"Prudential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Madras, is very considerable—at present L500 a year. This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as precarious—I mean to the full extent; and indeed, when you know her, you will not be surprised that I regard this circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential considerations which would otherwise render our union impossible for the present. Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which my family and situation entitle ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions. He was perhaps six feet and an inch in height, cast in a most powerful model, and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... between her thumb and third finger, and debated the expediency of changing its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the first suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to "love-scrapes" finally strengthened her prudential inclination to crush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore the paper into shreds, which she tossed out ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... standing by the position he had hastily assumed; consequently, he is then compelled to marshal all his powers of argument to sustain that which in his own mind he may feel convinced is erroneous. Yet although many from prudential motives did not approve his policy, which had nearly involved France in hostility with England, they rather admired the spirit and susceptibility which he displayed in resenting the slight with which the French nation had been treated, and looked upon him as a sort of champion ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... they form an inconsiderate union, excusably indeed—because through inexperience; and it is the worst of these alternatives which parents risk—not excusably but inexcusably—when they bring up their children with no higher view of what that tie is, than the merely prudential one of a ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Fraught with these prudential suggestions, she drew near the unfortunate stranger, and, in a softened accent of pity and condolence, questioned him concerning his name, condition, and the nature of his mischance, at the same time making a gentle tender of her service. Agreeably surprised ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... interesting account you sent me of your late disappointment. It was not because I did not feel and compl[ete]ly enter into the affair with you. You surprise and please me with the frank and generous way in which you deal with your Lovers, taking a refusal from their so prudential hearts with a better grace and more good humour than other women accept a suitor's service. Continue this open artless conduct, and I trust you will at last find some man who has sense enough to know you are well worth risking a peaceable life of poverty for. I shall yet live to see ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... ashamed to show myself in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most desperate of buffos,—one who was obliged to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck all night in snowdrifts, and sat behind females that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... only in the wilder country where they have been unaffected by the European, but in the regions where he has conquered and ruled over them. They are more prolific than the whites, and their increase is not restrained by those prudential checks which tell upon civilised man, because, wants being few, subsistence in a warm climate with abundance of land is easy. Formerly two powerful forces kept down population:—war, in which no quarter was given and all the property ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... stream found its way into the valley through a chasm far to the left, and rushed thundering down the mountain side in a boiling cascade. The valley was approached in this direction from Rookwood by an unfrequented carriage-road, which Luke had, from prudential reasons, avoided. All seemed consecrated to silence—to solitude—to the hush of nature; yet this quiet scene was the chosen retreat of lawless depredators, and had erstwhile been the theatre of feudal ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... involved. An example of this theory is the doctrine of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae ("liberty of indifference''), according to which the choice of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind nor by crystallized habit (character). (2) In painting, the term is used for the effect produced by accidental lights (Ruskin, Modern Painters, I. II. 4, iii. sec. 4, 287). (3) In medicine, it stands for the hypothesis that disease is only an accidental modification of the healthy ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was to go round by easy stages, seeing the world as I went as far as I got, and taking as little heed as possible of the morrow. Most of my readers, no doubt, accept that philosophy of life on Sundays only; on week-days they swallow the usual contradictory economic platitudes about prudential forethought and the horrid improvidence of the lower classes. For myself, I am not built that way. I prefer to take life in a spirit of pure inquiry. I put on my hat: I saunter where I choose, so far as circumstances permit; and I wait to see what chance will ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astromony; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... people of the Netherlands, sickened with slaughter in the name of the faith, took a longer step in the direction of toleration in the Union of Utrecht. [Sidenote: 1579] The government of Elizabeth, acting from prudential motives only, created and maintained an extra-legal tolerance of Catholics, again and again refusing to molest those who were peaceable and quiet. The papists even hoped to obtain legal recognition when Francis ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... in the relations of Egypt to her still remaining Asiatic dependencies accompanied this alteration in the footing upon which she stood with the Hittites. "The bonds of their subjection became much less strict than they had been under Thothmes III.; prudential motives constrained the Egyptians to be content with very much less—with such acknowledgments, in fact, as satisfied their vanity, rather than with the exercise of any real power." From and after the conclusion of peace and alliance between Ramesses and Khitasir, Egyptian influence in Asia ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... after-circumstances, and who towards middle-age discover that the world is a treacherous world. He had not been "in a position to marry" when he had fallen in love with Rachel. But he had been as much in love with her as was consistent with a permanent prudential passion for himself and his future—that future which the true artist must ever preserve untrammelled. "High hopes faint on a warm hearthstone," etc. He had felt keenly breaking with Rachel. Later on, when a tide of wealth flowed up to the ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... greatest Reputation; he'll meet with Envy from every Quarter; Malice will pursue him in all his undertakings, and if he makes any manner of Defence, he cannot commence it too soon, tho' it is not always prudential to shew an open Resentment, even to ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... which had been growing desperate for some time, had now actually become so to poor Somers. He placed his hand upon his revolver, in the breast-pocket of his coat; but some prudential considerations interposed to prevent him from using it. The house was on a line of rebel sentinels. Whole divisions of Confederate infantry, artillery and cavalry, were encamped around him, and any violent movement ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... right from a purely prudential point of view in testing the negro well; but in your place I should have trusted him the instant I learned ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... AND STOIC.—Thus, Aristippus of Cyrene advised men to grasp the pleasure of the moment rather than to await the more uncertain pleasure of the future; but he also counselled, for prudential reasons, the avoidance of a conflict with the laws. Such advice takes cognizance of the self-love of the individual, and is not self-love reasonable? Nevertheless, such advice might be given by a discouraged criminal of a reflective turn of mind, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... similar circumstances—wrote to her father asking forgiveness. Before Captain Bloomer received the letter, the last spark of anger in his breast had given place to paternal anxiety. Left alone without wife or child, gladly would he have welcomed her home, had not prudential reasons rendered it necessary to keep father and daughter separate. Her letter gave great satisfaction; and he resolved to assist her and her husband. Through an English friend, a sufficient amount was remitted to America, to enable Mr. Campbell to purchase an estate. The young couple ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the causes which have brought on the commercial disasters of New South Wales. It is seldom advantageous for an emigrant, newly arrived, to become a proprietor of land in any part of Australia, unless his capital be considerable; but the eager desire to become possessed of the soil overcame all prudential considerations; land at Port Philip was eagerly bought, at prices varying from 12s. to 500l. In 1840 the influx of moneyed immigrants from England and Van Diemen's Land, to a newly-discovered and extensive territory, produced a land fund ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... treating the case of the Prudential Insurance Company. I want to say here that I do not know the corporation, any of its officers, nor any one interested in the control or management of it, and personally have never had the slightest connection with its officers. I desire to prove through an outsider, some one of unquestioned ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Prudential reasons doubtless kept him from forming a personal acquaintance with his agents. The risk of exposing himself to future blackmail must not be incurred, and one may well believe that he shrank from clasping the hands of these men, who were eagerly awaiting him. Whatever were his feelings, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... affluence. It may go as far as feather-beds and winter fires for the aged; nay, it may advance to some economical form of teeth-brushes, and still demand no more sacrifice from its people than is constantly demanded of us to maintain our poor in a humbler way. Then there are certain prudential considerations—certain, I might almost say, moral considerations—which are to be taken into account. It will never do, in a town like ours, to make pauperism attractive—to make our pauper establishments comfortable asylums for idleness. It must, in some ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... shabby office up a court in Fleet Street, with a few saved-up shillings of pocket-money in his hand. His object was secretly to bribe a balloon agent to give him a seat in the basket on the next flight from Vauxhall: however as, either from prudential humanity or commercial greed, the clerk stated that five pounds was the fixed price for a place, and as the aforesaid little gentleman could only produce ten shillings, the negotiation came to nothing,—and I, who ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... alone this very prudential and humane line of conduct was departed from, and the event seemed to confirm the policy of the general course. Doctor Archibald Cameron, brother of the celebrated Donald Cameron of Lochiel, attainted for the rebellion of 1745, was found by a party ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... politely, but with a fine, needle-like disdain in her voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none too sensitive consciousness. His face reddened and he twitched his reins angrily; but the next second prudential considerations checked him. He looked uneasily at Anne, as she walked steadily on, glancing neither to the right nor to the left. Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable offer and his own too plain acceptance of it? Confound Corcoran! ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... expectation, now succeeded a low and half subdued muttering of discontent; groups of five or six together were seen along the deck, talking with eagerness and animation, and it was easy to see that whatever prudential or cautious reasons dictated to the leaders, their arguments found little sympathy with the soldiers of the expedition. I almost began to fear that if a determination to abandon the exploit were come to, a mutiny might break out, when ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that however lowly the place which the youth might hold in the favour of the Knight of Avenel, still to make an evil report of him would make an enemy of the Lady, without securing the favour of her husband. With these prudential considerations, and doubtless not without an eye to his own ease and convenience, he taught the boy as much, and only as much, as he chose to learn, readily admitting whatever apology it pleased his ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... wife. The gentleman is a peer, but has hitherto been of disreputable life. The lady, though of good family and education, is above thirty, and her family have lost their estate. The match of convenience which Sir Charles patches up between them has obvious prudential recommendations; and of course it turns out admirably. But one is rather puzzled to know what special merits Sir Charles can claim ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... facilities of the families of some ten "stationers," to use the phrase of the day, diligently sought to decoy, on successive occasions, Richard Mivane out to the comparative solitudes of the hunting, the fishing, the cropping. In vain. Richard Mivane displayed sudden extreme prudential care against surprise and capture by Indians, when this was possible, and when impossible he developed unexpected and unexampled resources of protective rheumatism. The young lover was equally precluded from setting forth ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... intelligence,—intelligence that is not primarily concerned with his own safety and well-being, but that looks abroad upon things. The wit of the lower animals seems all to have been developed by the struggle for existence, and it rarely gets beyond the prudential stage. The sharper the struggle, the sharper the wit. Our porcupine, for instance, is probably the most stupid of animals and has the least speed; it has little use for either wit or celerity of movement. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... his literati. The whole essence and secret of that kind of intercourse is contained therein. The economical liberality by which greatness, seeming to waive some part of its prerogative, takes care to lose none of the essentials; the prudential liberties of an inferior, which flatter by commanded boldness and soothe with complimentary sincerity;—these, and a thousand beautiful passages from his New Inn, his Cynthia's Revels, and from those numerous court-masques ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Rulers to the alleged determination of Ulstermen, in the last resource, to push matters to extremity. I could tell him more than this. It would be easy to adduce other instances of Governmental nervousness, but prudential and confidential ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... instinct revealed to the people that in this man was the destiny of the future. When he advanced, they followed him; when he did not move, they waited for him. The Girondists, therefore, were compelled, from prudential motives, to distrust this man, and to remain in the Assembly between their own course and him. These precautions taken, they looked about them for the men who were nullities by themselves, and yet, engrafted on their party, of whom they could make ministers. They required ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... This new history must show us what nations are at heart, what they desire, what they can do. Such an understanding of nations is, we say, the real beginning of internationalism. It is a necessary foundation for it, if internationalism is to be anything more than a merely practical, prudential or political arrangement among nations. In the school-room eventually, and indeed beginning now, there is demanded a readjustment of interest by which history takes a new and more central place. We must endeavor to give the new generation a world-idea. And upon the nature ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... transactions across State lines constituted interstate commerce, thereby logically establishing their immunity from discriminatory State taxation, Congress passed the McCarran Act[765] authorizing State regulation and taxation of the insurance business; and in Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin,[766] a statute of South Carolina which imposed on foreign insurance companies, as a condition of their doing business in the State, an annual tax of three per cent of premiums from business done in South Carolina, while ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... specially to Ireland. The Fourierist, Considerant, distinguishes accurately between the capital produced by labor and saving, and the increase of the value of land caused by capital and labor, and its original value. Only the first two elements can justly be made property. But as, for prudential reasons, it is necessary to grant individuals the right of private property in land, those who are not such proprietors must, as a compensation for the common property which they have lost, be guaranteed the right to labor. (Theorie ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... thirty-three; and his brother, Francis d'Andelot (born at Chatillon, in 1521), twenty-nine. These men, warriors and politicians at one and the same time, in a high social position and in the flower of their age, could not reconcile themselves to the Constable de Montmorency's system, defensive solely and prudential to the verge of inertness; they thought that, in order to repair the reverses of France and for the sake of their own fame, there was something else to be done, and they impatiently awaited ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of self-defence. "The law," says Blackstone, "respects the passions of the human mind; and when external violence is offered to a man himself, or those to whom he bears a near connexion, makes it lawful in him to do himself that immediate justice, to which he is prompted by nature, and which no prudential motives are strong enough ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Henri's return to La Vendee, he had imbued himself with a high tone of loyalty, without any difficulty or constraint on his feelings; indeed, he was probably unaware that he had changed his party: he had an appetite for strong politics, was devotedly attached to his master, and had no prudential misgivings whatsoever. He had already been present at one or two affairs in which his party had been victorious, and war seemed to him twice more exciting, twice more delightful than the French Opera, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... ferule, the rod, and the strap! We have already referred to a case, in which formerly fever constantly prevailed, but where disease disappeared altogether upon the introduction of pure air. Let the same prudential course be adopted in our schools, in connection with other appropriate means, and we shall readily see the superiority of the natural stimulus of oxygen over the ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... consequences of such a fiscal system have been seen—the excess of extortions and of suffering, the spoliation, privations and deep-seated resentment of the humble and the poor. Every government is bound to care for these, if not from compassion, at least through prudential considerations, and this one more than any other, since it is founded on the will of the greatest number, on the repeated votes ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... rather embarrassed. He has sent for the most prudential persons on change to ask their advice concerning this addition, which he considers arrant folly. Another person, very much displeased with this addition, says, that if Amsterdam persists firmly in demanding the strict observance of the treaties, and a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... with significant emphasis, that he feared they made two days work of one," since, by sparing Macdonald, who was also a prisoner, and his apparent heir, they preserved the lives of those who might yet give them trouble. But Kenneth, though a lion in the field, could not, from any such prudential consideration, be induced to commit such a cowardly and inhuman act as was here inferred. He, however, had no great faith in the forbearance of his followers if an opportunity occurred to them, and he accordingly sent Macdonald, under a strong guard, to ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... in Washington, the daily repetition of threats and complaints (thus originated by the latter), which were continued for nearly three and a half months. The purpose was twofold: first, by alternately exciting the fears and hopes of the Government to induce it to withhold reenforcement as a prudential measure of magnanimity and conciliation; secondly, to make it a cloak to hide, as far as might be, their own preparations for war. Had the Federal Government been in a condition of normal health and vigor, the farce would not have been effective ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... mind of youth. The real difficulty begins when one comes to that much larger section of "advanced" politicians who are scarcely less bitterly opposed to the maintenance of British rule, but, either from prudential motives or lest they should prematurely alarm and alienate the representatives of what is called "moderate" opinion, shrink from the violent assertion of India's claim to complete political independence and, whilst helping to create the ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... praise, to which every statesman of the first rank laid claim, is matter for doubt. It is certain that he disliked war on account of the evil results accruing from the Russo-Turkish conflict; but whether his love of peace rested on grounds other than prudential will be questioned by those who remember his savage repression of non-Russian peoples in his Empire, his brutal treatment of the Bulgarians and of their Prince, his underhand intrigues against Servia and Roumania, and the favour which he showed ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... shadow of truth; and both, though phantoms are all they have, possess in them as much as they can grasp. Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; could we learn them in some other way, we should not live. Thus it is that wise sayings and prudential maxims will never make up for the lack of experience, or be a substitute for life itself. Still they are not to be despised; for they, too, are a part of life; nay, they should be highly esteemed and regarded ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... present state of their being; but their souls remembered the animosity and manifested an instinctive antagonism. He developed his theme jocularly. Yet the affair was so absurd from the worldly, the military, the honourable, or the prudential point of view, that this weird explanation seemed rather more ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of the Salisbury Missal did the amusing errors in the "Ordo Sponsalium" first occur; and how long were they continued? I allude to the husband's obligation, "to haue and to holde fro thys day wafor beter for wurs," &c., and to the wife's prudential promise, "to haue et to holde for thys day." (2.) Are there any vellum leaves in any copy in England of the folio impression very beautifully printed en rouge et noir "in alma Parisiorum academia," ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... PRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE. In Yale College, a committee to whom the discretionary concerns of the College are intrusted. They order such repairs of the College buildings as are necessary, audit the accounts of the Treasurer and Steward, make the annual report of the ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... others of a prudential nature were added; that we were in want of water and other refreshments; that our foremast would require six or eight days work before it could be stepped; that the spring was advancing apace; and that the speedy prosecution of our next northern ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... gravely, and turned to welcome the young man. More than ever he liked him; for, apart from moral and prudential reasons, it was easy for the father to forgive an unreasonable love for his Katharine. Also, he was now more anxious for a marriage between Neil and his daughter. It was indeed the best thing to fully restore her to the social esteem of her own people; for by making her his wife, ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... in the wilderness, to know that even a "dwelling in the desert" cannot be maintained without expense; and that however pure the desert air, the fairest "spirit" would require something more substantial to live upon. Under this prudential view of the case, marriage was altogether out of the question. We, the debandes, were dismissed without pension: the only reward for our warlike achievements being a piece of "land scrip," good for the number of acres upon the face of it—to be selected from ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... into the control of Offitt. That worthy had not come under the notice of the law for the part he took in the attack on the Belding house; he had not been recognized by Farnham's men, nor denounced by his associates; and so, after a day or two of prudential hiding, he came to the surface again. He met Sam at the very door of the House of Correction, sympathized with him, flattered him, gained his full confidence at last, and held him ready for some purpose which was vague even ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... But in stating prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... so, she might perhaps have been happier even than she was during this journey;—but, without the shirt, it was one of the happiest moments of her life. There was nothing now to separate them but their own prudential scruples;—and of them it must be acknowledged that Hugh Stanbury had very few. According to his shewing, he was as well provided for matrimony as the gentleman in the song, who came out to woo his bride on a ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... conversational skirmishing, the confidential physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the insurance were briefly touched upon in Mr. Greenwood's letter ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Protestant, sought to recur to the lex naturae in contradistinction with the old lex divina. The natural rights of man, the rights of the people, the rationally conditioned rights of the State, a natural, prudential, utilitarian morality interested men. One of the consequences of this theory of the State was a complete alteration in the thought of the relation of State and Church. The nature of the Church itself as ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... that man should secure the advantage offered or avoid the pain which may befall him here and now, or some time subsequently to his contemplated action. Hence there is no obligatory force in this ethic. Prudential motives, suggestions of expediency, abundance of counsel, if you will; but we miss the note of authority, the commanding voice, the categorical imperative, the solemn injunction, "Thou canst, therefore thou must". Indeed, it seems difficult to see how one could ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... anxious people were to save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could secure by going from house to ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... England. Jonson himself afterwards said once that 'he was for any religion, as being versed in both.' [6] It is, therefore, not to be assumed that he once more changed from conviction. His reconversion appears rather to have been a prudential act on his part, in order to conform to the religious views of the pedantic James I., and thus to obtain access at Court, which aim he indeed afterwards reached; whereas he had not been able to obtain that favour under ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... purchase one of these disturbing or dubious books. Has he, on discovering its true nature, the right to call on the bookseller to refund its value? He has not. And thus he runs a danger obviated in the case of the Drama which has the protection of a prudential Censorship. For this reason alone, how much better, then, that there should exist a paternal authority (some, no doubt, will call it grand-maternal—but sneers must not be confounded with argument) to suppress these books before appearance, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not be more glorious than their rank and the occasion altogether demanded, so that no inferior luminary might appear to approach the orbit of royalty. But their personal charms, and the magnificence by which, under every prudential restraint, they were necessarily distinguished, exhibited them as the very flower of a realm so far famed for splendour and beauty. The magnificence of the courtiers, free from such restraints as prudence imposed on the ladies, was yet ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen directly opposite to the person's disposition. A mendacious umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it, and a publican by profession, it was necessary to conform to the habits and manners of those about him, unless he desired to see his license taken away, and himself a suspected person, as well as without employment. These prudential considerations contending with Eleazar's nature, had sobered the otherwise mirthful features of his face, and made him present the appearance of a merry and a sad man rolled into one, each striving for the mastery, and each alternately achieving ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... inspiring. It would have lightened the siege and shortened our labors; and, besides, we would have had the credit of driving the enemy from Yorktown by force of arms; whereas, as it was, we only induced him to evacuate for prudential considerations." And General Barry says, in his report of the artillery operations at the siege,—"It will always be a source of great professional disappointment to me, that the enemy, by his premature and hasty abandonment of his defensive line, deprived the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... 'Most proper, prudential, and exemplary Maurice!' his sister laughed. 'Now I have an equally hearty belief in my children being somewhere, sure to turn up when wanted. Come, I want to get out from the trees to look for Colonel Bury's harvest moon, for I believe she ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude—the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, because exciting no resistance; the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the representatives from South Carolina called upon me and requested an interview. We had an earnest conversation on the subject of these forts, and the best means of preventing a collision between the parties, for the purpose of sparing the effusion of blood. I suggested, for prudential reasons, that it would be best to put in writing what they said to me verbally. They did so accordingly, and on Monday morning, the 10th instant, three of them presented to me a paper signed by all the representatives from South Carolina, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... 1725, the Scotch were a great proverbial nation; for that few among the better sort will converse any considerable time, but will confirm every assertion and observation with a Scottish proverb. The speculative Scotch of our own times have probably degenerated in prudential lore, and deem themselves much wiser than their proverbs. They may reply by a Scotch proverb on proverbs, made by a great man in Scotland, who, having given a splendid entertainment, was harshly told, that "Fools make feasts, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Philistine whose silks and satins and purple and fine raiment fit like Dolly's do?" So it went on, and the two adored each other with mutual simplicity, and, having their little quarrels, always made them up again with much affectionate remorse, and, scorning the prudential advice of outsiders, believed in each other and the better day which was to come, when one or the other gained worldly goods enough to admit of a marriage in which they were to be happy in their own way,—which, I may add, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... these were supplied at a cheaper rate by a neighbouring people. The sword-blade of Buckar Sano, and the brass bracelets of his wife, appeared to Jobson to be specimens of as good workmanship as could be seen in England. Jobson, from very prudential motives, abstained from mentioning gold; but Buckar Sano, who knew perhaps what Europeans most coveted, told him, that if he continued to trade with Tenda, he could dispose of all his cargoes for gold. The negro merchant affirmed, that he had been four times at a town in which the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Inglis, and Peel against it. Old Cobbett made as mischievous a speech as he could to blow the coals between the parties. Peel spoke last, and as usual very well; but several people expected he would have supported it, and have abstained (from prudential motives) from saying anything likely to offend the Dissenters. I expected no such thing; he was not violent, and addressed his argument to the weak parts of his adversaries' speeches rather than against ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... feeling of his breast, the strongest next to his love, was a desire to be revenged. He cared little now for his father, little for that personal dignity which he had intended to return by his silence, little for pecuniary advantages and prudential motives, in comparison with his strong desire to punish Marie for her perfidy. He would go over to Granpere, and fall among them like a thunderbolt. Like a thunderbolt, at any rate, he would fall upon the head of Marie Bromar. The ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... by Samuel W. King, the governor of the State of Rhode Island, to lay before you the present alarming condition in which the people of that State are placed, and to request from you the adoption of such prudential measures as in your opinion may tend to prevent domestic violence, beg leave most respectfully to state the following among the leading facts, to which your attention ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... pestilences mitigated, and war sternly repressed. This increase, however, would not have been possible had not these rude people spread into the adjoining districts, and worked for hire. Savages almost always marry; yet there is some prudential restraint, for they do not commonly marry at the earliest possible age. The young men are often required to shew that they can support a wife; and they generally have first to earn the price with which to purchase her from her parents. With savages the difficulty of obtaining subsistence ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... district in which she lived, and was anxious to acquire a better education, to qualify herself to become a teacher of the colored people. She applied to Miss Crandall for admission to her school. Miss Crandall hesitated, for prudential reasons, to admit a colored person among her pupils; but Sarah was a young lady of pleasing appearance and manners, well known to many of Miss Crandall's present pupils, having been their classmate in the district school, and was, moreover, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... anxious to gain that she could not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward securing it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her uncle's judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not merely prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been seen under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with her second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and cordially identified with her sister's family, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Golden Fleece, of which the Prince of Orange was a member. The career of this remarkable man is closely identified with the history of the Netherlands during this period. He was opposed to the violence of the mob, not only from prudential motives, but because his own religious views were not yet in sympathy with the Protestant reformers, though he afterwards ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... rallying, more especially as the escape to his frontier would be easy to one who had long forecast it. We can hardly doubt that Augustus meditated such schemes; that he laid them aside only as his power began to cement and to knit together after the battle of Actium; and that the memory and the prudential tradition of this plan survived in the imperial family so long as itself survived. Amongst other anecdotes of the same tendency, two are recorded of Nero, the emperor in whom expired the line of the original Caesars, which strengthen us in a belief of what ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and gladness. Wakadahme was loaded down with honors, and every chief in the tribe was anxious to have him select one of his daughters for a wife. He accommodated six of them, but prudential reasons interposed between him and the seventh. From this time forth he was an honored and puissant warrior, chief, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... to be more than perfectly healthy and strong. 'False economy,' said the old man in private; but Felix was not to be persuaded into what he believed to be an unnecessary drain on the family-finances, and was still more stout against the hint that if Redstone discovered this prudential abstinence, it might make him 'disagreeable.' Felix had gone his way regardless of far too many sneers for poverty and so- called meanness to make any concession on their account, though the veiled jealousy and guarded ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they found on the Woolsack and on the Treasury Bench a Lord Chancellor and a Government with which they were not familiar. When their eyes fell upon those objects, there was a light in them which meant one thing—murder; murder tempered, no doubt, by those prudential considerations which always restrain persons from acts which are contrary to the general feeling of the society in which they live. But their attitude towards the present Government has from the beginning been to select the best and most convenient ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... only doing justice to the dead to say, that he was the most reasonable, and humane slaveholder that I have ever belonged to. He was the last man that pretended to claim property in my person; and although I have freely given the names and residences of all others who have held me as a slave, for prudential reasons I shall omit giving the name of ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... the visit to Smedley tolerable: he frequently invited me to visit, with him, the surrounding neighbourhood, from the inhabitants of which places I had received pressing invitations; but all these I declined from prudential motives, and it was fortunate I did so, or my prosecutors would have found some pretence for the charge of conspiracy, of which, as it was, they could never bring the slightest shadow ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... was still at the school, and was, from prudential motives, a fast friend of Martin. But he bore him a secret grudge, for he could not forget the ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... exhibition on our part taught the enemy their strength—confirmed against us those who, however disposed to join in the rebellion, had hitherto kept aloof from prudential motives, and ultimately encouraged the nation to unite as one man for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... may give to our hearts, it would be less objectionable. For doubtless love, though more essential to woman than to man, can be more easily controlled by her than by him. A person of a strong will may bring herself, for prudential considerations, to prefer in marriage one who will be "a good match" with her, as the phrase is, to another whom she sincerely loves. And she may succeed in subduing, to no ordinary degree, her affection for the rejected ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... take Edward's part," struck in the Baroness. "Charlotte was not altogether without fault—not altogether free from what we must call prudential considerations; and although she had a real, hearty love for Edward, and did in her secret soul intend to marry him, I can bear witness how sorely she often tried him; and it was through this that he was at ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of instinctive action, rather than reflection—of poetry and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the educational course," to which may be added the saws and aphorisms of the Seven Wise ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... and communicated to the Lord Bolingbroke, Dr Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... abroad the administration was charged with sharp practice for its Panama coup, and the case made out by critics was prima facie strong—less, indeed, on its legal than on its ethical and prudential side. We had allowed ourselves to profit by Colombia's distress, encouraged secession in federal republics like our own, and rendered ourselves and our Monroe doctrine objects of dread throughout Central and South America. Still, Colombia ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the timid and excitable region of Cautiousness to its upper prudential region we reach a prudent, calm and self-controlling region which is marked Sanity, as it is the power which overrules the passionate excitability and gives us self-control and consequent clearness of mind. Next behind Cautiousness comes Coolness or Coldness, which is both a mental and physical ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... distress, and the promise of the company's medical work after the new year was even more hopeful. Alves was eager to move from the dilapidated temple to an apartment where Sommers could have a suitable office. But Sommers objected, partly from prudential reasons, partly from fear that unpleasant things might happen to Alves, should they come again where people could talk. And then, to Alves's perplexity, he developed strange ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... common-place sarcasms on his person and his cloth, which he uttered in the public coffeehouse, for the entertainment of the company. But he was egregiously mistaken in giving his own wit credit for that tameness of Eastgate, which had been entirely owing to prudential considerations. These being now removed, he retorted his repartee with interest, and found no great difficulty in turning the laugh upon the aggressor; who, losing his temper, called him names, and asked, If he knew whom he talked ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... himself increases in a quick geometrical ratio, unless want and vice stop him." In his second edition (1803), besides the positive check of vice and want, he gave more importance to the negative check of "self-restraint, moral and prudential." The whole theory was crudely stated at first; and it raised the cry that such a doctrine was inconsistent with the belief in a benevolent Creator. In its essence, the law of population is simply that a tendency and ability exist in mankind to increase its ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... possible to Clara. Somehow, either by look or word, she must say to Thurstane, "Yes." Prudential considerations might come afterward—might come too late to be of use; no matter. The only thing now to be done, the only thing which first or last must be done, the only thing which fate insisted should be done, was ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the common herd of mankind. The vivid intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical intercourse with the world than falls to the lot of men of other professions. Hence it follows ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... closing letters to one of themselves than to you, for it is with their own faults and needs that each class is primarily concerned. As, however, unless I kept the letters private, this change of their address would be but a matter of courtesy and form, not of any true prudential use; and as besides I am now no more inclined to reticence—prudent or otherwise; but desire only to state the facts of our national economy as clearly and completely as may be, I pursue the subject without respect ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... cause of Oglethorpe's undertaking, what, when rightly understood, was but a consequence of it. He says, "A rich and humane citizen, at his death, left the whole of his estate to set at liberty such insolvent debtors as were detained in prison by their creditors. Prudential reasons of policy concurred in the performance of this Will, dictated by humanity; and the Government gave orders that such unhappy prisoners as were released should be transported into Georgia. The Parliament added nine thousand eight hundred and forty-three pounds fifteen shillings, to ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the older redaction will be found fuller of incident, the characters drawn with a bolder, more realistic touch, the presentment more vigorous and dramatic. Ferdiad is unwilling to go against Cuchulain not, apparently, solely for prudential reasons, and he has to be goaded and taunted into action by Medb, who displays to the full her wonted magnificently resourceful unscrupulousness, regardless of any and every consideration, so long as she can achieve her purpose. The action of Fergus is far ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... a rousing exhortation, like the address of a general on the eve of a battle, that inspired courage in every heart. Then followed a few hours of deliberation and mutual council on the course to be adopted in the critical circumstances of the time. Certain prudential arrangements were made for maintaining the connexional unity of the Church under the stress of disorganizing influences, and certain provisions effected for the unforeseen contingencies of the war. Then, after commending one another to God in fervent prayer, ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... him. Sweet and holy are the angelic choristers. And for ever round the marble shoulders, in and out of the folded fingers, go the thin high sounds of voice and organ. For ever requiem—repose. Tired with scrubbing the steps of the Prudential Society's office, which she did year in year out, Mrs. Lidgett took her seat beneath the great Duke's tomb, folded her hands, and half closed her eyes. A magnificent place for an old woman to rest in, by the very side of the great Duke's bones, whose victories mean nothing to her, whose ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... as you would seem, you have that within you makes the blood boil faster than suits your present humour of moralising on political truths. You are one of those wise men who see everything with great composure till their blood is up, and then—woe to any one who should put them in mind of their own prudential maxims!" "Perhaps," said Ravenswood, "you read me more rightly than I can myself. But to think justly will certainly go some length in helping me to act so. But hark! I hear Caleb ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the liberties of a free people." Governor Rector declared that the President's call for troops was only "adding insult to injury, and that the people of Arkansas would defend, to the last extremity, their honor and their property against Northern mendacity and usurpation." Governor Hicks for prudential reasons excused Maryland at the time from responding to the President's call, and when a month afterwards he notified the War Department of his readiness to comply with the request of the Government, he was informed that ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... all we can,' said Margaret eagerly, not seeing the prudential side of the question, only grasping at the idea that they were rendering such help for the last time; 'we may not ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there {64} can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... answered Richie; "mickle better not. We are a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases. And for me—even myself—I have always observed myself to be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own interest—whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, as ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... distance between them being increased. Perhaps he might have carried his point even at that moment, had not Miss Wodehouse, who had heard enough to alarm her, come forward hastily in a fright on the prudential side. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... completion and successful operation of the PANAMA CANAL, fittingly commemorated by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Among the men who contributed in a measurable degree to the attainment of this national ideal was the late United States Senator, JOHN F. DRYDEN, President of THE PRUDENTIAL. As a member of the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals, Mr. Dryden, after mature and extended consideration, gave the weight of his influence and vote in favor of the lock-level principle of canal ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden
... that otherwise awaited him, of becoming the mere thrall of his more fortunate cousin, the king. In the palace it was whispered that he and the late queen consort had been tenderly attached to each other, but that the lady's parents, for prudential considerations, discountenanced the match; "and so," on the eve of her betrothal to his Majesty, her lover had sought seclusion and consolation in a Buddhist monastery. However that may be, it is certain that the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... tastes harmonize with my own. But you don't know her, and never will. You have only learned external facts about the Jocelyns, and out of your prejudices have created a family of underbred people that does not exist. Their crime of comparative poverty I cannot dispute. I have not made the prudential inquiries which you and father have gone into so carefully. But your logic is inexorable. As you suggest, I could not earn enough myself to provide a wife with hairpins. The slight considerations of happiness, and the fact that Miss ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... removal, joined with the nobility, and repaired to arms under their own standard, behaving in the fight with conspicuous gallantry, and greatly increasing the wrath of the king; who, however, on the place being subdued, was restrained from pur-suing them to extremities, from prudential motives. As the kingdom became more settled, the disturbances were less frequent, and within the last century assumed the character of sportive rows rather than malicious feuds. On a recent lamentable occasion (now happily forgotten) the political feelings ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... unequalled fury, and shouted "Allah! Allah!" I know not why one of their officers broke through a squadron which was in front, to find me at the head of the second, where I placed myself from prudential motives, having many orders to give. He missed me, and I was going to obtain satisfaction with my pistol when a dragoon at my side knocked him under his horse. On the same day we had a naval combat, which lasted two hours; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... last. Hours of my youth! when, nurtur'd in my breast, To Love a stranger, Friendship made me blest,— Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth, When every artless bosom throbs with truth; Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign, And check each impulse with prudential rein; 60 When, all we feel, our honest souls disclose, In love to friends, in open hate to foes; No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat, No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit; Hypocrisy, the gift of ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... a bad young heart, accompanied with a good head (which, by the way, very seldom is the case), really reform in a more advanced age, from a consciousness of its folly, as well as of its guilt; such a conversion would only be thought prudential and political, but never sincere. I hope in God, and I verily. believe, that you want no moral virtue. But the possession of all the moral virtues, in 'actu primo', as the logicians call it, is not sufficient; you must have them in 'actu secundo' too; nay, that is not sufficient ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield |
