"Presumptuously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But though there had been room for such stratagem against savage and unskilled men, not even [Ariovistus] himself expected that thereby our armies could be entrapped. That those who ascribed their fear to a pretence about the [deficiency of] supplies and the narrowness of the roads, acted presumptuously, as they seemed either to distrust their general's discharge of his duty, or to dictate to him. That these things were his concern; that the Sequani, the Leuci, and the Lingones were to furnish the corn; and that ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... forgetfulness) much improved, and I retain my former impression that the whole discussion on the Australian flora is admirably good and original. I know you will understand and not object to my thus expressing my opinion (for one must form one) so presumptuously. I have no criticisms, except perhaps I should like you somewhere to say, when you refer to me, that you refer only to the notice in the "Linnean Journal;" not that, on my deliberate word of honour, I expect that you will think more favourably of the whole than ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Brewster adds his testimony as follows: "Geology does not pretend to give us any information respecting the process by which the nucleus of the earth was formed. Some speculative astronomers indeed have presumptuously embarked in such an inquiry; but there is not a trace of evidence that the solid nucleus of the globe was formed by secondary causes, such as the aggregation of attenuated matter diffused through space; and the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... as are too dazling to be long beheld; and if too daringly you gazed, you would feel the Misfortune of the loss of Sight, much greater than the want of it: And you would acknowledge, that in too presumptuously seeing, you would be blinder then, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... punished for "presumptuously grasping at immortality for himself and mankind, on the suggestion of an evil power, instead of waiting Ahura's good time". Professor Moulton wonders if this story, which he endeavours to reconstruct, "owed ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... to offer advice about the holidays, he might seem to be stepping presumptuously outside his own province; but that plea for reticence is one we cannot admit. Term and holidays alike are an education, and they interact upon one another so closely that the schoolmaster not only may, but must, form his judgment upon both. It is not for us to compile a detailed "Parent's ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... forbidden.] Indeed, it was a law of the Church that martyrdom was not to be unnecessarily sought after, and the wisdom of this provision was more than once shown by the failure under torture of those who had presumptuously brought upon themselves the sufferings they had not strength to bear, and which did not come to them in the course of ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper season, presumptuously disturbed the service of the assembly, and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they introduced, particularly into the apostolic church of Corinth, a long and melancholy train of disorders. [107] As the institution of prophets became useless, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... that it was none other than Avice whom he was seeing interred; HIS Avice, as he now began presumptuously to call her. Presently the little group withdrew from before ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... charge of impiety. For instance, he had formed a plan—and he had even employed engineers to take preliminary steps in reference to the execution of it—for making a canal from the River Wolga to the River Don, thus presumptuously and impiously undertaking to turn the streams one way, when Providence had designed them to flow in another! Absurd as many of these representations were, they had great influence with the mass of ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... those difficulties, which would persuade a wise man to suspend his judgment, and induce a jury of philosophers to hesitate for ever as to the verdict they would pronounce. They look only at the external character of the act by which a man honours or disgraces himself. They decide presumptuously and in a lump, This man is a murderer, a hero, a coward, the slave of avarice, or the votary of philanthropy; and then, surveying the outside of his head, undertake to find in him the configuration that should indicate these dispositions, and must be found ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... monkeys which tenant the higher portion of the rocks, are declared by Arab tradition to be the remnant of the once powerful tribe of Ad, changed into apes by the displeasure of Heaven, when "the King of the World," Sheddad, renowned in eastern story, presumptuously dared to form a garden which should rival Paradise. The prophet Hud remonstrated; but his remonstrances went for nothing, and the indignant monarch and his courtiers suddenly found their visages simious, their tongues chattering, and their lower portions furnished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various |
