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Misconception   Listen
noun
Misconception  n.  Erroneous conception; false opinion; wrong understanding.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Misconception" Quotes from Famous Books



... copied in creating the office of president was not the real English executive or prime minister, but the fictitious English executive, the sovereign. And this was associated in their minds with another profound misconception, which influenced all this part of their work. They thought that to keep the legislative and executive offices distinct and separate was the very palladium of liberty; and they all took it for granted, without a moment's question, that the British Constitution did ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... delay, to anticipate misconception, that her little scheme of independence did not definitely involve the assistance of another person, of the opposite sex; she was not saving up virtue to cover the expenses of a flirtation. For this there were various ...
— The American • Henry James

... I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door. Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... that "big business" had any share in influencing our Government's decision to enter the war is an insult to the President and Congress, a libel on American citizenship, and a malicious perversion or ignorant misconception of the facts. Those who continue to circulate that insinuation lay themselves open to just suspicion of their motives and should receive neither ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... perhaps, but only as an external foreign ornament, only as a parasitic growth which weakens the force of his real nature. But we must distinguish from these little affectations which arise from a misconception of the limits of individuality that effort of imitation which children and young people often exhibit in trying to copy in their own actions those peculiarities which they observe and admire in perfectly-developed persons with whom they may come in contact. They ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... as I indignantly asked myself this question, I saw a great light, and recognized that the trouble was neither with Regnier's fatuity nor with his daughter's lack of charms, but with myself, and a most unworthy misconception into which I had fallen as to the whole object and purport of this interview. What had the beauty or the lack of beauty of this girl to do with the present occasion? I was not here to render homage ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... away with the faintest sigh. The habitual look of abstraction returned to her eyes as if she had once more taken refuge in her own ideal world. Unfortunately the change did not escape either the sensitive observation or the fatuous misconception of the sagacious parent. "Ye'll be mountin' a few furbelows and fixins, Rosey, I reckon, ez only natural. Mabbee ye'll have to prink up a little now that we've got a gentleman contractor in the ship. I'll see what I kin pick up in Montgomery ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... Hooker's alleged lack of heart of his subordinate officers. And this reason is only to be found in Hooker's inability to handle so many men. All the resolutions in the world, passed under a furore of misstatement and misconception, even by such a noble body of men as Third-Corps veterans, will not re-habilitate Joseph Hooker's military character during these five days, nor make him other than a morally and intellectually impotent man from May ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... however, be no misconception on this subject. The question now is not whether Lloyd was right in wishing to add a fourth rank, armed with pikes, to the infantry formation, with the expectation of producing more effect by the shock when attacking, or opposing a greater resistance when attacked. Every officer of experience ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... before you clearly and plainly what Theosophy means, and what is the function of the Theosophical Society. For we notice very often, especially with regard to the Society, that there is a good deal of misconception touching it, and that people do not realise the object with which it exists, the work that it is intended to perform. It is very often looked upon as the expression of some new religion, as though people in becoming Theosophists must leave the religious community to which he or she may happen ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... equanimity whatever should be offered by the Emperor, either in civility or in the way of jest, and not again to disturb an understanding which might be of advantage to Christendom, by a quarrel founded upon misconception of terms or misapprehension of manners. To this prudent resolution the Count of Paris adhered during the whole evening; with some difficulty, however, since it was somewhat inconsistent with his own fiery and inquisitive temper, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... in intolerant hauteur. These dark apostrophes of his muse have attracted less attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of more tender coloring. The personal character of Chopin had something to do with this general misconception. Kind, courteous, and affable, of tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which agitated him to ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... within the borders of the Great American Desert. But settlers has swarmed upon the plains of Nebraska, and the waving fields of grain and the innumerable herds of cattle browsing on her rich pasture-land soon dispelled that misconception, and gave promise of the prosperous development which the State has since attained. Earlier than the farmer or the grazier could reach its soil, Colorado was settled by an intelligent mining population, whose industry ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... in Canada are, no doubt, very numerous; and, owing to misconception and other causes, with which the public are now acquainted, were once desirous of hoisting a new flag; but time and reflection have been at work since, and the term reformer in Canada is no longer one with which a word ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... more honour to MACAULAY'S memory," if I had omitted passages in the letters or diaries which may be said to bear the trace of intellectual narrowness, or political and religious intolerance. I cannot but think that strictures, of this nature imply a serious misconception of the biographer's duty. It was my business to show my Uncle as he was, and not as I, or any one else, would have had him. If a faithful picture of MACAULAY could not have been produced without injury to his memory, I should have ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... taken of old must be carefully examined, and if untenable, abandoned. Arguments which proved too much, which availed against any Church at all, must be given up. Popular objections, arising from ignorance or misconception, must be reduced to their true limits or laid aside. The controversy was sure to be a real one, and nothing but what was real and would stand scrutiny was ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... 'at the mild and benevolent tone in which, under the common misconception, a little anecdote, simple and harmless in itself, was uttered. Indeed, we smiled—but we trust the smile was that of a Christian—on hearing our respected and respectable contemporary doling out the mistake ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... I find the same misconception insisted on in a document much later than Lowell's essay: a leaflet by the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, contributed to a Good Citizenship Series especially designed for the enlightenment of the more ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... closely connected with the countries and nations which surrounded it that its history cannot be properly understood apart from theirs. Isolated and alone, its history is in large measure unintelligible or open to misconception. The keenest criticism is powerless to discover the principles which underlie it, to detect the motives of the policy it describes, or to estimate the credibility of the narratives in which it is contained, ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... Barrows on an archaeological expedition. And as the very name of archaeology, owing to a serious misconception incidental to human nature, is enough to deter most people from taking any further interest in our proceedings when once we got there, I may as well begin by explaining, for the benefit of those who have never been to one, the method and ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... brother-in-law of Lancaster, January 25th, 1393. This was her last recorded act, for on the third of February she was dead. (Rot. Ex. Michs, 14 R. II; Compotus Soberti de Whitteby, 1392-3, folio 19; Rot. Pat. 16 R. II, Part 3.)—Much misconception exists as to the terms of her will. She is represented by some writers as having been driven to provide for her son Richard by the purchase of the King's favour, having bequeathed all her goods to his Majesty on a species of compulsion. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... private interests alone are held by their anxious or timid possessors to be in danger, they can safely be ignored, for the concerns of the poor and oppressed are of greater importance than theirs. But I wish from the outset to prevent any misconception from arising, particularly the mistaken notion that my project, if realized, would in the least degree injure property now held by Jews. I shall therefore explain everything connected with rights ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... poet of the "Creation" wished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he supposed to be moral truth—the poet of the "Ancient Mariner" to infuse the Poetic Sentiment through channels suggested by analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception; the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the "metaphysical ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... their training, such as it is, under forms of government and amid a social order very unlike ours. Disgust at the general dirtiness and corruption of our politics, we are told, keeps all our leading men out of public life. This appears to us, we confess, a rather shallow misconception. Our politics are no dirtier or more corrupt than those of our neighbors. The famous Quam parva sapientia regitur mundus was not said in scorn by the minister of a republic, but in sober sadness by one whose dealings had been lifelong with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... commerce, and the unrestricted intercourse of men and nations with each other. If they are right, then this Bridge is a colossal blunder, and the doctrine which bids us to love our neighbors as ourselves is founded upon a misconception of ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... not know how to think," he insisted—getting along the planks; "and they will not realize that they do not know how to think. Nine-tenths of the wars in the world have arisen out of misconceptions.... Misconception is the sin and dishonour of the mind, and muddled thinking as ignoble as dirty ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... confidence in our Church. We have proved this by endeavoring to get our views fully known. And we feel grateful for the spirit of kindness towards us manifested in the action of Synod, and also in the letters received from fathers and brethren in the ministry, notwithstanding their misconception of our views. But, we have also learned, how easily our views may be mistaken. In our paper, addressed to General Synod, when discussing the difficulties in the way of the Synod's jurisdiction over churches so far removed in time, distance, and circumstances, we remarked:—'Will written correspondence ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage

... capital letter, and actions which are commonly called sinful: with murder, theft, adultery, and so forth. Much the same connexion that there is between the A, B, C and fine literature. But I believe that the misconception—it is all but universal—arises in great measure from our looking at the matter through social spectacles. We think that a man who does evil to us and to his neighbours must be very evil. So he ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... now. She felt that the Furies were pursuing her. Ah, but the end had come—come with such hideous misconception—every word spoken—and there had been so few in comparison with the immensity of the occasion—a hopeless blunder. It had been the tussle of two opposing temperaments, it was like the rasping steel ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... audacious fabrication on the occasion—there is no mystery in the case! (No. 24. p. 386.) So, to stop the current of misconception, and economise space on future occasions, I venture to repeat a few words in suggesting as a canon of criticism:—Before we censure an author or editor we should consult his ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various

... regret of the past, nor fear of the future, I believe. Strong in his prejudices, haughty and independent in his spirit, cruel in his anger,—even when unprovoked; vindictive to excess, if he through misconception supposed himself even slightly injured, pertinacious in his attacks, invincible in his aversions: the description of Menelaus in 'Homer's Iliad,' as rendered by Pope, exactly suits ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper, "hath no new authority given hereby ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... full meaning, it may be well first to meet the most common misconception about play. It is not surprising that those who have given the subject no special consideration should regard play from the ordinary adult standpoint, and think of it as entirely opposed to work, as relaxation of effort. But the play ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... been working up in England during the last few years towards this misconception in the schools. On the one hand there was the great impetus given to physical research and experimental science in recent years, so that its discoveries absorbed more and more attention, and this filtered down ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... for it in the abnormal, the chaotic, the lawless, or that which defies all reduction to order that may be depended on. This notion underlies the traditional debate between naturalism and supernaturalism.... This unhappy misconception of the relation of the natural to the supernatural has practically led the great body of uncritical thinkers into the grotesque inversion of all reason—the more law and order, the less God."—Zion's Herald, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... naturally direct our attention elsewhere. But without a desire to effect some change in or through the problem being attended to, the mind would not voluntarily make it an object of attention. The misconception as to the relation of voluntary attention to interest is seen in an illustration often given as an example of non-voluntary attention. It is said, rightly enough, that if a child is reading an interesting story, and is just at the point where the ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... A curious misconception, this. Some of the founders of Marietta acquired in 1788 a large tract west and north of their own, and as a private speculation organized the Scioto Company. Joel Barlow, the poet, was sent to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... sacred elements imparted to the material frame of the believer the germ of immortality. [489:1] Irenaeus declares that "our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possessed of the hope of eternal life." [489:2] This misconception of the ordinance was the fruitful source of superstition. The mere elements began to be regarded with awful reverence; the loss of a particle of the bread, or of a drop of the wine, was considered a tremendous desecration; and it was probably the growth of such feelings which initiated ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... the Christians' conceptions of demons. The Pagans, in fact, ascribed to their gods not only demoniac (diabolical) but also divine qualities, which the Christians absolutely denied them. Consequently they had to recognise that pagan worship to a great extent rested on a delusion, on a misconception of the essential character of the gods which were worshipped. This view was corroborated by the dogma of the fallen angels, which was altogether alien to paganism. By identifying them with the evil spirits of the Bible, demon-names were even obtained which differed ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... to find that our friend Colonel Grogg has behaved with a very undue degree of vehemence in a dispute with you last night, occasioned by what I am convinced was a gross misconception of your expressions. As the Colonel, though a military man, is not too haughty to acknowledge an error, he has commissioned me to make his apology as a mutual friend, which I am convinced you will accept from ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... at the reflection that his attitude was distinctly liable to misconception, straightened himself with perhaps too great a suddenness, while the faint amusement in his companion's face heightened his displeasure. Millicent had managed to obtain a survey of the intruders, and when sure ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... may mark as an epoch in the Girondin destinies; the rage so exasperated itself, the misconception so darkened itself. Many desert the sittings; many come to them armed. (Meillan, Memoires, pp. 85, 24.) An honourable Deputy, setting out after breakfast, must now, besides taking his Notes, see whether his Priming is ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... that spell preceded prayer in the evolution of religion proceeds upon a misconception of the process of evolution. At one time it was assumed and accepted without question that the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and all their various species, were successive stages of one process of evolution; and that the process proceeded ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons

... studies of the University Commission making an effort to meet this need. Judged from the value of the monographs hitherto produced, however, one must express the regret that these works do not measure up to the desired standard. The chief difficulty lies in the misconception that the whole matter of readjustment may be effected by using the white man only. He is to do the thinking, outline the method of attack, and direct the movement. The Negro, the other half of the equation, has not been invited to share this work and the writers making these ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... verdict, in spite of the knowledge that they would be put to death for finding it, there would have been some force in Paley's argument. But then they had not. To assume such an origin for any religion implied a total misconception of the facts. Paley assumed that the apostles resembled twelve respectable deans of Carlisle solemnly declaring, in spite of the most appalling threats, that John Wesley had been proved to have risen from the dead. Paley might plausibly ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... honour, whereas my idea had been that that was the only possible way in which I, a political outlaw, could venture to visit Karlsruhe, though my object was a purely professional one. I could not help smiling at this strange misconception, but I was also startled at this proof of shallowness in my old friend, and began to wonder what he might ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... his tell-tale countenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomed seclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold, though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come to a different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelled when he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for his natural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love, dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments when Doom retired to his reflections ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... of thought; for, that one thing is one,—that an object is one object,—every child knows by intuition, and not by "consideration." Lastly, to consider "an object as more" than one, is impossible; unless this admirable definition lead us into a misconception in so plain a case! So much for the art ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... and wise belief. The philosopher is the true prophet, appearing before men in behalf of that which is finally the truth. He is the spokesman of the most considerate and comprehensive reflection possible at any stage in the development of human thought. Owing to a radical misconception of function, the man of science has in these later days begun to regard himself as the wise man, and to teach the people. Popular materialism is the logical outcome of this determination of belief by natural ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry

... as I have said, gained him many admirers. In them he for the first time touched somewhat upon the tendencies of the current epoch, and took an entirely independent stand among the philosophers of New England. Yet, for a while, there was the oddest misconception of his attitude by those at a distance. A Whig magazine, pleased by his manly and open conservatism, felt convinced that he must be a Whig, though he was, at the moment of the announcement, taking ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... time an impressive gathering had drawn around, and from its manner of behaving conveyed the suspicion that an entertainment or manifestation of some kind was confidently awaited. To disperse so outrageous a misconception this person was on the point of withdrawing himself when he chanced to see, over the principal door of the Temple, a solid gold figure of colossal magnitude, represented as crowned with leaves and tendrils, and holding in his outstretched hands ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... different in type. It behoveth thee not to slay Dundubhas who are serpents only in name. Subject like other serpents to the same calamities but not sharing their good fortune, in woe the same but in joy different, the Dundubhas should not be slain by thee under any misconception.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... retaliation—readily complied with Blake's summons; but was astounded, on entering the admiral's cabin, at being told he was a prisoner, and requested to give up his sword. No! was the surprised but resolute Frenchman's reply. Blake felt that an advantage had been gained by a misconception, and scorning to make a brave officer its victim, he told his guest he might go back to his ship, if he wished, and fight it out as long as he was able. The captain, we are told, thanked him for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... only the child who has become master of his mother's or his nurse's responses, and can produce at will the effect he desires. The idea that the child possesses a strong will, which can and must be broken by persistent opposition, is based upon this tendency of the child. It is an entire misconception of the situation: Strength of will and fixity of purpose are among the last powers which the human mind develops. In little children they are conspicuously absent. What appears to us as a fixed and persistent desire to perform a definite action in spite of all we can say or do, is often no more ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... of God is so strongly figurative an expression that its metaphorical character cannot but be obvious to the most cursory reader. The very frankness, and, we may say, the grossness of the image, saves it from all misconception, and as with other similar expressions in the Old Testament, at once suggests its meaning. We read, for example, of the 'arm,' the 'hand,' the 'finger' of God, and everybody feels that these mean His power. We read of the 'eye' of God, and everybody knows that that means His omniscience. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Christian faith; to the Catholic, it seemed to be a fatal revolt against the only organization by which Christianity could be realized. Really it partook of both characters. It involved at once a dangerous misconception of the social conditions, under which alone the religious life can be realized and developed, and a deeper and truer apprehension of that religion, which first recognized the latent divinity or universal capacity of every spiritual being as such, and which, therefore, seemed to impose ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... had been the constant image without which Christendom could not be; St. Gregory VII. at every point made that unity tangible and visible. The Protestant historians who, for the most part, see in the man a sporadic phenomenon, by such a misconception betray the source of their anmia and prove their intellectual nourishment to be unfed from the fountain of European life. St. Gregory VII. was not an inventor, but a renovator. He worked not upon, but in, his material; and his material was the nature ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... My misconception was short-lived, for at this moment Ruffin—the bandaged and bloody Ruffin—came close up to me; and, after scowling upon me with his fierce, bloodshot eyes, bent forward until his lips almost touched my ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... caused by physical or by psychic forces. A "nervous" disorder is not a physical but a psychic disease. It is caused not by lack of energy but by misdirected energy; not by overwork or nerve-depletion, but by misconception, emotional conflict, repressed instincts, and buried memories. Seventy-five per cent. of all cases of ill-health are due to psychic causes, to disjointed thinking rather than to a disjointed spine. Wherefore, let us learn ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... ignorance that people have a misconception of these truths. The development of the human mind is no less important than the development of the physical condition of man. His education, therefore, is a paramount duty of the state, and his protection against the weakening of his physical condition is equally important. That legislation has ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... were men unspeakably too far above and beyond their time, to take its bone and muscle with them. There was no language in which their doctrines could have been openly conveyed to an English public at that time without fatal misconception. The truth, which was to them arrayed with the force of a universal obligation,—the truth, which was to them religion, would have been, of course, in an age in which a single, narrow-minded, prejudiced Englishwoman's opinions were accepted as the ultimate rule of faith and practice, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... authoritative teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find Jesus himself to set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... as it is beginning to be recognized that in politics, as in everything else, woman's help is needed, and the republic can not afford to have her stand aloof. But this phase of the subject has been so much misunderstood, both by men and women, that time is needed to clear away the mists of misconception which envelop it; and to prove that the co-operation of women in political life is not only just and expedient, but absolutely indispensable to the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... by their downrush—knowing nothing of the mysteries of his own nature, nothing of "the inner God" that is verily himself—imagines that to be from without which is really from within, and, unconscious of his own Divinity, thinks only of Divinities in the world external to himself. And this misconception is the more easy, because the final touch, the vibration that breaks the imprisoning shell, is often the answer from the Divinity within another man, or within some superhuman being, responding to the insistent cry from the imprisoned Divinity within himself; he oft-times ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... and their respective styles are carefully described by Pliny. Even more interesting perhaps is the gallery of Roman ladies, whose portraits are limned with so fine and discriminating a touch. Juvenal again is responsible for much misconception as to the part the women of Rome played in Roman society. The appalling Sixth Satire, in which he unhesitatingly declares that most women—if not all—are bad, and that virtue and chastity are so rare as to be almost unknown, in which he roundly accuses them of all the vices known ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger

... thanked, he would not think of it. For the reserve, the apprehension—dreadful those things are, and desecrating to one's own nature—but we did not make this position, we only endure it. The root of the evil is the miserable misconception of the limits and character of parental rights—it is a mistake of the intellect rather than of the heart. Then, after using one's children as one's chattels for a time, the children drop lower and lower toward the level of the chattels, and the duties of human sympathy to them ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... and the rest are not organs. Buddhi, ahankra and kitta, on the other hand, are (not independent organs but) mere designations of the manas, according as the latter is engaged in the functions of deciding (adhyavasya), or misconception (abhimna), or thinking (kint). The organs therefore are eleven. From this it follows that in the passage 'Ten are these prnas in man, and tman is the eleventh' (Bri. Up. II, 4, ii), the word tman denotes the manas. The number eleven is confirmed by scriptural and Smriti passages, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... respect to whom the Admiralty had been guilty of one of its rare oversights. For generations no call was made upon them to serve the king at sea. This accidental immunity in course of time came to be regarded by the Brighton fisherman as his birthright, and the misconception bred consequences. For one thing, it made him intolerably saucy. He boasted that no impress officer had power to take him, and he backed up the boast by openly insulting, and on more than one occasion violently assaulting the king's uniform. With all this he was a hardy, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... entry to Washington society. The Ambassador was away on leave, and she had appeared during his absence, but she had been accepted unquestionably at the Embassy, where she had taken up her quarters, explaining—as the Ambassador confirmed by cable—that she had sailed under a misconception as to the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... say, an established opinion, that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be 'a wild irregular genius, in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties.' How long may it he before this misconception passes away, and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judgement of Shakespeare in the selection of his materials, and in the manner in which he has made them, heterogeneous as they often are, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... already said to disabuse the reader's mind of the common misconception of Buffon, namely, that he was more or less of an elegant trifler with science, who cared rather about the language in which his ideas were clothed than about the ideas themselves, and that he did not hold the same opinions for ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... external and actual existence of the table, the chair, and the other material substances with which we conceive ourselves to be surrounded, of woods, and mountains, and rivers, and seas, are mere prejudice and misconception. All this is very well in the closet, and as long as we are involved in meditation, and remain abstracted from action, business, and the exertion of our limbs and corporal faculties. But it is too fine for the realities of life. Berkeley, and the most strenuous ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... obligation; but the great Hearer of Prayer regards each heart in its own scope of vision, and helps not less the mistaken than the enlightened distress. And for that matter, who is enlightened? who carries to God's throne a trouble or a temptation in which there is not somewhere a misconception or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... consent to his arrangements received and acknowledged, there was the durbar to attend, at which Kharrak Singh conferred his khilats and received his nazars in the most angelic manner, and it was zealously whispered about that Sher Singh had left the city under a complete misconception of the love and affection entertained for him by his brother, which would be proved by the honourable embassy sent to command his return, and the gifts that it would carry. One of these was to be the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... friends! Doubtless the Adventurers, mostly men of peace, traders, if thou wilt have it so, yet none the worse for that, do somewhat fail to fathom the perils of this our undertaking; still no man is to be condemned for an honest misconception, and these same traders have freely risked their money to furnish us forth. We, too, had never stood on this rock to-night had not those men thrust their hands deep into their pockets, and is it out of reason for them to ask to see ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... day as I was getting on the train at Petunkey," old General Van Sickle, or Judge Dickensheets, or ex-Judge Avery would begin—and then would follow some amazing narration of rural immorality or dullness, or political or social misconception. Of the total population of the state at this time over half were in the city itself, and these he had managed to keep in control. For the remaining million, divided between twelve small cities and an agricultural population, he had ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... jokes, savour of his familiarity with the vulgar ... mostly inclines to the farcical, to overwrought and often disgusting drollery." This is doubtless true, but, by making the incidental a criterion for the whole, it gives a gross misconception to one that has not ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... which event, according to Aunt Aggie, had been brought about by a persistent refusal to wear on her chest a small square of flannel, (quite a small square) sprinkled with camphorated oil, and according to Aunt Mary by a total misconception of the Bellairs' character; when this event happened, the two aunts became what they called supports ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property—historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production—the misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... been so much misconception and misrepresentation about this payment of twenty millions that the following exact summary of the facts may ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... interested in your welfare, as the chosen friend of my son, and also for your father's sake, now it is for your own. The different positions we occupy in life, the wide distance which circumstances place between us, will, I feel sure, prevent all misconception on your part as to my meaning, and prevent your drawing from my friendly words conclusions opposite to what I intend, therefore I do not hesitate to avow that I not only esteem, but from my heart I thank you, Myrvin, for your indulgence of those ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... addressed a monster gathering of business men at Ponkapog. He said that it was a cruel misconception to hold that Americans were without ideals. As a matter of fact they cherished their ideals far beyond any question of making money and would die rather than submit to acts which were an outrage on our common humanity. In declaring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various

... Colambre; but he thanked the young man, and determined to avail himself of Larry's misconception or false report; examined the stones very gravely, and said, 'This promises well. Lapis caliminaris, schist, plum-pudding stone, rhomboidal, crystal, blend, garrawachy,' and all the strange names he could think of, jumbling them ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... Another misconception relative to interest is the idea that to make a subject interesting you must so popularize it that you cheapen it. This idea is typified in the "snap" courses in school—courses made interesting at the expense ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion

... indisposed to see the Duke; but, after a careful consideration of Peel's letter, they came to the conclusion that there was no difference between the Queen's statement to them and Peel's to her, and, therefore, no misconception to correct. The Chancellor accordingly gave his opinion, that there was no ground for an interview between Melbourne and the Duke; so then ended the last hope ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... misconception. I have said that our present system of relief is unsatisfactory, and I have indicated certain respects in which I think it could be improved. But I am far from complaining that relief is being granted throughout the country as a whole upon too generous a scale. Anomalies there are which, if ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... continued till a period not far back, when several inquiring minds, chiefly Germans, endeavoured to clear up the misconception, and to give the ancients their due, without being insensible to the merits of the moderns, although of a totally different kind. The apparent contradiction did not intimidate them. The groundwork of human nature is no doubt everywhere the same; but in all our investigations, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... any of our charitable work. Imperfect knowledge perverts the noblest sentiments; widened and perfected knowledge strengthens their power. A truly philanthropic sentiment is most potent for good in the power of knowledge, and may be made most powerful for evil through misconception of or inadequate comprehension of facts. As we grow in aspirations after the highest welfare of the insane, let us widen our knowledge of the real nature of insanity and the necessities for its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... remains the same. Coleridge's service lay in asserting and reasserting such fundamental principles as that a critical standard is something quite distinct from a set of external rules; that the traditional opposition between genius and laws was based on a misconception as to the function of the critic; that all great genius necessarily worked in accordance with certain laws which it was the function of the critic to determine by a study of each particular work of art; that art, being vital and organic, assumed different shapes ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... brandishing peas; his offended napkin chokes him; with the yell and spring of a corpulent hyena, he rises and rushes to the windows. The timid pensionnaire and her shrinking sisterhood follow him, under the misconception that he is summoning them to admire the sunset; the sunset is their evening excitement, and DONNERWITZ can be sentimental in his calmer moments; but no "Wie wunder, wunderschoen!" escapes him; a Saxon word, that even they can understand, is on his lips; the ring on his forefinger gleams luridly; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various

... not, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to understand it,—and I do most solemnly assure those of my constituents who put any sort of confidence in my industry and integrity, that everything that has been done there has arisen from a total misconception of the object: that our means of originally holding America, that our means of reconciling with it after quarrel, of recovering it after separation, of keeping it after victory, did depend, and must depend, in their several stages ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... confused misconception of his meaning, Mainwaring tried to recall the historical dress of the great Cardinal and fit it to the masquerader—if such he were—before him. But Richelieu relieved ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... she did not reason from an outside stand-point. This was probably what helped her not only to recognize the false position of her sex, but to understand the real cause of the trouble. She referred it, not to individual cases of masculine tyranny or feminine incompetency, but to the fundamental misconception of the relations of the sexes. Therefore, what she had to do was to awaken mankind to the knowledge that women are human beings, and then to insist that they should be given the opportunity to assert themselves as such, and that their sex should become a secondary consideration. ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... evolutionists said, why they said it, wherein he differed from them, and in what way he proposed to set them straight, he would have taken a course at once more agreeable with usual practice, and more likely to remove misconception from his own mind and from those of his readers." {239} This I have no doubt was one of the passages which made Mr. Romanes so angry with me. I can find no better words to apply to Mr. Romanes himself. He knows perfectly well what others have written about the connection ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... a popular prejudice against metaphysics as something at once difficult and fruitless, as an idle system of enquiries remote from any human interest. I suppose this odd misconception arose from the vulgar pretensions of the learned, from their appeal to ancient names and their quotations in unfamiliar tongues, and from the easy fall into technicality of men struggling to be explicit where a high degree of explicitness is impossible. ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... bounded by the lines of his sensible experience. How any degree of eloquence can be compatible with this state of things, passes comprehension. And what reflection would conclude, a little examination will confirm. The mistake has, doubtless, grown out of a misconception of the nature of eloquence itself.[15] If eloquence were all figure—even if it were, in any considerable degree, mere figure—then the tawdriest rhetorician would be the greatest orator. But it is not so. On the contrary, the use of ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... is confident of the strength of his own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... little loving them, with a great heart early clouded and a strong mind warped thereby, had begun to pin his faith to her I speak of, and in her eyes to see reconciliation to earth and heaven; and then for one rash word, one casual misconception such as comes between any of us, had fancied the cup of promise snatched away, and in his misjudging innocence gone back to his cave of gloom, thinking himself doomed to a state worse than that from which he had been nearly rescued. Would she let him ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... conservation is that it stands for development. There has been a fundamental misconception that conservation means nothing but the husbanding of resources for future generations. There could be no more serious mistake. Conservation does mean provision for the future, but it means also and first of all the recognition of the right of the present generation to the fullest ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot

... still; he knew there was no appeal for him, and that, so long as Mabel believed that he had sacrificed her husband to his deliberate selfishness, she would never relent towards him. There were times when he asked himself if he was bound to suffer all this misconception from the one woman he had ever loved—but he knew always that in clearing himself he would lay her happiness in ruins, and resolved to bear his burden to the end, sustained by the conviction, which every day became clearer, that he would not have ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... published the Reminiscences himself I think that much misconception in the public mind respecting the character of Mr. Beckford would have been prevented. For instance, I remember, when a child, being warned that this great man was an infidel. When he showed my Father the sarcophagus in which his body was to be placed, he remarked, "There shall ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown

... precision may be laid down, according to which they will be regulated. The political economist justly deems this his proper business: and, as an abstract or hypothetical science, political economy can not be required to do, and indeed can not do, anything more. But it would be a great misconception of the actual course of human affairs to suppose that competition exercises in fact this unlimited sway. I am not speaking of monopolies, either natural or artificial, or of any interferences of authority with the liberty of production or exchange. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... dark mist into the 'lumen siccum' of sincere knowledge!)—I cannot persuade myself that this vehemence of our dear man of God against Bullinger, Zuinglius and OEcolampadius on this point could have had other origin, than his misconception of what they intended. But Luther spoke often (I like him and love him all the better therefor,) in his moods and according to the mood. Was not that a different mood, in which he called St. James's Epistle ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... aspect, of language, above all by the intellectual charm of new, moving, luminous ideas. Perhaps the chief offence in Coleridge is an excess of seriousness, a seriousness arising not from any moral principle, but from a misconception of the perfect manner. There is a certain shade of unconcern, the perfect manner of the eighteenth century, which may be thought to mark complete culture in the handling of abstract questions. The humanist, the possessor ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... contains in ideal all special privileges, the common misconception is quite natural, which takes it to be mere force, empty caprice, and synonymous with despotism. But despotism means a state of lawlessness, in which the particular will as such, whether that of monarch or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... has laid himself open to much misconception, and has given to his opponents a powerful weapon against himself, by his continual use of metaphor in describing the wonderful co-adaptations ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... only would the sailor himself be in error in taking such a view, but he might seriously compromise the intelligence or integrity of his friend in the judgment of all who held, on his testimony, that it was with his friend, and not from his own misconception of his friend's meaning, that the view had originated. And how, let us ask, ere dismissing our lengthened illustration, is an error such as the supposed one here to be tested, and its erroneousness exposed? There can ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... at some length, and commented on the barbarity of such tactics. They were not only barbarous, he affirmed, but senseless. Where did the inhabitants of the villages go? To the enemy of course! This reveals, perhaps, the most remarkable misconception of the actual facts. The writer seemed to imagine that the tribesmen consisted of a regular army, who fought, and a peaceful, law-abiding population, who remained at their business, and perhaps protested against the excessive military expenditure ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... to make a note on the article under this heading to avoid a possible misconception amongst people outside Ireland. In Ireland there is no religious dissension, but there is religious insincerity. English politicians, to serve the end of dividing Ireland, have worked on the religious feelings of the North, suggesting the danger of Catholic ascendancy. There is not now, and there ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... depend the welfare of mankind. Many "solutions" have been offered; and, though they have differed widely, they agree in one respect—they have had a common fate—the fate of being false. What has been the trouble? The trouble has been, in every instance, a radical misconception of what a human being really is. The problem is to discover the natural laws of the human class of life. All the "solutions" offered in the course of history and those which are current to-day ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... of the ancient Sees which were held by the established church. It is impossible to mention anything connected with the establishment of the hierarchy which can at all explain the violence of the bishops and clergy generally of the establishment. The popular commotion arose from misconception and the absurd falsehoods that were industriously disseminated. The masses were still raging, when Dr. Wiseman, who had just been raised to the dignity of Cardinal, published an appeal to the people of England, in which ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... orchestra was. The energy with which he threw himself into the task of trying to repair his blunders won the sympathy of the members of the critical guild, though it did not wholly atone for his conscious or unconscious misconception of American conditions. It was not pleasant to think that he had so poor an opinion of American knowledge and taste in music that before coming he thought that anything would be good enough for this country. His experience in Italy ought ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... each supported on a huge gouty leg. This would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass away, long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... Eugenia's face, had tried to make her laugh, and now, with an effort, laughed with her. She had forgotten her passing notion that Eugenia had something special to say. What could she have? They had gone over that astonishing misconception of hers about the Powers woodlot, and she had quite made Marise understand how hopelessly incapable she was of distinguishing one business detail from another. There could be nothing else that Eugenia could ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... amount of the private debts, you take in compound interest at the different rates specified in our paragraph. This it was not our intention to allow; and lest any misconception should arise on the spot, we have added an express direction that the debts be made up with simple interest only, from the time of their respective ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... understood what patriotism meant, what love for one's own country signified. He had arrived in South Africa determined to spare neither his person nor his strength in her service, and the man who was repeatedly accused both by the Dutch and by the English party in the Colony of labouring under a misconception of its real political situation was the one who had from the very first appreciated it as it deserved, and had recognised its damning as ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... is all a dreadful misconception; and if you will go with me to Sir Thomas Vandeleur's in Eaton Place, I can promise that all will be made plain. The most upright person, as I now perceive, can be led ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... that he was merely under a misconception, that she was really only putting on her glasses to humour him, and give him time to find out his mistake. The fact that he had addressed her as "mother" counted for absolutely nothing. Any man in the village would address her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the main point of this chapter long enough to explain that equality is not synonymous with identity, as seems to be the impression among the many; a misconception which we regret to say is shared by the judge on the bench with the workingman on the construction gang, and the idiotic observation that "if women expect to vote they must expect to stand up in the street-car," is not, alas! confined to the lout, but is quite often voiced ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... Mr. Bullock Hall most deservedly received the Red Ribbon, his leader was overlooked. The tens of thousands of pounds collected by Sir John Robinson which may be said to have kept alive starving people and vivified deserts, were gratefully acknowledged by the French Government. By some unaccountable misconception, the decoration here only gratified ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... hide his poverty, as with the passionate lover whose mistress has her heart broken. In truth, this criticism as to the absence of high passion reminds us again that Scott was a thorough Scotsman, and—for it is necessary, even now, to avoid the queer misconception which confounds together the most distinct races—a thorough Saxon. He belonged, that is, to the race which has in the most eminent degree the typical English qualities. Especially his intellect had a strong substratum of downright dogged common sense; his religion, one may conjecture, was pretty ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... approach. They did so with a prompt readiness which suggested a camp of highly-disciplined soldiers. The chief explained what had been agreed upon, and made his orders so explicit that there could be no misconception on the part of any one. Finley watched closely while he listened, and saw that in this matter at least all was above board. The chieftain's self-confidence was so ingrained and deeply set that he could ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... purely as a war necessity and not because of any consideration for the slave. The undergraduate, in imitation of his erudite tutors, has asserted that the freedmen owe more to the pride of the haughty Southerner than to the magnanimity of President Lincoln. But the mists of doubt and misconception have been so dissipated by the sunlight of history, that we, of this generation, may clearly see the martyred President ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... less prominent place in the conduct of its affairs. The idea seemed to be prevalent that the organizers were enthusiastic for direct financial reasons. "Those fellows are talking for what they are going to get out of it," was an open accusation at times—a misconception so unjust that on several occasions Partridge had refuted it by pledging to resign from the presidency as soon as the company was on ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... methods of dealing with it and certain economic laws, subject to many exceptions, which we may consider to be established, but nevertheless it is as far from being an exact science as one can conceive. The exact science notion is the misconception of cloistered learning which can build impregnable systems where there are none to attack them, but which has no idea of the practical difficulties of an unsympathetic world where the precious system must meet every possible objection and not merely those ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... to confess that he was not quite satisfied with himself, though "not very bad for a commissary;" and finally, as the decanter waxed low, he would interlard his meditations by passages of Scripture, singularly perverted by his misconception from their true meaning, and alternately throwing out prospects of censure or approval. Such was Major Monsoon; and to conclude in his own words this brief sketch, he "would have been an excellent officer ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... distressing combat into a relatively simple proposition. The conductor and his assistants were fighting for their conception of order, and their opponents were fighting for their conception of manhood. Reduced to its primal elements, the fight was the result of a dual misconception. The conductor was battling to vindicate his conception of order; the foreigners were battling to vindicate their conception of the rights of men in a democracy. Neither party to the contest understood the other, and each one felt himself to be on the defensive. Neither one ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... disciplined men into the heart of the enemy's country. Omdurman and Atbara, to say nothing of previous campaigns, had shown how desperately the Dervishes fought; and the order, for the garrison of Kassala to undertake it, can only have been given under an entire misconception of the circumstances, and of the strength of the army under Fadil, that they would almost certainly be called upon to encounter. This was the more probable, as all the women and the property of his soldiers had been left at Gedareh, when he ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... generally much misconception as to the profits ordinarily derived by the author from the publication of a book. The price of a novel today is about two dollars. Usually the author receives a royalty of about fifteen cents a copy on the first two thousand copies ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... Ashton, "the object being, according to a vulgar error, to exempt the husband from the payment of any debts his wife may have contracted in her ante-nuptial condition. This error seems to have been founded on a misconception of the law, as it is laid down 'the husband is liable for the wife's debts, because he acquires an absolute interest in the personal estate of his wife.' An unlearned person from this might conclude, and not unreasonably, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... if Gilpin's statement has afforded you any satisfaction, I can assure you that he was most explicit in giving it, and even seemed anxious (interrupting me) to do away any misconception. His statement is not contradicted by the last and fullest of the two Narratives which have been published (the former being a mere transcript of the newspapers), which I would send you if I did not suppose that you would receive more pain from the unfeeling ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... hint of any doubt. But not only so, there is no hint of any disclaimer on His part. He must have known whether He could work miracles or not. He must have known that His disciples believed Him to possess the power. There is not the slightest trace of His ever having implied that this was a misconception. He did sometimes disclaim what was ascribed to Him, even when what was ascribed to Him was truly His, but was ascribed to Him without real knowledge of what it implied. 'Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God,' we DO find. But 'Why askest thou ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter

... clear from this play itself that Shakespeare did not proceed at all from ignorance or misconception of the man. For it is remarkable that, though Caesar delivers himself so out of character, yet others, both foes and friends, deliver him much nearer the truth; so that, while we see almost nothing of him directly, we nevertheless get, upon the whole, a just reflection of him. Especially ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... numerical resources of Germany — Lord Kitchener's immediate recognition of the realities of the situation — Sir J. French's suggestion that Lord Kitchener should be commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force indicated misconception of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... on the Secretary's misconception of the situation that Jackson's request for relief was based. Nor was it the slur on his judgment that led him to resign. The injury that had been inflicted by Mr. Benjamin's unfortunate letter was not personal to himself. It affected the whole army. It was a direct blow to discipline, and struck ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... bulks large in our imaginations. It is no mere coincidence that the earliest gods of a race are invariably demons. Our first conception of the great forces of nature is that they are our enemies. This misconception is not only natural, but even necessary on the sternest of physical bases. The old darky, Jim, in Huckleberry Finn, hit upon a profound and far-reaching truth when he replied in answer to Huck's question whether among all the signs and portents with which his mind was crammed—like ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson



Words linked to "Misconception" :   false belief, thought, misapprehension, mistake, hallucination, self-deception, conception, idea, fancy, unsoundness, illusion, misunderstanding, fantasy, fallacy, self-deceit, phantasy, mirage, error, misconceive, erroneous belief



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