"Confuse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at all," cried Riddell, whom the bare mention of those ladies' names was sufficient to confuse hopelessly. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... may not have recourse to the supernatural, it is no wonder that my extreme desire to be known to you for good should so confuse me as to work the contrary effect. Possibly, too, one might be robbed of one's presence of mind by the crowd of military persons pushing for precedence, or treating the salutation ceremony in their ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... (eggs and bacon!)—again the captain's foresight. He started us promptly for the range, surely the oddest sight that we have presented so far. In front went a huddle of men with benches, chairs, and tables, lamps for blacking the sights (lest they glitter and confuse the eye), the captain's megaphone, and the ammunition. We followed at route step in our greatcoats, some of us carrying ponchos, and except for our rifles and belts, no other equipment. Discipline was relaxed today, for the captain, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... Countrey, is more diffuse and confuse, as bound to few of these orders: Some two or more Gentlemen doe commonly make this match, appointing that on such a holyday, they will bring to such an indifferent place, two, three, or more parishes ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... not usually the case; it is more probably due to the beginning of a new function of secretion. The newborn baby has only enough saliva to furnish moisture for the mouth, and not until the age of four or five months does saliva really flow, and since the teeth appear a bit later we often confuse the institution of a new ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... them and makes easier our defense and—they do not know which of all the holes you see are deep enough for pegs—the others are made to confuse our enemies and are too shallow ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... intellectual as well as physical, without the intervention of a deity. But the Poet ridicules the non-human, i.e., the not-ourselves, the negation of ourselves and consequently a non-existence. Most Easterns confuse the contradictories, in which one term stands for something, and the other for nothing (e.g., ourselves and not-ourselves), with the contraries (e.g., rich and not-rich poor), in which both terms express a something. So the positive-negative infinite is not the complement of ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... there till the signal was given to start. Then each cavalier essayed to reach the ball first. The sudden urging of the steeds to instant action seemed to confuse them. They did not spring, as they should have done like arrows from bows. One rider wildly kicked with his heels and shook his reins. The horse turned round, as if in contempt, from the ball. Another applied his whip ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it not worth while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned can not be ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is torn away; the part of the ...
— The Damned Thing - 1898, From "In the Midst of Life" • Ambrose Bierce
... fool terms get into current use. There is the phrase "heavyweight" as applied to a man's mental apparatus! What does it mean? No one wants to be fat and heavy of body—then why of head? For some clumsy reason we have come to confuse strength with weight. The crude methods of early building undoubtedly had much to do with this. The old ox-cart weighed a ton—and it had so much weight that it was weak! To carry a few tons of humanity from New York to Chicago, the railroad builds a train that ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... converse in Bengali or Hindostani, and when Charles Grant went to him for information as to the way of a sinner's salvation this happened—"My anxious inquiries as to what I should do to be saved appeared to embarrass and confuse him exceedingly. He could not answer my questions, but he gave me some good instructive books." On Kiernander's bankruptcy, caused by his son when the father was blind, the "Mission Church" was bought by Grant, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... for plot; the idea being that the story of the Revolt has all the compactness and unity of design to be found in the plot of a classic tragedy, which could admit the introduction of no external incidents or episodes to confuse the thread ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... trench, and there on looking over the parapet we saw an exciting scene. It was not yet dark, and in the twilight we could see objects at a certain distance, but it was just light enough and dark enough to confuse one's vision. Along the line to the right of our front trenches, rockets and S.O.S. signals were going up, showing that the Germans were attacking. Our reserve battalions were far back at Cherisy, and our artillery had not yet come ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... legs of the bear shake with fatigue And his back aches, And the shining grass-blades dazzle and confuse him. But still he dances, Because of ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... made out that the range of cataracts was much farther away than they had at first thought, being quite a couple of hundred yards; but the awful thunderous roar, the trembling of the earth beneath their feet, and the strange vibration in the air, seemed to confuse them, so that everything seemed unreal and strange, and the whole ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... be confined to such comparatively rare incidents as this. For instance, it is a mistake to confuse Auction Bridge with Rugby football. I have known players who declared "Two No-trumps" in very much the same manner as that in which a Rugby football-player throws the opposing three-quarter over the side-line. Excessive aggression is a mistake. A young Civil Servant of my acquaintance even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... out his hand. 'Hold! There is a most remarkably long-headed, flowing-bearded, and patriarchal proverb, which observes that it is the duty of a man to be just before he is generous. Be just now, and you can be generous presently. Do not confuse me with the man Slyme. Do not distinguish the man Slyme as a friend of mine, for he is no such thing. I have been compelled, sir, to abandon the party whom you call Slyme. I have no knowledge of the party whom you call Slyme. I am, sir,' said Mr Tigg, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to hinder the work, God marvelously helped us. At one time a certain minister came to try to look me out of countenance while I was preaching. His plan was to confuse me so that I could not preach. The enemy knew that if I became the least bit confused, I would stammer so that I could hardly talk. God was present to help me. He so confounded the man that before the service ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... that wrong is wrong, though it be done against yourself, and that you have no right to acquit the wrong to yourself as though it were no wrong at all. That lies beyond your province. You may forgive the personal offence, but it does not rest with you to acquit the guilt. You have no right to confuse moral distinctions by practically saying that wrong is not wrong, because it is done against you. All wrong is against very many things and very grave things, besides being against you. It is not for you to speak in the name of God and the universe. You may not wish to say much about the ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... overshoots the mark. The lively promptitude of feeling hurries our judgment beyond its natural pace. Let us admit that the stern character of that bloody conclave, before whom De Vallance often pleaded my cause, might confuse a man, among whose natural defects I have noted a constitutional timidity, apt to tremble at the frown of a fellow-creature. Before a court constituted like the Star-chamber, armed with unlimited powers to impose fines, imprisonment, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... said an old portrait which hung on the wall of Hjalmar's bedroom. "Do you know me? I am Hjalmar's great-grandfather. I thank you for telling the boy stories, but you must not confuse his ideas. The stars cannot be taken down from the sky and polished; they are spheres like our earth, which is ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... They are more quietly determined than the former class of Mars subjects. They are even more obstinate in their views, but conceal their opinions, and often pass for assenting parties when in reality they are but waiting for the right opportunity to strike their "mental blow" and confuse their opponent. ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... examined the earth all over, inside an' out with a magnifyin' glass, every last scientist the' was would be willin' to admit that it must have been created some way or another; and that we'd all be the better for the work these scientists was doin', but that she mustn't confuse the word with the spirit, for it was the spirit which giveth life. He's an A I man, Friar Tuck is; but when I offered him twice as much a year as he's gettin' to stay an' teach her, he just laughed again, an' said that I wasn't in no position to double the kind o' wages he ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... little handbooks are so arranged as to permit direct and immediate reference. All dialogues or enquiries not considered absolutely essential have been purposely excluded, nothing being introduced which might confuse the traveller rather than assist him. A few hints are given in the introduction which will be found valuable to those ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... She would pack her own pretty things—out of sight! They must not confuse, or call for pity. There would be no note. She, that woman at the bungalow would explain, and would tell him that there could be no reconsideration, for she, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... early—don't try to fortify yourself against doubts and anxieties. That is the danger of all sensitive people. You can't attain to proved certainties in this life—at least, you can't at present. I don't say that there are not certainties—indeed, I think that it is all certainty, and that we mustn't confuse the unknown with the unknowable. As you go on, if you are fair-minded and sympathetic, you will get intuitions; you will discover gradually exactly what you are worth, and what you can do, and how you can do it best. But don't expect to know that too soon. And don't yield to the awful temptation ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... announced all over the country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—their "total abstinence" from all the intoxicating moral and mental "drinks" which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience. He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... suggestion: In the seclusion of your home or elsewhere, draw the first scene of your talk completely. Thus you will have plenty of time to make it to suit you, with no one to look on and fluster or confuse you. Then cover up the completed work, by placing another sheet of paper over it. When you appear before the audience to give your talk, give your spoken introduction and lead up to the first scene. At this point, remove the cover paper and ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... do not, I entreat you, confuse your ideas with time and with space, for so far as time and space enter into your ideas when you read what follows, you will not understand it; for the Divine is not in time and space. This will be seen clearly in the progress of this ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... about it? Aren't you going to make me that brief little sketch of the length plan and cross-section of the Tube? I remember your sketch of it in college, and it tends to confuse me with the real changes that were made necessary when ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... what you require of me:—I cannot think, cried she, of rendering unhappy a person who so much deserves to be blessed:—and what but misery would attend a match so unequal as yours would be with me!—How would your kindred brook it!—How would the world confuse and ridicule the fondness of an affection so ill placed!—What would they say when they should hear the nobly born, the rich, and the accomplished monsieur du Plessis, had taken for his wife a maid obscurely defended, and with no other dowry than her virtue!—My ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the domain of fancy was so complete at times as to cause him to confuse it with the outside world. It is related that Jules Sandeau, returning once from a journey, spoke to him of his sister's illness. Balzac listened to him abstractedly for a while, and then interrupted him: "All ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Shortly after she appears to have retired from the stage. Dame Mary Slingsby, widow, from St. Mary's parish, was buried in old St. Pancras graveyard, 1 March, 1694. Careless historians and critics even now continually confuse Mrs. Mary Lee, Lady Slingsby, with Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, the wife of the celebrated comedian, Antony Leigh. The two actresses must be carefully distinguished. Geneste curiously enough gives a very incomplete list of Lady Slingsby's roles, a selection only, as he allows; he makes several bad mistakes ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... to emphasize this point because people are apt to confuse simplicity of delivery with carelessness of utterance, loose stringing of sentences of which the only connections seem to be the ever-recurring use of "and" and "so," and "er . . .," this latter inarticulate sound having done more to ruin a story and distract the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... class," said Ayre, "I quite agree. I object to titles. They only confuse ranks. A sweep is made a lord, and outsiders think ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... other monsters skirmishing amongst the route; and in this sorte they go to