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Bias   /bˈaɪəs/   Listen
Bias

noun
(pl. biases)
1.
A partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation.  Synonyms: preconception, prejudice.
2.
A line or cut across a fabric that is not at right angles to a side of the fabric.  Synonym: diagonal.



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"Bias" Quotes from Famous Books



... spell frolics Hypochondriasis; Poverty learns what a millionnaire's bias is, Yes, Poverty, such a spell under, Laughs at the County ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various

... reasoned as a man of his class and antecedents was likely to reason—only with a bias against himself. To capture Connie, through Otto, before she had had any other chances of marriage, seemed to him a mean ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... case in most historical investigations, to choose invariably that alternative, even though the least probable, which would enable him to score a point against his adversary. For the rest I disclaim any personal bias, as against any personal opponent. The author of 'Supernatural Religion,' as distinct from the work, is a mere blank to me. I do not even know his name, nor have I attempted to discover it. Whether he is living or dead, I know not. He preferred to write anonymously, ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... this book, (the labour of several years), from infidelity to either:—that the intrinsic worth and weight of my subject may commend these songs, both at home, and in the many Englands beyond sea, to those who, (despite the inevitably more engrossing attractions of the Present, and the emphatic bias of modern culture towards the immediate and the tangible), maintain that high and soul-inspiring interest which, identifying us with our magnificent Past, and all its varied lessons of defeat and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... to," declared the other, with gleeful emphasis. "An', say, I don't believe even YOU can explain this—I don't! Well, you know Streeter—ev'ry one does, so I ain't sayin' nothin' sland'rous. He was cut on a bias, an' that bias runs ter money every time. You know as well as I do that he won't lift his finger unless there's a dollar stickin' to it, an' that he hain't no use fur anythin' nor anybody unless there's money in it for him. I'm blamed if I don't think that if ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter

... was mere jealousy, and general waspishness; but I confess that, when the first glow of enthusiasm had subsided, I have found most judicious critics to agree that there was something falsetto in the style of Thurtell. The fact is, he was a member of our society, which naturally gave a friendly bias to our judgments; and his person was universally familiar to the cockneys, which gave him, with the whole London public, a temporary popularity, that his pretensions are not capable of supporting; for opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat. There was, however, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... be an accurate record of events, and nothing more; an exact and disinterested statement of what has taken place, concealing nothing and coloring nothing, reciting incidents in their natural connections, without bias, prejudice, or didactic application ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton

... intellectual diversions which Cosmo provided was something quite unique, due to his own mental bias. This consisted of "conferences," held in the grand saloon, afternoons, in the presence of the entire company, at which the principal speakers were his two "speculative geniuses," Costake Theriade and Sir Wilfrid Athelstone. They did not ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... analogy is, we must be convinced that the use for our cases of both induction and analogy, is always menace. We have at the same time to bear in mind how much use we actually make of both; even our general rules—e. g., concerning false testimony,—bias, reversibility, special inclinations, etc.— and our doctrines concerning the composition and indirection of testimony, even our rules concerning the value of witnesses and confessions, all these depend upon induction and ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... and that stronghold of the west, the key of the Isthmus of Darien, Cartagena de las Indias, with Porto Bello, and Vera Cruz, on the Atlantic shores of South America, were all prosperous and happy—"Llenas de plata;" and on the Western coast, Valparaiso, Lima, Panama, and San Bias, were thriving and increasing in population and wealth. England, through her colonies, was at that time driving a lucrative trade with all of them; but the demon of change was abroad, blown thither by the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... the remedy for the effects of bias must be found in a rigorous and searching criticism. If misleading statements and unsound arguments are allowed to pass unchallenged the fault will not lie only with ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... Bishop of Kidderminster in inhibiting Father Rowley from accepting an invitation to preach in my church is due either to his ignorance of the facts of the case, to his stupidity in appreciating them, or, I must regretfully add, to his natural bias towards persecution. These are strong words for a parish priest to use about his diocesan; but the Bishop of Kidderminster's consistent support of latitudinarianism and his consistent hostility towards ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... him at the head of all the theatres. M. de la Rochefoucauld was exceedingly polite to our countrymen, and gave permission to most of our dandies to go behind the scenes, where Bigottini, Fanny Bias, Vestris, Anatole, Paul, Albert, and the other principal dancers, congregated. One of our countrymen, having been introduced by M. de la Rochefoucauld to Mademoiselle Bigottini, the beautiful and graceful dancer, in the course of conversation with this gentleman, asked him in what part of the ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow

... inclinations may bias our judgment; but we think that we do not flatter ourselves when we say that Barere's aversion to our country was a sentiment as deep and constant as his mind was capable of entertaining. The value of this compliment is indeed somewhat diminished by the circumstance that he knew very ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... sentence because it is set before us in the Variorum, and because it too 'is an intellectual form in which a literary man with obsessions illustrates his idea of criticism.' Genetically, it is a continuation of the shoddy element in Coleridge's Shakespeare criticism, a continual bias towards transcendental interpretation of the obvious. To take the origin a phase further back, it is the portentous offspring of the feeble constituent of German philosophy (a refusal to see the object) after it had been submitted to an idle process ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... said Mr. van Koppen, "for an Anglo-Saxon to appraise this book objectively. His mind has been saturated with it in childhood to such an extent as to take on a definite bias." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... example of this machine conception of government. It is probably the most important instance we have of the deliberate application of a mechanical philosophy to human affairs. Leaving out all question of the Fathers' ideals, looking simply at the bias which directed their thinking, is there in all the world a more plain-spoken attempt to contrive an automatic governor—a machine which would preserve its balance without the need of taking human nature into account? What other explanation is there for the naive faith of the Fathers ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... appealed directly to the readers of the mother country are William James and Sir Charles Lucas. James was an industrious naval historian; but he was quite as anti-American as the earlier American writers were anti-British. Owing to this perverting bias his two books, the Naval and the Military Occurrences of the late War between Great Britain and the United States, are not to be relied upon. Their appendices, however, give a great many documents which are of much assistance in studying ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... regard to women, and thereupon had based a method of practical behaviour towards them. Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary justice. To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in contempt. The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on his own plane. Away with all empty show and form, those relics of barbarism known as chivalry! He wished to discontinue even the habit of hat-doffing in female ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... earliest times, and what, I still believe, persists among us—a respect for the aristocratic intellect, for freedom of thought, ideals, poetry, and imagination, as the qualities to be looked for in leaders, and a bias for democracy in our economic life. We were more Irish truly in the heroic ages. We would not then have taken, as we do today, the huckster or the publican and make them our representative men, and allow them to corrupt the national soul. Did not the whole vulgar mob of ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... by the fact that he wears no glasses; and if a few happy people still exist here and there who have no need for the mere physical assistance, the number of those whose mental outlook is undistorted by tradition, prejudice or some form of bias is so small that we regard them as inspired or criminal according to the inclination of our own beloved predilection. And no spectacles will correct the mental astigmatism of the multitude, a fact that is often a cause of considerable annoyance to the possessors of normal sight. That defect ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford

... Jun has sent me a Poem which (without the smallest bias from the aforesaid present, believe me) I ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... truth before we fix our principles, what do we find but doubt? And which of us begins the search a tabula rasa? Nay, where can we hunt but in volumes of error or purposed delusion? Have not we, too, a bias in our Minds—our passions? They will turn the scale in favour of the doctrines most agreeable to them. Yet let us be a little vain: you and I differ radically in our principles, and yet in forty years they have ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... the morning, chance, and the set of the current, and the bias of his own right-handed body, so decided it between them that he came to shore upon the beach in front of Attwater's. There he sat down, and looked forth into a world without any of the lights of hope. The poor diving dress of self-conceit was sadly tattered! With the fairy tale ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... a destiny of ruin, and at the very moment when Popery wore the promise of a triumph that might, at any rate, have lasted his time. Dryden was a Papist by apostasy; and perhaps, not to speak uncharitably, upon some bias from self-interest. Pope, on the other hand, was a Papist by birth, and by a tie of honor; and he resisted all temptations to desert his afflicted faith, which temptations lay in bribes of great magnitude prospectively, and in persecutions for the present ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... Lordships neglect the happy, and, perhaps, the only opportunity. By the establishment of irrevocable law, founded on mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these glorious enjoyments may be firmly perpetuated. And let me repeat to your Lordships, that the strong bias of America, at least of the wise and sounder parts of it, naturally inclines to this happy and constitutional reconnection with you. Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with France, we may still be assured of their ancient and confirmed partiality ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... Jurymen, hear my advice— All kinds of vulgar prejudice I pray you set aside: With stern, judicial frame of mind From bias free of every kind, This trial must ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... commission into a regiment of the royal guard. Endowed with considerable natural ability and tact, he managed to win the favour of Ferdinand VII., and by that weak and fickle monarch was speedily raised to the rank of colonel. His then bias, however, was for diplomacy, for which, indeed, his subsequent life, and his turn for intrigue, showed him to be well qualified; and at his repeated instance he was sent to various courts in high diplomatic ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... the Master, I have been checked and reduced in merit. For that bias I was myself encircled. I was in an agony of spirit when I knew that the thing was beginning to advance, but my very will to aid was at ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... Debs and all other officials of the union, and "all persons whomsoever." For an alleged violation of that injunction, Judge Woods, without trial by jury, sentenced Debs to six months' imprisonment and his associates to three months'. The animus and class bias of the whole proceeding may be judged from the fact that President Cleveland selected to represent the United States Government, at Chicago, Mr. Edwin Walker, general counsel at that very time for ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... presence and counsel of Miss Anthony." At this meeting the committee reported a set of resolutions beginning, "We believe in God," etc., when she at once protested on the ground that "the woman suffrage platform must be kept free from all theological bias, so that unbelievers as well as evangelical Christians ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... hours passed, the weight upon his heart grew heavier, and the chill of dread more unendurable. He saw his character as another might see it. He saw a nature to which, from infancy, a wrong bias had been given, made selfish by indulgence, imperious and strong only in carrying out impulses and in gratifying base passions, but weak as water in resisting evil and thwarting its vile inclinations. The pride and hope that ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... Bias River again we will talk of izzat,' Scott replied. 'Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... auspices of our clergyman, and was secretly pleased to find, not only that he was singularly quick in imbibing my instructions, but displayed a strong natural taste for those investigations towards which I had shown so marked a bias. ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... and that facts otherwise dry may in this way be made attractive and indelibly impressed on the mind. He has tried throughout to be fair and national. He has neither introduced offensive allusions, nor invidiously attempted to bias the minds of the young on controverted questions connected with politics ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... John Fiske's Essays on Darwinism, no less than the open and haggard opposition to Christianity which prevails in Huxley's "Science and Hebrew Tradition" and in Spencer's chapters on "The Unknowable" (so the Synthetic Philosophy denominates God), caused a revulsion of sentiment,—the anti-religious bias of evolution standing forth the clearer to my mind, the longer I occupied ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... travelling expenses were to be paid, when, early in the next year, he was to go out with his Principal to confer on the Japanese the highest possible culture in science and literature without any bias in favour of Christianity, Buddhism, or any ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... taken place were greatly exaggerated by the Eastern papers, and lost nothing in transition. The news came by the pony express across the Plains to San Francisco, where it was still further magnified in republishing, and gained somewhat in Southern bias. I remember well that when the first reports reached us of, the battle of Bull Run—that sanguinary engagement—it was stated that each side had lost forty thousand men in killed and wounded, and none were reported missing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... inspected all the portraits of his feminine ancestors that he might decide, as one without bias, whether Matocton had ever boasted a more delectable mistress. Equity—or in his fond eyes at least,—demanded a negative. Only in one of these canvases, a counterfeit of Miss Evelyn Ramsay, born a Ramsay of Blenheim, that had ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... there was not sufficient evidence; and let me not presume to charge Johnson with injustice, because he did not think so highly of the writings of this authour, as I have done from my youth upwards. Yet that he had an unfavourable bias is evident, were it only from that passage in which he speaks of Swift's practice of saving, as, 'first ridiculous and at last detestable;' and yet after some examination of circumstances, finds himself obliged to own, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... certain descriptions: and this sympathetic attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of mistake, our mental affinities and elective affections. It is a much surer proof than the strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias in the mind. I am told that the active sympathies of this party have been chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal rebels who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims of the French Revolution, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... is no place for them to be racing in. One young one brings others. You would be annoyed, sir. Some folks can always ask favors." The housekeeper's cheeks were flushed with the strength of her repugnance, and her bias relieved Mr. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... guests who were at the cabin, the comments I had heard convinced me that Jerry and I were not alone in our condemnation. The attack seemed to savor of a lack of finesse, surprising in a person of her cleverness, for had her bias not been so great she should have known that as a gentleman, Jerry must resent so palpable and designing an insult to a guest at Horsham Manor. Her impudence still astounded me. Did she think herself ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... physiognomy pure and simple is possible, because conversation at once lets in a pathognomical element, in which a man can apply the arts of dissimulation which he has learned: partly again because personal contact, even of the very slightest kind, gives a certain bias and so corrupts the judgment ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... continent, became a student of the Inner Temple. The contiguity of these inns of court, the similarity of their studies and pursuits, and particularly, as they both possessed the same political bias; Chaucer attaching himself to John of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, by whom, as well as by the Duchess Blanche, he was greatly esteemed; and Gower giving his influence to Thomas of Woodstock, both uncles to King Richard II.—would naturally ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable—the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... concerted action as was proposed by the different members was improbable, and although the proposals may have been dictated by the usual French bias in situations where English interests are at stake, these opinions indicate pretty well the real sentiment ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... then trim the edges. Proceed in the same manner with the top crust, and then when ready to place on the pie, fold from corner to corner, making a bias fold and then cut quarter-inch gashes with a knife in centre to allow steam to escape. Lift and cover the pie and then trim to shape. Now do not form the trimmings into a ball, but lay them one piece upon the other in a pile and flatten them with ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... urged that these considerations would warrant the interference of an editor, and justify him in selecting the text which he thought the best upon the whole; but this must be left to posterity. When editors can escape the bias of contemporary thought and feeling, when their judgments are refined by distance and mellowed by the new literary standards of the intervening years,—when in fact Wordsworth is as far away from his critics as Shakespeare now is—it ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... Lucrezia Borgia did not start feeding her house guests on those deep-dish poison pies with which her name historically is associated until after she grew sensitive about the way folks dropping in at the Borgia home for a visit were sizing up her proportions on the bias, so to speak. And I attribute the development of the less pleasant side of Cleopatra's disposition—keeping asps around the house and stabbing the bearers of unpleasant tidings with daggers and feeding people to the crocodiles and all that sort of thing—to the ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... track of their eminent Berlinese New Type of the time, put on frankness as an armour over wariness, holding craft in reserve: his aim was at the refreshment of honest fellowship: by no means to discover that the coupling of his native bias with his professional duty was unprofitable nowadays. Wariness, however, was not somnolent, even when he said: 'You know, I am never the lawyer out of my office. Man of the world to men of the world; and I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nobody seemed so willing to own Cecil's claims to county supremacy as Lady Tyrrell, her bias was all towards Sirenwood; and whereas such practices as prevailed at Dunstone evidently were viewed as obsolete and narrow by these new friends, Cecil was willing to prove herself superior to them, and was far more irritated than convinced when ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... On his arrival there, December 29th, he heard of the defeat and flight of Allah-u-din.[2] Undismayed, he marched the following morning to Parsaror, midway between Sialkot and Kalanaur on the Ravi; thence to Kalanaur, where he crossed the Ravi; thence to the Bias, which he crossed, and thence to the strong fortress of Milwat, in which his former adherent Daolat Khan, had taken refuge. Milwat soon fell. Babar then marched through the Jalandhar Duab to the Sutlej, placing, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... own country, he had often seen connexions of that sort, which having been planted in the infancy of the adherent, had grown up to a surprising pitch of fidelity and friendship, that no temptation could bias, and no danger dissolve. He therefore rejoiced in the hope of seeing his own son accommodated with such a faithful attendant, in the person of young Fathom, on whom he resolved to bestow the same education ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... made, and sees what he foresaw: Or if an unexpected call succeed, Come when it will, is equal to the need: —He who, though thus endued as with a sense And faculty for storm and turbulence, Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, Are at his heart; and such fidelity It is his darling passion to approve; More brave for this, that he hath much to love:— 'Tis, finally, the Man, who, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... much better adapted to the wishes and desires of a selfish and dissolute despot, who only valued his exaltation and power for the means of unlimited indulgence in sensuality and vice which they afforded. It was this supposed bias of Alexis's mind against his father's policy of reform that Peter referred to in his letter when he spoke of Alexis's desire to thwart him in his measures and undo ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... old Roman fortitude, roused me to a more immediate resolution than any other form of solace. There are times when a splendour of exaggeration is the best foil to truth. The Roman's pride is the best corrective to the earthward bias of the diffident; by its excess of an opposite defect it drives us soonest into the mean of a simple and manly confidence. It is better for us first to repeat, "Dare to look up to God and say: Make use of me for the future as Thou wilt, ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... regarded as a useless toil, the man of timidity never understands the depth of the questions he has not the courage to discuss. If he does talk of them, it is with a bias rendered all the more prejudiced by the fact that, instead of expressing his ideas, he takes refuge in fortifying his heresies with arguments of which the smallest discussion would ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... for rescue and strength. Her tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with its root deep down in her childhood, and its memories of long quiet talk confirming by distinct successive impressions the first instinctive bias,—the fact that in him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and womanly devotedness than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her nature,—seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where she could find refuge from an alluring ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... was Campbell. In the Edinburgh Review for Oct., 1859, its authenticity is examined, and is declared to be beyond a doubt. Lord Macaulay aided the Reviewer in his investigation. Ib p. 323. He could scarcely, however, have come to his task with a mind altogether free from bias, for the editor 'has contrived,' we are told, 'to expose another of Mr. Croker's blunders.' Faith in him cannot be wrong who proves that Croker is not in the right. The value of this Diary is rated too highly by the Reviewer. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... contrary effect, ordered them to be speedily published in the several American newspapers. Had a redress of grievances been at this late hour offered, though the honour of the States was involved in supporting their late Declaration of Independence, yet the love of peace, and the bias of great numbers to their parent State, would, in all probability, have made a powerful party for rescinding the Act of Separation, and for re-uniting with Great Britain; but when it appeared that the power of the Royal Commissioners was little more ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... been discovered bears the date of 1691; from which our copy has been prepared for the press. This is the first book of this class that was composed upon the broad basis of Christianity, perfectly free from sectarian bias or peculiarity. It is an exhibition of scriptural truths, before which error falls without the trouble of pulling it down. It is in the world, like the ark of God in the temple of Dagon. It is alike admirably calculated to convey the most important ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so and the phrase PARENT or MOTHER COUNTRY hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from EVERY PART of Europe. Hither have ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy—if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the name of common sense, are they not equals? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... assumed to have had full and first-hand information. The main facts were probably communicated to him by Malachy himself, though some particulars were no doubt added by other Irish informants. It is true, we must also allow for bias on St. Bernard's part in favour of his friend. Such bias in fact displays itself in Secs. 25, 26. But bias, apart from sheer dishonesty, could not distort the whole narrative, as it certainly must have been distorted in the Life, if the narrative of A.F.M. is to ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... after receiving 50,000l. for his past services—and it was too generally known in Ireland, that there was some quality in Treasury gold, however acquired, which attracted the possessor powerfully towards the Castle. The private judgement of Mr. Grattan might also be reasonably supposed to have a bias on the question, from the circumstance of being himself the adviser of the simple repeal—the idea of an explicit renunciation not having been started when Mr. Grattan's principal exertions, seconded by the voice of the people, triumphed over ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... the position of its inhabitants to-day, but why they themselves largely fail to understand it. They are not fully aware of being behind the times, and probably in many respects they no longer are so; only there is that queer mental attitude giving its bias to their view of life. Although very feebly now, still the momentum derived from a forgotten ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... truth and power that it triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns may triumph over his world, often he does triumph over his world, but let us observe how and where. Burns is the first case we have had where the bias of the personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look at him closely, he can ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... that his predecessors had appointed Virginians to the Secretaryship of State in order to prepare the way for their succession to the Presidency. He was determined, therefore, to avert the suspicion of sectional bias by selecting some one from the Eastern States, rather than from the South or from the West, hitherto so closely allied to the South. His choice fell upon John Quincy Adams, "who by his age, long experience in our foreign affairs, and adoption into the Republican party," he assured Jefferson, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... binders for baby should be cut from the softest kind of flannel and on the bias to increase their elasticity. They should be about five inches wide and twenty inches long, with the edges raw, or pinked, perhaps, but not hemmed. After the first six or eight weeks the knitted, circular band which can be bought ready made or may be crocheted ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... afraid, my dear, that there must have been some fault in his education. His natural bias was not, perhaps (as his power was likely to be large) to do good and beneficent actions; but not, I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... absence of legal justice, which restored to the loser the amount of his loss, and frequently with no inconsiderable addition for the temporary use of his property. In short, the law was momentarily extinct in that particular district, and justice was administered subject to the bias of personal interests and the passions of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... was exceeding glad, for it removed many dark doubts from my own mind. From that time, my desire to read the New Testament was greatly increased, that I might discover the best means of acting according to the doctrines of Jesus. I endeavored to divest myself of all selfish bias, and loved more and more to inquire into religious subjects. I saw, as I still see, many doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, that I could not believe, and which I found opposed to the truths of the Gospel, and I wished much to find some of her best teachers to ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson

... appeal to the Commandant Krieger if the foregoing is not a fair and impartial statement of the views of himself and his people. I am sensible of no mental bias toward or against these Boers; and during the several journeys I made to the poor enslaved tribes, I never avoided the whites, but tried to cure and did administer remedies to their sick, without money and without price. It is due to them ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... come into a land of robbers, and therefore must submit to being robbed; and this I plainly told him. Further, I even threatened the sultan with a pretended determination to return to Aden, where I said the matter would be settled at our police court without bias or favour. I then desired the interpreter to look out for any vessel that would give me a passage to Aden, as it was obvious to me Sumunter had more power in the land than the sultan. This took them all by surprise, abashed the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... Fortune told disappears. The Fortune-teller no longer possesses the singleness of mind or purpose necessary to a clear reading of the symbols he or she consults. The amount of the fee is the first consideration, and this alone is sufficient to obscure the mental vision and to bias the judgment. This applies to the very highest and most conscientious of Fortune-tellers—persons really adept at foreseeing the future when no taint of monetary reward intervenes. The greater number, however, ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'

... Let us speak like politicians; there is a nobility without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby one man is ranked with another, another filed before him, according to the quality of his desert, and pre-eminence of his good parts. Though the corruption of these times, and the bias of present practice, wheel another way, thus it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the in- tegrity and cradle of well ordered polities: till corrup- tion getteth ground;—ruder desires labouring after that which ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... thinkin' in his 'art that it was all wery capital." The bride wore a dress of that peculiar sort of calico known as "furniture prints," without trimming or ornaments of any kind. Whether it was cut "bias" or with "gores," I'm sorry to say I do not know, dress-making being as much of an occult science to me as divination. Her hair was tightly bound up in a scarlet silk handkerchief, fastened in front with a little gilt button. As soon as the church service was concluded ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... to justify his acceptances and rejections. His announced over-all rule is conformity to "Reason and Nature"—old words that he uses in the newer way. But he is also handily equipped with a stock of stubbornly conservative principles, reaching at times the status of bias, that serve to hold his taste in balance and effectively check ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous

... her upon these matters, and had said very much what I have written, she smilingly replied; "And yet we must admit that I have been fortunate, and this should not be. My good father's early trust gave the first bias, and the rest followed, of course. It is true that I have had less outward aid, in after years, than most women; but that is of little consequence. Religion was early awakened in my soul,—a sense that what the soul is capable to ask it must attain, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... M. P. An orderly held us up, and when MacRae had convinced him that our business was urgent, and not for his ears, he graciously allowed us to enter the Presence—who proved to be a heavy-set person with sandy, mutton-chop whiskers set bias on a vacuous, round, florid countenance. His braid-trimmed uniform was cut to fit him like the skin of an exceedingly well-stuffed sausage, and from his comfortable seat behind a flat-topped desk he gazed upon us with the wisdom of a tree-full of owls and the dignity ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... shelf, and tries a dose of the contents on this Mrs. Goochy—and awaits results. If nothing untoward transpires, he then passes the medicine on to the patient. Mrs. Goochy has a strong acquisitive bias, and raises no objections to this vicarious proceeding. She argues: "I doesn't need 'un now, but there be's no tellin'. I may need 'un ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... education, that youth was the season to feed the human heart with wholesome diet; but they have not felt, that a good education is incompatible, nay, impossible, with the superstition of man, since this commences with giving his mind a false bias: that it is equally inconsistent with arbitrary government, because this always dreads lest he should become enlightened, and is ever sedulous to render him servile, mean, contemptible, and cringing; that it is incongruous with laws that are not founded in equity, that are ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... necessary antagonism between the general theory of "evolution" and a Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any strong theological bias. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... has recommended himself to me strongly either by his outward symbols of manhood or by such manifestation of his inward mental gifts as I have succeeded in obtaining. But my knowledge of him has been so slight, and has been acquired in a manner so likely to bias me prejudicially against him, that I am inclined to think my opinion should go for nothing. It is, however, the fact that the bishop has nominated him to this duty; and that, as I have myself simply ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... "lop," like that of many another of his kind, led him to enlarge upon American naval and military victories, to minimize American defeats, to give an impression that the all-important early colonies were those of New England, and that the all-important one of them was Massachusetts. From this bias I judge that the historian was a Boston man. It takes a Bostonian to think in that way. They ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... had not concentrated his life on the dative case." There are also exceptional natures that delight in mathematics, minds whose young affections run to angles and logarithms, and with whom the computation of values is itself the chief value in life. The College should accommodate either bias, to the top of its bent, but should not enforce either with compulsory twist. It should not insist on making every alumnus a linguist or a mathematician. If mastery of dead languages is not an indispensable part of polite education, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... Gravesend, and ed. at King's School, Rochester, London, and Oxford. Thereafter he was an assistant master at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and was in 1856 appointed Principal of the Government Deccan College, Poona. Here he received the bias towards, and gathered material for, his future works. In 1861 he returned to England and became connected with The Daily Telegraph, of which he was ultimately editor. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... therefore your duty, and I know it is a duty you will honestly and faithfully discharge, not to allow what my learned friend cautioned you well against, but immediately fell into the very same course himself; not to allow any thing like prejudice to bias ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... the legal profession it would be hard to say. Neither mental bias nor interest gained by any searching examination of the science to which I wished to devote myself, turned the scale. I actually gave less thought to my profession and my whole mental and external life than I should have bestowed upon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... cathedrals if he can. But he must not be allowed to write a history of England; or a history of any country. All history was conducted on ordinary morality: with his extraordinary morality he is certain to read it all askew. Thus Carlyle tries to write of the Middle Ages with a bias against humility and mercy; that is, with a bias against the whole theoretic morality of the Middle Ages. The result is that he turns into a mere turmoil of arrogant German savages what was really the most complete and logical, if not the ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... More than ninety-nine percent of the newsmen involved in the affair thought they were honestly giving the news as they saw it, and none of them saw the invisible but very powerful hand of Stanley Martin shifting the news just enough to give it the bias he wanted. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... had also spent some months together at the abbey of St Cyr, in preparation for their solemn office. They were of marked but very contrasted characters. The elder inherited the strong will and dominant energy of her race. As yet, and for some time afterwards, without any religious bias, she contemplated her prospects with a quiet and proud consciousness of responsibility. The younger sister was of a softer and more submissive nature. She shrank from her high position, saying that an abbess had to answer to God for the souls of her nuns, and she was sure that she would have enough ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside Rumanian territory. As the available official statistics generally show political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... liberty, and a departure from the simple and ideal way. The abuses from which they suffered are no more; the methods which were unjust have been abandoned; the ignorance of the ruler has been dispelled; in place of despotism there is autonomy; justice rules where ignorance and bias sat; liberty where there was interference; protection for oppression; progress and civilization have increased as in no other epoch; and the nation and Government from which they severed themselves have taken their place in the very forefront ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... greater extreme, when a little good of the servant, shall carry things against a great good of the master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the overthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive, is after the model of their own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good, is after ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... valuable addition to the authorities who have given us authentic accounts of Andean civilization; for we may have every confidence in the care and accuracy of Sarmiento as regards his collection and statement of historical facts, provided that we always keep in mind the bias, and the orders he was under, to seek support for the Viceroy's ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... moderate, and that the line of Foreign Policy he had formerly had to pursue had been forced upon him by Lord Palmerston, who had never left a question for the decision of the Cabinet to which he had not already given a decided bias. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... criticism of its institutions and policies. Without this, there can be no change, no progress. But intelligent criticism implies scientific criticism, that is, criticism based upon adequate scientific knowledge and without personal bias. This means the scientific study of institutions and social organization. If the American people are to perfect their institutions, they must maintain and develop their moral freedom; and to maintain true moral freedom, they must encourage the scientific study of ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... so must time, my friend, be close pursued, or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... to that adduced by Agassiz, "that it is in accordance with the working of our minds," still further illuminated by the side-lights which science has thrown on it since Agassiz died. The ultimate decision in the individual mind will be according to the bias for or against the "conscious mind" or automatic creation; and it must not be forgotten that one of the most powerful arguments for a large evolution was the discovery by Agassiz that the embryo of the highest organizations passes through an evolution ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... Mayberry, as she took the apron from Susie and started across the Road on her rescue mission, "a woman have got to cut her conscience kinder bias in the dealing with children. If they're stuffed full of food and kindness they will mostly forget to be bad, and oughtent to be made to remember they CAN be by being punished too long. Now, sonny, ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... physicist: that he lacked somewhat the mathematical turn of mind which was intrinsic to the older schools of philosophy. For better for worse the course he took, the choice he made, was of incalculable import, and had power for centuries to guide (dare we say, to bias) the teaching of the schools, the progress of learning, and the innermost beliefs ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... That is to say, you know nothing at all and can approach it without bias." He paused and then, seeming to notice something in Craig's manner, added hastily: "I'll be perfectly frank with you. The policy in question is for one hundred thousand dollars, and is incontestable. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... fact, that fall short of this dignity; questions that concern public convenience only, and do not wear any moral aspect, such as the bullion question, never do become subjects of public opinion. It cannot be said in which direction lies the bias of public opinion. In the very possibility of interesting the public judgment, is involved the certainty of wearing some relation to moral principles. Hence the ardor of our public disputes; for no man views, without concern, a great moral principle darkened by party motives, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... to engage the attention of the public, it will probably be in those pages which treat of Liberia. The value of his evidence, as to the condition and prospects of that colony, must depend, not upon any singular acuteness of observation or depth of reflection, but upon his freedom from partizan bias, and his consequent ability to perceive a certain degree of truth, and inclination to express it frankly. A northern man, but not unacquainted with the slave institutions of our own and other countries—neither an Abolitionist nor a Colonizationist—without ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... for Port Hudson at nine o'clock. We finished in good time, and their appearance recompensed us for our trouble. Lilly's was trimmed with folds of blue from mine, around collar, cuffs, pockets, and down the front band; while mine was pronounced a chef d'oeuvre, trimmed with bias folds of tiny red and black plaid. With their fresh colors and shining pearl buttons, they were really very pretty. We sent word that we would be happy to make as many as they chose for themselves or their friends, and the ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... poets is owing to bad critics; and it was the early friends of Stockdale, who, mistaking his animal spirits for genius, by directing them into the walks of poetry, bewildered him for ever. It was their hand that heedlessly fixed the bias in the rolling bowl of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... an Englishman, but a foreigner, born of continental parents and brought up in Europe, these facts should exempt me from a supposition of bias in exonerating England. It is with real grief that I must record my convictions against the Boer nation as solely and entirely guilty, but with this qualification, that its responsibility is much attenuated by the fact, as I will endeavour to show, that the bulk of that people has been ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... will make me think The world is full of rubs, and that my fortune Runs 'gainst the bias." RICHARD ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... writers who have given it to us do not appear to have been sensible of this. How then are young readers to be sensible of it? Their minds are still to be formed; and those who are destined for public life must in a great measure take their bias from the study of history. But history in general, to answer the purpose of sound instruction to the future guides of nations, must be rewritten. For example: among the hundred historians who have treated of what is called the Roman Republic I ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... Arnold, acting upon a noble mind inherited from a noble-minded mother, produced the illustrious man whom all Protestant Christendom has lately joined to mourn, Dean Stanley, of whom, however, no mention was made in the above discussion.] You, who know the political bias of these men, will be better able to judge than I am, how far this was a compliment to Arnold's intellect; to his moral influence, I suppose, the character of "only such" ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... wise good Nathan thus allow himself To stifle nature's voice? Thus to misguide Upon himself th' effusions of a heart Which to itself abandoned would have formed Another bias, Daya—yes, indeed You have intrusted an important secret That may have consequences—it confounds me, I cannot tell what I've to do at present, Therefore go, give me time, he may come ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... dexterity, if he had not taken care to provide a sufficient quantity of such halfpence as would bear the trial; which he was well able to do, although "they were taken out of several parcels." Since it is now plain, that the bias of favour hath been wholly on ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... Windham, with all the bias of party, gave me then the highest character of this Mr. Francis, whom he called one of the most ill-used of men. Want of documents how to answer forced me to be silent, oppositely as I thought. But it was a very unpleasant situation to me, as I saw that Mr. Windham still conceived ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... indeed as far as you may suppose from assuming that what you speak to me of as the 'political' bias is the only ground on which the work of our corps for the Allies should appeal to the American public. Political, I confess, has become for me in all this a loose and question-begging term, but if we must resign ourselves to it as explaining some ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... yet neither he, nor those about him, can be brought to see or understand it. There needs no more to expound the meaning of these people, than to compare them with themselves: when it will evidently appear, that their lives and conversations, their writings and their practices, do all take the same bias; and when they dare not any longer revile His Majesty or his government point blank, they have an intention to play the libellers in masquerade, and do the same thing in a way of mystery and parable. This is truly the case of the pretended parallel. They lay their heads together, and ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... a hopeful problem. In the case of the adult Arab, there is a life's work to undo, and the facing of that fact it is which makes some of our bravest workers drop their hands in despair. With these young Arabs, on the contrary, it is only the wrong bias of a few early years to correct, leaving carte blanche for any amount of hope in youth, maturity, and old age. Being desirous of forming, for my own edification, some notion of the amount of the evil existing, and the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... cannot assent. And our chief objection might be translated into vulgar, but expressive parlance, by saying, that, in generalizing about society, the writer does not always seem able to sink the influences of the shop. We have been faintly reminded of the professional bias of Mr. Bob Sawyer, when he persuaded himself that the company in general would be better for a blood-letting. We respectfully submit that we are not quite so mad as—for the interests of science, no doubt—Dr. Ray would have us. The doctrine, that, do ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... Oliver, simply; for the elder brother had of late been telling him fearful stories from the French Revolution, with something of an anti-popular bias. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... knot of friendship first must be untied, Ere we can reach our ends; for, while they love each other, Both hating us, will draw too strong a bias, And all the camp will lean that way they draw; For brutal courage is the soldier's idol: So, if one prove contemptuous, backed by t'other, 'Twill give the law to cool and sober sense, And place the power of war in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... impurities drift there, they must be burnt up as in a clear flame. It is droll that she should work in a pants factory. —Yet where else... tousled and collar awry at her olive throat. Besides her hands are unkempt. With English... and everything... there is so little time. She reads without bias— Doubting clamorously— Psychology, plays, science, philosophies— Those giant flowers that have bloomed and withered, scattering their seed... —And out of this young forcing soil what growth may come— what ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... rapid growth of opinion in favor of woman suffrage among our people, after its first adoption; but more particularly the change effected in the minds of the new settlers, who come to the territory with old prejudices and fixed notions against it. Neither early education, nor personal bias, nor party rancor, has been able to withstand the overwhelming evidence of its good effects, and of its elevating and purifying influence in our political ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... party which had nominated and elected him Vice President. The son, who is the author or editor of these volumes, appears to be forgetful of this fact; for on no other ground can we account for the bias which he exhibits from the first page to the last. His duty, he thinks, is to defend his father's administration, and this idea leads him into trouble at the very beginning. He says: "The Whig party of 1840 had nothing to do with bank, tariff, or internal improvements,"—when ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... important only theoretically, for practically we all act alike; we cannot, if we would, separate the educational from the natural moral sense; we cannot uneducate it, and then judge by it, freed from all circumstantial bias. But whether more or less indebted either to nature or education, it is to this moral and religious sense that the ultra-transcendentalist refers every question, and passes judgment according to its verdict. It is sometimes rather vaguely called the 'Pure Reason;' but that is only a term, hardly ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... the children to study the subject in their histories or in any reference books that may be handy. Help them to get at the truth of the matter. Hawthorne may show prejudice. Does he? We may feel a bias in favor of one side or the other. Do we? Then to the extent of that bias we are liable to be unfair and to fail in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... biassed by any particular views, another bias equally powerful may have deflected the Frenchman from the truth; for they evidently write with contrary designs: the Portuguese, to make their mission seem more necessary, endeavoured to place, in the strongest light, the differences between the Abyssinian and Roman ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... classical phrase, and referring to the intrusions of the barbarian, declared roundly that he would allow no man to snore alongside of his bed. Brought up in this spirit, Hsien Feng had already begun to exhibit an anti-foreign bias, when he found himself in the throes of a struggle which speedily reduced the European question to ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... intenser expression. He was fonder of the vague, perhaps I should rather say the indefinite, where more is meant than meets the ear, than any other of our poets. He loved epithets (like old and far) that suggest great reaches, whether of space or time. This bias shows itself already in his earlier poems, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... am convinced that a peculiar bias was given to my own disposition in consequence of not being understood by the nurse and aunt who petted my brother, while they neglected me. Perhaps I was not a prepossessing child, but I had deeper qualities which might have been drawn out, though, on the whole, I do not regret what threw me ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Bias" :   slant, tendentiousness, homophobia, angle, Islamophobia, taboo, irrational hostility, preconception, experimenter bias, partiality, prepossess, straight line, oblique, weight, partisanship, racism, tabu, handicap



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