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Initiative   Listen
adjective
Initiative  adj.  Serving to initiate; inceptive; initiatory; introductory; preliminary.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Initiative" Quotes from Famous Books



... overstrained. It is not thus that women are won. The fruit that drops into people's mouths is usually over-ripe, and the Sabine maiden would have thought less of her Roman lover, though doubtless she would have taken the initiative rather than miss him altogether, had it been necessary to pounce on him in the vineyard and desire him straightway to carry her home. But the bird of prey must have its natural victim, and such hearts as our poor generous ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... bolt from the blue came the summons from the president, and I, all muddy, am called to the seats of the mighty. I have never seen a more splendid aggregation of women than the members of the Winnipeg Canadian Club, tall, strong, alert, and full of initiative. To face them is a mental and moral challenge. I try to hide those muddy shoes of mine. The Winnipeg women are indulgent, they make allowance for my unpresentable attire, and shower upon me cheery wishes for the success of my journey. Mrs. Humphry Ward calls attention ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... people. The legislature consists of members elected in the proportion of one to every 1100 inhabitants. The "obligatory referendum'' exists in the case of all laws, while 5000 citizens have the right of "initiative'' in proposing bills or alterations in the cantonal constitution. The canton sends 10 members to the federal Nationalrat, being one for every 20,000, while the two Standerate are (since 1904) elected by a direct vote of the people. The canton is divided into eleven administrative ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... statesmen are quite convinced of the fact that the private exploitation of industry is a great evil and one that ought to be put a stop to. On the other hand, there are Japanese statesmen who are firmly convinced that the State control of industries can only result in the destruction of individual initiative and genius, with the inevitable result of reducing everybody to a dead level of incompetence. In this matter Japan will have, as other nations have had, to work out her own salvation. In the process ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... obtained a satisfactory mastery of the body, and has a large range of movement at command; is now able to control the source of movement and to relax opposing muscles so that the movement may follow through; that is, may continue from its initiative in any part of the body to the desired climax, without muscular obstruction. The entire body is now ready and responsive to any call upon it, and the act of dancing becomes a pleasure and a joy it never ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... the Hague Tribunal is conceivably the germ of such an overriding direction and supreme court as the peace of the world demands, but in reality the Hague Tribunal is a mere legal automatic machine. It does nothing unless you set it in motion. It has no initiative. It does not even protest against the most obvious outrages upon that ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... vital necessity to restrain the individual initiative of subordinates and leave command to the chiefs, and above all to watch the training of the soldiers who are always ready, as they approach, to run on the enemy with the bayonet. I have always noted that if a body which is charged does not hold firm, ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... inform the President of Mexico of the above in greatest confidence, as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan, suggesting adherence to this plan. At the same time offer to mediate between Germany ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... be ameliorated by the speedy opening of a trade school for those who have reached the age to obtain working papers; (4) if public instruction could not immediately undertake the organization of such a school, then private initiative must do it, even though it must depend for its support upon voluntary contributions. The result was that an extreme effort was put forth and the following November the first trade school in America, for girls of fourteen years of ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman

... manifold excellencies and diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no "old masters" to copy from—no "schools" which supplied their imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius—had they not been bound to the wheels of inexorable precedent. If the flying monk, for example, were ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... them by their co-religionists. The man further reported that large numbers of fresh tribesmen had appeared on the scene, and that it was intended to attack us on the 16th. He advised the Commissioner to take the initiative, and gave him to understand that if we advanced the Bunerwals ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... initiative beginnin' first off at Gallops Junction,' he says, 'where we ain't known, an' where pa ain't known, an' where the book ain't known. I've a premonition,' he says, 'that 'twould be better so. If we was to start in here we would get discouraged, for the folks ain't used to buyin' "Wage of ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has judgment to know good and bad when it is said and done, although he himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other correct; thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, and is ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... If we get through here, now, the war will, must be, over next year. My Manchurian Campaign and two Russian Manoeuvres have taught me that, from Grand Duke to Moujiks, our Allies need just that precise spice of initiative which we, only we in the world, can lend them. Advice, cash, munitions aren't enough; our palpable presence is the point. The arrival of Birdwood, Hunter-Weston and Gouraud at Odessa would electrify the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... in opposing them. Thus it was in the present case." The significance of that passage is that the two friends made for themselves the opportunities by which they won fame and rendered service. They did not wait on Fortune; they forced her hand. They showed by what they did on their own initiative, with very limited resources, that they were the right men to be entrusted with work ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... the question reduced to the mere issue of which of the two houses should first take the field. The issue had been easily settled—in the manner of every issue referred in any degree to Amerigo and Charlotte: the initiative obviously belonged to Mrs. Verver, who had gone to Matcham while Maggie had stayed away, and the evening in Eaton Square might have passed for a demonstration all the more personal that the dinner had been planned on "intimate" lines. ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... gets to this part of his story we have, at my initiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian guest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls, and sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes. "Good-night," two sweet-voiced Utopians cry to us in their universal tongue, and ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... state of the condemned departed is a state of complete damnation absolutely eternal. Against that form of representing future punishment which makes it unlimited by conceiving the destiny of the soul to be an eternal progress, in which their initiative steps of good or evil in this life place different souls under advantages or disadvantages never relatively to be lost, we have nothing to object. It is reasonable, in unison with natural law, and not frightful.13 But we are to deal, if we fairly can, a refutation against the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... signing papers and soliciting orders, while his associate was to attend to the technical end of the enterprise. In order to feed his presses with work, Balzac counted upon his energy, his will power, his spirit of initiative and his tact; he mentally recapitulated the number of publishers with whom he had had relations, and who beyond a doubt would entrust their work to him. The printing house was located on the ground floor of a distinctly gloomy building in the Rue des ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... difficult, Philip was obdurate and closed his ears. The long distance between Madrid and Brussels and the procrastinating habits of the Spanish king added immensely to the regent's perplexities. She could not act on her own initiative, and her appeals to Philip were either disregarded or after long delay ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... details. This rendered concerted action as impossible as it would have been had the differences related not to means, but to ends; and nobody united in himself sufficient technical knowledge with sufficient moral initiative to harmonize these conflicting elements, and thus to render concerted action practicable. The enterprise, in consequence, soon came to an end, certain of the directors bearing most of the loss. But I, at all events, got something for my money in ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... repeated Riles. He was trying to play the game, but, as Gardiner often reminded him, he had no imagination. It would have been quite impossible for Riles, on his own initiative, to have thought of wishing the Harrises "good luck" on the journey they were about to commence...They were interesting types of villains—one, gentlemanly, suave, deep, and resourceful; the other, coarse, shallow, slow-witted, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... attentively, and could hear a deep half-suppressed sigh, and then footsteps stealing quietly away. I lay awake cogitating as to how I should receive her, whether to feign profound sleep, and so let her take all the initiative, or whether to pretend that the novelty of the bed, and thinking over her affectionate kindness to me had kept me awake. I decided upon pretending to be sound asleep, chiefly that I might see how she would carry out her designs, and also ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... became her to take the initiative in the healing of the breach which she felt growing wide between them, or simply to await the development of the course of action she had chosen to pursue, now became a problem to her perplexed mind. So much depended upon ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... disuse and his use of parliaments, Henry strengthened the royal power, the initiative of all legislation remaining in his hands. To the same end he continued to depress the great nobles and to create a new nobility dependent on royal favour. All who threatened to display a dangerous ambition, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... of the musical movement of which Weymar is the real center lies precisely in this initiative, of which the public does not generally understand much, but which none the less acquires its part of importance in ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... cruelties and oppressions—keep them from her sight if you can. She would flare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided and resolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither promptness nor initiative. Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I think her intentions are always right. Once when she was a little creature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down upon the floor in an apparent outbreak ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain

... you may polish and alter as you like, ALL BUT THE LAST PARAGRAPH. You see I have caved in. I like your asking to have your own way "for once." My wife takes the same line, does whatever she pleases, and then declares I leave her no initiative. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... not always be heard in the din; it was necessary to watch the front of the square, and move on or halt as it did, unless a particular rush at a certain point compelled those at it to take the initiative, and then others ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... confidently boasted, to drive the rebels before him. Prince Charles, leaving a few hundred men to continue the siege, matched out to Bannockburn. The English did not move out from Falkirk, and the prince, after waiting for a day, determined to take the initiative. ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... components. Sec. 209. Intelligence training development for State and local government officials. Sec. 210. Information sharing incentives. Sec. 210A. Department of Homeland Security State, Local, and Regional Information Fusion Center Initiative. Sec. 210B. Homeland Security Information Sharing Fellows Program. Sec. 210C. Rural Policing Institute. Sec. 210D. Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group. Sec. 210E. ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... so far as possible is begun and carried on by individual initiative; in the other the state gradually takes control of all enterprise. The philosophy of the one is based upon the saying: love one another; the political philosophy of the other is based upon the assumption that men are not brethren, but beasts and mechanical toys, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... willingness to obey authority. From the past the families on the Hill inherit their willingness respectively to command and to obey. This is true socially of certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some are not led is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the households which, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, inherit and claim the ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—"now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain dignity ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... day. They did not return, but they drove the Turk before them and enabled others to dig in before he could re-form. You would have to go back to mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... was hesitation and mix-up in the general handling, the Regimental folk atoned and there were many incidents of initiative and daring on the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... and the wounded bull engage in, without thereby exciting the pathetic. When suffering man seeks to give an expression to his feelings, to remove his enemy, to shelter the suffering limb, he does all this in common with the animals, and instinct alone takes the initiative here, without the will being applied to. Therefore, this is not an act that emanates from the man himself, nor does it show him as an intelligence. Sensuous nature will always fight the enemy that makes it suffer, but it will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... connection with 'Every Other Week.' In fact, this was not perhaps so simple as it seemed, and long before it could be put in effect it appeared still simpler to do nothing about the matter—to remain passive and leave the initiative to Dryfoos, to maintain the dignity of unconsciousness and let recognition of any change in the situation come from those who had caused the change. After all, it was rather absurd to propose making a purely personal question the pivot on which his relations with 'Every Other Week' turned. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... as a second chance, after the possibility of a broad handling of the settlement by the Czar, and as a very much bigger probability, is the insistence by America upon her right to a voice in the ultimate settlement and an initiative from the Western Hemisphere that will lead to a world congress. There are the two most hopeful sources of that great proposal. It is the tradition of British national conduct to be commonplace to the pitch of dullness, and all the stifled intelligence of Great Britain will beat in vain against ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... argue out so plain a point. It is individuals, and not the Holy See, that have taken the initiative, and given the lead to the Catholic mind, in theological inquiry. Indeed, it is one of the reproaches urged against the Roman Church, that it has originated nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or break in the development of doctrine. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... Bank CE Council of Europe CEAO Communaute Economique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest; see West African Economic Community (CEAO) CEEAC Communaute Economique des Etats de l'Afrique Centrale; see Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) CEI Central European Initiative CEMA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance; also known as CMEA or Comecon CEPGL Communaute Economique des Pays des Grands Lacs; see Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL) CERN Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... of Lieutenant Victor Blue in boldly plunging into the Cuban wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since the days ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... can hardly choose whether they will be married or not. They can say No to all offers, and some women do plan for opportunities to say Yes, yet most of us feel that there are few circumstances in which a girl of noble instincts could take the initiative. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... enable the whole of our force to act at once, should we be attacked. Our men were in high spirits, and as ready to attack the enemy's position as to defend their own, should the Pastucians, taking the initiative, assault us. Instead of doing so, however, a flag of truce was sent into our camp from the bishop, expressing his wish to prevent bloodshed by an amicable arrangement of matters. Our general replied that the surest way of bringing this about was for ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston

... industry at the South could as a rule procure labor only by remitting round sums in money or credit which depleted their working capital and for which were obtained slaves fit only for plantation routine, negroes of whom little initiative could be expected and little contribution to the community's welfare beyond their mere muscular exertions. The negroes were procured in the first instance mainly because white laborers were not to be had; afterward when whites might otherwise have been available the established conditions ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... hostility shown us in Santa Sophia nor in the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. Be that as it may, forbidden fruit is always sweet, and the Tommies were inclined to force an entrance. During a change of guard a Tommy who had his curiosity and initiative stimulated through recourse to arrick, the fiery liquor distilled from dates, stole into the most holy mosque in Kerbela. By a miracle he was got out unharmed, but for a few hours a general uprising with an attendant massacre of unbelievers ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... essere amato e onorato da' Fiorentini non altrimenti che Numa dai Romani e Solone dagli Ateniesi e Licurgo da' Lacedemoni.' The evil of the old system was that the Parlamento, which consisted of the citizens assembled in the Piazza, was exposed to intimidation, and had no proper initiative, while the Balia, or select body, to whom they then intrusted plenipotentiary authority, was always the faction for the moment uppermost. For the mode of working the Parlamento and Balia, see Segni, p. 199; Nardi, lib. vi. cap. 4; Varchi, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... confide their simple wants and childish hopes to him, he came to realize the immense ascendency which the priests of Colombia possess over the simple understanding of the people. An ascendency hereditary and dominant, capable of utmost good, but expressed in the fettering of initiative and action, in the suppression of ambition, and the quenching of every impulse toward independence of thought. How he longed to lift them up from the drag of their mental encompassment! Yet how helpless he was to afford them the needed lustration ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... editor of the New York Nation says: "Whatever improvement there has been in the condition of Bellevue Hospital, for example, and of the hospitals of Blackwell's and Hart's Islands, during the past twenty years—and it is very great—has, as a rule, been due to women's initiative ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... o'clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet lawn, or to mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George at a little before five ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... not work out correctly. It was a raw and bitter day; during the morning there were occasional snow flurries, and at midday a heavy downfall. Bennigsen seized the initiative, and opened the battle by a cannonade. Napoleon, divining his plan, sent a messenger for Ney to come and strengthen Soult. At nine the Russian right advanced and drove in the French left, which was weak, to the town. At that moment the order was given ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... was now time to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife. They were brave men that we ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the mass of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... and the university strikes me as typically American. There are two ways of doing things—leaving public undertakings entirely to private initiative, to individuals, to voluntary groups; that is one plan. There is another plan which consists in putting everything into the hands of the state. Constituted authority takes charge of the whole life of ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... also the hunting ground of those who sought to improve their lot. One night a well-known Signaller, a noted hunter with an eagle eye, observed a case of rum—for the moment unattended. The situation obviously required action and P——possessed the necessary initiative. Five seconds later he was being pursued down the Beach. After successfully losing his pursuers he humped the case to Russell's Top and opened it before a crowd of thirsty and expectant Signallers—to find that it was lime juice. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... a poet who was 'owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool'? Burns waited on in the expectation that those who had the power would take it upon themselves to do something for him. Perhaps he credited them with a sense and a generosity they could not lay claim to; though had one of them taken the initiative in this matter, he would have honoured himself in honouring Burns, and endeared his name to the hearts of his countrymen for all time. But such offices are created and kept open for political sycophants, who can importune with ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... two clean-faced and very much alive Americans arrived at the Polo Club for late breakfast. Indeed they were good to look at, being in the finest kind of health and full of initiative. That breakfast was royal in every flavour; they felt like young spendthrifts squandering their patrimony. Just as they were finishing, a distinguished looking Englishman came across ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... limitations to co-operative endeavor. It took many hard experiences for our farmers to learn these truths. But back of all lie some inherent difficulties, as, for instance, the number of people involved, their isolation, sectional interests, ingrained habits of independent action, of individual initiative, of suspicion of others' motives. There is often lack of perspective, and unwillingness to invest in a procedure that does not promise immediate returns. The mere fact of failure has discredited the organization idea. There is lack of leadership; for the farm industry, while ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... have been more frequently dealt with; or rather, that thinkers postulating that infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, are well worth ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... Unhappily, the time was approaching when the French soldiery had more cause to dread their own generals than those of the enemy; and these forces, besides being insufficient, were placed under the command of Marshal de Tesse, a cunning courtier but mediocre general, incapable of any initiative strategy, and whose sole study was to carry out to the letter the personal instructions of Louis XIV. and Chamillard. However, either from want of sufficient resources or want of skill, Tesse failed this once in the execution of his master's formal orders, which directed ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... in the last extremity, and you have to choose between adopting and at once executing a plan which you believe to be the right one and save the country, or defer to the opinions of military men in command and lose the country." He finally decided he would take the initiative; but there was Mr. Bates, who had suggested the gunboat fleet, and wanted to advance down the Mississippi, as originally designed; but after a little he came to see that no result could be achieved on that mode of attack, and he ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell

... age, and of depressed spirits and manner. However, Frank had been used to intercourse with clergy, though his relations with them seemed reversed, and instead of being patronised, he had to take the initiative; or rather, they touched each other's cold, shy, limp hands, and sat upright in their chairs, and observed upon the appropriate topic of early frosts, which really seemed to be ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... war-industry committees, the workmen had elected representatives, sitting with the representatives of the manufacturers and owners. In the cooeperative movement the bourgeois-intellectual element had taken the initiative, but had always emphasized the direct participation of the workmen and peasants in the actual management of the societies, as the ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,

... at home in the cottages of the village, while the three days' rest in Armentieres owed much of its enjoyment to the initiative shown by the 4th Division in organising both divisional baths and ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown

... the Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth) to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... and legitimate efforts to banish the abomination of lynching and torture from the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is my firm belief that in the statements made by Miss Wells concerning white women having taken the initiative in nameless acts between the races she has put an imputation upon half the white race in this country that is unjust, and, save in the rarest exceptional instances, wholly without foundation. This is the unanimous opinion of the most disinterested and ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... disguised. They showed frequent hostility towards coal-heavers, dockers, sailors, fishermen, and sundry other grades of workmen with whom they came in contact, but that is not to say they were always successful in their attacks, though they invariably took the initiative. In the old days the average British tar could not solve the mystery as to what foreigners, and especially Frenchmen, were made for; even at the present time they put on a lordly air when they come in contact ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... hands—after a little practice—with astonishing results. In two days we had, we prided ourselves, raised such collaboration from the ranks of the Mechanical to the society of the Fine Arts. My part was comparatively easy. Sinking his initiative he had more nearly converted himself into an intelligent piece of mechanism than I would have believed possible. It would, of course, be vain to suggest that Pong would not have gone faster if I had been able to drive with my own hands, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... of passing the act, was empowered; and that all laws or ordinances so made, subject to the provisions thereinafter contained for disallowance thereof by her majesty, should have the like force and effect as laws passed by the legislative bodies. The governor was further to have the initiative of all measures proposed in the council, five of whom were required for a quorum. Certain restrictive provisoes followed these provisions; and it was directed that a copy of every such law or ordinance "be transmitted to the home government;" and her ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... not disappear. The people at the Fort, even Allan Mowbray, himself, when he returned, dismissed the matter without further consideration. He laughed at the panic which had arisen in his absence, while yet he commended Murray's initiative and courage. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... the ordinary was happening, though he did not know what, slung a maxim tripod over his shoulders, picked up a gun under each arm, and went straightaway to the centre of activity—a feat not only of wonderful physical strength, but considerable initiative and courage. We did not suffer heavy casualties, but 2nd Lieut. Mould's platoon had their parapet destroyed in one or two places, and had to re-build it under heavy fire, in which Pte. J.H. Cramp, the Battalion hairdresser, distinguished himself. Except for ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... there remained but one field of useful popularity for the onion to adorn; in time it might hope to supplant the sunflower as the floral emblem of Kansas, as typifying a great political principle which originated in that state: The Initiative, when one took a chance and ate a young onion; the Referendum, while one's digestive apparatus wrestled with it; the Recall, if it disagreed with one. Alone, of all the vegetables, stood spinach, with not a single detractor. On this issue the ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... was devoted to the king, but had no credit with the nation. The ministry had neither the initiative nor opposition; the initiative was in the hands of the Jacobins, and the executive power with the mob. The king, without an organ, without privilege, without force, had merely the odious responsibility of anarchy. He was the butt against which all parties directed the hate or rage of the people. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... President of Mexico of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico, on his own initiative, should communicate with Japan suggesting adherence at once to this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... big and powerful man—he was also courageous, but the absence of Dodge and the presence of Cunningham offered such sinister omen that temporarily he was bereft of his natural wit and initiative. ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... many defects. Mill decides in favour of democracy mainly on the ground that 'it promotes a better and higher form of national character than any other polity,' since government by authority stunts the intellect, narrows the sympathies, and destroys the power of initiative. 'The perfect commonwealth,' says Mr. Zimmern,' is a society of free men and women, each at once ruling and being ruled,' It is also fair to argue that monarchies do not escape the worst evils of democracies. An autocracy is often obliged to oppress the educated classes and to propitiate ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... happiest of mortals to whom God has given contentment.' He performs his daily labor, makes his prostrations, smokes his chibouk, and lives oblivious of care. He is far from being indifferent to reforms, but is loth to take the initiative in political innovations and social wars. His heart is with the cause, but here also he is resigned: 'God is great—His will be done.' This same spirit of resignation and submission to the divine will, from being a virtue ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... [Initiative and individuality missing.] The want of originality, which among the mestizos, appears to arise from their equivocal position, is also to be found among the natives. Distinctly marked national customs, which one would naturally ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... well-nigh appalled as I contrasted the sluggish conversation, the hide-bound officialism, the stereotyped and sleepy methods of the Western Powers with the sleepless energy, the daring initiative, the desperate industry and courage ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... give you plenty of proofs of this.... The following sentences occur in a letter written from Delhi during our recent panic, by an officer.... 'The native force here is much too small to be a source of anxiety, and unless they take the initiative it is my opinion that there can be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Delhi are a contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare on this side of the Sutlej. The terrors of that period when every man who had two enemies was sure to swing are not forgotten. The people declare ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... own regiments. It is good training for us. At home a subaltern is merely a machine to carry out orders; he is told to do this, and he does it; for him to think for himself would be a heinous offence. He is altogether without responsibility, and without initiative and, by the time he becomes a field officer, he is hidebound. He has never thought for himself, and he can't be expected to begin to do so, after working for twenty years ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of 5 administering the affairs of a continent under the form of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and anxiety 10 inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... its sovereign, and the jungle domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and sinew every year, ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... a remarkable man, an interesting man, a man of power, of initiative, of will, of persistence; a man who plans vastly and who realizes his plans; a man who not only does things himself, but who, even more important than that, is the constant inspiration of others. I shall write ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... of England in Ireland finds an exact parallel, although on a smaller scale and for a shorter period, in the early foolishness of England in her own colonies. In both cases there is an attempt to suppress individuality and initiative, to exploit, to bully, to Downing Street-ify. It was a policy of Unionism, the sort of Unionism that linked the destiny of the lady to that of the tiger. The fruits of it were a little bitter in the eating. The colonies in which under the Home ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... bring my reflections on the preceding legends to an end. Polygamy apparently was unknown in the distant times we are considering. But the marriage bond was not indissoluble, and the initiative in the separation was taken ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... ever-welcome friend of teachers and children all over the wide and often remote districts of the West country which his work covered. He had not the gifts of his elder brothers—neither the genius of Matthew nor the restless energy and initiative of William Delafield, nor the scholarly and researching tastes of my father; and his later life was always a struggle against ill-health. But he had Matthew's kindness, and Matthew's humor—the "chaff" between the two brothers was endless!—and a large allowance of William's ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... resolutions. The financial crisis had just overthrown the fortunes of the people; they turned towards God and began to pray. On a route of three thousand miles, wherever one might stop, he found a meeting, a simple, spontaneous meeting, at which the pastors did not take the initiative, where they were present instead of presiding. Ere long, public attention became fixed on this movement, the greatness of which could not be contested; the most hostile journals ended by rendering it homage. And it lasted, it still subsists, it has produced something else than meetings ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... initiative of going toward the door. "I never saw such a darling bungalow! I just love everything spread out on the ground floor. No stairs and ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... from these mere physical activities, he was preparing for the culmination of his work in the new parliament. It must be remembered not only that he distrusted the intelligence and initiative of colonial ministers too much to dream of giving place to them, but that his theory of his own position—the benevolent despot, secured in his supremacy through popular management—forced on him an elaborate programme ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... and easy adaptiveness, exactly fitted it to experiment by all the dreaming forces of the American woman. They were good needlewomen by inheritance and sensitive to art influences by nature, and the initiative capacity which belongs to power and feeling enabled them at once to seize upon this mode of expression and make it their own. It was the means of inaugurating another era of true decorative needlework, perfectly adapted to the capacity of all women, and destined to be developed on lines ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler

... of Russian-Polish relations has begun, and the noble initiative of A.J. Konovalov, who has donated 10,000 rubles for the needs of the war victims of ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... explained, "I won't seem to be accomplishing much, as I always lay the foundation of my future work by studying my men. Some men have that within them which spurs them on; while some need artificial initiative—outside encouragement," he quoted glibly from "How to Get More Out of Your Factory." "Some men extend themselves under stern discipline; some respond only to a gentle rein. I study men—the men over me, under me, around me. I study them and learn how to get from each the most that is in ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... standing side by side when you break the seal of the last communication, written or oral, which I shall probably ever submit to you. For our paths, henceforth, will lead us widely apart, Derrington. You are a free agent, the arbiter of your own destiny; I am one who can take no initiative regarding the paths I must tread. But this letter is not to speak of myself, but is to tell you about her, if, perchance, when you read these words, you have ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... ye, Bill? How's old Initiative and Referendum? When you coming back to Manhattan? You wouldn't know the old town now. Main Street is building up, and there is talk of an English firm putting up a new hotel. I saw Duffy a few days ago. He looks kind of thoughtful as if he were trying to calculate how much ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... good shots, good at billiards and tennis, good sailors, etc., giving their whole attention to each matter, though without enthusiasm. It is this dull concentration on particular callings which has deprived their character of that vital force, initiative, which, while the greatest of safeguards to rival nations, has removed from the Chinese mind the power to comprehend and carry out large and complicated undertakings involving the handling and direction of modern systems and appliances. The Chinaman ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... with every natural avenue of redress closed, and flushed with recent victory, the Covenanters resolved not only to hold together for defensive purposes, but to take the initiative, push their advantage, and fight for civil and religious liberty. It was the old, old fight, which has convulsed the world probably since the days of Eden—the uprising of the persecuted many against the tyrannical few. In the confusions of a sin-stricken world, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... not until late in the afternoon that Blucher Peabody, the druggist, awoke from his lethargy and moved as though he intended to take the initiative. "Blootch" was Rosalie's most persistent admirer. He had fallen heir to his father's apothecary shop and notion store, and he was regarded as one of the best catches in town. He approached the half-frozen crowd that huddled near old Mrs. Luce's front gate. In this crowd were some ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... headland, and was still advancing. Already there was no way of escape by the sands, and the cove itself would be a bay in a little while—a bay without a boat! If he did not wake and bestir himself, the callous waves would come and cover him. Should she call? She was shy of taking the initiative even to save his life, and hesitated a moment, and in that moment there came a crash. The treacherous clay cliff crumbled, and the great mass of it on which she was lying slid down bodily on to the shining sand. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was composed of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. Copper output has increased steadily since 2004, due to higher copper prices and foreign investment. In 2005, Zambia qualified for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative, consisting of approximately USD 6 billion in debt relief. Zambia experienced a bumper harvest in 2007, which helped to boost GDP and agricultural exports and contain inflation. Although poverty continues to be ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... enterprise alone could make little headway in the actual colonization of the Negroes in a territory sufficiently distant to be beyond the pale of the white population. The one item of expense was too serious a handicap for individual initiative to overcome. Besides the case of Captain Izard Bacon of Virginia, who temporarily removed his fifty-two freedmen to Pennsylvania to await a favorable time for sending them over sea,[235] and of Mary Matthews of King George's ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... He gave the Adjutant a quick glance; but the man's face was inscrutable. Captain Hallam was a disciplinarian where discipline was needed, but he knew the value of what he called initiative. ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... broadened the list of recommended books year by year, and have sought to improve the method of teaching literature. Especially have they hoped to create in the pupil the habit of reading good books and of discovering new material on his own initiative. Thus far their success has fallen much below their hopes, as the testimony of librarians, adduced above, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... new. A new Corps. A new element in which to work. New conditions in peace akin to those in war. And there had to be developed a new spirit, combining the discipline of the old Army, the technical skill of the Navy, and the initiative, energy and dash inseparable from flying. There were the inevitable accidents, but training had to be done. We existed for war and war alone would show whether we had thought and worked without respite aright. ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... looked at. She knew and was secretly amused at the fiasco that always attended the introduction of amiable young ladies to Ashbridge, and had warned her sister-in-law that Michael, when he chose the girl he wanted, would certainly do it on his own initiative. Now she felt sure that Michael, though he might not be aware of it himself, was, even if he had not chosen, beginning to choose. There was that in his eyes which none of the importations to Ashbridge ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... wait until madame Wang could open her mouth, but took the initiative to reply. "Our venerable lady," she urged, "had, even so late as yesterday, said that she meant to come; but, in the evening, upon seeing brother Pao eating peaches, the mouth of the old lady once again began to water, and after partaking of a little more ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... Englishmen from flying at each other's throats. If they paid for peace by the continuance of foreign rule, it was better to be governed by Pandulf than pillaged by Falkes. The principal events of these years were due to papal initiative.[1] Honorius looked askance on the maimed rites of the Gloucester coronation, and ordered a new hallowing to take place at the accustomed place and with the accustomed ceremonies. This supplementary ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... hedge, and coolly reloaded their guns. Yet they, as well as their opponents, understood that time was fighting against them, and as soon as it became obvious that those in the barn intended no sortie they assumed the initiative. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... their shoulders spread. On th' other side, upon the fair hill's brow, Phoebus with Mars the fort-destroyer sat. On either side they sat, each facing each With hostile counsels; yet reluctant both To take th' initiative of ruthless war; Till Jove, enthron'd on high, the signal gave. Then all the plain, with men and horses throng'd, The brazen gleam illumin'd; rang the earth Beneath their feet, as to the battle-shock ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... continued on. "There are conditions for everything, commander. Men react according to certain patterns, given the proper circumstances. It is characteristic of the sort of men you will encounter on your new ship that they are unlikely to take the initiative in such matters, partly from their early training and partly from their association with a CO who pretty well dominated them. However, they will readily condone it if somebody else does take the initiative in their behalf. Particularly, if that man has some official ...
— Shock Absorber • E.G. von Wald

... given. She had declared herself to be afraid of Bios. She did not in the least doubt that great things might be ultimately done with Bios, but she did not quite see the way with her small capital,—thus humbly did she speak of her wealth,—to be one of those who should take the initiative in the matter. Bios evidently required a great deal of advertisement, and Lizzie Eustace had a short-sighted objection to expend what money she had saved on the hoardings of London. Then he opened to her the glories of Guatemala, not contenting himself with describing the certainty ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... Socialism for at least five hundred years.... The Socialist political party-this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative.... But in order to lead the wavering, the comrades Left Socialist ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... had been talking I had heard the cannonade in the distance—now at the north and now in the east. This seemed a proper moment, inspired by the fact that he was talking war, of his own initiative, to put a question or ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... is no real, efficient head to the committee," returned Allingham. "Blatchley's afraid of running counter to Mann; or if not exactly that, he waits for our acting mayor to take the initiative." ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... present case, when it is borne in mind that these various industries above described (whose annual sales run into many millions of dollars) owe not only their very creation (except the Bates machine) and existence to Edison's inventive originality and commercial initiative, but also their continued growth and prosperity to his incessant activities in dealing with their multifarious business problems. In publishing a portrait of Edison this year, one of the popular magazines placed under ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... by Thomas, Archbishop of York. Meanwhile the king enjoyed the temporalities of the see. In his person we meet a figure of much importance to the history of the fabric and see, for to his energy and initiative we owe the greater part of the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette

... are associated with Cairo, Teheran, Malta, and Potsdam, is evident.[253] The Executive Agreement thus became, in an era in which the instability of international relations forbade successful efforts at treaty-making, the principal instrument of Presidential initiative in the field of foreign relations. Whether the United Nations Charter and the Atlantic Pact signalize the end of this era will doubtless ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... of the hours; but these welcome messengers were infrequent, brief, and somewhat cold. They left Bertha so unsatisfied that before the close of the first year of her cousin's absence she opened a correspondence with him herself. The initiative letter was suggested by pleasant tidings, which she hastened to send. It was written immediately after the eighteenth anniversary of her birthday, and communicated the agreeable intelligence that upon that day she had again received a token of remembrance ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... said. "Please hail me after this—because I don't care to take the initiative. If you neglect to do it, don't count on my hailing you . . ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... particular hurry about it, either, this hot afternoon; but, for all that, Lee Bryant was proceeding on important business—important for him, anyhow. When everything one possesses is about to be risked on a venture, the matter is naturally vital; and at this moment he was moving straight to the initiative of his enterprise. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... to work, and then loved to work; but, unless the stimulus were maintained the natural indolence of my disposition asserted itself, and I wasted my powers in dreams and trifles. My memory was very quick and retentive, in the main, but curiously capricious. I always lacked initiative and decision. At college my successes were continued. I gained medals and prizes, passed my examinations easily, and graduated 'with first-class honors.' In my professional lifework I have been successful rather beyond the average. I love ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... no questions, feeling that the initiative lay with him; but we drove on till we were at the gates of Gorice, and I burst out laughing when I heard the count order the coachman to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Association" to create public sentiment were vigorously seconded by the efforts of high official personages to set on foot concerted official action in aid of disunion. In this also, with becoming expressions of modesty, South Carolina took the initiative. On the 5th of October, Governor Gist wrote the following confidential letter, which he dispatched by a secret agent to his colleagues, the several Governors of the Cotton States, whom the bearer, General S.R. Gist, visited in turn during ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... companion who did not know how to think, and whose stock of ideas was so slight that the only common ground of talk between them was gossip and quodlibets. But her lack of sprightliness, beauty, grace, refinement, and that gentle initiative by which women may make even a sombre life so various, went for nothing with him. What his friends missed in her, he did not seek and would not have valued; and what he found in her, they were naturally ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... which convened at Hadley, was the first organized demonstration against the evangelical portion of the Low Church. Its initiative act was the adoption of a catechism which contained the views of the High Churchmen, and was the first issue of the celebrated series of Tracts which gave to the new movement the name of Tractarianism. It was published in 1833, and the last of the series, the ninetieth, appeared seven ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... territory, badly stung. These are illustrations, one of them on the largest scale, and the other belonging wholly to our own time and country, of the worth even of a very small minority, in such an initiative as is demanded now. What was done in Kansas can be done again in Florida, in Texas, if Texas do not take care for herself, in either Carolina, in any Southern State where the "righteous men" do not themselves appear to take ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... time, appeared wholly unpromising, turned out to be of cardinal value. We should be warned that what we gain in a thousand cases through time-clock and card-catalogue methods, might be lost ten times over through the shackling of the initiative of a single man of unrecognized genius. And all this would be very much to the purpose; but it is not upon any such special pleading that the case ought to be made to rest. The loss that would be suffered transcends all these concrete and definable instances of it. It would be ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... suspected him, the silly idiots! They might have known he hasn't the initiative to do a thing like that. And the girl can't prove her relationship to Uncle Douglas, just as I expected. I thought there might be some difficulty about that. But I wish I could find the will he made in her favour. I should feel safer then, for she told ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... had by this time grasped, told him more than her words; whether something had come into it, or whether he only read clearer, her whole story—what at least he then took for such—reached out to him from it. With the initiative she now attributed to Chad it all made a sense, and this sense—a light, a lead, was what had abruptly risen before him. He wanted, once more, to get off with these things; which was at last made easy, a servant having, for his assistance, on hearing voices in the hall, just ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... constructed, the squares and park-lands transformed from untidy wildernesses into handsome oases, and the general aspect of the city entirely transformed. I do not know that I ever saw so much done entirely at the initiative and by the energy and ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... hare-brained than ever, and he suspected that Enriquez had acquiesced in it only because of a natural inability to refuse anything to a pretty woman—that was typically Cuban. But his respect for Miss Evans's energy and initiative deepened when, on arriving at 56 New Street, he discovered that she had forestalled him and was even then closeted with the man he had come to see. Johnnie waited uneasily; he was dismayed when the girl finally appeared, with Enriquez in tow, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... the simile, the net of unconscious precedent is too closely drawn, the mesh of instinct is too fine to hope for any initiative. This was manifested by the most significant and spectacular occurrence I have ever observed in the world of insects. One year and a half ago I studied and reported upon, a nest of Ecitons or army ants.[3] Now, eighteen months later, apparently the same army appeared ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... delicacies as to the lady's side taking the initiative: and, in effect, the wealth and power of Wildschloss so much exceeded those of the elder branch that it would have been presumptuous on Eberhard's part to have made the proposal. It was more a treaty than an affair of hearts, and Sir Kasimir had not even gone through the form of inquiring if ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... know that Joyce had a visitor who might have influenced her to take this step; but I have reason to believe that Joyce did not act upon this other's initiative entirely. She had certain knowledge of her own that—urged the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... reprehensible talk, but much not truly reported; and his censors let their prejudices seduce them into treating the entire mass as evidence of facts and acts. If he ever instructed his officers to commence the expedition to the Mine by taking the initiative in an attack on San Thome, the direction was confined to talk. If, whether before or after the San Thome incident, he spoke of the capture of the plate fleet, that was nothing but talk. Captain Parker's ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... cleaving some bold and original way to the heart of a difficulty, as was his wont, he could see no ray of light thrown by the candle of his own inspiration. Inspiration, in fact, he wholly lacked. Once only in the past—after an attack of influenza—had he felt so barren of initiative as ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... berth, and a chance to lie back and look on. And while that helped to ripen his wisdom, it sapped his initiative. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... prodigies and portents spring. Many of his ideas were in the air, and did not belong to him peculiarly; but so strangely rapid and perfect was his assimilation of them, so vigorous and minutely penetrative was the quality of his understanding, so firm and independent his initiative, that even these were instantly stamped with the express image of his personality. In a word, Voltaire's work from first to last was alert with unquenchable life. Some of it, much of it, has ceased to be alive for us now in all that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... concurrence which in those days was of far more easy attainment over book-burning or anything else than it is in our own time, or is ever likely to be in the future. It would also seem that during the eighteenth century it was generally the House of Lords that took the initiative in the time-honoured practice of condemning disagreeable opinions to the care ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... events in this fashion, thus seeking to minimise the importance of fatality, looking upon it as some vague and wandering creature that we have to shelter and guide. We gain the more courage thereby, the more confidence, initiative; and these are qualities essential to the doing of anything useful; and they shall stand us in good stead, too, when our own hour of danger draws nigh. But for all that, we do not pretend that there truly is no other ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck

... the machine was set in motion by a violent bombardment. By the 8th the Austrians captured the bridgehead of Zaleszczyki; on the 9th the Russians drove them out again, capturing 500 men, 3 big guns, 1 field gun, and a number of machine guns. On May 10 the Russians took the initiative and attacked a front of about forty miles, along the entire Dniester line from west of Niczviska to Uscie Biskupic, crossed into the Bukowina and advanced to within five miles of Czernowitz from the east. A little ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... horrible activities is Mrs. Augusta Charleworth, occupying a high social position, but of German birth and therefore a German sympathizer. She is clever, and her brains supplement those of Dyer, who seems more shrewd than initiative, being content to execute the orders of others. Dyer was educated at Heidelburg, in Germany, which accounts, perhaps, for his being pro-German, although I suspect he is pro-anything that will pay him money. Dyer and the Hon. Andrew Duncan, while political pals, are not connected in ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... filled her pitcher, swung it lightly to her shoulder—and as the woman sometimes takes the initiative in an affair of this kind—smiled upon the willing and ready-looking fellow; not exactly at him, but as it were in his direction, you know; and he caught the faint glint of sunshine on her lips, and then—but in the ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... government, in society, in the church. But the civil wars, the manners returning to barbarism, the necessity for each to execute justice for himself,—these formed men comparable to those Italians of the sixteenth century, in whom Taine praises 'the vigorous initiative, the habit of sudden resolutions and desperate undertakings, the grand capacity to do and to suffer.' In Japan as in Italy 'the rude manners of the Middle Ages made of man a superb animal, wholly militant ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... few meagre possessions, and entered without zest upon his work. Somehow, the keenness had been taken out of him by that hour's conversation in the darkened bureau of the Chief. The weeks passed slowly, but Mercier never regained his enthusiasm. The physical atmosphere took all initiative away. His comrades were listless beings, always tired, dragging slowly to their daily rounds, and finishing their work early in the morning before the heat became intolerable. Then for hours they rested—retired to their bungalows or that of a comrade, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... condition of the general class thought in our country it has become the fixed conviction that no colored man has any well-defined power of initiative, that the colored man has no originality of thought, that in his mental operations he is everlastingly content to pursue the beaten paths of imitation, that therefore he has made no contribution to the inventive genius of our country, and so has gained no ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker

... true, generally, but of course in an infinitely lesser degree, of most of our immigrants. Usually it is the nervy and imaginative men who go to a new country. Our own pioneers were endowed with daring and vision. They had the courage and initiative to leave the scarcely warmed beds of their new-made homes and push farther on into ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... again, and Mr. Widden, with a despairing gesture, abandoned himself to gloom. He made no further interruptions, but at the conclusion of the walk hesitated so long on the door-step that Mr. Letts had to take the initiative. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs

... gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. Apart from the brutality by Christians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initiative or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief in magic obtained. The inventions of the past two centuries, and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft ...
— Humanity's Gain from Unbelief - Reprinted from the "North American Review" of March, 1889 • Charles Bradlaugh

... of 1810, the matrimonial alliance with Austria was not settled. The initiative steps had not been taken by the monarch, the ministers of Foreign Affairs, or by the ambassadors. It is a curious and characteristic detail, that it was the divorced Empress, Josephine, who gave the signal. She summoned the Countess Metternich ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand



Words linked to "Initiative" :   maiden, first step, first base, peace initiative, inaugural, go-ahead, enterprise, first, initiate, opening move, Revolutionary Proletarian Initiative Nuclei, curtain raiser, drive, enterprisingness, start, opening, commencement, initiatory



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