Literary notes about sagacious (AI summary)
Throughout literature, "sagacious" is used to evoke a sense of deep, reflective wisdom and astute insight. Authors apply the adjective to characters endowed with discerning intellect, as seen when a child’s perceptive gaze is described or when a commander’s strategic mind is highlighted [1], [2]. At times it serves to characterize a mentor or advisor whose judicious counsel underpins the narrative, while in other works it bestows an almost mythic quality on a leader or warrior [3], [4]. The term even appears in contexts where its use is laced with irony, suggesting that perceptions of wisdom can sometimes be a façade [5], [6]. As such, "sagacious" remains an enduring literary device for conveying the nuanced interplay between perception, judgment, and authority.
- The infant on the floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes.
— from Mosses from an old manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne - and ‘To Siberia!’” said Berg with a sagacious smile.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - Gregorius had much property, and was himself a thriving, sagacious man.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson - Villani calls him ‘the most sagacious and accomplished warrior of his time in Italy’ ( Cronica , vii. 80).
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri - This engagement, consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and religious duties, was refused by the more sagacious members 111 of the assembly.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - ‘Dick is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he thinks I am half so well worthy of his notice as you,’ replied Nicholas.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
