"Detriment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your selfish conduct forces me to make the change, don't doubt for one minute, my friend, that I'm entirely capable and able to accomplish it without any detriment or anything worse than some slight inconvenience ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... was in a hurry to reach Washington, he stopped in Philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the detriment of his business both in New York and Washington. The society at the Bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business much more important than his. Philip was there; he was a partner with Mr. Bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... as I did before. Place people inside the various areas of the planet to interview and observe. They would bring back the information needed to ascertain whether they would be an asset or a detriment to the organization." ...
— Prelude to Space • Robert W. Haseltine
... did so. Mr Pecksniff sitting, as has been already mentioned, on the carpet, with his head in an acute angle of the wainscot, and all the damage and detriment of an uncomfortable journey about him, was not exactly a model of all that is prepossessing and dignified in man, certainly. Still he WAS Pecksniff; it was impossible to deprive him of that unique and paramount appeal to Tom. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... order that no opening might be left for professional accusers. In other matters also their conduct was similar. At first, then, they acted on these lines, and they destroyed the professional accusers and those mischievous and evil-minded persons who, to the great detriment of the democracy, had attached themselves to it in order to curry favour with it. With all of this the city was much pleased, and thought that the Thirty were doing it with the best of motives. But so ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... than their own Vessels, both North and South being under the same Lords-Proprietors. We have, as I observ'd before, another great Advantage, in not being a Frontier, and so continually alarm'd by the Enemy; and what has been accounted a Detriment to us, proves one of the greatest Advantages any People could wish; which is, our Country's being faced with a Sound near ten Leagues over in some Places, through which, although there be Water enough for as large Ships to come in at, as in ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... this great reform, Victoria preceding it by a few years. I objected to the payment of fees on another ground. I felt they bore heavily on the innocent children themselves through the notion of caste which was created in the minds of those who paid fees to the detriment of their less fortunate school companions. And again, education that is compulsory should be free. Other women have since become members of School Boards, but I was the pioneer of that branch of public work for women in this State. ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... not happen to take exactly the direction that Arthur had indicated, so she would have none of it. His word was law, and, because he had spoken, the whole place was for a month overrun with dirty labourers, whilst, to the great detriment of Miss Terry's remaining nerves, and even to the slight discomfort of His Royal Highness himself, the air resounded all day long with the terrific ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and elk may be poisoned as they hang, thus obviating any subsequent handling which would be to the detriment of both ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... in such a matter, will at once or gradually do the like; and that, in fine, by wise effort and persistence, a blind and disgraceful act of public injustice may be prevented; and an egregrious folly as well—not to say, for none can say or compute, what a vital detriment throughout the British Empire, in such an example set to all the colonies and ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... the ingenuity or judgment of no one man is equal to that of the world at large, which is the fruit of the experience and ability of all mankind. Even where a man is right in a particular notion, he will be apt to overrate the importance of his discovery, to the detriment of his affairs. Action requires co-operation, but in general if you set your face against custom, people will set their faces against you. They cannot tell whether you are right or wrong, but they know that you are guilty ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... me to say a word which should fan the embers of the odium theologicum into a blaze against either men or opinions. But there is a truth involved which seems to be in danger of being forgotten at present, and that to the detriment of large interests as well as of the forgetters. The correlative of a hearty love for any principle or belief is—we may as well use the obnoxious word—a healthy hatred for its denial and contradiction. They are but two aspects of one thing, like that pillar of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and immeasurable recognized deliriums, and extirpating or coercing to the due pitch those legions of "black dragoons," of all varieties and purposes, who patrol, with horse-meat and man's-meat, this afflicted earth, so hugely to the detriment of it. ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the recent truce with Spain, his majesty would violate both human and divine law. Reason and justice required him to defend the pontiff, now that the Spaniards were about to profit by the interval of truce to take measures for his detriment. Moreover, as the Pope was included in the truce of Vaucelles, he could not be abandoned without a violation of that treaty itself.—The arts and arguments of the Cardinal proved successful; the war was resolved upon in favor of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with great courtesy, "that you are aware of some peculiarities in his Lordship's habits, which imply nothing in detriment to the great respect which he pays all his few guests, and which, I know, he is especially desirous to pay to you. I think that we shall meet him at lunch, which, though an English institution, his Lordship ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... some good people making the merely indiscreet into sinners came back to him, but he would not apply them; Julia had gone home, he was sure of it, and a good thing too; the Englishman with the quiet voice and the grand manner could not follow her there to her detriment. Though, to be sure, it was strange that such a man as he should want to; he was not the kind of person Mijnheer had expected the partner in the escapade to be; truly the English were a strange people, very strange. His wife agreed ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... that he never did. But should I ask with what letters the name "Aeneas" is written, every one who has learnt this will answer me aright, as to the signs which men have conventionally settled. If, again, I should ask which might be forgotten with least detriment to the concerns of life, reading and writing or these poetic fictions? who does not foresee what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten themselves? I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the other. "One ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... present minister of the Gospel at Balmaghie, and Mr. John Mackneil, Preacher of the Gospel, being most odiously and invidiously represented to the world as schismaticks, separatists and teachers of unsound and divisive doctrine, tending to the detriment of Church and State, and especially by Ministers with whom we were embodied, while there remained any hope of getting grievances redressed. Therefore, that both Ministers and Professors may know the unaccountableness of such aspersions, let it be considered that this backsliding Church (when ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... grievance was caused to the Italian owner. An Ostrogoth, the follower of Theodoric, stepped into the position of a slain Scyrian or Turcilingian, the follower of Odovacar, and the Italian owner suffered no further detriment. Still there must have been some loss to the provincials and some cases of hardship which would be long and bitterly remembered, before every family which crossed the Alps in the Gothic waggons was safely settled in its Italian home. It is therefore not without some qualification that we can accept ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... imprisonment is not enough, we'll make it ten years, and if an aggravation of the ordinary penalty is not enough, we'll pass a law of exception. It is always the blind trust in punishment which remains the only remedy of the public conscience and which always works to the detriment of morality and material welfare, because it does not save the society of honest people and strikes without curing those who have fallen a prey ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... their language they were then laying plans to capture the first emigrant train that might come that way. The moon was shining brightly, and we had a splendid chance to have stampeded their stock, but I did not think it best from the fact that it would put them on their guard, which would be to the detriment of the cavalry when they should arrive. We decided not to disturb them until the cavalry came up, knowing that the command would lose no time in getting there, and that it would be before ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... of fifty,—a term of life not generally conceived to have any special recommendation in female eyes. In the next place, she really had some pretensions to beauty. Accounted extremely pretty in her youth, her features and person expanded as she grew older, without much detriment to their original comeliness. Hers was beauty on a large scale no doubt; but it was beauty, nevertheless: and the carpenter thought her eyes as bright, her complexion as blooming, and her figure (if a little more buxom) ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... may be said that we are adding to the already overwhelming burden of accounts and reports over which missionaries toil to the great detriment of their proper work. The tables in this book are arranged apparently for the worker on the spot as well as for the intelligent supporter and director at home; why multiply tables and trouble the missionary ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... difficult position, and one that will have to be approached with great judgment, the more so since most of those to whom the lands were granted were generals, officers, and soldiers of the Parliament, and Monk would naturally oppose any steps to the detriment of his ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... the home even by those who can afford it is a factor of very great importance. This applies especially to country life, where a woman's whole physical energy is taken up by attention to domestic matters and often also to farm-work, to the detriment of family life. The following is an account given to one witness by a farmer's wife, describing ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan
... a house could be, white, of two stories, with the door in the middle and windows on each side, with a slate roof, and without a tree near it. It was in the middle of the shooting, and did not create a town around itself as do sumptuous mansions, to the great detriment of that seclusion which is favourable to game. "Look at Killancodlem," Dobbes had been heard to say—"a very fine house for ladies to flirt in; but if you find a deer within six miles of it I will eat him first and shoot him afterwards." There was a Spartan simplicity about ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... of the worst June ever recorded; all through the chill of a cold, wet July, Opdyke preached his doctrine with insistence, preached it in season and out. While he preached, he practised; often, it must be confessed, a good deal to his own detriment. The lift and the rolling chair and the down-town office were still in a future which every one, including Reed himself, knew to be increasingly nebulous. However, he and Duncan were building up no small amount ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... for hours, if he recovers at all," he said. "If Sam Stay knows anything to the detriment of Odette Rider, he is likely to carry his ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... shame, however, that we are forced to admit that just such shams are so often on "dress parade" before the world that by them the race is too frequently largely judged, and to its detriment. The day has come when the brain of the race must both direct its brawn and expose its brass. Ignorance and charlatanism will seek enlightenment or retreat only when intelligence and learning make a masterly array ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... Set of the Fourteen Volumes, 21l. A reduction made in favour of permanent libraries on application, it being obvious that the works cannot thence return into the market to the detriment of original subscribers. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... dissuaded the multitude from this intent, and led the officers in safety to his dwelling. He thought very prudently that the papers contained in the packet might be of importance towards the safety of the country and that the officers if well watched could obtain no intelligence that might turn to the detriment of Louisiana. He now examined the contents of the packet, in which he found a proclamation addressed by Col. Edward Nichalls, in the service of his Brittanic Majesty, and commander of the land forces on the coast of Florida, to the inhabitants of Louisiana. A letter from the same ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... lands lying to the north. Also, the year being far spent, and arrived to the month of June, we were not to spend time in northerly courses, where we should be surprised with timely winter, but to covet the south, which we had space enough then to have attained, and there might with less detriment have wintered that season, being more mild and short in the south than in the north, where winter is both long and rigorous. These and other like reasons alleged in favour of the southern course first to be taken, to the contrary was inferred that ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... as I presume and premise, the first germ in the conception of construction of the instrument be tone, as most assuredly tone it ought to be, not to the detriment of appearance, or to its subjugation as an art work, but as an adjunct or accessory of such importance that it is apparent it must imperatively assume pre-eminence; just as we forget the plain box of the AEolian harp the moment the strings are struck by the passing gale into the most exquisite ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... the copious record of apparent but unreal death must seriously and impartially consider. The reputedly miraculous raisings of the "dead" related in both the Old and the New Testament may, with entire reason, and without detriment to religion, be classed with such as are related outside of the Scriptures, in ancient times as well as modern, and as phenomena wholly within the natural order, however extraordinary. The practical result of such a conclusion is likely to be ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... have been the results had she paid us an official visit? We have already seen that none of the alternative schemes for this journey could work to Germany's detriment; we need, therefore, not be astonished at the publicity given by the Count von Muenster to all the comings and goings of the Empress, and at the determination shown by Her Majesty to investigate the quality of our patriotism in all its various aspects. The memories which the Empress went ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... then accomplish more than all the efforts of the parent to prevent an unhappy union, by threats of disinheritance and expulsion from home. In this way parents often extend their interference to most unreasonable extremes, and to the great detriment of the interests and happiness of their children; while at the same time they often bring disgrace and misery upon their own heads and home. They set themselves up as the choosers of companions for their children, presuming that they should passively submit to their selection ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... found nowhere in the world." Accordingly, Pharaoh mounted the mare, and pursued after the Israelites seaward. And while Pharaoh was inquiring of his army as to the swiftest animal to mount, God was questioning the angels as to the swiftest creature to use to the detriment of Pharaoh. And the angels answered: "O Lord of the world! All thing are Thine, and all are Thine handiwork. Thou knowest well, and it is manifest before Thee, that among all Thy creatures there is none so quick as the wind that comes from under the throne of ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... capias against my person. In vain did I Rave and Swear, and endeavour to show that I could in no way be held liable for Debts which I had never contracted. Such, I was told, was the Law; and such it remains to this day, to the Great Scandal of justice, and the detriment of Gentlemen cavalieros who may be entrapped into marrying vulgar Adventuresses whom they deem Gentlewomen of Property, and who turn out instead to be not worth two-pence-halfpenny in the world. Nor were ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should oblige that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army suffers a complete defeat ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... be foully absurd to say that beasts and fowls are defiled with sin, as man; yet doubtless they received detriment thereby. "The creature was made subject to vanity, by reason of him who hath subjected the same," &c. That is, by Adam's sin. Which vanity they also show by divers of their practise; as both in their enmity to man, and one to another, with which they were not created; this came by the sin of man. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... four lines each. In the time of the persecutions of Valerian, the Roman prefect, devoured by greed, summoned St Laurence, the treasurer of the church, before him, and on the plea that parents were making away with their fortunes to the detriment of their children, demanded that the sacred vessels should be given up to him. 'Upon all coins is found the head of the Emperor and not that of Christ, therefore obey the order of the latter, and give to the Emperor what ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... of the control house at the top of the structure. Before beginning the climb he admonished himself not to look down and not to ponder what he was doing. In order to keep climbing, however, he had to keep admonishing himself, thereby only reminding himself to look down and to ponder, to the detriment of his equilibrium and confidence. Was it vertigo, or did the ladder or the Tower itself sway in the singing wind? Who was to say that the earth itself did not heave like fermenting mash? Was any object inherently more solid than any other ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... vein three inches thick they would have exhibited the same astonishment. They entered the dripping tunnels and peered with grave approval at the drills, the rock-cars and the Montenegrin miners. They rambled over the dumps, to the detriment of shoe-leather and shins, filling their suit-cases with samples of perfectly good country rock. They confessed to each other, with admirable conservatism, that the proposition looked very promising, very promising indeed, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Donnacona and his tribesmen, basely kidnapped at Stadacone, their souls had been better cared for than their bodies; for, having been duly baptized, they all died within a year or two, to the great detriment, as it proved, of ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... entirely passive. The great variation of sexual desire in different individuals renders mutual adaptation often very difficult. The venereal orgasm is sometimes more rapid in man, sometimes in woman (more rarely in the latter). This inequality is rather to the detriment of the woman, for the man can still satisfy himself when the orgasm of the woman has terminated, while the contrary is not possible without artificial manipulation. Moreover, the frequence and intensity of the sexual appetite are often ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... as it is a symptom of all diseases where the process of rumination is interfered with. The only method by which a cow will again chew her cud is to restore her back to health by the proper medical treatment. Artificial cuds are of no value and frequently are a detriment to the animal. Other symptoms aside from those of the animal not chewing cud will always make their appearance, as constipation, diarrhoea, elevation of the temperature, etc. The animal should be thoroughly examined and the disease treated ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... be taken without detriment to justice and dutifulness, nay, it is the one which a just and dutiful man would adopt. (27) We have shown that justice is dependent on the laws of the authorities, so that no one who contravenes their accepted decrees ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... and the other disorganizing interruptions that were always leaping from his mouth. When I read Shakespeare now I can hear them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time—fifty-one years ago. I never regarded Ealer's readings as educational. Indeed, they were a detriment to me. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... has too much cleverness and not enough imagination. It makes one think, more than it charms, and though really serious, it seems flippant. His method of splitting up a thought, of illuminating a subject by successive facets, has serious inconveniences. We see the details too clearly, to the detriment of the whole. A multitude of sparks gives but a poor light. Nevertheless, the author is evidently a ripe and penetrating intelligence, who takes a comprehensive view of his subject, while at the same time possessing a power of acute and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Had these colored boys been students at St. Cyr, in Paris, or Woolwich, in England, under despotic France and aristocratic England, they would have been treated with that courtesy and justice of which the average white American has no idea. The South once ruled West Point, much to its detriment in loyalty, however much, by reason of sending boys more than prepared. It dominated in scholarship. It seeks to recover the lost ground, and rightly fears to meet on terms of equality in the camp the sons of ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... other details, made the Government conclude that I was right, and I traded with England to the great advantage of the armies, which were well clothed and shod. What in the world can be more ridiculous than commercial laws carried out to one's own detriment? ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... make our country attractive to the eye. The introduction of the potato into Ireland added several millions of squalid inhabitants to that ill-conditioned island, and when the crop failed, large numbers of them inflicted themselves on the United States, to the detriment of that country. The richest countries to-day are those which produce more food than they require, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Roumania, and the Argentine. (We need hardly say that throughout this survey ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... zone. The Comando Supremo can, of course, have all the motor-cars it wants, but it discourages their use except in cases of necessity. The officers are instructed that, whenever they can travel by railway without detriment to the interests of the service, they are expected to do so, for the trains are in operation to within a few miles of the front and with astonishing regularity, whereas tires and gasolene cost money. Returning at nightfall from the front to Udine, we were nearly always stopped ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... seduction of the gin-bottle, and being of a free, merry, jovial temperament, one of those persons commonly called good fellows, who like to see others happy in the same way with themselves, he was apt to circulate it at his own expense, to the great improvement of his popularity, and the great detriment of ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... however, it became apparent that the cookery could not, without serious detriment, be longer protracted. The bursting skin of the taro revealed the rich mealy interior, and eloquently proclaimed its readiness to be eaten. The fish were done to a turn, and filled the cabin with a savoury odour, doubly grateful to our nostrils after a twelve hours' fast. Max declared ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... prosperous, he waxed fat and kicked. Fortunately for him—though he did not look upon it in that light at the time—he kicked the one person it was most imprudent to kick. The person he selected was Firby-Smith. With anybody else the thing might have blown over, to the detriment of Mike's character; but Firby-Smith, having the most tender affection for his dignity, made ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... System was first advocated: nor were the received traditions, which were the ground of that alarm, hastily to be rejected; yet rejected they ultimately have been. If in any quarter these human traditions were enforced, and, as it were, enacted, to the prejudice and detriment of scientific investigations (and this was never done by the Church herself), this was a case of undue interference on the part of the Theological schools ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... the position of Monsieur Feurgeres," I pleaded. "Isobel was the only child of the woman whom he had dearly loved. The care of her was a charge upon his conscience and upon his honour. Any open association with him he felt might be to her detriment later on in life. All that he could do was to watch over her from a distance. He saw her, as he imagined, in danger. What course was open to him? Forget for the moment that Major Delahaye was your husband. Put yourself in the place of ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to interest him but his own immediate welfare, which he pursues with concentrated energy and earnestness. I verily believe that if, at one of two adjoining tables, the chandelier fell on the players' heads to their exceeding detriment, the occupants of the other table would scarcely lift their eyes or interrupt their rubber for one moment. Fiant chartae ruat coelum—let the cards be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... knew I was right," said Mrs. Abbot, complacently. "Just about the time when Lablache began seriously to play poker—about the time when his phenomenal luck set in, to the detriment of your uncle. Yes, I am well posted," as the girl raised her eyebrows in surprise. "The doctor tells me a great deal—especially about your uncle, dear. I always like to know what is going on. And now to bring my long explanation to an end. Don't you see how Lablache intends to marry you? ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... the mother becomes great and depressing. Then something more even than an abundant diet is required to keep the mind and body up to a standard sufficiently healthy to admit of a constant and nutritious secretion being performed without detriment to the physical integrity of the mother, or injury to the child who imbibes it; and as stimulants are inadmissible, if not positively injurious, the substitute required is to be found in malt liquor. To the lady accustomed to her Madeira and sherry, this may appear a very vulgar potation for ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... loyalty had increased under his bereavement to the supreme passion of life, took the insinuating half-breed into the aching vacancy made by his brother's death. The two became boon companions, to the great detriment of the younger man's morals. McKee had plenty of money which he spent liberally, gambling and carousing in company with Bud. Polly was wild with indignation at her sweetheart's desertion, and savagely upbraided him for his conduct whenever they met, which may be inferred, grew less and less ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... to remember that party stands in virtual and real, though perhaps unconscious alliance with all the established Governments of Europe as such; and that, according to the measure of its influence, they suffer more or less of moral detriment from its reverses, and derive strength and encouragement ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... be extended without detriment to other public interests will be discovered upon reviewing the results ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... him with his family, you cause him to be in everlasting altercation with his uncle Mr. Romfrey, materially to his personal detriment; and the question of his family is one that every man of sense would apprehend on the spot; for we, you should know, have, sir, an opinion of Captain Beauchamp's talents and abilities forbidding us to think he could possibly be the total simpleton you make ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... erudition.—"On the English Tongue," a valuable criticism at that moment when our style was receiving a new polish from Addison and Prior. Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised correctness of expression to its utmost height, adds, though, "if I mistake not, something to the detriment of that force and freedom that ought, with the most concealed art, to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions." This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the coal industry is still going on to the great detriment of the wage earners, the owners, and especially to the public. With deposits of coal in this country capable of supplying its needs for hundreds of years, inability to manage and control this great resource for the benefit of all concerned is very ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... no detriment to Comte's fame that some of the ideas which he recombined and incorporated in a great philosophic structure had their origin in ideas that were produced almost at random in the incessant fermentation of Saint Simon's ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... insufficiently clad, and that in consequence they are usually cold. It is asserted that they are never fed—except to the worms. Statements have been made to the effect that males and females are permitted to occupy the same quarters, to the incalculable detriment of public morality. Many clandestine villainies are alleged of this fiend in human shape, and it is desirable that his underground methods be unearthed in the Malefactor. If he resists we will drag his family skeleton ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... not mind any dangers that might present themselves. When the governor learned the desire of those who were able to embark, and understood that there was no other means by which to realize the aim in view, and that each day's delay was of very great detriment, he summoned the auditor to the city and set the matter before him. In order that the latter might not refuse, the governor issued an act and had the auditor immediately notified by the secretary of the government ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... published in the "Enquirer" was so much more sensational and better than the prepared speech that it was selected by the Republican state committee for publication as a campaign document. This enterprise of an unfriendly newspaper resulted to my advantage rather than my detriment, for on account of the interruptions the speech reported was much more readable than ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book; but, having undertaken to write it, he conceives that it could not have been done in a better or a kindlier spirit, nor, so far as his abilities availed, with a livelier effect ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and princes, and even with twelve white bear-skins, the gift of Canute's self; while all around were the cottages of the corrodiers, or folk who, for a corrody, or life pittance from the abbey, had given away their lands, to the wrong and detriment of their heirs. ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations, to the detriment of those of Princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt all proper measures to suppress it, not only in their own states, but, also, in the rest ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... been pleaded, in defence of him and his policy, that he did not know that the war, in which he believed England to have little or no interest, was only one outcome of a secret plot, having for its object, among other objects, the humiliation and the detriment of England. There are writers who seem to assume it as a matter of certainty that if Walpole had known of this family compact he would have adopted a very different course. But does it by any means follow that, even if he had been all the time in possession of a correct copy of the secret ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Griffith, Good Angel, General Cut-up and Monitor off'n Bennie's Neckties and Toys; Dr. Ernst von Gerhard, Chief Medical Adviser, and Sweller of the Exchequer, with the Privilege of Selecting All Candies. Members of the corporation meet with great frequency evenings and Sundays, much to the detriment of a certain Book-in-the-making with which Dawn O'Hara Orme was wont ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... 20th of November, the Attorney-general moved, before Lord Ellenborough, for a rule to show cause why a criminal information should not be filed against Clifford for unlawfully conspiring with certain others to intimidate the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, and force them, to their loss and detriment, to lower their prices of admission. The rule was granted, and an early day fixed for the trial. In the mean time, these proceedings kept up the acerbity of the O. P.s, and every night at the fall of the curtain, three groans ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Audrey had cried. "And why should you have heard of it? Have you not been in England?" Madame Piriac had answered, a little surprised at Audrey's tone. Whereupon Audrey had said naught. The chief point was that Musa could take a holiday without detriment to his career. Moreover, Mr. Gilman, who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous violin, which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if Musa's own violin had not been found in the ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... raised here. I will reply to them all with this one sentence,—that they must all be solved by the principle of equality. Thus, some one might observe, "Here is a task which cannot be postponed without detriment to production. Ought society to suffer from the negligence of a few? and will she not venture—out of respect for the right of labor—to assure with her own hands the product which they refuse her? In such a case, to whom will the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the movements of most of these men that must have been the result of their occupation, which brings every muscle of the body into play, and does not—as is too much the case in some trades—over-tax the powers of a certain set of muscles to the detriment of others. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the choir. They swayed to and fro, quite carried away by the music, and as Silas stood with his head thrown back and his eyes shut, and his wife kept her eyes modestly upon her book, they very often collided, to the great detriment of the singing and the disturbing of the pink feather. But the only sign their frequent collisions called forth was a smile of perfect accord and redoubled energy in the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... disciplinarian, that the punishment is made exactly appropriate to the offense, and that no advantage from it comes to any one except the men themselves, it can be understood that the psychological basis is such as to make a punishment rather an incentive than a detriment. ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... ability. They cannot know the requirements; they cannot understand the fundamental principles of business. Commercially they are babes in the woods. Therefore they go down to bankruptcy and insolvency, to their great detriment and to the injury of many ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... war was now over, and most of the English and Dutch navy lay dismantled in port, a few small vessels only being in commission to intercept the smuggling from France that was carrying on, much to the detriment of English manufacture, of certain articles then denominated alamodes and lutestrings. The cutter we have described was on this service, and was named the Yungfrau, although built in England, and forming a part ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 'chucker-out' in Mrs. Kyley's bar—for a bar it was, to all intents and purposes. Ben's duty was not to suppress disorder, but merely to see that the common disorder did not develop into licentiousness, to the danger of Mrs. Kyley's property or the detriment of her trade. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and to an overwhelming extent, and the large percentage of profit which druggists now realize on their goods, all these have interfered with the sale of pure natural spring water. We assert as an indisputable fact that the sale of artificial waters has been a serious and unjust detriment to the reputation ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn
... air was full of silent merriment. "Souls! you speak in terms you do not understand. To acquire the secrets of Black Magic, all you have to do is to agree that during a brief period—a period of a few months, you will live together in harmony; that you will make use of the powers you acquire to the detriment of all save yourselves; that you will never allow your minds to revert to anything spiritual; and—that you ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Hence many are being harassed and worn out by these methods, and a great expense is being caused to your Majesty's royal treasury. For although the cost of employing the natives seems moderate, their decrease is a very great detriment; while the planking, sheathing, and masts are so poor that they must all be renewed every two years, and sometimes oftener, when the only still useful parts are the futtock-timbers. But all the above can be found and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... very little. It is arranged that way; I don't know if I am making a mistake. Perhaps those which I like are the worst. But I have stopped worrying about myself, so far as I have ever done so. Life has always taken me out of myself, and so it will to the end. My heart is always affected to the detriment of my head. At present it is my little children who devour all my intellect; Aurore is a jewel, a nature before which I bow in admiration; will ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... length upon this condition that they should be admitted alone, without any Spaniards, which the Fathers promised; for they had permission, nay an express Mandate from the President of New Spain to make that promise, and that the Spaniards should not do them the least detriment or injury. Then they began, to Preach the Gospel of Christ, and to explicate and declare the pious intention of the King of Castile, of all which they had notice by the Spaniards for seven years together, that they had no King nor no other but him, who oppressed them with so much Tyranny. ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... quantity raised, scarcely anything could be got for it. Tobacco is not now considered peculiarly and excessively exhaustive; in a judicious rotation, especially as a preparation for wheat, it is an admirable fallow crop, and, under a scientific system of agriculture, it is grown with no continued detriment to the soil. But in Virginia it was grown without interruption or alternation, and the plantations rapidly deteriorated in fertility. As they did so, the crops grew smaller in proportion to the labor expended upon them; yet, from the continued ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... him, but he returns no answer. With a dumb show of misery, quite touching, he hands me a soiled piece of parchment, whereon I read what purports to be a melancholy account of shipwreck and disaster, to the particular detriment, loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all charitable Christian persons, and who is, in short, the bearer of this veracious document, duly ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was attended by his staff, composed of General G. W. Cullum, U. S. Engineers, as his chief of staff; Colonel George Thom, U. S. Engineers; and Colonels Kelton and Kemper, adjutants-general. It soon became manifest that his mind had been prejudiced by the rumors which had gone forth to the detriment of General Grant; for in a few days he issued an order, reorganizing and rearranging the whole army. General Buell's Army of the Ohio constituted the centre; General Pope's army, then arriving at Hamburg Landing, was the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... boy closed the door. Once outside he placed his hand upon his heart and made a low bow to the handle, retreating backwards to the head of the stairs. Then he proceeded to slide down the banister, to the trifling detriment of his waistcoat. As he reached the end of his perilous journey a door opened at the foot of the stairs, and a man's form became discernible in ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... unlike that of teas growing in their natural shade. That part, and the more extensive one which we first visited in February last, is now clearing; almost all the large trees have been felled, and all the underwood removed. The branches, etc. are piled in heaps and set fire to, much to the detriment of the plants: all the tea trees likewise have been felled. My conviction is, that the tea will not flourish in open sunshine; at any rate, subjection to this should be gradual. Further, that cutting the main stem is detrimental, not only inducing long shoots, but most probably ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... what sad things have befallen. You will easily guess my informant; but I know you will not use your knowledge of my communication therewith, to the detriment thereof. And I am sure that, since I ask it, you will not betray (or, by any act or disclosure, imperil or hamper) the messenger who brings this at risk of his life; for the matter is a ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and away. Anson, with three inconsiderable ships, which rotted gradually into one, could not himself settle the Spanish War: but he did, on his own score, a series of things, ending in beautiful finis of the Acapulco Ship, which were of considerable detriment, and of highly considerable disgrace, to Spain;—and were, and are long likely to be, memorable among the Sea-heroisms of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still born in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... swear; but, by the stomach of the Prophet! if either one of you domestic animals is in sight when I have finished the conquest of these ribs, the question of my fate may be postponed for future debate, without detriment to any ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... pass the ten pounds through the accounts, as he thought that there should be a certain feeling of honour in these things; but he did not for a moment think that any one acting with him would have dealings with Glump. On the Saturday morning, when the case was still going on, to the great detriment of Baron Grumble's domestic happiness, Glump had not yet been caught. It seemed that the man had no wife, no relative, no friend. The woman at whose house he lodged declared that he often went and came after this fashion. The respect with which Glump's ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... familiarity with, and a supporter of this young man, who but just now parted from you; who deigned not, even by a look, to notice me; and whose business here seems to be to scatter reports intended to work detriment to my character? It is conduct like this which hath separated us ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... by throwing themselves out of work they throw other people, possibly without their consent. If such a principle had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by Hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of Buckinghamshire agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. And O, good God, when —— treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... learned this evening the sentence which your majesty has been pleased to pronounce upon me. Although I have never had a thought, and believe myself never to have done a deed, which would tend to the prejudice of your service, or to the detriment of true religion, nevertheless I take patience to bear that which it has pleased the good God to permit. Therefore, I pray your majesty to have compassion on my poor wife, my children and my servants, having regard to my past service. In which hope I now commend myself to the mercy ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... all the islands with which we have been brought into relations of varying intimacy by the Spanish war. Puerto Rico and Hawaii have been included within our tariff lines, to their great benefit as well as ours, and without any of the feared detriment to our own industries. The Philippines, which stand in a different relation, have been granted ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... "explain" to Sara? Something connected with Garth Trent, of course, and it was impossible, in view of the attitude Elisabeth had assumed, to hope that it could be aught else than something to his detriment. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... we had an insane quarrel—the more insane because it all turned on my dwelling on the detriment to his chances of escape and his reminding me of my indifference. We argued like two babies. But I had now another grievance: though it was the devil to me to ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... De Scuderi that there were most noteworthy grounds for suspicion against Brusson, that La Regnie's proceedings could neither be called cruel nor yet hurried, rather they were perfectly within the law—nay, that he could not act otherwise without detriment to his duties as judge. He himself did not see his way to saving Brusson from torture, even by the cleverest defence. Nobody but Brusson himself could avert it, either by a candid confession or at least ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... pursuit than the greatest happiness of the greatest number. All this is seen without being said, but what is by no means so easily seen is how it can be incumbent on any one to pursue that object to his own detriment—how it can be imperative on one or on a few to sacrifice his or their happiness in order to promote that of the many. Plainly such self-devotion cannot be for their personal advantage, and Utilitarianism does not even attempt to show ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... who assails the power of the people, is no longer a tribune at all. Is it not inconceivable, that a tribune should have power to imprison a consul, and the people have no authority to degrade him when he uses that honor which he received from them, to their detriment? For the tribunes, as well as the consuls, hold office by the people's votes. The kingly government, which comprehends all sorts of authority in itself alone, is morever elevated by the greatest and most religious solemnity imaginable ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... good and wise counsellor during her lifetime. He next turned his arms against the Turks, in the direction of Massawa, but was defeated; and the mother of Ras Ali having insulted him in his fallen condition, he proclaimed his independence. As his power was increasing, to the detriment of both Ras Ali and Ubie, these two princes combined against him, but were heavily defeated by him at Gorgora (on the southern shore of Lake Tsana) in 1853. Ubie retreated to Tigre, and Ras Ali fled to Begemeder, where ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the law of God; all who are either hostile or indifferent to the Anti-Slavery movement; and all who advocate the necessity of making compromises with the Slave Power, in order that the Union may receive no detriment. ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... displaying their beauties and places you in the best light. The Bellini is his last signed work, and was painted when the old man was in his eighty-fifth year. The restorer has been at it, but not to its detriment. S. Christopher, S. Jerome, and S. Augustine are sweetly together in a delectable country; S. Christopher (as the photograph on the opposite page shows) bearing perhaps the most charming Christ Child of all, with his thumb in his mouth. The Piombo—another company ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... faith in him was not misplaced. He threw the meeting into a state of great excitement by announcing that the kidnapers would soon be in the toils once more. In response to eager queries he merely stated that he had a valuable clew, which could not be divulged without detriment to the cause. Everybody went home that night with the assurance that the fugitives would soon be taken. Anderson promised the town board that he would not take them ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... improve the navigation of the Mississippi will favor the introduction of New Orleans products to the injury of St. Louis, and an inundation of the products of St. Louis to the detriment of New Orleans. ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... at home usually, for some unexplained reason, went wrong during the week-end: the plumber came in on Monday and carried out his tools on Saturday at mid-day. These little analogies really do (I believe) help the infant mind, and not at all to its later detriment. Nor shall I ask you to sentimentalise overmuch upon the harm done to a child by teaching him that the bloodthirsty jealous Jehovah of the Book of Joshua is as venerable (being one and the same unalterably, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... not at all misunderstood what had been related, but that my abrupt question and the sight of my note-book had suddenly aroused the peasants' suspicions. "They evidently suspected," he continued, "that you were a tchinovnik, and that you wished to use to their detriment the knowledge you had acquired. They thought it safer, therefore, at once to deny it all. You don't yet ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... . She devised and built the studio for Gilbert to play at and play in. It used to be crowded at receptions, as on the night when Gilbert broke his arm. He had been toying with the tankard that evening, to the detriment of social intercourse, but not much, I thought. We were all in good fettle. The Ballad of the White Horse was just going to the printers. That was never penned in Fleet Street. Nor The Everlasting Man. He wrote verbosely there in the office. At Beaconsfield ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... against him as he followed her to her seat, and he became sensible of the influence of her presence, all his diplomacy vanished, and he was simply desirous of devoting himself to her service. Of course, any such devotion was to be given without detriment to that other devotion which he owed to Florence Burton. But this stipulation, though it was made, was made quickly, and with a ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the heart,—that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears,—the bestuck and bleeding heart; ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Power—of a strong, compact empire, extending over North Germany—I cannot see that, if the war ends, as it very possibly may, in the establishment of such an empire—I cannot see that the existence of such a Power would be to us any injury, any menace, or any detriment. It might be conceivable enough that the growth of such a Power might indeed awaken the jealousy of other Continental States, who may fear a rival in such a Power. That is a natural feeling in their position. That position, however, is not ours, and if North Germany ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the wind back of them; but that would be an asset rather than a detriment. They had also gone hastily over the course to make absolutely certain there was no break, or other trap, which might give ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach |
