"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... failed to point out the right and wrong in her stories, for she feared that I would be carried away with whatever was most dazzling, and thus form erroneous impressions. It is an excellent maxim that "people should be just before they are generous;" and did all bear this in mind while admiring actions that often dazzle with a false glitter, they would assume ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... his literary progress, so far as its data are ascertainable, as a most steady and regular one. Very few men awake to find themselves either famous or great of a sudden, and perhaps as few poets as other men, though it may be heresy against a venerable maxim to say so. Chaucer's works form a clearly recognisable series of steps towards the highest achievement of which, under the circumstances in which he lived and wrote, he can be held to have been capable; ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... his captaincy there, in a regiment that mistook orders, charged three lines of cavalry, and broke them one after another. It also broke a sound maxim of war by charging between flanking batteries. The British Army has made half its reputation by mistaking orders—you will understand why, if ever you have the honour to belong to it. Isabel, get ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... little Children. Indeed I could scarcely bear to use the Ferula to them, or nip 'em with a Fescue, much less to untruss and Scourge 'em, as 'tis the brutal fashion of Pedants to do; nor do I think, though I disobeyed Solomon's maxim, and Spared the Rod, that I did much towards Spoiling any Child that was under my care. I made Learning easy and pleasant to my Youngsters, by telling them all sorts of moving and marvellous Stories, drawn from what Books of History I had handy (and these I admit ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... in view of the idea of epicureanism which has become proverbial, Epicurus regards the avoidance of excess a logical and necessary step toward the tranquil life, and among other admonitions is found the following Maxim: ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... deposited in the Royal Library. I received a hint at the time about the second class of the Order of the Red Eagle; I do not know what the result may be, for I have never sought such distinctions, though in these days for many reasons they would not be unwelcome to me. Besides, my maxim has always been,—Nulla dies sine linea; and if I allow my Muse to slumber, it is only that she may awake with fresh vigor. I hope yet to usher some great works into the world, and then to close my earthly career like an old child somewhere among good people.[3] You will soon receive ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... to heart a maxim once uttered to him by Mrs. Clarke in the garden at Buyukderer. Mention had been made of the very foolish and undignified conduct of a certain woman in Pera society who had been badly treated by a young diplomat. In discussing ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... nation in consenting to enlarge the field of contraband; nor can there be an apology for the renewal of the clause in the compact, by which our true interests and essential rights have been surrendered." Following the maxim that "Free ships make free goods," he establishes himself on the proposition that "neutrals have a better right to trade than nations have to fight and plunder." Webster argued strenuously in maintenance of rights which were in jeopardy, and the disregard of which by Great Britain had much ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... movements of the arms, legs, feet, and body in relation to them. As a first injunction, it may be stated that the club should be drawn back rather more slowly than you intend to bring it down again. "Slow back" is a golfing maxim that is both old and wise. The club should begin to gain speed when the upward swing is about half made, and the increase should be gradual until the top is reached, but it should never be so fast that control of the club is to any extent lost at the turning-point. ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... great deficiency that no provision was made for it; or (as we should prefer to say) the difficulty may have been foreseen and yet no provision have been made for it, simply because none could have been made consistently with Frederick William IV.'s maxim, 'A free people under a free king'—a maxim which sounds well, but which, when the people are bent on going in one way and the king in another, is difficult to reconcile with the requirement of the constitution that both must go in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... set, however, upon an unobstructed horizon, was a new idea gained to me, who never till now had the opportunity. It confirmed the truth of that maxim which tells us, that the human mind must have something left to supply for itself on the sight of all sublunary objects. When my eyes have watched the rising or setting sun through a thick crowd of intervening trees, or seen it sink gradually behind a hill which obstructed my closer ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... the aerial war were no doubt determined by attempts to realise the old naval maxim, to ascertain the position of the enemy's fleet and to destroy it. There was first the battle of the Bernese Oberland, in which the Italian and French navigables in their flank raid upon the Franconian Park were assailed by the Swiss ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... women, established in his imaginary commonwealth, is, [Greek quotation here]. Scite enim istud et dicitur et dicetur, Id quod utile sit honestum esse, quod autem inutile sit turpe esse. [De Rep lib v p 457 ex edit Ser]. And this maxim will admit of no doubt, where public utility is concerned, which is Plato's meaning. And indeed to what other purpose do all the ideas of chastity and modesty serve? "Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est gloria," says Phaedrus. [Greek quotation here], says Plutarch, de ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... contrivances and inventions, of making "short cuts" to the object in view. He avoided complexities, did away with roundabout processes, however ingenious, and went direct to his point. "Simplicity" was his maxim in every mechanical contrivance. His mastermind enabled him to see through and attain the end he sought by the simplest possible means. The reputation which he had acquired by his minting machinery enabled him to supply it in its improved form to the principal Governments ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... heart by any object ere we have half traversed the world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence time! A better maxim ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... even to generous acts, after being severe and having his own way. But if any body ever got the better of him by lies, and not fair bettering, that man had wiser not begin to laugh inside the Riding. Stephen Anerley was slow but sure; not so very keen, perhaps, but grained with kerns of maxim'd thought, to meet his uses as they came, and to make a rogue uneasy. To move him from such thoughts was hard; but to move him from a spoken word had ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... I know the gunboats carry Maxim guns, and each have two sergeants of the marine artillery, I will hand you over to them, and ask them to put you in the Maxim crew. Then you will have the satisfaction of helping to fire ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... to meet the attentions of this well-equipped and watchful enemy? We had a few seven-pound guns capable of hurling walnuts that cracked thousands of yards short of the Boer positions; and a Maxim or two, respected by the enemy, but easily steered clear of. Of what avail were these against the potent engines of destruction on the other side? And as for men; with great difficulty, and by dint of much pressure, the authorities ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... affirmative, he became restless again, and, after some thought, and an unsuccessful inquiry 'whether he couldn't go another fifty,' said he supposed he must try and do the most he could for a friend: which was always his maxim, and therefore he undertook ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... abstract doctrines, but because they would lose their value and because the gods would be angry if they were made too common. If the Druids taught religious and moral matters secretly, these were probably no more than an extension of the threefold maxim inculcated by them according to Diogenes Laertius: "To worship the gods, to do no evil, and to exercise courage."[1035] To this would be added cosmogonic myths and speculations, and magic and religious formulae. This will become more evident as we examine the position ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... months ago, when Richard was entering on his Protectorate. It was to cashier boldly. Not an officer in the Army, he had said, would have interest enough, if he were once cashiered, to draw two men after him in opposition to any existing Government. The very soul of Monk lies in that maxim, and he had been acting on it himself. Not only, as we have seen, had he reofficered his own army in Scotland with the utmost pains before venturing on his march into England; but, since his coming into England, he had still been discharging officers, and appointing or promoting ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... man in his own image and placed him on earth, He gave man dominion over the earth and all the fullness thereof. There is an old maxim which teaches, that through respect for the giver, we should not give, barter or sell away a present. God gave the earth and all that is in it to mankind. May we not here ask, to what mankind was the earth given? And what is meant by man? It is plain to the student that ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... The subjects are almost all what are called classical: Orestes pursued by every variety of Furies; numbers of little wolf-sucking Romuluses; Hectors and Andromaches in a complication of parting embraces, and so forth; for it was the absurd maxim of our forefathers, that because these subjects had been the fashion twenty centuries ago, they must remain so in saecula saeculorum; because to these lofty heights giants had scaled, behold the race of pigmies must get upon stilts and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... maxim Mr Slope was ignorant, and accordingly, having written his letter to Mrs Bold, he proceeded to call upon the Signora Neroni. Indeed it was hard to say which was the old love and which was the new, Mr Slope having been smitten with both so nearly at the same time. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... more about Halifax from his own elaborate study of Charles II. It is a prolonged analysis by a man of clear vision, and perfect balance of judgement, and no prepossessions; who was, moreover, master of the easy pellucid style that tends to maxim and epigram. A more impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected. In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so much a character in the accepted sense of ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... tells off five or six prime, able-bodied seamen-gunners to the pork barrels. You never see pork fisted out of its receptacle, 'ave you? Simultaneous, it hits the Gunner that now's the day an' now's the hour for a non-continuous class in Maxim instruction. So they all give way together, and the general effect was non plus ultra. There was the cutter's innards spread out like a Fratton pawnbroker's shop; there was the 'tiffies' hammerin' in the stern of 'er, an' they ain't ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... conceived the idea of the heliocentric system of the universe while he was a comparatively young man, since in the introduction to his great work, which he addressed to Pope Paul III., he states that he has pondered his system not merely nine years, in accordance with the maxim of Horace, but well into the fourth period of nine years. Throughout a considerable portion of this period the great work of Copernicus was in manuscript, but it was not published until the year of his death. The reasons for the delay are not very fully established. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... motto,—and it is written on the stars and the sod alike,—starve mentally, starve morally, starve physically. It is an inexorable law of nature that whatever is not used, dies. "Nothing for nothing," is her maxim. If we are idle and shiftless by choice, we shall be ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... happened again, as once before in the days of the Saviour, that the priests of the church had become wicked persons, and were using their lawful authority for unlawful ends. This led him to adopt for his own guidance, and to preach to others for theirs, the maxim that the precepts of Scripture, conveyed through the understanding, are to rule the conscience; in other words, that God speaking in the Bible, and not the church speaking through the priesthood, is the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... so often reproached him with. Questions he might have decided in half an hour he prolonged, sometimes from weakness, sometimes from that miserable desire to set people at loggerheads, and that poisonous maxim which occasionally escaped him or his favourite, 'divide et impera'; often from his general mistrust of everybody and everything; nothings became hydras with which he himself afterwards was much embarrassed. His familiarity and his readiness of access extremely pleased ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... yet. The explanation, however, is simple enough. He reigned through corruption that he had himself been instrumental in creating; through militarism and an abominable Chauvinism—this last as effective an instrument as the oppressor can wield. Divide et impera is a maxim of despotic state-craft, old as despotism itself; "flatter and rule" is a method equally sure, and such Santa Anna practised to its full. He let pass no opportunity of flattering the national vanity, which brought the ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... the Sun, which had its offices on the other side of the street. He was, moreover, editor-in-chief of the Record, to which he had in the course of years attached the most variously capable personnel in the country. It was a maxim of his that where you could not get gifts, you must do the best you could with solid merit; and he employed a great deal of both. He was respected by his staff as few are respected in a profession not favourable to the growth of the ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... fond of learning—so fond indeed that when he was at the factory he would keep his book open before him on the spinning machine. Most people think "one thing at a time" is a very good maxim—David thought two things at a time was ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... maxim—coming from another, it struck with double force, and I never forgot it during the remainder of the fight. Again we were standing up face to face; again I received it right and left, and returned ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the struggles of an ardent, enthusiastic, inquisitive spirit to deliver itself from the harassing uncertainties, to penetrate the dread obscurity, which overhangs the lot of man. The first faint scruples of the Doubter are settled by the maxim: 'Believe nothing but thy own reason; there is nothing holier than truth.' But Reason, employed in such an inquiry, can do but half the work: she is like the Conjuror that has pronounced the spell of invocation, but has forgot the counter-word; spectres and shadowy forms ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... picture. Even though the actors may be added together with something like vivacity (though that is rare), they have no vitality in common. They are not members one of another. If the Church and Stage Guild be still in existence, it would do much for the art by teaching that Scriptural maxim. I think, furthermore, that the life of our bodies has never been defined so suggestively as by one who named it a living relation of lifeless atoms. Could the value of relation be more curiously set forth? And one might penetrate some way towards a consideration of the vascular organism ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... be sorry to see a parody or parallel to this French manual introduced into our schools. At the same time we think there is something to be learnt from studying it. Our neighbours seem to have in some respect learnt better than ourselves the maxim of Horace:— ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... stanzas, the author had got at the heart of a good deal of America. In another cheap magazine, professing to be devoted wholly to stories, he hoped for a breathing-space, and was tasked by nothing less familiar than Swift's versification of a well-known maxim of La Rouchefoucauld. In a ten-cent magazine which is too easily the best of that sort, he found two pieces of uncommon worth, which opened the way so promisingly, indeed, for happier fortunes that he was not as much surprised as he might later have been in finding five ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... them worse by meddling with them—but that these men are conspiring in a darker, a more dangerous, a more treasonable, or a more dishonourable manner, than has ever been clone before. I must explain this business to you, Wilton, and my views upon it. Politicians have adopted as a maxim that a plot discovered and frustrated always strengthens the hands of the existing government; but this maxim is far too general, and consequently often proves false and dangerous in application. The conditions under which the discovery and frustration of a plot do really strengthen the hands ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... write my story from the beginning. I wrote for the most part but a short portion in any single day. I wrote only when the afflatus was upon me. I held it for a maxim that any portion that was written when I was not fully in the vein told for considerably worse than nothing. Idleness was a thousand times better in this case than industry against the grain. Idleness was only time lost; and the next day, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... their glorious enthusiasm. On one of these occasions, a little lady friend christened an aldermanic German by a patriotic name which since has taken the place of his own. "He was a man of an unbounded stomach," seemingly, with the French maxim ever uppermost in his mind: Quand la cornemuse est pleine on en chant mieux (when the belly is full, the music goes better). An escopette ball at Molino-del-Rey struck him on the head, and the ponderous mass rolling over and over on ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... only one subject, and see whether traces of it still exist. Caesar in his Commentaries states of the Druids that, "One of their principal maxims is that the soul never dies, but that after death it passes into the body of another being. This maxim they consider to be of the greatest utility to encourage virtue and to make them regardless ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... by the time fixed?'[6] We must make allowance for the youth of the writer, and for a different view of marriage and its significance from our own. Even then there remains something to regret. Poverty, wrote Vauvenargues, in a maxim smacking unwontedly of commonplace, cannot debase strong souls, any more than riches can elevate low souls.[7] That depends. If poverty means pinching and fretting need of money, it may not debase the soul in any vital ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... authorities, the genuine productions of native minds, cast in the idiomatic forms of the native tongue by those born to its use. No matter how fluent a foreigner becomes in a language not his own, he can never use it as does one who has been familiar with it from childhood. This general maxim is tenfold true when we apply it to a European learning an American language. The flow of thought, as exhibited in these two linguistic families, is in such different directions that no amount of practice can render one equally accurate in both. Hence the importance of studying a tongue as it ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... all his prisoners to be quartered and hung upon trees, which was much disapproved of by his officers, who, either from humanity or a motive of self-interest, urged him not to give the enemy a pretence for retaliating by similar cruelties. But Quinones obstinately adhered to an old maxim of endeavouring to conquer by means of terror, and was deaf to all their remonstrances. We are ignorant of the loss sustained by the Spaniards in this battle, but it must have been considerable, as Arauco and Canete were both immediately abandoned, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... measure, is a marked characteristic. Their sense of form—including a perception of beauty, and of harmony and proportion—made them in politics and letters the leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work of art. "The whole language resembles the body of an artistically ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... People who never leave their homes cannot know much. A person may become well-informed by reading, but his practical knowledge cannot be compared with that of a person who has travelled. We Chinese are great sinners in this regard. A Chinese maxim says, "It is dangerous to ride on horseback or to go on a voyage": hence until very recently we had a horror of going abroad. A person who remains all his life in his own town is generally narrow-minded, self-opinioned, and selfish. The American people are free from these faults. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... docile as the Indian, when domesticated, but we have no account of a negro tribe that has ever tamed one of these sagacious animals: their only maxim is "kill and eat." Although the flesh of the elephant is extremely coarse, the foot and trunk are excellent, if properly cooked. A hole should be dug in the earth, about four feet deep, and two feet six inches in diameter, the sides of which should be perpendicular; ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... my dear fellow, thanks very much. I read them over twice. My warmest greetings to your wife and Maxim. And so, till we meet in Moscow. I hope you won't play me false, and we shall see ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... British-soldier psychology that appeared in the December North American. The average man, with native doggedness, is fighting for the defence of England. The British Government itself, in its reconstruction department for the political education of the wounded, has given partial denial to the old maxim that it is the soldier's business not to think but to obey; and the British army is leavened with men who read and reflect in the long nights of watching in the rain, who are gaining ideas about conditions in the past and resolutions concerning those of the future. The very army itself ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... century. His most celebrated work is a series of frescoes on mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace at Rome. Along with his cousin Lodovico and his brother Agostino he founded the so-called Eclectic School of Painting; their maxim was that "accurate observation of Nature should be combined with judicious imitation of the best masters." The Caracci enjoyed the highest reputation amongst their contemporaries as teachers of their art. Annibale died in 1609; Masaniello's revolt occurred, as already ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... apply this general maxim, we must first examine the disposition of the mind in viewing any object which preserves a perfect identity, and then find some other object, that is confounded with it, by causing a similar disposition. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... is certainly the place," he said. "Here's three hundred dollars. I'll cable you the rest. You've never been to Paris, have you? It's full of beautiful sights—Henry's American Bar, for instance, and the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and Maxim's. All good Americans go to Paris when they die and all the bad ones while they are alive. You'll find lots of both kinds, and you'll sit all day on the sidewalk and drink Bock and listen to Hungarian bands. And Mary and I will join you there ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... present Constitution, and very generally pursued by successive Administrations, has been crowned with almost complete success, and has elevated our character among the nations of the earth. To do justice to all and to submit to wrong from none has been during my Administration its governing maxim, and so happy have been its results that we are not only at peace with all the world, but have few causes of controversy, and those of minor ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... was most civil and told us stories of what the Germans had done when they passed through a week or two ago on their retreat eastwards. Amongst other abominations, they had, on arrival, demanded of the old cure the key of the church tower, on which they wished to put a Maxim. The old man, not having the key, had hobbled off to get it from the garde champetre, who happened to be in possession of it for the time being. He could not, however, find him, and the officer in ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... thus realised, forms an instance of the most advanced and perfected human science supporting the truest, purest, and most ancient religion; while a linear standard which the chosen people in the earlier ages of the world were merely told by maxim to look on as sacred, compared with other cubits of other lengths, is proved by the progress of human learning in the latter ages of time, to have had, and still to have, a philosophical merit about it which no men or nations at the time it was first ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... he died: "Remember that ninety per cent of these fourteen hundred million human beings are uncertain where to-morrow's food is to come from. Be prudent but never be afraid." But just then he could get no consolation out of this maxim of grim cheer. He seemed to himself incompetent and useless, a predestined failure. "What is to become of me?" he kept repeating, his heart like lead and his mind fumbling ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... roads, a strait direction seems to have been their leading maxim. Though curiosity has lead me to travel many hundred miles upon their roads, with the eye of an enquirer, I cannot recollect one instance, where they ever broke the line to avoid a hill, a swamp, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... My second maxim was to follow resolutely even doubtful opinions when sure opinions were not available, just as the traveller, lost in some forest, had better walk straight forward, though in a chance direction; for thus he will ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... line a few miles off, and thus all stood down together, the ships maintaining their line parallel to that of the enemy, and coming into action at practically the same moment, van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear. This ignored wholly the essential maxim of all intelligent warfare, which is so to engage as markedly to outnumber the enemy at a point of main collision. If he be broken there, before the remainder of his force come up, the chances all are that a decisive superiority will be established by this alone, not to mention ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... he touches us, a snake even if he smells us, a prince even if he smiles on us, and a scoundrel even if he adores us." But there is one saying which the most modern psychologist would accept, as it might just as well be a quotation from a report of the latest exact statistics. The Indian maxim says: "There is truth in the claim that the minds of the sons resemble more the minds of the fathers, those of the daughters more ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... In this competition he who had borne himself notably went away with a present of something suitable to his character, and with commendation expressed in the most refined language; for that excellent governor had ever in his mouth the maxim that ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... or Sam Wiggins? If any gentleman be entitled to stock in the bank, which he is kept out of possession of by others, let him assert his right in the Supreme Court, and let him or his antagonist, whichever may be found in the wrong, pay the costs of suit. It is an old maxim, and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler. No one can doubt that ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought; there being at least so much truth as this involves in the theological maxim, that the reception of this or that speculative conclusion is really a matter of will. The persuasion that all is vanity, with this happily constituted Greek, who had been a genuine disciple of Socrates and reflected, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... powers, for, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the Holy Alliance had abandoned all idea of assisting Spain in the reconquest of her late colonies. After referring to "the avoidance of foreign alliances as a leading maxim" of our foreign policy, Mr. Clay continued: "Without, therefore, asserting that an exigency may not occur in which an alliance of the most intimate kind between the United States and the other American republics would be highly proper and expedient, it may be safely said ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... 1 and 5) have hitherto been made public; and the incompleteness of the correspondence has caused the most embarrassing confusion in the minds of biographers and editors, too prone to act on the maxim that, wherever female reputation is concerned, we should hope for the best and believe the worst. Hawkins, apparently ignorant that she had written to Johnson, to announce her intention, says, "He was made uneasy by a report" which induced him to ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... fresh accessions. For metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as determined by these principles. To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... greater account. The Americans maintained that there was an important difference between external and internal taxation, and, in common with all other Englishmen, they highly valued the right expressed in the maxim, "No taxation without representation". It was a fatal mistake to disregard their belief and, for the sake of avoiding a not very serious expenditure, to seem to deny what they claimed as their heritage as Englishmen. Heavy as its expenses were, Great Britain could have afforded ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... learning, and some women of elegance, often visited him; and he wrote, from time to time, either verse or prose; of his verses he willingly gave copies, and is supposed to have felt no discontent when he saw them printed. His favourite maxim was, "Vive la bagatelle;" he thought trifles a necessary part of life, and, perhaps, found them necessary to himself. It seems impossible to him to be idle, and his disorders made it difficult or dangerous to be long ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... grandson of an attorney, but one who, conscious of his powers, had been called to the bar and died an ex-chancellor. A certain talent was hereditary in the family. The attorney's son had been a successful courtier, and had planted himself in the cabinet for a quarter of a century. It was a maxim in this family to make great alliances; so the blood progressively refined, and the connections were always distinguished by power and fashion. It was a great hit, in the second generation of an earldom, to convert ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... notice." "Now," thought Lady Delacour, "this is not impossible. In the first place, Belinda Portman is niece to Mrs. Stanhope; she may have all her aunt's art, and the still greater art to conceal it under the mask of openness and simplicity: Volto sciolto, pensieri stretti, is the grand maxim of the Stanhope school." The moment Lady Delacour's mind turned to suspicion, her ingenuity rapidly supplied her with circumstances and arguments to confirm and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... our men were afraid—the dreaded 'pom-pom' of the Boers. Some two hundred one-pound shells a minute these Vickers-Maxim guns are supposed to fire. But as a matter of fact we are told the number rarely reached a score. Still the dull pom-pom-pom of the gun, with the knowledge that shell after shell was coming, always made Tommy shake; and when he got to ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... gave me a frontier maxim once, which ran, "If you must fight, strike first, and strike hard." The words flashed in my memory, and I put them to the test straightway. These prowling savages were apparently unaware of my predicament; their sole thought was with the boat floating away lakeward down the stream. ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... suppose it occurred to her to examine if her ideals had been lowered. Sometimes Henderson had a cynical, mocking tone about the world, which she reproved with a caress, but he was always tolerant and good-natured. If he had told her that he acted upon the maxim that every man and woman has his and her price she would have been shocked, but she was getting to make allowances that she would not have made before she learned to look at the world through his eyes. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as one might at first imagine. The phenomena of the moral and industrial growth or stagnation of a highly-endowed people must ever possess the interest of fascination for those who take heed of the maxim that "history is philosophy teaching by example." National prosperity depends upon circumstances sufficiently general to make the experience of one country of great value to another, though ignorant Bourbon dynasties ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... associations embodied in Arts and Guilds, the Temporal power of the Church, all these are put away, and in their stead he announces the new and daring gospel that for organic unity subjects must be treated as equals and not as inferiors. 'Trust the people' is a maxim he repeats and enforces again and again. And he does not shrink from, but rather urges the corollary, 'Arm the people.' Indeed it were no audacious paradox to state the ideal of Machiavelli, though he nominally preferred ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... that in order to be loved by others, they must do good; that doing evil is a sure means of incurring their hatred and vengeance? "Before the law there was no sin." Nothing is more false than this maxim. It is enough for a man to be what he is, to be a sensible being in order to distinguish that which pleases or displeases him. It is enough that a man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself, in order for him to know what is useful or injurious to him. It is enough that ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... to be always content with small mercies," answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I have you ... and your accomplice ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... fallen into as many other; and if the judgment is sudden, the mistakes are the most irretrievable of all others. Of this the gentlemen of the robe are themselves sensible, and they have brought it into a maxim. De morte hominis nulla est cunctatio longa. But what could have induced them to reverse the rules, and to contradict that reason which dictated them, I am utterly unable to guess. A point concerning property, which ought, for the reasons I have just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, frequently ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... me, when I propound an ideal, to propound a new ideal. Now I have no notion at all of propounding a new ideal. There is no new ideal imaginable by the madness of modern sophists, which will be anything like so startling as fulfilling any one of the old ones. On the day that any copybook maxim is carried out there will be something like an earthquake on the earth. There is only one thing new that can be done under the sun; and that is to look at the sun. If you attempt it on a blue day in June, you ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... beardless face, by which it was assumed. Lord Castleton did not content himself with a mere bow at our introduction. Much to my wonder how he came by the information he displayed, he made me a little speech after the manner of Louis XIV. to a provincial noble, studiously modelled upon that royal maxim of urbane policy which instructs a king that he should know something of the birth, parentage, and family of his meanest gentleman. It was a little speech in which my father's learning and my uncle's services and the amiable qualities of your humble servant were neatly ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... contemporaries of a street-building generation, but the grand maxim of the nineteenth century, in their management of masonry, as in almost every thing else, as far as we can discover, appears to lie in that troublesome line of Macbeth's soliloquy, ending with, "'twere well it were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... to America, which, of all countries, after their own, has the best claim to them. He promises to come and see me, and has begun most propitiously in New York. For you,—I have too much constitutional regard and —-, not to feel remorse for my short-comings and slow-comings, and I remember the maxim which the French stole from our Indians,—and it was worth stealing,—"Let not the grass grow on the path of friendship." Ah! my brave giant, you can never understand the silence and forbearances of such as are not giants. To ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... retrench, in the two sciences." Thus, according to Servan, the sanative art altogether would have been questioned, and the impartiality of the physicians might appear suspicious. The clever magistrate took care not to forget, on such an occasion, the eternal maxim, no one can be both judge and client. Physicians, then, ought to ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... he began, firing in the questions with the speed of a Maxim. "Something worth while, judging from that mysterious letter of yours. What is the scheme? Why this secret meeting in the forest instead of in town? Why"—but the man he called captain interrupted him with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Society, it was in this state. Gentlemen of good social position were freely elected if they were really educated men; but the moment a claimant was announced as resting on his science, there was a disposition to inquire whether he was scientific enough. The maxim of the poet was adopted; and the Fellows were practically divided into Drink-deeps ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... in which the Company's servants engaged was merely incidental to the pursuit of business in a land in which the ruling sovereigns, as well as the many small chiefs, were constantly at war. It is a maxim that 'Trade follows the Flag;' but in the case of India the Flag has ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... morning light came. Our ship was an armed steamer a converted cargo boat. We had reinforced our naval guns' crews and our Indian ship's guard by taking officers and native soldiers (askaris) aboard at a certain bay. We had reinforced our artillery by borrowing a Maxim from the shore. I had a guest on board that night, a cheerful padre. How he seemed to relish his craft, and how able I esteemed him. I was very raw at the work, and he helped me to understand what my defects were both in nature and grace. He had the sort of smile, I thought the real, ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... with the sword shall perish by the sword,' thus spake the Son; His religion thou knowest not. It may be that thou art one of the children of Israel, whose maxim is, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... union of wisdom with wealth—true wisdom with real wealth; lastly, and above all, he was thrown by the Delphians from a rock on account of his wit: he is typical, therefore, of death—the shedding of blood—as a result of wisdom, this thought being an elaboration of Solomon's great maxim, "in much wisdom is much sorrow." But how accurately all this fitted in with what would naturally be the doctrines of the men on whose track I was! I could no longer doubt the justness of my reasonings, and immediately, while you slept, I set ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... which he enables us to participate in the scheme of his researches. He never tries to persuade us, but only to convince us that his conclusions are based on facts; he always gives prominence to such facts as appear to be in opposition to his opinions,—a feature of his work in accordance with a maxim which he laid down:—"It is a golden rule, which I try to follow, to put every fact which is opposed to one's preconceived opinion in the strongest light." ("More ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... ethics of Jesus to social control began to die out as humanism individualized Christian morals and as, under its influence, nationalism tended to supplant the international ecclesiastical order. The cynical and sordid maxim that business is business; that, in the economic sphere, the standards of the church are not operative and the responsibility of the church is not recognized—notions which are a chief heresy and an outstanding disgrace of nineteenth-century ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... had pulled the trigger the third time the man leaped sideways and knelt to return his fire. At once Ashton gripped his rifle still more firmly and drew back the automatic lever. The crackling discharge was like the fire of a miniature Maxim gun. Puffs of dust spouted up all around the man on the ridge crest. He sprang to his feet and ran back out of sight, jumping from side to side like ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the explosion of the German trench mortar, and we ate their share, but still I was hungry, so I filled in with bully beef and biscuits. Then I drained my water bottle. Later on I learned another maxim of the front line,—"Go sparingly with your water." The bully beef made me thirsty, and by tea time I was dying for a drink, but my pride would not allow me to ask my mates for water. I was fast learning the ethics of ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... not encouraging; yet I had so long endured the natural indolence of negrodom, that I hardly expected either a different reply or influential support, from his majesty. Nevertheless, I was not disheartened. I remembered the old school-boy maxim, non vi sed saepe cadendo, and determined to effect by degrees what I could not achieve at a bound. For a while I tried the effect of higher wages; but an increase of rum, tobacco, and coin, could not string the nerves or cord the muscles ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of Washington, removed to a house situated nearer his command, General Sullivan, attracted, no doubt, by the superior comfort of the old country-seat, laid himself open to similar correction by his chief. In these two cases it will be seen Washington enforced his own maxim that a general should ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... short day, when they bared their wounds to the Royal Commissioners; but that sympathy has deserted them; they are now hidden in holes and corners from their oppressors, and have to go by false names, and are kept out of work; for odisse quem loeseris is the fundamental maxim of their oppressors. Not so the assassins: they flourish. I have seen with these eyes one savage murderer employed at high wages, while a man he all but destroyed is refused work on all hands, and was separated by dire poverty from another ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of the ungrown giant. His works had nothing of the definite neatness of that precocious talent which stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to him as ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... took Marfa to the hospital. There were not many patients there, and so he had not long to wait, only three hours. To his great satisfaction the patients were not being received by the doctor, who was himself ill, but by the assistant, Maxim Nikolaitch, an old man of whom everyone in the town used to say that, though he drank and was quarrelsome, he knew more than ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... their gimnastic training for both sexes, and to take the milder methods of exercise in use among the Grecians, we find that the chace, that foot-races, and especially dancing, principally composed the amusement of the young ladies of that country; where, in the great days of Greece, no maxim ever more practically prevailed, than that sloth or inactivity was equally the parent of diseases of the body, as of vices of the mind. Agreeable to which idea, one of the greatest physicians now in Europe, the celebrated Tronchin, while at Paris, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... fortified the avenues to our posts, or lay fenced with rivers and defiles; here was no leaguers in the field, as at the story of Nuremberg, neither had our soldiers any tents, or what they call heavy baggage. 'Twas the general maxim of this war, "Where is the enemy? let us go and fight them," or, on the other hand, if the enemy was coming, "What was to be done?" "Why, what should be done? Draw out into the fields and fight them." I cannot say 'twas ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... till I had vented my wrath and my rhyme, in the same pages, against every thing and every body. Like George, in the Vicar of Wakefield, 'the fate of my paradoxes' would allow me to perceive no merit in another. I remembered only the maxim of my boxing-master, which, in my youth, was found useful in all general riots,—'Whoever is not for you is against you—mill away right and left,' and so I did;—like Ishmael, my hand was against all men, and all men's anent me. I did wonder, to be sure, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... 'spiritualism' can lose nothing by your advocacy. As to your independence of mind, you act, I am sure, upon the maxim in verba nullius jurare. Your system seems to me quite a spices of eclecticism. There is no fear of my confounding you with the good old lady who, after having heard the sermon of some favorite divine, was asked if she understood him. 'Understand him!' said she; 'do you think I would ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Earl of Dartmouth in seventeen hundred and seventy-five,—"from the constant topic of the present conversation, every child unborn will be impressed with the notion—it is slavery to be bound at the will of another 'in all things whatsoever.' Every mother's milk will convey a detestation of this maxim. Were your lordship in America, you might see little ones acquainted with the word of command before they can distinctly speak, and shouldering of a gun before they are ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... this great over-grown Metropolis knows but little how the other is truly supported, is a Maxim, I believe, older than the Walls themselves; that a considerable number of Persons are daily employed and kept in constant pay to go about damaging and destroying all manner of wearing Apparel, when they can find an ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... the Augur Scaevola; and the result was that, as far as possible and permissible, I never left the old man's side. Thus I committed to memory many a learned argument of his, many a terse and clever maxim, while I sought to add to my own knowledge from his stores of special learning. When the Augur died I betook myself to the Pontiff of the same name and family." Elsewhere we have a picture of this second Scaevola and his pupils. "Though he did not undertake ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... solid point follows it out and becomes again securely fixed in its former position. In addition to this arrangement, I have two large guns which can be worked through ports in the dining-saloon, and six wonderful magazine rifles invented by a Mr Maxim, a friend of mine. They are perhaps the most wonderful pieces of mechanism in the ship, for when the first shot has been fired they will go on firing themselves at the marvellous rate of six hundred shots per minute so long as you keep them supplied with cartridges. Then I have also provided an ample ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... war which ever threatened the principle of Liberty, I rejoice to see so many people able to follow the free and spontaneous impulses of their inmost beings. For, while we must remember that our every hour is at the disposal of our country, we must not forget the maxim of our fathers: 'Britons never will be slaves.' Only by preserving the freedom of individual conscience, and at the same time surrendering it whole-heartedly to every which the State makes on us, can we hope defeat the machinations of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... instead of boisterously rushing in upon the company, endeavor (his sense of the becoming overcoming his bashfulness) to twist his body into the likeness of a bow, thereby only illustrating and confirming the profound wisdom of the maxim, non omnia possumus omnes. Should our awkward attempts be classed together, I shall nevertheless indulge the hope, that better acquaintance with you will increase my facility of saying nothing with grace, and improve my manners, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... was a guiding maxim with her that women should not meddle with men's business, and it was an article of faith that whatever her husband did was right. She sympathized with his resentment against the man who had kidnaped him. But the sight of the terror-stricken face of the cowardly brute smote her ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... gunnery. Each of the different types of heavy but finely made weapons had to be learned in detail—a feat of memory when it came to the watch-like mechanism of the Maxim. Guns were disabled and had to be put right. They missed fire and were made by the instructors—old naval gunners—to play every dastardly trick conceivable. The final test which had to be successfully passed was the dismantling of each type of gun used in the auxiliary fleet ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... they can be disobeyed as to become ready subjects for hoodwinking; I recollect old Hammerfeldt saying to me, "In public affairs, sire, always expect disobedience, but be chary of rewarding obedience." My mother adopted the second half of the maxim but disregarded the first. She always expected obedience; Victoria knew it and built on her knowledge a confident hope ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... impunity the most licentious attacks upon private characters are permitted. But Mr Bennett is sui generis; and demands particular notice. He is indeed a remarkable man, a species of philosopher, who acts up to his tenets with a moral courage not often to be met with in the United States. His maxim appears to be this—"Money will find me every thing in this world, and money I will have, at any risk, except that of my life, as, if I lost that, the money would be useless." Acting upon this creed, he has lent his paper to the basest and most ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... some feminine handiwork. A happy smile played about her lips, for her mother had just repeated to her the surgeon's prediction that Captain Farnham would be well in a week or two. "He said the scalp wound was healing 'by the first intention,' which I thought was a funny phrase. I thought the maxim was that second thoughts were best." Alice had never mentioned Farnham's name since the first night, but he was rarely out of her mind, and the thought that his life was saved made every hour bright and festal. "He will be well," she thought. "He will ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... journal that to whatever far away, outlandish part of the Empire you may go, you will always find a correspondent of the Times looking for something to do. It is said that the present proprietor has laid it down as his maxim, "I don't want men who think; I want men who know." The arrangements for thinking are ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... bands of brotherhood asunder, and weakens the strength of that nation, society or family among which it exists, and in proportion to the opposition it produces among its individual members. "United, we stand, divided we fall," is a maxim full of wisdom, and is not only applicable to nations, but to communities, societies, ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... himself by putting on his old, discarded working clothes; and, as he looked at his reflection in the glass, thought how much truth there was in the maxim, that "fine feathers ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Fortunate names, the bona nomina of Cicero, were chiefly selected in accordance with the classic maxim, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... to most rules—some misguided savant of a bygone epoch formulated a maxim which says that "the exception proves the rule," obviously an absurd statement, for if one man has no nose on his face it is no proof that all other men have noses on theirs. Aunt Hannah constituted an exception to the rule that women are rendered additionally attractive ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... capture. General Halleck strongly approved the suggestion, and finally wrote me that he had repeatedly ordered Rosecrans to advance, but that the latter had constantly failed to comply with the order, and at last, after having held a council of war, had replied in effect that it was a military maxim "not to fight two decisive battles at the same time." If true, the maxim was not applicable in this case. It would be bad to be defeated in two decisive battles fought the same day, but it would not be bad to win ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... tea the evening before, Gruzdev had played with Maxim the poodle, and afterwards had told them about a very intelligent poodle who had run after a crow in the yard, and the crow had looked round at him ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Drury, in command of the rearguard, sent word that a force of about 100 Boers was following him about one mile in rear. I thereupon reinforced the rearguard, hitherto consisting of a troop and one Maxim, by an additional half-troop ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... "ye ken our fashion—foster the guest that comes—further him that maun gang. But ye cannot return by Drymen—I must set you on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the Ferry o' Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there. It's a maxim of a wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another's ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... never experience that happy surprise with which we hail our best strokes. Only his bad strokes surprise him, and then we may suppose that he is not happy. His length and accuracy are mechanical; they are not the result, as so often in our case, of some suddenly applied maxim or some suddenly discovered innovation. The only thing which can vary in his game is his putting, and putting ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... the laws of trade would regulate it more successfully and more satisfactorily, both to the railroad companies and their patrons, than the wisest statutes could ever regulate it. To give force to their argument, they cite the old Democratic maxim that that State is governed best which is ruled the least. They also assert that it is the province of the State to guarantee to each of its citizens industrial freedom; to permit him to transact any legitimate business according to his best ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... variations of phraseology, the old adage "circumstances alter cases" is the sole reliable and fundamental rule of action. A corresponding maxim of the military profession, "It depends on the situation", has its root in recognition of the same fact, i.e., that the action taken in any situation depends, properly, on the circumstances of the case, and that the relationship between cause and effect (page 22) is always the governing ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... that I perceive the attempt to prejudice an audience and divert attention from the issues of a serious argument by general detraction. The device is far from new, and the tactics cannot be pronounced original. In religious as well as legal controversy, the threadbare maxim: "A bad case—abuse the plaintiff's attorney," remains in force; and it is surprising how effectual the simple practice still is. If it were granted, for the sake of argument, that each slip in translation, each error in detail and ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... to our relations with foreign powers, I am gratified to be able to state that though with some of them there have existed since your last session serious causes of irritation and misunderstanding, yet no actual hostilities have taken place. Adopting the maxim in the conduct of our foreign affairs "to ask nothing that is not right and submit to nothing that is wrong," it has been my anxious desire to preserve peace with all nations, but at the same time to be prepared to resist aggression and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... that one judicious and manly friend, who would have had the courage to point out to him the danger that every one else perceived, might have saved him. But among the circle of his acquaintances there was none such. "Let every man mind his own business" was their universal maxim. True, heads were gravely shaken, and Mr. A. regretted to Mr. B. that so promising a young man seemed about to ruin himself. But one was "no relation," of Edward's, and the other "felt a delicacy in speaking on such a subject," and therefore, according to a very ancient ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that man, to be apprehended in his proper position in the universe as well as in his natural powers, must be studied from below in the hierarchical progression of higher function from the lower forms of life. The important maxim, that to obtain a clear conception of anything we must 'study it in its growth from the very beginning' is formally set down in the opening of the Politics, where, indeed, we shall find the other characteristic features ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... The Contra Levitatem maxim of the Florentine Academicians. Ruskin's warning against science as an interpreter of its own observations. How man's inner nature and the outer universe interpret one another. The Solfatara phenomenon. The ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... therefore, consider it as a capital maxim, (the truth of which will be more easily understood in the sequel) that the eloquent Speaker we are enquiring after, cannot be formed without the assistance of Philosophy. I do not mean that this alone is sufficient; but only (for it is sometimes ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... paramount crux of the time, I pray you give diligent heed To the lessons I weave into rhyme; And first, let us note, one and all— Whether living in castles or "digs"— "Large people need more than the small," For that's the first maxim ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... place, the Roman law insisted that it was unfair for a husband to demand chastity on the part of his wife if he himself was guilty of infidelity or did not set her an example of good conduct,[84]—a maxim which present day lawyers may reflect upon with profit. A father was permitted to put to death his daughter and her paramour if she was still in his power and if he caught her in the act at his own house or that of his son-in-law; otherwise he could ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... you set out as the basic principle which should guide the actions of your people the maxim that: 'Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative, nonresistance hurts both ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy
... to society, and all it owes, is the impartial administration of equal and just laws. This produces security of life, of liberty, and of property. It has become a favorite maxim, that it is the duty of government to promote the happiness of the people. The phrase may be interpreted so as to mean well, but it is a very inaccurate and unhappy one. It is the inalienable right of men to pursue their own happiness; each man under such ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... ruddy in the green bosses of untrimmed grass. Why the fruit was not gathered, as it was evidently ripe, would have puzzled any one not acquainted with the Corney family to say; but to them it was always a maxim in practice, if not in precept, 'Do nothing to-day that you can put off till to-morrow,' and accordingly the apples dropped from the trees at any little gust of wind, and lay rotting on the ground until the 'lads' wanted a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Franklin left us a maxim which is much to the point here. He said that a good workman should be able to plane with a saw and to saw with a plane. The insect is too good a workman not to follow the advice of the sage of Boston. Its industry abounds in instances where the plane takes the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... in a public letter of his, addressed to Your Royal Father, 'the fate that made you a King forbad your having a friend.' I deny his proposition as a general maxim—I am confident that Your Royal Highness possesses qualities to win and secure to you the attachment and devotion of private friendship, in spite of your being a Sovereign. At least I feel that I am entitled to make this declaration as far as relates ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... mindful of their Injuries by James the First, their unexampled Sufferings by the excessive harsh Measures of King Charles the First, his Ministers, and Deputies, or their unheard-of Treatment (I won't say Wrongs, it being a Maxim the King of England can do none) by King Charles II. Little Wonder, a House, constantly sapping it's own best Pillars, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... humility I confine my attention to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in the sense that my service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non la is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love. It is for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and show, by your preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based on hatred "killeth" ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... running up, calling on the name of the dear soul, and upbraiding Fortune for taking her from him, and plucking out his beard, he cursed the stars that had sent him such a misfortune. But bearing in mind the maxim, "Pain in one's elbow and pain for one's wife are alike hard to bear, but are soon over," ere the Night had gone forth into the place-of-arms in the sky to muster the bats he began to count upon his fingers and to reflect thus ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the ceiling lighter; Mr. Brown's eyes are up there, for he is lying, tracing amid the cracks and stains, vast palaces like pictures by Martin, or aerial phantasmagorias by Turner. Brown is lying, nursing his influenza according to the approved adage; though some read the maxim thus, "Stuff a cold, and (have to) starve a fever." Let us hope Brown has the right version. Captain de Camp has come to read to the invalid, and drink his brandy and water—he has begun "Blair's Sermons," or rather the life of Blair, prefixed to the volume, in a full conviction of its religious ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... content to leave well alone, and sent Fink with seventeen thousand men to Maxim, to cut off Daun's retreat into Bohemia; intending himself to attack him in front. Daun for once acted with decision, attacked Fink with twenty-seven thousand men and, although the Prussians fought with most obstinate bravery, they were surrounded; battered by the Austrian ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... communities of men—the Belgiums, Bohemias, Polands, Serbias, Denmarks, Switzerlands of Europe—any chance of security in the maintenance of their national existences. In short the principle of nationality, unless it is prepared to serve this international ethic, is but a frank abettor of the devilish maxim, "Might is right." All this is truism; but truisms are often the first things ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... latter terrible epitaph, it cannot be said that the maxim de mortuis was observed. But it ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... have been consonant or compatible with his eternal wisdom to have passed it over so lightly and thus tacitly authorised it by such silence? On the contrary, does not his silence manifestly indicate that he looked upon this doctrine, which was a received maxim of the Jewish Church, as the true explanation of ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... It is a maxim with charitable persons—and no more than a recognition of a great constitutional axiom—to assume, in the absence of proof to the contrary, that every British subject is an honest man. Now, if we had gone to Lord Castlemallard for his character—and who ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and imperious nature of the King gave great advantages to those who advised him to be firm, to yield nothing, and to make himself feared. One state maxim had taken possession of his small understanding, and was not to be dislodged by reason. To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and the most military governments as well as to the most free and popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive their helpless subjects, like brute beasts, against their ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... greatest Grievance) yet we had better be at that Expence, than to have no Books publish'd, and consequently no Discoveries; the same Reason may be given where Books in the Law, Physick, &c. are imperfect in some Part, and tend to the misleading Persons; for of two Evils the old Maxim is, always chuse the least. The only Objection that I do not take upon me to Defend, is, that against Lewd and obscene Poetry in general; (for sometimes the very great Wit may make it excuseable) ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... throw away the gun, and send the Indian to fetch it, he had need to be very good, and very wise, not to abuse his position. But the white man, as yet, is a half-tamed pirate, and avails himself, as much as ever, of the maxim, "Might makes right." All that civilization does for the generality, is to cover up this with a veil of subtle evasions and chicane, and here and there to rouse the individual mind to appeal to ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... put his learning to good use. He observed the wise maxim of Leonardo da Vinci, "Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker." He was not one of those learned men, of whom there are many examples—a recent and conspicuous instance was the late Lord Acton—whose ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... of any nymph of St. Ronan's. Few knew that this wild, hoydenish, half-mad humour, was only superinduced over her real character, for the purpose of—getting well married. She had fixed her eyes on Sir Bingo, and was aware of his maxim, that to catch him, "a girl must be," in his own phrase, "bang up to every thing;" and that he would choose a wife for the neck-or-nothing qualities which recommend a good hunter. She made out ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Likewise Augustine says (De Trin. vi, 10): "What the Apostle says, "From Him, and by Him, and in Him," is not to be taken in a confused sense." And (Contra Maxim. ii) "'from Him' refers to the Father, 'by Him' to the Son, 'in Him' to the Holy Ghost." This, however, seems to be incorrectly said; for the words "in Him" seem to imply the relation of final cause, which is first among the causes. Therefore this relation of cause should be appropriated to the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... might speak if they would recant, Dr Ridley cried then, 'I will never deny my Lord Christ!' and arising from his knees, he cried again with a loud voice, 'Well, then, I commit our cause to Almighty God, who shall indifferently judge all.' Whereto my master added his old posy [motto, maxim], 'Well, there is nothing hid but it shall be opened.' So that after they made them ready, and were fastened to the stake; and Mr Shipside brought two bags of gunpowder and tied around their necks. Then they brought a lighted faggot, and laid it at Dr Ridley's ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Malpighi had summed in his maxim, that "nature exists entirely in leasts,"—is a favorite thought of Swedenborg. "It is a constant law of the organic body, that large, compound, or visible forms exist and subsist from smaller, simpler, and ultimately from invisible forms, which act similarly to the larger ones, but more perfectly ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his excuse for violating three commandments that stand in his way; this maxim also leads nations to violate these same three commandments for the same purpose, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various |
