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Literary notes about partiality (AI summary)

In literature, the term "partiality" is employed in a variety of nuanced ways—from denoting unjust favoritism that undermines impartial principles to describing a natural human bias in personal matters. Authors have used it to condemn biased judgment in political and social contexts, as when partiality is seen as detrimental to fairness in governance ([1], [2], [3]). At the same time, it captures the fluid nature of human affection and preference, being invoked to illustrate personal leanings or emotional predispositions in relationships—be they familial, romantic, or friendly ([4], [5], [6], [7]). Other writers extend its usage to emphasize an inborn or even culturally specific partiality, suggesting that every individual or group harbors inherent inclinations that color their perceptions ([8], [9]). Thus, across genres and epochs, "partiality" serves as a critical concept that challenges the reader to reflect on the balance between natural inclination and the ideal of objective fairness ([10], [11]).
  1. Partiality to either, to the injury of the other, is wrong in principle, and we must therefore oppose it.
    — from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I
  2. 24 He constantly declaimed against the luxury and corruption of the age, the partiality of parliaments, and the misery of party spirit.
    — from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay
  3. But we may distrust the partiality of a kinsman.
    — from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
  4. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else.
    — from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  5. The mother's eyes are not always deceived in their partiality: she at least can best judge who is the tender, filial-hearted child.
    — from Middlemarch by George Eliot
  6. He had thought he loved her to distraction; he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little evanescent partiality.
    — from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain
  7. I feel that I have betrayed myself perpetually—so unguarded in speaking of my partiality for the church!
    — from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  8. For, indeed, who is there alive that will not be swayed by his bias and partiality to the place of his birth?
    — from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift
  9. Even as it is, mathematicians share with musicians a certain partiality in their characters and mental development.
    — from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
  10. Partiality is thinking too highly of anyone because of the love we bear him.
    — from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza
  11. There is no partiality, no respect of persons, in God’s distribution of rewards and punishments.
    — from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot

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