the church (I say), and into the church (though the minister be at praier, or preaching), dancing and swinging their handkercheifs over their heds in the church, like devils incarnate, with such a confuse noise, that no man can hear his own voice. Then, the foolish people, they looke, they stare, they laugh, they fleer, and mount upon fourmes and pewes, to see these goodly pageants solemnized in this sort. Then, after this, about the church they goe againe and again, and so foorth into the churchyard, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Grange and departed Foyle was satisfied, although she had had ample time to travel from Liverpool. As Green phrased it, "she might almost have walked it." But the exigencies of the pursuit might have brought about delay if she attempted to confuse her track. If Foyle had been able to get in touch with Blake he would have called him off in order to let her proceed unfettered. That could ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... questioner amongst her judges sought to confuse her by asking what language her voices spoke. They say that a flash flew from her eyes, though her sweet voice was as gentle as ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... arduous and critical situation of public affairs may expose their places, their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in Parliament,—all these causes trouble and confuse the representations which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. If ministers, instead of following the great indications of the Constitution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... song of pain and wrong My spirit doth deep confuse, And I sit all day on the deck, and long— And ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... sculpture—the only Greek art we know anything about—were chiefly concerned with form, and that the ideas behind their perfection of form were very simple and elementary ideas, not at all comparable in complexity and elaborateness with those that confuse and distinguish the modern world. When one comes to French art it is still more difficult for us to realize that the ideas underlying its expression are ideas of import, validity, and attachment. The truth is largely that French ideas are not our ideas; not that the French ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... he temporarily belonged as the judge and evil conscience of their arts,—everything gradually became the echo of his thought and of his indefatigable efforts to attain to fruitfulness in the future. Although this echo often sounded so discordant as to confuse him, still the tremendous power of his voice repeatedly crying out into the world must in the end call forth reverberations, and it will soon be impossible to be deaf to him or to misunderstand him. It is this reflected sound ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... to encourage them to go on doing it. We'll arrange to send true stuff that don't matter, so as they'll continue to trust him, and a few selected falsehoods that'll matter like hell. It's a game you can't play for ever, but with luck I propose to play it long enough to confuse ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... But the existing tales give no hint of this, and, after being carefully examined, they show that Elysium had always been a place distinct from that of the departed, though there may have arisen a tendency to confuse the two. ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... once a puzzle and a surprise. It is his own, yet not his own. It seems to him a caricature of English, a phantom speech, ghostly but familiar, such as he might hear in a land of dreams. He recognises its broad lineaments; its lesser details evade, or confuse, him. He acknowledges that the two tongues have a common basis. Their grammatical framework is identical. The small change of language—the adverbs and prepositions,—though sometimes strangely used in America, are not strange to an English ear. And there the precise ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... who would reject eugenics altogether. Utopian schemes have their value; we should be able to find inspiration in the most modern of them, just as we still do in Plato's immortal Republic. But in this, as in other matters, we must exercise a little intelligence. We must not confuse the brilliant excursion of some solitary thinker with the well-grounded proposals of those who are concerned with the sober possibilities of actual life in our own time. People who are incapable of ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... quibbling and word-play. As Aristotle observes, the dialectic method differed from that of the Sophists not so much in its form, as in the purpose for which it was employed. The end of the {116} Sophists was to confuse, the end of Socrates was through confusion to reach a more real, because a more reasoned certainty; the Sophists sought to leave the impression that there was no such thing as truth; he wished to lead people to the conviction that there was a far deeper truth ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... gentlemen" who said "there was nothing new, and nothing true, and no matter." They not only believe their pet doctrine to be true, but they seem to assume that it is also new. They further treat it as if it were an exact science and a great moral question as well. Unwarranted assumptions merely confuse and this question of national economic policy is too important to be clouded with confusions. It is worth while, therefore, to look at these assumptions one by one and try, before attempting any discussion of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... the second kind of classification. I appreciate men less by the special affection which they show to me than by their personal excellence, and I cannot confuse gratitude with esteem. It is a happy thing for us when the two feelings can be combined; and nothing is more painful than to owe gratitude where yet we can ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... arm, and he is seized by the proprietor and his assistants, who shout "stop thief!" and charge him with stealing the coat. Their noise, and the dread of being arrested upon a charge of theft, will frequently so confuse and frighten the victim that he will comply with their demand, which is that he shall buy the coat. This done, he is suffered to depart. A refusal to yield would not injure him, for the scoundrels would seldom dare to call in the police, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... help me, and lend me strength And self-possession, lest the sight of her Confuse me: for my mind already sways, My heart pants, and ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... German, an Italian, a Dane, but only as a slaveholder, or as a citizen of a State controlled by slaveholders. The insurrection was started in the interest of an institution, and not of a race. To compare such a rebellion with European rebellions is to confuse things essentially distinct. The American government is so constituted that nobody has an interest in overturning it, unless his interest is opposed to that of the mass of the citizens with whom he is place on an equality; and hence his treason is necessarily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... effort had been made by Hugh to avoid Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was. This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her conscience ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... and Milledgeville, and thinks it is fulfilling the designs of Providence in an incomparable manner. But true Anglo- Saxons, simply and sincerely rooted in the German nature, we are not and cannot be; all we have accomplished by our onesidedness is to blur and confuse the natural basis in ourselves altogether, and to become something eccentric, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... classes, we may determine in which our conqueror life is to be placed: Clearly in the third or mixed class, in which the finite gives law to the infinite. And in which is pleasure to find a place? As clearly in the infinite or indefinite, which alone, as Protarchus thinks (who seems to confuse the infinite with the superlative), gives to pleasure the character of the absolute good. Yes, retorts Socrates, and also to pain the character of absolute evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that which imparts ...
— Philebus • Plato
... weigh me down, frost cleans the air, My sky is black with small birds bearing south; Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, Put by my word as but an April truth,— Autumn is no less on me that a rose Hugs the brown bough ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... struck him, saved him from instant death. As it was, the dagger cut through his clothes, and punctured his side. Seeing his associates thus hard beset, Dr. Grant, who was behind, ran up and brought his riding whip with such force across the villain's eyes, as to confuse him for the moment, and in the confusion the party ran into a house and barred the doors. The priest received a cut in the head, but Mr. Perkins was not seriously wounded. Through the efforts of the British ambassador, the Lootee received so severe a chastisement ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... as if his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, but soon afterwards, before any one else had spoken, he exclaimed, "Good heavens! how toil and trouble confuse the understanding! In the eagerness of my desire to do right, I have spoken inconsiderately, for no one can be generous in disposing of what is not his own. What authority have I over Leonisa to give her to another? Or how can ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... your highness, my most gracious Princess Turandotte!" said he; "has your highness no little riddle at hand with which to confuse weak heads?" ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... may be used for composition purposes— a. Provided we form complete and accurate images and do not confuse the image with the language that suggested it (Section 28). b. Provided we make the main thoughts so thoroughly our own that we can furnish details and instances, originate comparisons, or state causes and effects, and thus ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... different natures, some saying 'this is so,' others denying it, and this condition of uncertainty is called the state of darkness. Then there are those who say that outward things are one with soul, who say that the objective is the same as mind, who confuse intelligence with instruments, who say that number is the soul. Thus not distinguishing aright, these are called excessive quibbles, marks of folly, nature changes, and so on. To worship and recite religious books, to slaughter living things in sacrifice, to render pure by fire and water, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... "Do you think I could confuse you in my dislike of this Woodhouse? Oh no! You are not Woodhouse. On the contrary, I think it is unkind for you also, this place. You look—also—what shall ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... naked schalle thi body ben turned in to erthe, that thou were made of. Wherfore thou scholdest thenke and impresse it in thi mynde, that nothing is immortalle, but only God, that made alle thing. Be the whiche answere, Alisandre was gretly astoneyed and abayst; and alle confuse departe from hem. And alle be it that theyse folk han not the articles of oure feythe, as wee han, natheles for hire gode feythe naturelle, and for hire gode entent, I trowe fulle, that God lovethe hem, and that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the Foreign Relations Committee had succeeded far beyond the hopes of their leaders in August. They had killed the treaty, but in such an indirect fashion as to confuse the public and to fix upon the President the blame for delaying the peace. It was easy to picture the obstinacy of the President as the root of all the evil which resulted from the political and ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... transient satisfaction: "the true good ... is an end in which the effort of a moral agent can really find rest."[1] In this statement two points seem to be involved which the use of the rather metaphorical term 'finding rest' tends to confuse. If we are looking for the distinction simply of a good action or motive from a bad one we may point to the approval of conscience in the former case: this has a permanence—or rather an independence of time—which ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... dance, and in united voices they would accept the invitation and go whirling around the room with exactly the same steps, laughing at the same instant and enjoying the dance equally. But if one youth asked his partner a question, both the twins would make answer, and that was sure to confuse and embarrass the youth. Still, the maids managed very well to adapt themselves to the ways of people who were singular, although they sometimes became a little homesick for Twi, where they were like all the ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... of the two struck the lady with suspicion. Was it possible that she had been blind, and that her nephew was about to confuse her cherished schemes? This innocent woman, who went through the world as not being of it, had fancied that already Alice had fallen in with her plans. She had seemed to court Mr. Stocks's company, while he most certainly ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the patient was always directed to sit, was nailed to the floor, since its immovability tended to impart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. Patients invariably grew excited when talking about themselves, and their excitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to exaggerate their language. The inflexibility of the chair helped to counteract this. After repeated endeavours to drag it forward, or push it back, they ended by resigning themselves to sitting quietly. And with ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... backward, I have sometimes wondered that I felt so little hesitation; not that I have ever doubted since, that what I did then was the one perfectly right thing which I have done in my life, but because it was my habit so to confuse myself with meditative indecision. I had doubted before. I remember once being so near engaging myself to a girl that the desk was open and the paper under my hand. But I held back, could not make up my mind, and happily was stayed. Had I not been restrained, I should for ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... take unfair advantage of that agreement, for they know well that when the simple folk have said, "German militarism," they have said all. They stop there. They amalgamate the two words and confuse militarism with Germany—once Germany is thrown down there's no more to say. In that way, they attach lies to truth, and prevent us from seeing that militarism is in reality everywhere, more or less hypocritical ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... engagement jarred, and Farrar jarred. It was something more than the very natural shock which comes with the news that a companion of our youth is about to be married—shock which seems to shake the memory of that youth; to confuse the background of our life. It is by means of such shocks as these that Fate endeavours vainly to make us realise that the past is irrevocable—that we are passing on, and that that which has been can never be again. And at the same time we learn something else: namely, that ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... words to address him, while he, after his long search and now unexpected success, was equally at a loss. At last she said in Spanish, "Thou wonderful enigma, I have been witness of all that has passed between thee and the Arab; and these affairs confuse my head like a whirlwind. Speak, therefore, plainly, that I may know whether thou art a ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... first place, we must be careful never to confuse the terms vocation and avocation, for their ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... of details the shape, the movement, the significance of this great historical cataclysm. To keep the outline clear I have deliberately avoided mentioning the names of many subordinate actors; thinking that if nothing essential was connected with them the mention of their names would only tend to confuse matters. Similarly with incidents, I have omitted a few, such as the troubles at Avignon, and changed the emphasis on others, judging freely their importance and not following the footsteps of my predecessors, as in the case ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... establish a distinction between what is called mind and what is called matter. Nothing is more simple than to realise this distinction when you do not go deeply into it; nothing is more difficult when you analyse it a little. At first sight, it seems impossible to confuse things so far apart as a thought and a block of stone; but on reflection this great contrast vanishes, and other differences have to be sought which are less apparent and of which one has ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... "The dreams confuse me," he said, as if to explain something. "I can't always separate them, the dreams from the real. Have I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... outcroppings the horses slipped. Frequently to get his bearings, Laramie felt his way forward by reaching for trees and scraped his knees against them as he pushed his horse close. And in spite of everything to confuse, intimidate and hold them back, they slipped and floundered on their way, until quite suddenly a new roar from out of the impenetrable ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... which, however they may add to the amount of thought, distract the mind, and confuse its observation of the main idea, the essence or life of the book or paper, must be diligently refused. In the manuscript of Comus there exists, cancelled but legible, a passage of which I have the best authority for saying that it would have ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... His eyes peruse But thoughts meander far away— Ideas, desires and woes confuse His intellect in close array. His eyes, the printed lines betwixt, On lines invisible are fixt; 'Twas these he read and these alone His spirit was intent upon. They were the wonderful traditions Of kindly, dim antiquity, Dreams with no continuity, Prophecies, threats and apparitions, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Co. Roscommon). It was in his old age that he baptized Ciaran, out of Patrick's book—he was, indeed, according to the documents quoted, no less than 140 years of age. The glossators of the Martyrology of Oengus (Henry Bradshaw Society edition, p. 128) confuse him with Euthymius, the deacon, martyred at Alexandria. The play on words ("it were fitting that the just one should be baptized by a Just One") is lost in the Irish version, whence Plummer (VSH, i, p. xlix) infers that this document is a translation from ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... Now, do not confuse this work with that of the Intuition, which is a very different mental phase or plane. This sub-conscious working, just mentioned, plays an entirely different part. It is a good servant, and does not try ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Telemachus, and all of that kind, are to the voyage-writing I here intend, what romance is to true history, the former being the confounder and corrupter of the latter. I am far from supposing that Homer, Hesiod, and the other ancient poets and mythologists, had any settled design to pervert and confuse the records of antiquity; but it is certain they have effected it; and for my part I must confess I should have honored and loved Homer more had he written a true history of his own times in humble prose, than those noble poems that have so justly collected the ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... were to be brought to England, it would not be necessary to tell him, with a view to his comfort here, the motion of the earth with regard to the sun, and the causes of the length of our days and nights, and of the variation of the seasons. To enter into these matters would confuse his mind, and the man, if he had to earn his living, would starve while he was acquiring the knowledge of them. By such a course of proceeding we should, in reality, do him a great injustice. Instead of attempting anything of the ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... from the beginning. Against his brother's loyalty and the straightforward intentions of the estates, he felt that the whole force of the Macchiavelli system of policy would be brought to bear with great effect. He felt that the object of the King's party was to temporize, to confuse, and to deceive. He did not believe them capable of conceding the real object in dispute, but he feared lest they might obscure the judgment of the plain and well meaning people with whom they had to deal. Alluding to the constant attempts made to poison himself and his brother, he likens ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... may take just enough to confuse him, or to make him careless, or to destroy his coolness and self-possession, without being in the least drunk; or he may have taken enough to make him drowsy, and so unfit to do work that wants special attention ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... real nature of our inmost being, we should see how absurd it is to desire that individuality should exist eternally. This wish implies that we confuse real Being with one of its innumerable manifestations. The individuality disappears at death, but we lose nothing thereby, for it is only the manifestation of quite a different Being—a Being ignorant of time, and, consequently, ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... independence shift their ground and plead for absolute independence, but there is no such thing as qualified independence; and when we abandon the simple name to men of half-measures, we prejudice our cause and confuse the issue. Then there is the irreconcilable—how is he regarded in the common cry? Always an impossible, wild, foolish person, and we frequently resent the name and try to explain his reasonableness instead of exulting in his strength, for the true irreconcilable is the simple lover ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... case. On the contrary, in the community where Harvey had settled, but few thought of submitting to him a case that had not equity upon its side; and in such a case, he was never known to fail. He did not seek to bewilder the minds of a jury or of the court by sophistry, or to confuse a witness by paltry tricks; but his course was straightforward and manly, evolving the truth at every step with a clearness that made ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... statue, because you have entered the town. There will be a great meeting held to-morrow, where all the wise men will assemble, to attempt to discover the whereabouts of the intruder; but by God's help, I will guide them wrong, and confuse their counsels. Go to our neighbour the fisherman," added she to her daughter, "and see what he has caught." She went, and brought news that he had taken a large fish, of the size of a man. "Take this piece of gold," said her mother, "and bring us the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... a proposal. It seems like some dreadful mistake. Where is the courtly manner of the lover in the book? What is the matter with this red-faced boy? Where is the pretty pleading, the gracious speech? Why should a lover stammer and confuse his verbs? ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... They find a difficulty in shifting their mental view of an object, and examining it at pleasure in different positions. If they see an object equally often in many positions the memories combine and confuse one another, forming a "composite" blur, which they cannot dissect into its components. They are less able to visualise the features of intimate friends than those of persons of whom they have caught only a single ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... morning, at dawn, he has taken his ride on horseback; with extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his topographical glance has discerned "the best direction for the projected canal, the best site for the construction of a factory, a harbor, or a dike."[4140] To the difficulties which confuse the best brains in the country, to much debated, seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the local council had not seen it; he makes them touch it with their fingers. They stand confounded and agape before the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... words rather than with things. The whole object of the discussion concerns the meaning of terms, and it deals throughout with the relation of words to other words. It is an acute philological argument. We feel ourselves to be arguing about forms, and not about substances. Now, such arguments may confuse, but they cannot convince. We do not know, perhaps, what to say in reply; but we remain unsatisfied. One not used to logic may listen to an argument which shall conclusively prove that white is black; that nothing is greater than something; that a man who jumps from the top ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... and Vieuxtemps knew it. Like Rubinstein, he held that the artist must first of all have ideas, emotional power—his technic must be so perfected that he does not have to think of it! Incidentally, speaking of schools of violin playing, I find that there is a great tendency to confuse the Belgian and French. This should not be. They are distinct, though the latter has undoubtedly been formed and influenced by the former. Many of the great violin names, in fact,—Vieuxtemps, Leonard*, Marsick, Remi, Parent, de Broux, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... important! Do not make too much fuss about either. Do you see? The thing is that you, you yourself, are not ANY of your qualities—you are the being that perceives them. The thing to see to is that they should not confuse you, bamboozle you, and hide you from the knowledge of yourself—that they should not be erected into a screen, to hide you from others, or the others from you. If you cease from running after qualities, then after a little time ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, she comes from the heart of ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a long time without speaking. The warmth of the chamber had the reverse of an assuaging effect upon his difficult breathing and his frequent short cough—it seemed to oppress and confuse his brain. He began to feel a pain in his right side, and could not sit upright on ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... he continues in a strain with which we should have not credited the 'gay classic friend of Jack Wilkes' and of that Sienese signora, unless he had turned evidence against himself. He declared his feelings to Paoli, as he had done to Johnson, whose curt advice had been not to confuse or resolve the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny. To the general he now attributed his feeling of the vanity of life, the exhaustion in the very heat of youth of all the sweets of being, and the incapacity for taking part in active life to his 'metaphysical ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... sister, when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse A life ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... mistake if we fix our attention primarily upon the outward symbols of wind and fire, or confuse our minds with the perplexities which are suggested by the references to "speaking with tongues." These things—however wonderful to the men of the Apostolic generation—are in themselves only examples of the psychological abnormalities which not infrequently accompany ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... proofs of our religion, are not of such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely convincing. But they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others. But the evidence is such that it surpasses, or at least equals, the evidence to the contrary; so that it is not reason which can determine men not to follow it, and thus it can only be lust or malice of heart. And by this means there is ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... I know, there is no economist of note who makes any objection to that statement. I know that sometimes political economists confuse their readers and themselves by a loose use of the term wealth, including in it many things which have nothing at all to do with economics. Good health and cheerful spirits, for example, are often spoken of as wealth ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... considered the /facade/, the more was that first impression strengthened and developed, that here the sublime has entered into alliance with the pleasing. If the vast, when it appears as a mass before us, is not to terrify; if it is not to confuse, when we seek to investigate its details,—it must enter into an unnatural, apparently impossible, connection, it must associate to itself the pleasing. But now, since it will be impossible for us to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... can to rack one's brain," she smiled, "and here you combine to do your utmost to confuse me! Well, if it is ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... subject is often presented in a way to confuse it. We speak of heat in a way not to comprehend precisely what we want; and let me touch upon the point which shows what I mean. When the Saviour was at the well with the woman, it was the love in His heart from which she could not ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 39, No. 03, March, 1885 • Various
... said Mr. Falkirk, looking puzzled, 'that in the general buzz of tongues yesterday—which is fit to confuse anything with more brains than a mosquito—I heard various buzzings which seemed to have reference to him. Perhaps I was wrong. I did not mean to listen, but if a fly gets into your ear it is difficult not to know it. Was I ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... taken into account,—and they say so themselves,—that Mr. Seward's oracular vaticinations about the end of the rebellion from sixty to ninety days confuse the judgment of diplomats. Mr. Seward's conversation and words have an official meaning for the diplomats, are the subject of their dispatches, and they continually find that when Mr. Seward says yes the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... wanted to get away from Pavia, and piqued myself on having been good-natured without ulterior motive, I bade her farewell after supper, with many thanks for her kindness in coming. My politeness seemed rather to confuse her, but she went away ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... good girl," said the painter kindly. "We don't want to hurry nor confuse you. We are in great distress ourselves. Miss Algernon went out, we believe, to take a walk. She has not returned here, nor gone home. It would help us very much if we knew the exact time at which she left the house, or ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... at once with a series of false motions intended to confuse Merriwell, but they simply brought a faint smile to Frank's face, and he remained ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... direct currents, you're likely to find yourself in trouble because he'll know just enough to see that what you're telling him doesn't jibe with what he already knows. Volts times amperes equal watts, as far as he's concerned, and the term 'power factor' does nothing but confuse him. He knows that copper is a conductor, so he can't see how a current could be cut off by a choke coil. He knows that a current can't pass through an insulator, so a condenser obviously can't be what you say it is. Mentally, he tags you as a liar, and he ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... Ah, do not confuse Liberty with the excesses committed in her name. Liberty, as we understand her, is the friend of order and duty; she protects all rights. She wishes ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... followed. In my later works I omitted the metronome and merely described the main tempi in general terms, paying, however, particular attention to the various modifications of tempo. It would appear that general directions also tend to vex and confuse Capellmeisters, especially when they are expressed in plain German words. Accustomed to the conventional Italian terms these gentlemen are apt to lose their wits when, for instance, I write "moderate." Not long ago a Capellmeister complained ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... believe I am right. No one," said he, blushing faintly as he spoke, "can have a greater recoil from profligacy than I have. You yourself have not greater sorrow over this young creature's sin than I have: the difference is this, you confuse ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... consultation on the precise language necessary in addressing the king at the first audience, which he had signified his readiness, to grant on the morning of the fourth day. The general insisted that it be interpersed with so much latin as to confuse both the king and the interpreter, though both were profound scholars. "I have rare skill in mixing latin, as your excellency knows but you grind it up so in the delivery that neither the king nor the devil can understand a word of it. And as your English is good enough for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned out to be the foot-brake after all, and we stopped dead, and skidded into a ditch. The advice I give to every young man starting life is: 'Never confuse the unusual and the impossible.' Take the present case. If you had only realised the possibility of somebody some day collaring your study, you might have thought out dozens of sound schemes for dealing with the matter. As it is, you are unprepared. The ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... recently written books, Mr. Rhys is not always at hand. In such cases there is little direction for docile disciples of culture excepting such as is given in newspaper reviews, and reviews are as likely to misdirect and confuse as ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... seems to be that the accused is guilty until he has proved his innocence, and those conversant with French trials need not be told that the judges assist the public prosecutor. In this case, they sought by cross-examinations to confuse Fouquet, and to entrap him into dangerous admissions. Seguier sternly repressed any leanings in his favor; he even reproved some of the judges for returning the salutation of the prisoner, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... had not satisfied himself with depriving the enemy of all information as to his advance. He took steps to confuse and alarm them by false news. By means of large bribes he prevailed upon two peasants to carry each a copy of the same letter to Colonel Jones, who commanded in San Matteo. He took the further step of insuring their loyalty by arresting their families as hostages, and, moreover, took care ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... just this support that Steptoe strangely clung to in his designs for the future, and a wild idea seized him. The surveyor was really the only disinterested witness between