"Temporise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superficial, and did not counterbalance the manifest evils of the practice, especially the discouragement to planting, and the element of turbulence and unrest ever present in the island. Under such conditions Governor Modyford found it necessary to temporise with the marauders, and perhaps he did so the more readily because he felt that they were still needed for the security of the colony. A war between England and the States-General then seemed imminent, and the governor considered that unless he allowed the buccaneers to dispose of their booty ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... not rely on any assistance from the Londoners—whom Walsingham describes as fickle as a reed, siding at one time with the lords and at another time with the king(689)—Richard was driven to temporise. He had already promised that in the next parliament his unfortunate advisers should be called to account, but long before parliament met (3 Feb., 1388), four out of the five culprits had made good their escape—at least ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... tried to temporise. "Let not Jirad Sahib fit the shoes of impatience to the feet of offence," she said blandly. "Is he not ruler here? But the wise ruler is he who acts with the dwellers behind the curtain ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... interfere further. There might be ill blood on their brother's part, but there would be none on theirs. Neither Lord George nor their younger sister gainsayed this altogether. Neither of them denied the necessity of enquiry. But they desired to temporise;—and then how was the enquiry to be made? Who was to bell the cat? And how should they go on when the Marquis refused to take any heed of them,—as, of course, he would do? Lady Sarah saw at once that they must employ a lawyer;—but what lawyer? Old Mr. Stokes, the family attorney, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... insane," went on Godfrey quickly. "Just as every great reformer and enthusiast is a little insane. The sane men are the average ones, who are fairly honest and yet tell white lies on occasion, who succumb to temptation now and then; who temporise and compromise, and try to lead a comfortable and quiet life. I repeat, Lester, that this fellow is a great criminal, and that he finds life infinitely more engrossing than either you or I. I hope I shall meet ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... what extent it is allowable and expedient to diverge from the straight line. Statesmen of the greatest power, and with the purest intentions, are perpetually counteracted by prejudices, obstinacy, interest, and ignorance; and in order to be efficient they must turn, and tack, and temporise, sometimes dissemble. They who are of the ruat coelum sort, who will carry everything their own way or not at all, must be content to yield their places to those who are certainly less scrupulous, and submit to the measures of those who are probably ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... case might be a hard one. Most people thought it so. But every child knew that His Majesty loved to have his own way and could not bear to be thwarted. Penn, therefore, exhorted the Fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to temporise. Such counsel came strangely from one who had himself been expelled from the University for raising a riot about the surplice, who had run the risk of being disinherited rather than take off his hat to the princes of the blood, and who had been more than once sent to prison for haranguing ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of true greatness that it may never be found unprepared. Now and again it may be made to temporise for a moment, cunningly adopting one expedient or another to hide its unreadiness—but ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... deg. 30', permitting slavery to the south of it, meant the loss of all that had been gained, and a renewal of old issues and hostilities in the near future. Republican congressmen from the State, almost without exception, yielded to this view, voicing the sentiment that it was vain to temporise longer with compromises. With fluent invective, James B. McKean of Saratoga assailed the South in a speech that recalled the eloquence of John W. Taylor, his distinguished predecessor, who, in 1820, led the forces of freedom ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... dissenters. Came to the fore five years ago, when what HALDANE called LLOYD GEORGE'S first great Budget (eclipsed by his second) fell like a bomb in the Parliamentary arena. Whilst elder peers were disposed to temporise in view of constitutional difficulty, WILLOUGHBY had only three words to say—"Throw it out!"—MILNER adding a fearless remark about the consequences whose emphasis has been excelled only by Mrs. PATRICK CAMPBELL in Pygmalion. So the Budget was shattered on the rock of the House of Lords, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... who upbraids his brother; later, seeing his distress, he advises him to send the women home again. But public opinion forces the leader to obey Artemis and sacrifice his daughter. When he meets his wife and child, he tries to temporise but fails. Achilles meets Clytemnestra and is surprised to hear that he is to marry Iphigeneia, such being the bait which brought Clytemnestra to Aulis. Learning the real truth, she faces her husband, pleading for their daughter's life. Iphigeneia ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb |
