Literary notes about Judgment (AI summary)
In literature, the word "judgment" serves as a versatile device that spans personal introspection, moral evaluation, and even divine adjudication. It is used to reflect on a character's internal struggle when confronting past errors or uncertain decisions, as in the self-reproach of a miscalculation [1, 2]. At the same time, it is portrayed as an evolving faculty—one refined by experience and reason, illustrating the capacity to discern rightly in a complex world [3, 4, 5]. Moreover, judgment commonly emerges in philosophical and theological discourse as the ultimate measure of justice and moral order, whether rendered by human legal institutions or as the final reckoning by a higher power [6, 7, 8]. This broad deployment underscores judgment’s central role in shaping both individual destinies and the collective conscience in literary works [9, 10, 11].
- The discovery that I have committed such an error in judgment as this makes me hesitate about everything else.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - “Well, well,” said the honest old man, fumbling in his pocket: “I s’pose, perhaps, I an’t following my judgment,—hang it, I won’t follow my judgment!”
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - For my own part, as my judgment is ripened by experience, so are my sentiments changed since our last association.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. Smollett - V. Now, where our senses conflict with our reason, we defer the judgment of the lower faculty to the judgment of the higher.
— from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius - In the percept or idea the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates between relations not perceived by the senses.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - But woe to you, Pharisees, because you tithe mint and rue and every herb and pass over judgment and the charity of God.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - It alludes to the judgment of God upon Nabuchodonosor, recorded Dan.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - All his ways are according to his ordering: so man is in the hand of him that made him, and he will render to him according to his judgment.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - It would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled, to contest the judgment of such a board as this.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - From daylight to late at night he is going this way and that, cheering by his kindly words and directing with calm judgment what is to be done.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - General Scott assigned the capture of Chapultepec to General Pillow, but did not leave the details to his judgment.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant
