"Extenuating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that small dwelling on the oak was watched, day after day, early and late, in storm and in sunshine; now I know at least one family of kingbirds, and what I know I shall honestly tell, "nothing extenuating." ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... turn into a virtue his too common fault of giving undue prominence to every passing emotion. He excels in monologue, and the law of the sonnet tempers monologue with mercy. In "The Excursion" we are driven to the subterfuge of a French verdict of extenuating circumstances. His mind had not that reach and elemental movement of Milton's, which, like the tradewind, gathered to itself thoughts and images like stately fleets from every quarter; some deep with silks and spicery, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... qualities alike were exceptional. It is easy, by suppressing the one or the other, to paint him a hero or a villain. He lends himself readily to polemic; but to depict his character in all its varied aspects, extenuating nothing nor setting down aught in malice, is a task of no little difficulty. It is two centuries and a half since Lord Herbert produced his Life and Reign of Henry VIII.[1] The late Mr. Brewer, in his prefaces to the first four volumes of the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Archdeacon Hare, both by natural tendency and by his position as a Churchman, had been led, in editing a Work not free from ecclesiastical heresies, and especially in writing a Life very full of such, to dwell with preponderating emphasis on that part of his subject; by no means extenuating the fact, nor yet passing lightly over it (which a layman could have done) as needing no extenuation; but carefully searching into it, with the view of excusing and explaining it; dwelling on it, presenting all the ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... commonness. If she did not rub it into Louise, which would have done no good, she did rub it into Louise's father, though that could hardly have been said to do any good either. Her report of the whole affair made him writhe, but when she had made him writhe enough she began to admit some extenuating circumstances. If Mrs. Maxwell was a country person, she was not foolish. She did not chant, in a vain attempt to be genteel in her speech; she did not expand unduly under Mrs. Hilary's graciousness, and ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... been judge as well as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation,—no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other,—no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,—no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,—would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my full assent ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... himself with the lies he tells for the good of his patients. He also comprehended the relativeness of words, the vagueness of conceptions, the faultiness of all communion, but was nevertheless not so broad-minded that he found extenuating circumstances everywhere and for everyone. His great power lay in his demand for fixedness of opinion. Growth and development were thereby excluded, but he sacrificed these, for the sake of the support so necessary to the herd, that positiveness ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... talk of 'circumstances'; he heard the story from other sources; my confession came too tardily, it seems. I could no longer plead extenuating circumstances: I could not demean myself by trying ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... mercy to the unfortunate deceased. You took him to a vacant seat, and wiped him with a clean napkin, and you laid him down with the gentleness one shows to a little child. In consideration of these extenuating circumstances, which reflect some credit upon you, I shall inflict upon you three weeks' imprisonment." So Denis Halligan got off by the judge mistaking a vacancy for a vacant seat, and a clehalpin for ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton |
