If medicine ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... inventor! What a great magnetizer must he be that can create a Claparon and hit upon expedients never tried before! Do you know the moral of it all? Our age is no better than we are; we live in an era of greed; no one troubles himself about the intrinsic value of a thing if he can only make a profit on it by selling it to somebody else; so he passes it on to his neighbor. The shareholder that thinks he sees a chance of making money is just as covetous as the founder that offers him the opportunity ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... both on British and on American public opinion was altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic importance. The inequality in strength of the opposing frigates was not understood, and any defeat of the mistress of the seas seemed an event of considerable significance. The Americans soon met with other similar successes. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... void created by any man's death is by no means proportionate to his intrinsic merits. So it happened that the loss of Royston Keene was felt more than he deserved. Far and wide over the surface of the world's sea the circles spread from the spot where his life went down. He was ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... melange the pigeonholes of an African's brain must contain-fear and respect, strongly mingled with clear estimate of intrinsic character of individuals and a ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... have to ask ourselves whether, in any sense at all, there is such a thing as matter. Is there a table which has a certain intrinsic nature, and continues to exist when I am not looking, or is the table merely a product of my imagination, a dream-table in a very prolonged dream? This question is of the greatest importance. For if we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects, we cannot be sure of the ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... things—the hatchet or axe on the chopping-block, the tin pans sunning at the side door, a stray garment bleaching on the grass, a hoe, rake, shovel, or a bag of early potatoes, that tempted him most sorely; and these appealed to him not so much for their intrinsic value as because they were so excellently adapted to swapping. The swapping was really the enjoyable part of the procedure, the theft was only a sad but necessary preliminary; for if Abner himself had been a man of sufficient property to carry ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... are neither gold nor good paper, but are a kind of fiat currency, having no intrinsic character, being cheap, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... of the Mint reports that at the time of the passage of the law of 1878 directing this coinage the intrinsic value of the dollars thus coined was 94-1/4 cents each, and that on the 31st day of July, 1886, the price of silver reached the lowest stage ever known, so that the intrinsic or bullion price of our standard silver dollar ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... thoughts were always of others, and she was the one human being everybody had agreed to love. In the village in which she lived wealth counted for naught. She belonged to the aristocracy of poetry, beauty, and intrinsic worth, and her people knew ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... Intolerant netolerema. Intoxicate ebriigi. Intoxicated ebria. Intoxication ebrieco. Intractable nedresebla. Intransitive netransitiva. Intrepid kuragxega. Intricate malsimpla. Intrigue intrigi. Intrinsic vera. Introduce prezenti, enkonduki. Introduction enkonduko. Introduction (preface) antauxparolo. Intruder trudulo. Intrusion trudo. Intrust komisii. Inundate superakvi. Inure kutimigi. Inutility senutilo. Invade enpenetri. Invalid nula. Invalid malsanetulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... large, were never estimated by intrinsic worth, but as tokens of God's working in the minds of His people, and of His gracious working with and through His servant; and, for this reason, a thousand pounds caused no more sincere praise to God and no ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... Wilson was induced to publish the poem, but more, we understand, on the ground of radical sympathies in Mr. Fox and the author than on that of its intrinsic worth. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... English—never in any language in convenient text-book form. This publication, then, should meet with an enthusiastic reception among students and amateurs of art, not so much, however, because it is the only book of its kind, as for its intrinsic merit and ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... presented and to which we have been long accustomed, loses its value in our eyes, and is in a little time despised and neglected. We likewise judge of objects more from comparison than from their real and intrinsic merit; and where we cannot by some contrast enhance their value, we are apt to overlook even what is essentially good in them. These qualities of the mind have an effect upon joy as well as pride; and it is remarkable, that goods which ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... would not take the trouble outwardly to underestimate himself. Closely allied to this was his habit of truthfulness. This was not a blatant bluntness that irritated the hearer but a habit of valuing persons and things at their intrinsic worth, a habit of mental honesty as bizarre to Rhoda and John as was ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... to eleven Irish tunes, of which the famous "Callino Casturame" (Cailin og a stuir me) is still fresh. Irish dances were extremely popular at the English court from 1600 to 1603 and were introduced into the Masks. Shakespeare's "intrinsic friend," John Dowland of Dublin, was one of the greatest lutenists in Europe from 1590 to 1626. In the dedication of a song "to my loving countryman, Mr. John Foster the Younger, merchant of Dublin in Ireland," Dowland sufficiently indicates his nationality, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... difficult, indeed, to fix a standard of local preference on account of the one, or of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of either or of both on account of causes not intrinsic, but originating from those very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in consequence of their ostensible contribution. If the masses were independent, sovereign bodies, who were to provide for a federative treasury by distinct ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... of the late continental convention[2] should have seized the happy opportunity of prohibiting for ever this cruel species of reprobated villainy.—That they did not do so, will for ever diminish the luster of their other proceedings, so highly extolled, and so justly distinguished for their intrinsic value. Let us for a moment contrast the sentiments and actions of the Europeans on this subject, with those of our own countrymen. In France the warmest and most animated exertions are making, in order to introduce ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... grown, or can ever grow. The farmhouse fronted fully on this garden, and a magnificent "Glory" rose covered it from its deep black oaken porch to its highest gable, wreathing it with hundreds of pale golden balls of perfume. A real "old" rose it was, without any doubt of its own intrinsic worth and sweetness,—a rose before which the most highly trained hybrids might hang their heads for shame or wither away with envy, for the air around it was wholly perfumed with its honey-scented nectar, distilled from peaceful years upon years of sunbeams and stainless dew. The girl, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... of many a tangled problem; the philanthropist finds in it direction and counsel. A novel written with a purpose, of which never for an instant does the author lose sight, it is yet absorbing in its interest. It reveals the narrow motives and the intrinsic selfishness of certain grades of social life; the corruption of business methods; the 'false, fairy gold,' of fashionable charities, and 'advanced' thought. Margaret Wentworth is a typical New England girl, reflective, absorbed, full of passionate and repressed ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... the few necessaries which it was thought proper the Countess should take with her, and which Janet, with speed and dexterity, formed into a small bundle, not forgetting to add such ornaments of intrinsic value as came most readily in her way, and particularly a casket of jewels, which she wisely judged might prove of service in some future emergency. The Countess of Leicester next changed her dress for one which Janet usually wore upon any brief journey, for they judged it ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... tells him of the condition which the gods impose on him if he should attempt to rescue Eurydice from the shades. Left to himself, Orpheus discusses the question of the rescue in a recitative of great intrinsic power, which shows at a glance how far Gluck had already distanced his predecessors in variety and dramatic strength. The second act takes place in the underworld. The chorus of Furies is both picturesque and effective, and the barking ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... for fear of danger, and the Woman, as it so often happens, saved the man.[70] Attorney-General Banks thus set forth the opinion of the Government, and the consequent "decision" of the Judges. He rested the right of levying Ship-money on the "intrinsic, absolute authority of the King." There was no Higher Law in Old England in 1634! Banks said, "this power [of arbitrary and irresponsible taxation] is innate in the person of an absolute King, and in the persons of the Kings of England. All-magistracy it is ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... you are natural judges of the difficulties which beset us, and they are doubtless greater than I can even fancy or forbode. Let me, for the sake of argument, admit all you say against our enterprise, and a great deal more. Your proof of its intrinsic impossibility shall be to me as cogent as my own of its theological advisableness. Why, then, should I be so rash and perverse as to involve myself in trouble not properly mine? Why go out of my own place? Why so headstrong and reckless as to lay up for myself miscarriage and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... farther, that they have both an extrinsic and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft with them as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War)? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which the Netherland ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... other hand, when we pass from external conditions to intrinsic purport, nothing shows better the difference between Theocritus and Canticles than the fact that the Hebrew poem has been so susceptible of allegorization. Though the religious, symbolical interpretation of the Song be far from ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... staying in the house of that lady of whom I have spoken before, [4] it was necessary for me to be very watchful over myself, and keep continually in mind the intrinsic vanity of all the things of this life, because of the great esteem I was held in, and of the praises bestowed on me. There was much there to which I might have become attached, if I had looked only to myself; but I ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... suffocated with the supreme anguish of their utterance. As she heard it, the generosity, the faith, the inherent justice, and the intrinsic sweetness that were latent in her beneath the negligence and the chillness of external semblance rose at once to reject the baser, to accept the nobler, belief offered to her choice. She had lived much ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... Palazzo Spada, to see the famous Spada Pompey, said to be the very statue at the base of which Caesar fell. I was pleased to find, contrary to my expectations, that this statue has great intrinsic merit, besides its celebrity, to recommend it. The extremities of the limbs have a certain clumsiness which may perhaps be a feature of resemblance, and not a fault of the sculptor; but the attitude is noble, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... habituate ourselves to live in that Center of the Innermost where conditions do not exist, the more we shall find ourselves gaining control over outward conditions, because the stream of conditioned life flows out from the Center of Unconditioned Life, and therefore this intrinsic principle of Worship has in it the promise both of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Only we must remember that the really availing worship is that of the Undifferentiated Source because It is the Source, and not as a backhanded way of ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward

... concerning presents. At the last session, the refined Madame de D——- was the first speaker; and in a graceful address, which testified to the nobility of her sentiments, she set out to demonstrate that most of the time the gifts of love had no intrinsic value. The author replied that all lovers had their portraits taken. A lady objected that a portrait was invested capital, and care should always be taken to recover it for a second investment. But suddenly a gentleman of Provence rose to deliver a philippic against ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac

... songster. He perches upon the fences and upon the trees by the roadside, and, spreading his tail, gives forth his harsh strain, which may be roughly worded thus: fscp fscp, fee fee fee. Like all sounds associated with early summer, it soon has a charm to the ear quite independent of its intrinsic merits. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... do not include pictures in the term bric-a-brac. There ought to be pictures in every home for their intrinsic value. Fortunately they take up little room and are easily kept in order. Many of us do not agree about pictures. Most Americans who buy oil paintings advertise their want of cultivation in their choice, and even those who rigidly confine themselves to engravings and photographs of the old ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... which one is irresistibly impelled is that we have a kleptomaniac in our midst. It is a peculiarity of kleptomania, as you are no doubt aware, that the subject is unable to differentiate between the intrinsic values of objects. He will purloin an old coat as readily as a diamond ring, or a tobacco pipe costing but a few shillings with the same eagerness as a purse of gold. The fact that this manuscript of mine could be of no possible value to any outside person ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... strictly literary qualities. The author was a busy man, immersed all his life in the practical affairs of administration, and too full of his subject to be careful of strict correctness of style or minute accuracy of expression. Yet, so great is the intrinsic value of his observations, and so attractive are the sincerity and sympathy with which he discusses a vast range of topics, that the reader refuses to be offended by slight formal defects in expression or arrangement, and willingly yields ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman



Words linked to "Intrinsic" :   constitutional, intimate, inbuilt, internal, built-in, inner, intrinsical, intrinsic fraud, extrinsic, essential, anatomy, general anatomy, unalienable, intrinsic factor, inherent, integral



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