the two parties. If Steptoe could confuse his mind before the actual fighting—from which he would, of course, escape as a non-combatant—it would go far afterwards to rehabilitate Steptoe's party. "Very well, then," he said to Marshall, "I shall ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... men with all his powers. Oh, how often will he here prevent the desire to pray, not allow us to find time and place, nay, often also raise doubts, whether a man is worthy to ask anything of such a Majesty as God is, and so confuse us that a man himself does not know whether it is really true that he prays or not; whether it is possible that his prayer is acceptable, and other such strange thoughts. For the evil spirit knows well how powerful one man's ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... and shaping real history; sometimes taking the form of heroic biography, of tradition, or popular legend; sometimes appearing as recognised fiction in the epic, the drama, or the novel. It is useless to tell us that this is to confuse truth and falsehood. We are stating a fact, not a theory; and if it makes truth and falsehood difficult to distinguish, that is nature's fault, not ours. Fiction is only false, when it is false, not to fact, else how could it ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... conspicuous, and the iridescent vapours of romance quickly gather round it. The main outline of a distant peak is clear, for rival heights are plainly surpassed, and sordid details, being invisible, cannot detract from it or confuse. The comfortable spectator may contemplate it in peace. It does not exact from him quick decisions or disquieting activity. The storms that sweep over it contribute to his admiration without wetting his feet, and his high estimate of its beauty and greatness may be enjoyed without apprehension ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Judges; study them, and you will be astonished at their straight common-sense and justice. I'm not holding any brief for lawyers—I'm frank, you see—the business of lawyers is to wriggle round and circumvent the truth, to muddy evidence, confuse witnesses and undo justice. I'm just ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... apprehended, but the complexity of its incidents and the intricacies of its plot make it difficult to follow. The rapidity of its action, the necessity of gathering the meaning from a single hearing, and the intensity of feeling aroused would all unite to confuse the hearer were it not for the skill of the actor and the appropriateness of the stage settings. By the aid of these, understanding is in most cases not difficult. The changing scenery, the dress ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... which ascetic writers describe under the formidable names of Detachment and Mortification. By Detachment they mean the eviction of the limpet from its crevice; the refusal to anchor yourself to material things, to regard existence from the personal standpoint, or confuse custom with necessity. By Mortification, they mean the resolving of the turbulent whirlpools and currents of your own conflicting passions, interests, desires; the killing out of all those tendencies which the peaceful vision of Recollection would condemn, and which ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... would cross some bog or swamp, and Frank had to make a wide circuit in order to avoid getting over his knees in water. Again it would wind in and out among the trees, as if the persons who put it up wanted to confuse any one who sought to trace where ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... original power and derivation of every form of every pronoun in a language, it would be far from an easy matter to determine therefrom the paradigm that they should take in grammar. To place a word according to its power in a late stage of language might confuse the study of an early stage. To say that because a word was once in a given class, it should always be so, would be to deny that in the present English they, these, and she are personal pronouns ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... one idea the centre of thought for the week,—not to confuse the minds of the children by too much at once," said the Directress. "This week it is pansies." In the garden children were watering pansies in bloom, and pansies were cut and dug for use in the house, where they ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... the hunting field, when a young friend of his of humble birth was on trial for his life. The evidence gathered around a hat found next the body of the murdered man, which was recognized as the hat of the prisoner. The lawyers tried to break down the evidence, confuse the testimony, and get some relief from the directness of the circumstances, but in vain, until at last they called for O'Connell. He came in, flung his riding-whip and hat on the table, was told the circumstances, and, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... I may or may not have a gun licence, but our present controversy relates to a certificate to kill game. Do not let us confuse the issue." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... adjust, methodize, regulate, systematize. Adj. orderly, regular; in order,in trim, in apple-pie order, in its proper place; neat, tidy, en regle[Fr], well regulated, correct, methodical, uniform, symmetrical, shipshape, businesslike, systematic; unconfused &c. (see confuse &c. 61); arranged &c. 60. Adv. in order; methodically &c. adj.; in -turn, - its turn; step by step; by regular -steps, -gradations, -stages, -intervals; seriatim, systematically, by clockwork, gradatim[Lat]; at stated periods &c. (periodically) 138. Phr. natura non facit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in Julien, "you confuse the cases; we are now concerned with the veracious history of the pug, not the uncertain future of ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... taken out at once, the rush from all the hives is so much like a swarm, that it appears to confuse them. Some of the stocks by this means will get more bees than actually belong to them, while others are proportionably short, which is unprofitable, and to equalize them is some trouble; yet it may be done. Being all wintered in one room, the scent ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... was she to keep her promise to Terence?—the Hill Terence, she called him now, when she thought of him, so as not to confuse him with Terence Sullivan. She went to the pool again and again and tried to find the door in the rocks open and the water so that she could walk on it, but she never found them so. Yet she could not think of any other way to get into the hill again. After a while it seemed ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... suggestions. For at length the hesitating and bewildered President, unable to decide and impotent to construct, seems to have made his message a patchwork from the contributions of his advisers, regular and irregular, with the inevitable effect, not to combine and strengthen, but to weaken and confuse the warring ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay |
