"Disadvantageous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... argument relies. Thus, though we may infer from the quality of co-operation connoted by civilisation, that a civilised country will be a wealthy one, this may not be found true of such a country recently devastated by war or other calamity. Nor can co-operation always triumph over disadvantageous circumstances. Scandinavia is so poor in the gifts of nature favourable to industry, that it is not wealthy in spite of civilisation: still, it is far wealthier than it would be in the hands of a barbarous ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... chivalry, first, from the standpoint of the woman suffragist. Her notion of chivalry is that man should accept every disadvantageous offer which may be made ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... waste the fertile country on his line of march. Flaminius immediately broke up his camp, and, following the traces of Hannibal, fell into the snare which was prepared for him. His army was attacked under the most disadvantageous circumstances, where it was hemmed in between rocky heights, previously occupied by the enemy, and the Lake of Trasimenus. Its destruction was almost complete. Thousands fell by the sword, among whom was the Consul himself; thousands more perished in ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... asserted that the way in which modern composers write vocal music is the cause of the evil. Certain it is that in the compositions of the old Italian masters the voice is studied, and nothing introduced which is hurtful or disadvantageous. Awkward intervals are avoided, no fatigue is caused, and everything is eminently singable; but the music is not always expressive of the sense of the words, which were clearly considered to be of minor importance. With our modern (and especially with ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... Patient, which the Apothecary soon learns; nor with giving some of his own Medicines at a pinch, which if they succeed not, to be sure the Apothecaries will cry down in all places, but will conceal all eminently good successes, as disadvantageous to themselves; nor by placing their Arcana's in the Shops of those Apothecaries they commonly make use of; nor by recommending their Patients to such Apothecaries they intrust their secrets with. For then great complaints are made that the Physicians carry away their Customers, and ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... which we wish to notice at present, is the universal blunder about the Romans and Greeks. They, it is alleged, fought no duels; and occasion is thence taken to make very disadvantageous reflections upon us, the men of this Christian era, who, in defiance of our greater light, do fight duels. Lord Bacon himself is duped by this enormous blunder, and founds upon it a ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... frequently bear twins. This difference apparently is not due to the cold of the higher land, for sheep and other domestic animals are said to be extremely prolific in Lapland. Hard living, also, retards the period at which animals conceive; for it has been found disadvantageous in the northern islands of Scotland to allow cows to bear calves before they are ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Nothing is more disadvantageous to a community, its progress and peace, than unsettled land titles. This bill, however, as I have said, is so radical and seems to me to be so indefinite in its provisions that I can ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... she became the pupil of Charles Joseph Begas, a very celebrated artist of Berlin. Under his supervision she painted her first picture, called the "Day of the Dupes," which, though full of faults, had also virtues enough to secure much attention in the exhibition. It was first hung in a disadvantageous position, but the crowd discovered its merits and would have it noticed. She received a complimentary letter from the Academy of Berlin, and the venerable artist Cornelius made her a visit ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... special difficulties, then let him be praised, if he vanquish these in some decent measure, and if he do his work tolerably well. But a man deserves no praise at all for work which he has done tolerably or done rather badly, because he chose to do it under disadvantageous circumstances, under which there was no earthly call upon him to do it. In this case he probably is a self-conceited man, or a man of wrong-headed independence of disposition; and in this case, if his work be bad absolutely, don't tell ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... the only difference between the two cases consisting in the fact that the variation in the flower is not a useful, but a disadvantageous one, which can only be preserved by artificial selection on the part of the gardener, while the transformations that have taken place parallel with the sterility of the ants are useful, since they procure for the colony an advantage in the struggle for existence, and ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... notion of a balance of trade, there is another idea, which has been much dwelt upon in the course of this debate; that is, that we ought not to buy of nations who do not buy of us; for example, that the Russian trade is a trade disadvantageous to the country, and ought to be discouraged, because, in the ports of Russia, we buy more than we sell. Now allow me to observe, in the first place, Sir, that we have no account showing how much we do sell in ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... I have not attempted to soften the asperities nor conceal the childishness which run through them. But there is no occasion to be astonished at these peculiarities, nor to found upon them any disadvantageous opinion of the mental powers of their authors and believers. We can go back to the cradle of our own race in Central Asia, and find traditions every whit as infantile. I cannot refrain from adding the earliest Aryan myth of the same great occurrence, as it is handed down to us in ancient Sanscrit ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Frederic Hoff in some proper way, but how? She thought of such flimsy tricks as dropping a handkerchief or a purse in the elevator some time when he happened to be in it, but rejected the plan as disadvantageous. "Nice" girls did not do that sort of thing, and even though she was seeking to entrap her neighbor she did not for a moment wish him to consider her as belonging to the other sort. It rather annoyed her to find that she cared what kind of an impression she made on him. What difference did ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... moment the moon shone out, and gleaming upon the carbines and knives of the two adventurers, seemed to confirm the assertion of Cuchillo. But the light proved disadvantageous to Baraja and Oroche, for it enabled Don Estevan to perceive that they were far from ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... must remember that the greater honour is so too. When I mention honour, I mean that which is paid them by their gang; for that weak part of the world which is vulgarly called THE WISE see both in a disadvantageous and disgraceful light; and as the prig enjoys (and merits too) the greater degree of honour from his gang, so doth he suffer the less disgrace from the world, who think his misdeeds, as they call them, sufficiently at last punished with ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... establish once more, under his protection, a Latin kingdom at Jerusalem. His counselors could not dissuade him from the hazardous undertaking. In order to set his hands free, he made treaties that were disadvantageous to France with Henry VII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand the Catholic. He was invited to cross the Alps by Ludovico il Moro (p. 374), by the Neapolitan barons, by all the enemies of Pope Alexander VI. The special ground of the invasion ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... interval of Nicias' lines into the besieged town, and joining his troops with the Syracusan forces, after some engagements with varying success, gained the mastery over Nicias, drove the Athenians from Epipolae, and hemmed them into a disadvantageous position in the low grounds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... love not to have their consciences touched; they like not to ponder upon what they have been, what they are, or what is like to become of them hereafter; such thoughts they count unmanly, hurtful, disadvantageous; therefore "they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear" (Zech 7,11). And now they are for anything rather than the Word; an alehouse, a whorehouse, a playhouse, sports, pleasures, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... reassembled the fleet, I proceeded upon what I supposed to be a parallel course to that of the enemy, with the intention of renewing the engagement in the morning, for I judged that a night action might be disadvantageous, owing to the possibility of the ships becoming separated in the darkness, and to the fact that the enemy had torpedo boats in company. However, I lost sight of the Chinese, and at daylight there were no signs ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three lines, contains the adjectives, unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, monarchical, impeachable. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the ratification, displays the same ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... half measures and indecisive action. Such counsels have always had, and always will have, the most deterrent and disadvantageous effect on any vigorous prosecution of ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... looking at it practically, weighing, that is to say, all the burdens laid on him by the state, no man can fail to see that for him personally to comply with state demands and serve in the army, would, in the majority of cases, be more disadvantageous than to refuse ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... quality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man who is so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribes for bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I could make no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed no character, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, without any struggle for ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... La Puerta, a place of ill-omen for the patriots, and his position was disadvantageous. When Bolivar arrived to take charge of the army, it was too late to change the place, for Boves was to the front, with three times as many men as there were patriots. It was necessary to fight and it was impossible to ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... to be done by himself. This, in many ways, was a great drawback to the work of the younger astronomer. The division of labour between the observer and the scribe enables a greatly increased quantity of work to be got through. It is also distinctly disadvantageous to an observer to have to use his eye at the telescope directly after he has been employing it for reading the graduations on a circle, by the light of a lamp, or for entering memoranda in a note book. Nebulae, especially, are often so excessively ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... opportunity afforded them of reading the law, and if any advice has been taken, it must have been of those publishers who are in favor of it. Those gentlemen, however, are precisely the persons likely most to profit by the adoption of the principle recognized by the treaty; and the more disadvantageous to others the provisions for carrying that principle into effect, the greater must be the advantage to themselves. They, therefore, can be regarded as little more than the exponents of the wishes of their English ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... and our whole souls are intent upon the first appearance of the Hero. Some readers may perhaps be offended at his making his entre in so disadvantageous a character as that of a thief. To this ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... greatest general and wisest prince in Europe. But the experience of Bruce had not died with him. There were many who had shared his martial labours, and all remembered the successful efforts by which, under circumstances as disadvantageous as those of his son, he had achieved ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... chemistry, physics, he made progress which the people about him, including his schoolmaster, were incapable of appreciating; and already the collection of books left by his father, most of them out of date, failed to satisfy his curiosity. It might be feared that tastes so discursive would be disadvantageous to a lad who must needs pursue some definite bread-study, and the strain of self-consciousness which grew strong in him was again a matter for concern. He cared nothing for boyish games and companionship; ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... ten years old with a large bone stuck through the cartilage of her nose. We declined the offer, although I daresay Jackey would have liked to have taken one of the ratcatchers with him: but Jemmy said he would not, as he does not approve of wedded life. He has seen it, I presume, under disadvantageous circumstances. The young gins had fine eyes, white teeth, and good expression. The children looked particularly lively and intelligent. Jemmy understood a few words of their language but not sufficient to get information from them. Their ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... letters. Warburton drew HIM on to write some very abusive letters, and then asked his leave to publish them; which he knew Lowth could not refuse, after what he had done. So that Warburton contrived that he should publish, apparently with Lowth's consent, what could not but shew Lowth in a disadvantageous light.' [Footnote: Here Dr Johnson gave us part of a conversation held between a Great Personage and him, in the library at the Queen's Palace, to the course of which this contest was considered. I have been at great pains to get that conversation as perfectly preserved ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... the anniversary of the first execution as a day of solemn fast and humiliation for his own share in the transaction. Even the barbarous Indians were struck with wonder at the infatuation of the English colonists on this occasion, and drew disadvantageous comparisons between them and the French, among whom, as they remarked, "the Great Spirit sends ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... 4: Simple fornication is contrary to the love of our neighbor, because it is opposed to the good of the child to be born, as we have shown, since it is an act of generation accomplished in a manner disadvantageous to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... applied to dry and leachy soils, which by its use are rendered more retentive of moisture and manure. These properties, which it would seem, are just adapted to renovate very light land, under certain circumstances, may become disadvantageous on heavier soils. On clays no application is needed to retain moisture. They are already too ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... enemies of my family mentioned every disadvantageous fact. If it is that my father is in trade, let me say yes—as the greatest merchant in his country and the equal of any one there—and let me add that the decrees of our King always permitted noblesse in Canada to engage ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... to make it so unpardonable a fault for them, especially in their early years, to be in their company. For can one make the children shun the servants without rendering them odious or contemptible to them, and representing them to the child in such disadvantageous light, as must needs make the servants vile in their eyes, and themselves lofty and exalted in their own? and thereby cause them to treat them with "domineering words, and an imperious carriage, as if they were ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... It is disadvantageous to take up money at Madeira upon bills, as they make payment in dollars, which they value at a milrea. Sometimes they may, from particular circumstances, give a premium, but it is ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... in an ecstasy of satisfaction: 'Willis! Oh, you've come in time to see him just as he is. Look at him, Willis!' In the excess of her emotion she twitches her husband about, and with his arm fast in her clutch, presents him in the disadvantageous effect of having just been taken into custody. Under these circumstances Roberts's attempt at an expression of diffident heroism fails; he looks sneaking, he looks guilty, and his eyes fall under the astonished regard of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be convinced that it is beneficial to the priests alone. Every part of this religion conspires to render us submissive to the fantasies of our spiritual guides, to labor for their grandeur, to contribute to their riches. They appoint us to perform disadvantageous duties; they prescribe impossible perfections, purposely that we may transgress; they have thereby engendered in pious minds scruples and difficulties which they condescendingly appease for money. A devotee is obliged to observe, without ceasing, the useless and frivolous rules ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... deal both in the man's speech and bearing to rouse suspicion. A subtle difference that would hardly be defined as superiority; was it not rather something contradictory, not quite homogeneous, and in so far disadvantageous? The Colonel was not addicted to careful analysis of his impressions, and he felt ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... the sovereignty of Brittany. This treaty was solemnly (p. 075) executed by King John, and observed during his life, except as to the ransom, two-thirds of which remained undischarged at his death. But Charles V, his son and successor, finding this peace very disadvantageous to France, though he had himself been a party to it, and had sworn to observe its conditions, broke it on very frivolous grounds. He declared war against Edward, and in a very few years recovered all that had been ceded to England by the treaty of Bretigny, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... used, and that not a few of them have died, chiefly of starvation. * * * A very important disadvantage of these foods is their alcoholic content. Even in the small doses customarily used, the quantity of alcohol is often irritating to the stomach, and may be disadvantageous in ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... in an advantageous position or a disadvantageous one," says Ts'ao Kung, "the opposite state should be always present ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... muses will not, perhaps, easily restrain their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded by a disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due to his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of censoriousness to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama, and a drama ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... of silver does not, by any means, depend entirely on the ratio of the quantities of the two to each other. Rather is it, in the long run, determined by the average cost of production necessary at those gold and silver mines which exist under the most disadvantageous conditions, but which it is still necessary to work in order to satisfy the aggregate requirement of these metals. On the whole, with an advance of economic civilization, the dearness of gold as compared with that of silver has been ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... not robbery. It may be a mistake, it may be unjust and socially disadvantageous to recognize private property in these great common interests, but every one concerned, and the majority of the property owners certainly, held and hold in good faith, and do their best by the light ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... it. I am compelled to count myself among the number of my countrymen who through many years believed that story—that the accident of Germany's disadvantageous geographical position, not her desire to break British supremacy on the sea, made it necessary for her to enlarge her navy. I did my best to believe it when I had to sail through the Kiel Canal in a steamer from Lubeck to Copenhagen, ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... an astonishingly disadvantageous thing for our family if she ran away and married him just now, when Valentine has been making himself so ridiculous. But there is no doubt we could bring it on again, and have it done ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... but those in the same field farther away from the protecting timber. Such spots should be sought out and utilized, as often they can be used to great advantage. Immediate proximity to large bodies of water is sometimes advantageous in the South, but in the North it is often disadvantageous for early fruit because of the chilling of the air and the increased danger of spring frosts, although affording protection from those of early fall. Here, too, proximity of field to shipping point and distance and transportation rate to market ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... disadvantageous relation of individuals coupled with great advantages of the race? Why could the individual Greek be qualified as the type of his time? and why can no modern dare to offer himself as such? Because all-uniting nature imparted its forms to the Greek, and an all-dividing ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... employed by Irish writers after it had become known in the country. It is unquestionably a national credit, that no amount of suffering, whether inflicted for religious or political opinions, deprived the Irish of historians.[515] Some of their works were certainly compiled under the most disadvantageous circumstances. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... and this apparently has occurred, fitted for simpler conditions of life; and in this case natural selection would tend to simplify or degrade the organization, for complicated mechanism for simple actions would be useless or even disadvantageous. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... difficult or precarious, this would be a mutual inconvenience, not arising from a superiority or defect of power on either side, but from an injudicious exercise of power by one or the other, in a manner equally disadvantageous to both. It is to be hoped and presumed, however, that mutual interest would dictate a concert in this respect which would avoid any material inconvenience. The inference from the whole is, that the individual States would, under ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... into consideration: (1) A proposal that will meet the British Government in a reasonable manner; and (2) A proposal which we have reasonable ground for believing our people will accept. For these reasons we have submitted a proposal, and now we are in the disadvantageous position that we are here before Your Excellencies, who have not ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... felt that would be only to court seizure, for his position would be so disadvantageous that he could not defend himself if he were seized. Besides, he would be betraying his ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... won by a Deperdussin machine, somewhat similar to that of the previous year, but with exceedingly small wings, only 107 square feet in area. The shape of these wings was instructive as showing how what, from the general utility point of view, may be disadvantageous can, for a special purpose, be turned to account. With a span of 21 feet, the chord was 5 feet, giving the inefficient 'aspect ratio' of slightly over 4 to 1 only. The object of this was to reduce the lift, and therefore the resistance, to as low ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... develop a tyrannical Machine with unforeseen powers of exclusion and corruption. Observation of the workings of our Harvard system for twenty years past has brought some of these drawbacks home to my consciousness, and I should like to call the attention of my readers to this disadvantageous aspect of the picture, and to make a couple of remedial suggestions, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... labour for this classic pleasure. Confused notions from fashionable publications, from periodical papers, and comedies, have made their way into common conversation, and thence have assumed an appearance of authority, and have been extremely disadvantageous to female education. Sentiment and ridicule have conspired to represent reason, knowledge, and science, as unsuitable or dangerous to women; yet at the same time wit, and superficial acquirements in literature, have been the object of admiration in society; so that this dangerous inference ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... comrades; though they could not understand why I had not destroyed the whole gang when I had the power of doing so, and of adorning my belt with their scalps. I saw, therefore, that it would be very disadvantageous to me to run any risk of being lowered in their estimation. John Pipestick and one of the Indians remained with me, while the others went on faster ahead; but, exerting myself to the utmost, we pushed on to overtake them. Besides the idea which I had ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the success of the Swiss, in contending for their liberty, should incite them again to rise against the descendants of those whom they had formerly defeated; and their vanity was probably hurt by the existence of a record, disadvantageous ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... in the former of these ways, since the money is paid whether the receiver be an absentee or not, is yet disadvantageous in the second of the two modes which have been mentioned. Ireland pays dearer for her imports in consequence of her absentees; a circumstance which the assailants of Mr. M'Culloch, whether political ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... France in regard to Belgium he drew up a war plan, and it was designed not on the Napoleonic method of making the enemy's armed force the main strategical objective, but on seizing a limited territorial object and forcing a disadvantageous counter-offensive upon the French. The revolutionary movement throughout Europe had broken the Holy Alliance to pieces. Not only did Prussia find herself almost single-handed against France, but she herself was sapped by revolution. To adopt the higher form of war and seek to destroy the armed force ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... instruct them, and overseers to guide their industrial efforts. A free-labor experiment is already in successful operation among the beautiful sea-islands in the neighborhood of Beaufort, which, even under most disadvantageous circumstances, is fast demonstrating how much more efficiently men will work from hope and liberty than from fear and constraint. Thus, even amid the roar of cannon and the confusion of war, cotton-planting, as a free-labor institution, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in any degree upon the honesty, sobriety and good conduct of these noble patriots, many of whom had left home penniless, to wage war against a power that had almost every resource at its command, and which they knew they should meet under circumstances that could not fail to be disadvantageous to them. ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... depressing it into the Natural History class; and the more, because it partly forfeits its claim even to such position, by obscuring in twilight and disturbing our minds, in the process of scientific investigation, by sensational effects of afterglow and lunar effulgence, which are disadvantageous, not to the scientific observer only, but to less learned spectators; for when simple persons like myself, greatly susceptible to the influence of the stage lamps and pink side-lights, first catch sight of this striding figure from the other side of the room, and take it, perhaps, for the angel with ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... other battles in Canada, after Wolfe's victory," resumed Grandfather; "but we may consider the Old French War as having terminated with this great event. The treaty of peace, however, was not signed until 1763. The terms of the treaty were very disadvantageous to the French; for all Canada, and all Acadia, and the island of Cape Breton, in short, all the territories that France and England had been fighting about, for nearly a hundred years—were surrendered to ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on board; and that he had a peculiar faculty of knocking himself about on the smallest provocation, and losing his legs at every lurch of the ship. But resolved, in his usual phrase, to 'come out strong' under disadvantageous circumstances, he was the life and soul of the steerage, and made no more of stopping in the middle of a facetious conversation to go away and be excessively ill by himself, and afterwards come back in the very best and gayest of tempers to resume it, than if ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Reason to suppose, as he herein does, that Women could not otherwise than by Laws and Edicts be restrain'd from Learning. It is sufficient for this that no body assists them in it; and that they are made to see betimes that it would be disadvantageous to them to have it. For how few Men are there, that arrive to any Eminence therein? tho' Learning is not only not prohibited to them by Laws and Edicts; but that ordinarily much Care, and Pains, is taken to give it them; and that great ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... was parching my mouth and I took a chance and ran along the open to the house for a drink. Then it was that the disadvantageous side of our good work with the dummy guns was exemplified; just as I was stepping out of the door, a shell tore a hole in one corner of the building, knocking it out as clean as ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... whom I speak, and who formed by far the majority in that class, made disadvantageous comparisons even between their more legal and formalizing monarchy and the monarchies of other states, as a system of power and influence. They observed that France not only lost ground herself, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... interposition of providence appears, I answer, first, in the stupidity of the British general, in that he did not early on the morning of the 20th send a detachment and take possession of the post and stores at Whiteplains, for had he done this we must then have fought him on his own terms, and such disadvantageous terms on our part, as humanly speaking must have proved our overthrow; again when I parted with Colo Reed on the 20th as before mentioned, I have always thought that I was moved to so hazardous an undertaking by foreign influence. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we would guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... were free but he was in such a disadvantageous position that he could not use them to any good effect. His only hope lay in throwing the creature off its balance, and to this end Tarzan straightened his body and leaned as far back against his captor as he ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... where every man was perfectly free both to choose what occupation he thought proper, and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous, and to shun the disadvantageous employment. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... continue in than to be omitted; as also that not to contend in the harbours; and so the first, second, third, and fourth laws. The seventh law, I humbly conceive, not differing in substance from my articles, nor disadvantageous to England. To their sixth law I desired that my seventh article might be added, the which they denied, as to forbid enemies to either ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... and expressive of much benevolence, but, as it appeared to me, with rather a melancholy cast—as I gazed upon them, I felt ashamed that I should ever have conceived in my brain a vision like that of the preceding night, in which he appeared in so disadvantageous a light. At length he said, "It is now time for you to take some refreshment. I hear my old servant coming up with your breakfast." In a moment the elderly female entered with a tray, on which was some bread and butter, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... were first made out, Arnold's second in command, Waterbury, urged that in view of the enemy's superiority the flotilla should get under way at once, and fight them "on a retreat in the main lake;" the harbour being disadvantageous "to fight a number so much superior, and the enemy being able to surround us on every side, we lying between an island and the main." Waterbury's advice evidently found its origin in that fruitful source of military errors of design, which reckons the preservation of a force first of ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... so proud and unbending that they died out under the slavery which the early Spanish imposed upon them; the Negro, because of his teachableness and his passive strength, not only survived slavery, but has weathered freedom under very disadvantageous circumstances. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... Julia. And first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of Marlborough brandishing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... India. In 1770, an invasion of the Mahrattas, a robber nation, but the most renowned of Indian plunderers, determined to crush the new power, and poured down upon Mysore. Hyder now applied for assistance to Madras; but the settlement had no assistance to give, and Hyder was forced to make a disadvantageous treaty. He now loudly protested against the failure of the English contingent, which he declared to have been the subject of a treaty, and resolved on revenge. The plunder of the merchants' stores at Madras was the more probable motive to his next desperate ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... believes some special virtue attaches to his kind of ignorance. There is the unmistakable innuendo that the man who pays serious attention to the fundamentals of the business of communication is somehow less possessed of sturdy military character than himself. There could hardly be a more absurd or disadvantageous professional conceit than this. It is the mark only of an officer who has no ambition to properly qualify himself, and is seeking to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... of the subjects of the Porte in Europe, the time had come when we ought to consider whether we could not do something which would improve the general condition of the dominions of the Sultan in Asia; and, instead of these most favoured portions of the globe every year being in a more forlorn and disadvantageous position, whether it would not be possible to take some steps which would secure at least tranquillity and order; and, when tranquillity and order were secured, whether some opportunity might not be given to Europe to develop the resources of a country which Nature has made so rich ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... especially disadvantageous to the English that their torpedo-boats, owing to the unforeseen change in the formation of the battleships, were deprived of the necessary protection. The German destroyers were not slow to make full use of this favourable situation, and began ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... consul, was sent with an army to follow him, who giving up the direction of it to Au'lus, his brother; a person who was every way unqualified for the command, the Romans were compelled to hazard a battle upon disadvantageous terms; and the whole army, to avoid being cut to pieces, was obliged to pass under ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... whole liberal party are possessed by a feeling of deepest sadness because by your policy, you are leading Greece, involuntarily, to be sure, but none the less certainly, to her ruin. You will induce her to carry on war perforce, under the most difficult conditions and on the most disadvantageous terms. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... spontaneous variation in animals, "the great French veterinary Huzard going so far as to say that a blind race [of horses] could soon be formed." Natural selection evolves blind races whenever eyes are useless or disadvantageous, as with parasites. This may apparently be done independently of the effects of disuse, for certain neuter ants have eyes which are reduced to a more or less rudimentary condition, and neuter termites are blind as well ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining with ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... conclusion. Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances. My memory of past errors and perplexities, makes me diffident for the future. The wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the faculties, I must employ in my enquiries, encrease my apprehensions. And the impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties, reduces ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... his, a clear admiration and pride for his Son's bold and rich spirit maintained the upper hand. By Schiller's friends and closer connections, especially by his Mother and Sisters, all pains were of course taken to keep up this favourable humour in the Father, and carefully to hide from him all disadvantageous or disquieting tidings about the Piece and its consequences and practical effects. Thus he heard sufficiently of the huge excitement and noise which the Robbers was making all over Germany, and of the seductive approval which came streaming-in ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... coffee and a small piece of hard bread, which I relished keenly, it being the first food that had passed my lips since the night before. I was very tired, very hungry, and much discouraged by what had taken place since morning. I had been obliged to fight my command under the most disadvantageous circumstances, disconnected, without supports, without even opportunity to form in line of battle, and at one time contending against four divisions of the enemy. In this battle of Chickamauga, out ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... because we are most afraid of wounding those whose affection is most useful and whose dislike is most dangerous. A prince may be the byword of all Europe, and he alone will know nothing of it. I am not astonished. To tell the truth is useful to those to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes them disliked. Now those who live with princes love their own interests more than that of the prince whom they serve; and so they take care not to confer on him a benefit ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... inflamed, this inflammation is controlled, and this proceeding is continued with an increasingly rapid success and a continued abatement of all sufferings, until, finally, a perfect recovery is obtained, even under these disadvantageous circumstances. ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... W. Batten and Mr. Coventry tell me that my Lord Bristoll hath this day impeached my Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords of High Treason. The chief of the articles are these: 1st. That he should be the occasion of the peace made with Holland lately upon such disadvantageous terms, and that he was bribed to it. 2d. That Dunkirke was also sold by his advice chiefly, so much to the damage of England. 3d. That he had L6000 given him for the drawing-up or promoting of the Irish ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the whole ship was through fortuitous circumstances exposed to certain disadvantageous conditions which rendered her incapable ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... observations of mine on the habits of this variety will perhaps serve to throw light on a vexed question of Natural History—namely, the cackling of the hen after laying, an instinct which has been described as "useless" and "disadvantageous." In fowls that live unconfined, and which are allowed to lay where they like, the instinct, as we know it, is certainly detrimental, since egg-eating dogs and pigs soon learn the cause of the outcry, and acquire a habit of rushing off to find the egg when they hear it. The question ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the last man to interest you, my young Bayard," returned Mr. Morris, with some surprise. "He appears to me to be a sly, cunning, ambitious man. I know not why conclusions so disadvantageous to him are formed in my mind, but so it is. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject. The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have been given by the most judicious friend ; for at that time, from causes to which we may hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady than to be known as a novel writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... Saxon Army, not to mention other offences and afflictive considerations, Bruhl has raised the simple Polish Majesty against Friedrich. These things, as they gradually unfolded themselves to Friedrich, were very surprising. And proved very disadvantageous at the present juncture and for a long time afterwards. To Friedrich disadvantageous and surprising; and to Saxony, in the end, ruinous; poor Saxony having got its back broken by them, and never stood up in the world since! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and utilise the Treaty in a sense contrary to the spirit of that decision, would only lead to its termination by formal notice as provided for by the Treaty at the end of twelve months. Such result would in no way advance the interests of those whom you represent, and would in other respects be disadvantageous to British interests. Sir E. Grey, therefore, regrets that he is unable to approach the Russian Government in ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... exist, and has just given a sign of life. As I told you, the minister had agreed to the execution of the fortifications and the necessary purchase of land. Then from some unknown source evidence was brought forward by which many disadvantageous circumstances were discovered. It would not do to compromise the minister, so they called the council together, which had not been heard of for fifteen years, except when its members drew their salary and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... desired his majesty to leave to the duke, his brother, the care of tutoring the duchess's maids of honour, and only to attend to the management of his own flock, unless his majesty would in return allow her to listen to certain proposals of a settlement which she did not think disadvantageous. This menace being of a serious nature, the king obeyed; and Miss Jennings had all the additional honour which arose from this adventure: it both added to her reputation, and increased the number of her ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... he tried bending upward. The leverage was highly disadvantageous that way. Still, straining with the last ounce of his strength, he was just able to do it. Pulling down ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... the Pope at first expressed himself favourably. It appeared to make an especial impression on him, that the want of a male heir might cause a civil war in England, and that this must be disadvantageous to the Church as well.[94] He only asked not to be pressed as long as he was in danger of experiencing the worst extremities from the overwhelming power of the Emperor. In the spring of 1528, when the French army advanced victoriously into the Neapolitan territory and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... emotion and its associated movements. "I remember once seeing a boy who had just shot his first snipe on the wing, and his hands trembled to such a degree from delight, that he could not for some time reload his gun;" an instance of an emotional movement being disadvantageous. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... situation with his former party would not have been injured. It is astonishing how very acute even a dull man is when his own interests are at stake. Had his Highness been the agent of another person, he would probably have committed many blunders, have made disadvantageous terms, or perhaps have been thoroughly duped. Self-interest ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... taken in tow by the vessel of a New York merchant, and carried into the port of that city. The merchant refused any compensation from the Russian minister, although his vessel was, when she fell in with the wreck, proceeding to the Austral regions, and her putting about was greatly disadvantageous. The minister returned thanks publicly, on the part of his master, and expressed his majesty's sense of the invariable consideration and friendship with which his majesty's subjects are treated by the citizens of America. There appears to be ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... fossil tree; and, in short, any of your scientific or miscellaneous observations, which you may see fit to intrust to the pages of the journal, I shall be happy to receive, and trust they would not have a disadvantageous introduction to ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... is quite as appropriate for drawing-room use as a white cambric one, he is not altogether at ease in acting out his opinion. Then, too, he begins to perceive that his resistance to prescription brings round disadvantageous results which he had not calculated upon. He had expected that it would save him from a great deal of social intercourse of a frivolous kind—that it would offend the fools, but not the sensible people; and so would serve as a self-acting test by which those worth knowing ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... important element amongst the causes that led to its formation, but that it has not been produced by man selecting the individuals to breed from that had the least covering of hairs. I cannot agree with some eminent naturalists that the loss of a hairy covering would always be disadvantageous. My experience in tropical countries has led me to the conclusion that in such parts at least there is one serious drawback to the advantages of having the skin covered with hair. It affords cover for parasitical insects, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... conjecture as to the real nature of the policy that may have been under discussion, where conjecture must be so vague, and where it must so soon give place to authentic information. We shall merely say, that any measure calculated to place agriculture and industry generally, in a disadvantageous and defenceless position, must have met with our unfactious, but firm, opposition. If ever the day should come, when protection, by common consent, were to be withdrawn, truth compels us to declare, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... succeeded by Jacob Gilles. The congress was destined to make little progress, for several of the provinces resented the way in which a small handful of men had secretly been committing the Republic to the acceptance of disadvantageous and humiliating terms of peace, without obtaining the consent of the States-General to their proposals. The congress did not actually assemble till October, and never got further than the discussion of preliminaries, for the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... aside its indifference to an external action through reflection on the advantage or disadvantage of the same. Whatever tends as a harmonious means to the realization of an end is advantageous, but that is disadvantageous which, by contradicting its idea, hinders or destroys it. Advantage and disadvantage being then only relative terms, a habit which is advantageous for one man in one case may be disadvantageous for another man, or even for the same man, under different circumstances. Education ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... can efface them. Taught by us, our children shall hereafter point out the places, and say, 'HERE, General Marion, posted to advantage, made a glorious stand in defence of the liberties of his country—THERE, on disadvantageous ground, retreated to save the lives of his fellow citizens.' What could be more glorious for the General, commanding freemen, than thus to fight, and thus to save the lives of his fellow soldiers? Continue, General, in peace, to till those acres which you once wrested ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... nothing else but avidya. Moreover, if Brahman recognises all beings apart from himself as false, he does not delude them; for surely none but a madman would aim at deluding beings known by him to be unreal!— Let us then define avidya as the cause of a disadvantageous cognition of unreal things. Maya then, as not being the cause of such a disadvantageous cognition on Brahman's part, cannot be of the nature of avidya!—But this also is inadmissible; for although the idea of the moon being double is not the cause of any pain, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... entrance of Davis's Strait. We found, also, that the rudder-cases in both ships had been fitted too small, occasioning considerable difficulty in getting the rudders down when working, a circumstance by no means disadvantageous (perhaps, indeed, rather the contrary) on ordinary service at sea, but which should be carefully avoided in ships intended for the navigation among ice, as it is frequently necessary to unship the rudder ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... brilliant and captivating personality, vaguely saw him as he was, an unscrupulous, sordid brute, as remorseless an adventurer and swindler in his special line, as if he had been engaged in drawing false cheques and arranging huge jewel robberies, instead of planning to entrap into a disadvantageous marriage a girl whose gentleness and fortune could be used by a blackguard of reputable name. The man was cold-blooded enough to see that her gentle weakness was of value because it could be bullied, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett |
