"Misapplication" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adhered "to their unfaithful fingers." While Lecky eloquently praises the monks for their beautiful deeds of charity, "following all the windings of the poor man's grief," still he condones in the strongest terms the action of Henry VIII. in transferring the monastic funds to his own treasury: "No misapplication of this property by private persons could produce as much evil ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... I will, however, admit that this misleading adjective comes as a boon in the discourse I am now meditating. Since, returning to my old theme of the Garden of Life, I find that the misapplication of that word Hanging, and its original literal suggestion, lends added significance to this allegoric dictum: Of all the Gardens of Life the best worth cultivating are often the Hanging Ones. Yes! Hanging ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... on the beauties and defects of this poem, than we are afraid will be agreeable either to the partial or the indifferent; not only because we look upon it as a misapplication, in some degree, of very extraordinary talents, but because we cannot help considering it as the foundation of a new school, which may hereafter occasion no little annoyance both to us and to the public. Mr Scott has hitherto filled the whole stage himself; and the very ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... is almost an affront. Every merchant, every master-manufacturer, every dealer, if at all rich, is an Esquire; squires' sons must be gentlemen, and squires' wives and daughters ladies. If this were all; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of words, the evil would not be great; but, unhappily, words lead to acts and produce things; and the 'young gentleman' is not easily to be moulded into a tradesman or a working farmer. And yet the world is too small to hold so many gentlemen and ladies. ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... bucolic and erotic delicacy in written poetry is correlative with that softness in statuary, music and the kindred arts, and even in manners and institutions, which distinguished the epoch to which I now refer. Nor is it the poetical faculty itself, or any misapplication of it, to which this want of harmony is to be imputed. An equal sensibility to the influence of the senses and the affections is to be found in the writings of Homer and Sophocles: the former, especially, has clothed sensual and pathetic images with ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and move. They are essentially the same as those of imperialists in other countries. Their philosophy of history assumes an endless series of wars, due to the inevitable expansion of rival States. Their ethics means a belief in force and a disbelief in everything else. Their science is a crude misapplication of Darwinism, combined with invincible ignorance of the true bearings of science upon life, and especially of those facts and deductions about biological heredity which, once they are understood, will make it plain that war degrades the ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... character, he was perhaps the most patriotic of Roman emperors, and the purest from all taint of corrupt or indirect ends. Peculation, embezzlement, or misapplication of the public funds, were universally corrected: provincial oppressors were exposed and defeated: the taxes and tributes were diminished; and the public expenses were thrown as much as possible upon the public estates, and in some instances upon his own private estates. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... insisted much on the misapplication of public money by the British ministry. Great pains were taken to inform the colonists of the large sums annually bestowed on pensioned favorites and for the various purposes of bribery. Their passions were inflamed by high-colored ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Walter Scott we know not what to select—it is all good. The effect of the fire on the town, and the description of a fireman in his official apparel, may be quoted as amusing specimens of the MISAPPLICATION of the style and metre of Mr. Scott's ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... (Vol. viii., p. 56.).—One instance of the misapplication of psalmody must suggest itself at once to the readers of "N. & Q.," I mean the melancholy episode in the history of the Martyr King, thus related ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... those acts. The Board shall apply the monies received by them under this Act in liquidation of the principal and interest of the monies so borrowed, but no creditor shall be concerned to see to such application, or be liable for any misapplication of the monies received or borrowed by the Board in ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... not one could be found possessing a knowledge of agriculture.[81] What they did not know, they could not teach. The misapplication of labor was prodigious: they acquired the art of cultivation by the slow process of experiment; and thus they came to a conclusion, only lately obsolete—that an Australasian husbandman is spoiled by the agricultural ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... have not given him a due and proper share of power and influence in the concerns of the college, and that they have improperly used their own power and influence in patronizing and propagating in the college particular theological opinions. The alleged misapplication of funds [paid for preaching] is stated as an instance of such misconduct. These opinions, it would seem, are particularly disagreeable to the president. The whole dispute is made to have a bearing on the president personally. Should ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... principles on which the origin and present appearance of suns and worlds are explained, must be set down as mere bald assertion, without a particle of evidence. In other words we should term it arrant fudge.' The perversion at this point is involved in a willful misapplication of the word 'principles.' I say 'wilful' because, at page 63, I am particularly careful to distinguish between the principles proper, Attraction and Repulsion, and those merely resultant sub-principles which control the universe in detail. To ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... slaveowners are quite likely to imagine so), it is curious enough that there is hardly any alloy whatever of cringing servility, or even humility, in the good manners of the blacks, but a rather courtly and affable condescension which, combined with their affection for, and misapplication of, long words, produces an exceedingly comical effect. Old-house Molly, after congratulating herself, with many thanks to heaven, for having spared her to see 'massa's' wife and children, drew forward her young companion, and informed me she was one of her numerous grandchildren. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... But the newly-lighted flame also cast its shadow: and this shadow was none other than that superstition already referred to, which popular poetry set up in opposition to individual poetry, and thus enlarged the comprehension of the people's soul to that of the people's mind. By the misapplication of a tempting analogical inference, people had reached the point of applying in the domain of the intellect and artistic ideas that principle of greater individuality which is truly applicable only in the domain of the will. The masses ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the subtler and more insidious crimes against the political state, it is enough to say that graft has become a science in city, state and nation. Losses by such misapplication of public funds—piled Pelion on Ossa—no longer run in the millions but the hundreds of millions. Our city governments are, in many instances, foul cancers on the body politic; and for us to boast of having solved the problem of local self-government is ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... supposed to have come from Asia. The French named it coq d'Inde,[18] the "Indian cock," meaning American, but the ordinary hearer imagined d'Inde meant from Hindustan. The blunder arose from that misapplication of the word "Indian," first made by Columbus, as ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... profession, in which, amongst so many competitors, in spite of his great talents, he can be but moderately successful. The loss to him is great, but to the country it is greater. We thus, by a destructive misapplication of talent which our institutions create, exchange a profound philosopher ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... without ideas diseases (so called) diseases really so Newton, his query about elastic fluid misapplied even his conjectures important discovers the laws of sound his reason why the crystalline is densest in the middle knew not the cause of gravitation Nonnaturals, misapplication of ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... derivable from created things, through the eyes, through the nostrils, through the ears, through the palate, and through the nerves. He had seen the anguish, moreover, of those who suffered from the deprivation of either sense, or of those who were tortured by the result of their own heinous misapplication. He had seen this in the insanity of Tiberius, in the torments of Agrippa, in the sadness of Milton, in the desolation of Mirabeau, and even in the philosophic sorrows of Beethoven. The emperor, the tetrarch, the poet, the demagogue, and the musician, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... performed. The mistakes likewise of the Greeks in respect to antient terms, which they strangely perverted, will be exhibited in many instances: and much true history will be ascertained from a detection of this peculiar misapplication. It is a circumstance of great consequence, to which little attention has been paid. Great light however will accrue from examining this abuse, and observing the particular mode of error: and the only way of obtaining an insight must be by an etymological process, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... retained of a visit she paid us when I was eight years of age. She was a maiden lady somewhat advanced in years, possessed of a very kind heart and many excellent qualities; but the name of Patience seemed to me a misapplication in her case, for she certainly possessed but a small quantity of that valuable article. Early in life she had passed through many trials, which might have tended to sour her disposition. I remember that during the visit referred to, my mother had occasion to spend a day from home, leaving ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... prove itself to itself only by the strange misapplication which leads it to crown some absurd person with the laurels of success while insulting genius—the only strong-hold which power cannot touch. The knighting of Caligula's horse, an imperial farce, has been, and always will be, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... not grasp the full force of the misapplication of the parable. Mr. Price could not refrain from laughing. The others joined with him when the humor of the reply dawned upon them. Pointing scornfully at the fat Sheriff, they shouted gleefully, while Slim blushed ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... the impress of the Almighty's image, and perhaps the greatest villain is not farther removed from the most upright man than the petty offender; for the moral forces keep even pace with the powers of the mind, and the greater the capacity bestowed on man, the greater and more enormous becomes his misapplication of it; the more responsible is he ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... as good as a circus. But, admire the performance as I did, I could not appreciate the song. I could hardly keep from laughing when some of the cadenzas imitated the warbling of birds. I felt all the time that it was a misapplication of the human voice. When it came to the turn of a male singer I was considerably relieved. I specially liked the tenor voices which had more of human flesh and blood in them, and seemed less like the disembodied lament ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... that can and should aim at a state of mind far above that which now contents them. It is my view that our only hope of social progress lies in the possibility of this class being stirred to effort. The tendency of their present education—a misapplication of the word—must be counteracted. They must be taught to value supremely quite other attainments than those which help them to earn higher wages. Well, there is my thought. I wish to communicate it to men who have a care for more than food and clothing, and who will exert ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... for several less disbursements, had of Mr Grand only the sum of 244,285 livres, equal to the sum of ten thousand two hundred and sixty one pounds ten shillings sterling, which is of itself a demonstration, that there was no misapplication of the public monies, since Mr Lee has written, that he could not live under three thousand pounds sterling per annum himself. Whether or not extravagant prices were given for any of the articles purchased, will be an ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... Paymaster of the Forces; and the dough she had intended to swallow knives and eat fire at wakes and fairs gravely responded to as "an honourable and gallant member!" Whereupon, who can wonder at the amazement and indignation of Mother Nature, and that, with a keen sense of the misapplication of her skulls, she sometimes abuses Mother Fortune in good set terms, mingling with her reproaches the strongest reflections ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... satisfied of the correctness of Mr. Merritt's statements and conclusion. The question then arose in my own mind, whether, after I had so much to do in the establishment of responsible government and was morally so largely responsible for it, I should silently witness its misapplication, and see a man stricken down for maintaining, as the representative of his Sovereign, what Reformers had maintained in all previous years—that the patronage of the Crown, like the administration of justice, should be administered impartially according to merit, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... there be real affection in his heart, a man cannot,—such is the bad state to which the world has brought itself,—cannot more effectually show his contempt for a brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing him as "friend." Especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which is sure to animate peculiar sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves from the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some dog-kennel ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
