Famous quotes containing the word specimens:
“In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“If the individuals who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, the guarded blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner as that we could, at leisure, and critically inspect their behavior, we might find no gentleman, and no lady; for, although excellent specimens of courtesy and high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in the particulars, we should detect offence. Because, elegance comes of no breeding, but of birth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A tattered copy of Johnson’s large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to “make up” verses.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)