"Eclectic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... force in his work with the young artists he assisted are hard to describe. You ask me whether he had a certain method. I reply, he abhorred methods in the modern sense of the term. His work was eclectic in the highest sense. In one way he could not be considered a teacher at all. He charged no fees and had irregular and somewhat unsystematic classes. In another sense he was the greatest of teachers. Sit at the piano and I will indicate the general plan pursued by Liszt ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... chiefly stimulated by the writings of Cicero, who, though in fact an eclectic, yet, by his habit of setting forth the opinions of different schools, without coming to a decision between them, exercised the influence of a skeptic. Next in importance came Seneca, and the few ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... successful work of fiction, was written in the winter of 1830. Like his other novels, it is discursive and formless; but is considered remarkable alike for its keenness of analysis and its exposition of the acid, materialistic philosophy of its author. A friend of that other eclectic, Merimee, Stendhal was not much thought of in his own time until the profound praises of Balzac drew all eyes upon him; and in much more recent times interest in the best of his writings has revived on account of his keen and impartial analysis of whatever subject he touched ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... going, for Jelly was an "eclectic" and probably would refuse to consult with him. The matter seemed urgent, however, and he followed the servant. The case, he found on examination, was serious and at a critical stage. It was an affair of mismanaged confinement. Jelly, Sommers could see, was brutally ignorant. The woman, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... father was a distinguished miniature painter, and gave his son a careful education, training him to copy the masterpieces of Michael Angelo and Raphael from his twelfth year. Unfortunately he remained a copyist and an eclectic. He drew well, learnt chiaroscuro from studying Correggio, and colouring from analysing Titian. He was acquainted with the best technical processes in oil and fresco. All that teaching could do for a man was done, and to a great extent in ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... painting for the performance of another is almost impossible. Each successive step he made was but a liberation of his genius, a stride toward the full expression of the beautiful he saw and served. He was never an eclectic. The masterpieces of other artists taught him how ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... in saying this of Titian, I am returning to the old eclectic theories of Bologna; for all those eclectic theories, observe, were based, not upon an endeavour to unite the various characters of nature (which it is possible to do), but the various narrownesses of taste, which it is impossible ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... which these reflections on the feminine virtue lead to? Here they are; but the last two maxims have been given us by an eclectic philosopher of the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... refusing to identify mental science with physiology, and applied his remarkable powers of patient and searching thought to the solution of questions in morals and aesthetics. The school of Cousin has been named eclectic; it should rather be named spiritualist. The tendencies to which it owed its origin extended beyond philosophy, and are apparent in the literary ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... interest, trace Titian's noble and perfectly consistent career from its commencement to its close, more reason to congratulate themselves than on this circumstance, that in youth and earlier manhood fortune and his own success kept him from visiting Rome. Though his was not the eclectic tendency, the easily impressionable artistic temperament of a Sebastiano Luciani—the only eclectic, perhaps, who managed all the same to prove and to maintain himself an artist of the very first rank—if Titian had in earlier ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... view or not—whether it is workable—the future will show; I am here discussing tendencies, not their ultimate outcome. But it would be too much to expect that this or any other eclectic policy should be ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works: "Cain," an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of "Sordello": "Robin Hood," a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer, and Morris: in Monmouth, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many masters; in the first draft of The King's Pardon, a tragedy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... commentaries thereon to prove their interpretations, and also wrote commentaries on the Brahmasutra, the classical exposition of the philosophy of the Upani@sads. In addition to the works of these Vai@s@nava thinkers there sprang up another class of theistic works which were of a more eclectic nature. These also had their beginnings in periods as old as the Upani@sads. They are known as the S'aiva and Tantra thought, and are dealt with in the second volume of ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... teachings of the Sceptical School were taken directly from the Academy, belonging to those doctrines advocated in the Academy before the eclectic dogmatic tendency introduced by Antiochus. In fact, Sextus himself claims a close relation between the Middle Academy and Pyrrhonism.[1] Aenesidemus, although he was a Sceptic, belonged to the Academy, ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... my hat-box. A strange state to fall into? Yes, collecting is a mania, a form of madness. And it is the most pleasant form of madness in the whole world. It can bring us nearer to real happiness than can any form of sanity. The normal, eclectic man is never happy, because he is always craving something of another kind than what he has got. The collector, in his mad concentration, wants only more and more of what he has got already; and what he has got already he cherishes with a passionate joy. I cherished ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... by an aged schoolmaster in defiance of legislation which barred the classics and that the little log school in which he taught is the first and only shrine in Kentucky to the illustrious educator, Dr. William Holmes McGuffey, who compiled the Eclectic Readers which gave the children of America a different, brighter outlook upon life back in those dark days of Indian warfare. The McGuffey Log School shrine stands not far from the mouth of Big Sandy River in Boyd County. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... not that Pierre Gringoire either feared or disdained monsieur the cardinal. He had neither the weakness nor the audacity for that. A true eclectic, as it would be expressed nowadays, Gringoire was one of those firm and lofty, moderate and calm spirits, which always know how to bear themselves amid all circumstances (stare in dimidio rerum), and who are full of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... noble." And, Father Hecker was asked, whom are you going to get to write for the magazine? How many Catholic literary men and women do you know of? Prudence, therefore, stood sponsor to courage. The cautious policy of an eclectic was adopted, and for more than a year the magazine, with the exception of its book reviews, was made up of selections and translations from foreign periodicals. The late John R. G. Hassard, who had already succeeded as a journalist, was chosen by ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... the seed fell on good ground. I took in every thought. His system agreed, on the whole, perfectly with that advanced in after years by Taine, and marvellously well with that set forth in the "Essays, Speculative and Suggestive," of J. A. Symonds—that is, it was eclectic and deductive from historical periods, and not at all "rhapsodical" or merely subjective. I bought the best works, such as Kugler's, for guides, and studied hard, and frequented the Pinacothek and Glyptothek, and I may say really educated myself ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... from this study of Book I that Sigurd the Volsung has adapted the saga story to our civilization and our art, holding to the best of the old and supplementing it by new that is ever in keeping with the old. Other instances of this eclectic habit may be seen in the other three books, but we shall quote from ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... with the origin of the universe he figures less as the author of a new theory, than as already an eclectic critic of older ones, himself somewhat perplexed by theory and counter-theory. And as we find there a [7] sort of storehouse of all physical theories, so in reading the Parmenides we might think that all metaphysical questions whatever had already passed through the mind of ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... harmony of line that both the tool and finished product shared. The later period, however, presents a striking contrast. Hand-tool design, with few exceptions, continued vigorous and functional amidst the confusion of an eclectic architecture, a flurry of rival styles, the horrors of the jigsaw, and the excesses of Victorian taste. In conclusion, it would seem that whether seeking some continuous thread in the evolution of a national style, or whether appraising American contributions to technology, ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh
... in Chinese history, but it witnessed the perfection of Chinese culture, and the background of impending doom heightens the brilliancy of this literary and aesthetic life. Such a society was naturally eclectic in religion but Buddhism of the Ch'an school enjoyed consideration and contributed many landscape painters to the roll of fame. But the most eminent and perhaps the most characteristic thinker of the period was Chu-Hsi (1130-1200), the celebrated ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... clambered back into bed at a word from his father. By the side of the bed was a small library. It consisted of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Cock-House at Fellsgarth, and Newbolt's Pages from Froissart. Peter was rather eclectic in his tastes, but they were thoroughly sound. On the table were the contents of Peter's pockets, turned out nightly by the express orders of his father, for this is war-time, and the wear and tear of schoolboys' jackets is a prodigious item of expenditure. ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... (of Bordeaux). The classic Rostain, in a sublime impulse of artistic pride, volunteered to assist Monsieur Jacquemart (of Bordeaux) in his first effort, and that's how, gentlemen, I was able to-day to serve this great eclectic dinner, of which, I fear, we will alone, monsieur and myself, ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... spurner, Or the golden dreams of TURNER. Moral? Will a moral, bless us! Comes like that old shirt of NESSUS. Still, here goes! An Art-official Should be genial, but judicial. When an Art-Collection's national, It is obviously rational It should be a bit eclectic, Weeding out the crude or hectic. He who'd have his country's honour, As a liberal Art-donor, Thinks more of his country's fame Than of his particular name. Would you win true reputation As benefactor of the Nation. Trust me 'tis not "special room" Keeps that glory in full bloom. Punch is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... "Khalsa," or church. This name was assumed to express the idea that the army was composed only of the faithful; the Sikh religion being a sort of eclectic religion, chosen from Mohammedanism, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... period may be described by a single word—eclectic—and this choice by each important artist of the style he would adopt culminated in the Rococo School, which may be defined as the unusual and fantastic in art. It was characterized by good technique and ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... Our religion may be likened to a triangle.... Shint[o]ism furnishes the object, Confucianism offers the rules of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation; so you see we Japanese are eclectic in ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... (1532-1623), whose Rama-charita-manasa, a poem in Eastern Hindi on the story of Valmiki's Ramayana, has become the Bible of the North. The same influences are visible in the poems of Kabir, a Moslem by birth, who combined Hindu and Muhammadan doctrines into an eclectic monotheism, and is worshipped as an incarnation of God by his sect. He died in 1518. A kindred spirit was Nanak, the founder of the ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun"; and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'—it will do me good to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... this time that his personal name was Ammonius. We know also that early in the third century he had gathered disciples about him, and was teaching them a doctrine he called Theosophy; very properly, since it was and is the Wisdom of the gods or divine Wisdom. An eclectic system, as they say; wherein the truths in all such philosophies and religions as come handy were fitted together and set forth. But in truth all this was but the nexus of his teaching: Theosophy, then as now, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... which are certainly exaggerated, endeavoured to make Kashmir a holy land with a monopoly of the pure doctrine. Vasubandhu and Asanga appear to have broken up this isolation for they first preached the Vaibhashika doctrines in a liberal and eclectic form outside Kashmir and then by a natural transition and development went over to the Mahayana. But the Vaibhashikas did not disappear and were in existence even in the fourteenth century.[232] Their chief tenet was the real existence of external objects. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... and interesting results of that eclectic spirit which has brought into suggestive relations the different spheres of human knowledge and inquiry, is the application of geographical facts to historical interpretation. The comprehensive researches of Ritter and the scientific ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Sectis, c. viii. p. 120—144 de Herciscundis, a legal term which was applied to these eclectic lawyers: herciscere is synonymous to dividere. * Note: This word has never existed. Cujacius is the author of it, who read me words terris condi in Servius ad Virg. herciscundi, to which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of speculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum," in which the opinions of all the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... excellent pictures. Two ballet-girls by Degas, a group of shepherdesses and shepherds, in pink and blue and white beribboned silk, by Fragonard, a portrait of a woman by Bastien-Lepage, a charming Corot, and two Conder fans showed that the taste of their fortunate owner was at any rate eclectic. At the end of the room was, of all curious things, the opening into the well of a lift. The doors of it were open, though the lift itself was on some other floor. To the left of the opening stood ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... how J. F. Meckel, who was in some ways the leading comparative anatomist in Germany at this time, could be at once a transcendentalist and an opponent of Geoffroy. Meckel had a curiously eclectic mind. A disciple of Cuvier, having studied in 1804-6 the rich collections at the Museum in Paris, the translator of Cuvier's Lecons d'anatomie comparee, he earned for himself the title of the "German Cuvier," partly through the publication of his comprehensive textbook (System der vergl. ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... Mariner, edited by L. R. Gibbs, in Standard English Classics; same poem, in Pocket Classics, Eclectic English Classics, etc.; Poems, edited by J. M. Hart, in Athenaeum Press (announced, 1909); Selections, Golden Book of Coleridge, in Everyman's Library; Selections from Coleridge and Campbell, in Riverside Literature; Prose Selections (Ginn ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... of public elementary instruction is eclectic, and is, to a considerable extent, derived from four sources. The conclusions at which the present head of the department arrived during his observations and investigations of 1845, were, firstly: That the machinery, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... different letters from Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, and up-town and down-town in New York, giving the best-selling books of the month in all those places, and compiled an eclectic list from them, which she gave to her bookseller with orders to get them as nearly of the same sizes and colors as possible. He followed her instructions with a great deal of taste and allowed her twenty-five per cent. off, which she applied toward ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... of as the Wisdom, the Gnosis, the Theosophia, and some, in different ages of the world, have so desired to emphasise their belief in this unity of religions, that they have preferred the eclectic name of Theosophist ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... palace are built in that eclectic style which characterises the Achaemenian period of Iranian art. The main features are borrowed from the architecture of those nations which were vassals or neighbours of the empire—Babylonia, Egypt, and Greece; but these various elements ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... union with the state raised the power of the Khalsa to the formidable height from which it has so lately fallen. Truth is the great abstraction of the Sikh creeds; and the extent to which it is at once intolerant and eclectic may be seen from the following extracts.[48] They certainly present the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... surely do; nor does the belief conflict with my religious faith. I believe in many things I could not preach from my pulpit. My congregation is not ready for broad truths. I am like an eclectic physician—I suit my treatment to my patient—I administer the old school or the new school ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
