"Initiative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the forced engagement of the beautiful heroine to the wicked Russian Prince, when the door opened and the supper tray entered, followed by Mrs. Henshaw. Left to honour and her own initiative she had produced a huge lobster, followed by cheese, and three little dull looking jam tarts on ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in riding, paying visits,—designed to induce those of whom he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest equipages,—dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon, the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... remark, I will bring my reflections on the preceding legends to an end. Polygamy apparently was unknown in the distant times we are considering. But the marriage bond was not indissoluble, and the initiative in the separation was taken by ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... united among themselves. The schism in the Liberal party had been healed by the question of Reform, and they could now defeat the government whenever they chose to do so; consequently Mr. Gladstone took the initiative. His compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill was introduced and accepted. By this measure all legal proceedings for the recovery of church rates were abolished. The question that overshadowed all others, however, was that of ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... had no delicacies as to the lady's side taking the initiative: and, in effect, the wealth and power of Wildschloss so much exceeded those of the elder branch that it would have been presumptuous on Eberhard's part to have made the proposal. It was more a treaty ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... extraordinary valour, but to the absence of opposition on the part of the French. Von Moltke made a similar criticism (which Sir John French approves) on the Prussian cavalry after the war of 1866. "Our cavalry failed," he wrote, "perhaps not so much in actual capacity as in self-confidence. All its initiative had been destroyed at manoeuvres, where criticism and blame had been almost synonymous, and it therefore shirked independent bold action, and kept far in the rear, and as much as possible ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... took the initiative, and said to Mr. Bills: "Your school can certainly wait; it must wait. A week or two can make no difference. At the end of that time, if she cannot walk, she can be taken to and from the school-house every day. To lose the school will go hard with her, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... realisation of the difficulty of her position. It came upon her that she was one day nearer discovery and condemnation. As yet no plan of action had taken final shape in her mind. She did not know whether she would wait for discovery to come and find her, or take the initiative. Leigh's declaration had acted as a sedative on her unhappiness, and had banished the desire of an explanation with her husband. She would fain arrest time while the situation remained as it was, while Leigh was not yet lost to her for good. What did she mean by allowing him to kiss her a second ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... swim and fly unseen in filthy waters, wines becoming sour, and pestilential air. These facts of observation support those who say that the odors, effluvia, and exhalations emitted from plants, earths, and ponds, are what give the initiative to such things. That when they have come forth, they are afterwards propagated either by eggs or offshoots, does not disprove their immediate generation; since every living creature, along with its minute ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... necessity. To establish and to cultivate a state of mutual understanding from which will flow mutual loyalty born of mutual confidence (page 9) are prime obligations of command. Within the limits of responsibility and resultant authority, individual initiative will follow. On a foundation of intelligent cooperation and resolute determination, the acts of the lowest commander will be in accordance with the desires of the highest. This, in effect, will constitute unity of effort, accomplished through the vesting ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... taking of Cape Verde, although simple and direct, is probably incomplete. His whole career shows him to have been a man who was likely to take the initiative, so that it is not surprising to learn from the depositions of various Dutchmen that, previous to the battle of Cape Verde, Holmes had seized two Dutch vessels, and that after receiving an unfavorable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... no room to doubt or mistake their object, which was evidently aimed at us, and that they will leave nothing unattempted to effect our ruin." It proved, indeed, that the British consul's action was not that of his Government, but taken on his own initiative; but the incident not only recalls the ideas of the time, long since forgotten, but in its indications, both of British commercial security and American exposure, illustrates the theory of the Navigation Act as ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... challenged the Uitlanders to come out and fight. The champions of exclusiveness and racial hatred won the day. The memorial was rejected by sixteen votes to eight, and the franchise law was, on the initiative of the President, actually made more stringent than ever, being framed in such a way that during the fourteen years of probation the applicant should give up his previous nationality, so that for that period he would belong to no country at all. No hopes were held ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... half-formed smile on her face, waiting for the confidently expected greeting; later, she eyed them with a distinctly grieved expression—the greeting had never been given; but at last, her hunger to talk with some one not of her own family led her to take the initiative herself. Meeting a tall, slender woman, whom she had already seen three ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... incapable of the slightest initiative! If I am absent for an hour, detained by more important work, everything comes to a standstill! I see I cannot rely on ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... place,' said Fakredeen, 'what can the French do? After having let the Egyptians be driven out, fortunately for me, for their expulsion ruined my uncle, the French will never take the initiative in Syria. All that I wanted of them was, that they should not oppose Riza Pasha in his nomination of me. But to secure his success a finer move was necessary. So I instructed Archbishop Murad, whom they received very well at Paris, to open secret communications ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... might become. After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed—that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made—that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one branch, and never ask to go beyond it, was a ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... out of college with my initiative atrophied. I was afraid to do anything. I was afraid I would make a mistake if I did anything; afraid I was not well enough equipped to do the things that suggested themselves; afraid that if I did try to do anything everybody would criticize what I did; afraid ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the learned public. Philosophy as illumination, as a factor in general culture, is an exclusively modern phenomenon. In this speculative intercourse of nations, however, the French, the English, and the Germans are most involved, both as producers and consumers. France gives the initiative (in Descartes), then England assumes the leadership (in Locke), with Leibnitz and Kant the hegemony passes over to Germany. Besides these powers, Italy takes an eager part in the production of philosophical ideas in the period of ferment before Descartes. Each ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Mill decides in favour of democracy mainly on the ground that 'it promotes a better and higher form of national character than any other polity,' since government by authority stunts the intellect, narrows the sympathies, and destroys the power of initiative. 'The perfect commonwealth,' says Mr. Zimmern,' is a society of free men and women, each at once ruling and being ruled,' It is also fair to argue that monarchies do not escape the worst evils of democracies. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... six lines at the bottom of his page that changed and softened everything. Moya—always blessed when she took the initiative—contrived, as swiftly as she could set them down, to say the very words that made the home-coming a coming ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... some fun," said Duncan, starting up, and, by way of initiative, pitching his pillow at ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... that their protracted stay, with their hostess visibly in a fidget, gave the last proof of their want of breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in spite of Mrs. Mavis's evident "game" of making her own absorption of refreshment last as long as possible. I watched the girl with increasing interest; I couldn't help asking myself a question or two about her and even perceiving already (in a dim ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... contract Solomon threw all the initiative on the Deity, and whenever the Deity undertook his share of the contract, Solomon honorably fulfilled his. Thus was his faith in Providence never shaken like that of some boys, who expect the Deity to follow their lead. Still, by declining to praise his Maker at extraordinary length, except ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... had taken the initiative; and, in a dense body, had made their customary sweep of the High Street, driving all before them. After this gallant exploit had been accomplished to the entire satisfaction of the oppidans, the Town had separated into two or three portions, which had betaken themselves ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... with the conversation his host offered. He furnished the topics himself and pinned one down to them. It really was of no use whatever to start any subject unless it had been previously announced, because it never got further than the initiative. Uncle Ramsey always went on with whatever he had in mind. Tennelly knew this tendency, realized that in writing the letter he had taken the only possible way of bringing Courtland to ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... than that with which the Empire is faced to-day. If we get through here, now, the war will, must be, over next year. My Manchurian Campaign and two Russian Manoeuvres have taught me that, from Grand Duke to Moujiks, our Allies need just that precise spice of initiative which we, only we in the world, can lend them. Advice, cash, munitions aren't enough; our palpable presence is the point. The arrival of Birdwood, Hunter-Weston and Gouraud at Odessa would electrify the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... from a volume of posthumous memoirs dealing with those bitter years I learned the fact that the first inception of the secret National Committee intended primarily to organize moral resistance to the augmented pressure of Russianism arose on my father's initiative, and that its first meetings were held in our Warsaw house, of which all I remember distinctly is one room, white and crimson, probably the drawing room. In one of its walls there was the loftiest of all archways. ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... the jungle domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and sinew every year, was brought to ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... might the case have been if fashion had allowed the lady to take the initiative, instead of compelling her to sit idly at home! She has no office-work, nor Times, nor any business but that of bringing last night's flirtation to a practical issue. Assuming her to be satisfied as ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... initiative. She must go after what she supremely wants, just as a man would, using her power—I assume that she is reasonably attractive. She must break through restraints, and drive ahead towards the particular kind of emotional happiness that suits her. That ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... progresses, unfolding new power at each step. He passes through the graded schools, slowly acquiring elementary lessons. College follows with higher and more difficult mental acquirements. Then he enters professional life and begins to use his intellect with more and more initiative. He moves on into public life with increased duties and responsibilities. From one post of honor he rises to another with increasing ability and mastery, until at last he is the head of a nation and has become a world figure. Even so it is in the evolution of the soul. Life by life we rise, ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... youth of her choice, taking into account all its attendant risks, was Indeed an exhibition of courage and initiative not common to girls of seventeen; but Waitstill was meditating a mutiny more daring yet—a mutiny, too, involving a course of conduct most unusual in maidens of ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a strong position, as his army was well placed under the summit of the hill. The battle was fought on Sunday, October 23rd, 1643, and resulted in a draw, and, though the armies stood facing each other the next day, neither of them had the heart to take the initiative or to fight again, for, as usual in such warfare, brother had been fighting against brother and father against son; so Essex retired to Warwick and the king to Oxford, the only town on whose loyalty he could depend. But to return ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... playing before him in the distance, the ships go sailing by. He had heard siren voices calling his youth and he had heeded them. His old mother kept on cursing me at intervals. Instinct, rather than actual knowledge, led her to attribute this disappearance to my initiative. I did not attempt to reason her out of the belief, for alas! I began to hold it ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... larger interstellar cruisers, and as their torpedo-shaped hulls flashed about with bewildering speed, they began to fight back. They had been taken utterly by surprise, but now they went into action with an abandon and swiftness that took the initiative away from the gigantic interstellar liners. They were in a dozen places at once, dodging and twisting, unharmed, out of the way of the deadly red beams, and were as hard to hit as so many dancing feathers suspended over an ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... Rome. In reality, no one was more fitted to take his place as a member of an aristocratic government than Pompeius. His dignified outward appearance, his solemn formality, his personal bravery, his decorous private life, his want of all initiative might have gained for him, had he been born two hundred years earlier, an honourable place by the side of Quintus Maximus and Publius Decius: this mediocrity, so characteristic of the genuine Optimate and the genuine Roman, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... they did not turn their leisure to production. And some of them dared to claim that the manual toilers alone produced the wealth and should alone be permitted to enjoy it, as if it were possible or desirable to choke off initiative and adventure or to devise a society in which the man whose ambition is to avoid work will set the pace for the man who loves it for itself and whose discontent goads him on to self-improvement! As if it were possible or desirable ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... parties and leaders: government: Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), Filip DIMITROV, chairman, consisting of United Democratic Center, Democratic Party, Radical Democratic Party, Christian Democratic Union, Alternative Social Liberal Party, Republican Party, Civic Initiative Movement, Union of the Repressed, and about a dozen other groups; Movement for Rights and Freedoms (pro-Muslim party) (MRF), Ahmed DOGAN, chairman, supports UDF but not officially in coalition with it opposition: Bulgarian ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the enthusiasm will react on the possibility, and the thing be done. It is the spirit of the West, the pioneer blood in the veins of her children, expressing itself (since there are of late no forests to conquer) in terms of love of any initiative. We love a project as an older world would approve the civilizing reasons for that project. Mis' Amanda plunged into the processes of the party much as she would have felled a tree. It warmed my ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... war are not generally questions of absolute right and wrong. They may quite as well be questions of opposing rights. But, when there are rights on both sides; it is usually found that the side which takes the initiative is moved by its national desires as well as by ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... driving gloves which he had not worn for more months than anyone cared to reckon. Miss Rosemary Allen did what she could to help, and wondered at the dominant note struck by this bald old man from the moment when he rose stiffly from his big chair and took the initiative so long ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the hours; but these welcome messengers were infrequent, brief, and somewhat cold. They left Bertha so unsatisfied that before the close of the first year of her cousin's absence she opened a correspondence with him herself. The initiative letter was suggested by pleasant tidings, which she hastened to send. It was written immediately after the eighteenth anniversary of her birthday, and communicated the agreeable intelligence that upon that day she had again received a token ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... these charges the Belgium Government has made reply. To the first it said that, while the assurance that France would not invade Belgium was sufficient, yet if France did take the initiative the Belgian Army stood ready to defend its territory from a ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... usually. I wanted my comrade young and fair, necessarily of your sex, but with heart and brain: an insane request, I fancied, until I heard that you were the person I wanted. In default of you I paraded the island with Tiberius, who is my favourite tyrant. We took the initiative against the patricians, at my suggestion, and the Annals were written by a plebeian demagogue, instead of by one of that party, whose account of my extinction by command of the emperor was pathetic. He apologized in turn ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... obeyed with some semblance of initiative and he remarked that the lieutenant drank half a tumbler of neat brandy at a gulp. As if to drag himself away from the contemplation of the photograph zu Pfeiffer stood up and sat on the arm of the chair with his face in shadow above ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... spat, spat, spat of the reversing blows from the caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the different leads, feints, parries, and counters of this strange method of boxing, nor could I distinguish to whose initiative the various evolutions of that log could be described. But I retain still a vivid mental picture of two men nearly motionless above the waist, nearly vibrant below it, dominating the insane gyrations of a ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... legislation to be settled in Dublin. Irish internal expenditure to be handed to a financial council half elected and half nominated. An Irish Assembly to be created with a small power of initiative. ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... "I think you are right, Maxime, in the main. Our people are in the awkward position of fighting the Constitution, and the old flag is a dead weight against us. We must take the initiative in an unnecessary war. This Abe Lincoln is no mere mad fool. I will send a messenger East, and urge that ten thousand Texan cavalry be pushed right over to Arizona. We must seize the coast. You are right! There is one obstacle, Valois, I ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... feared them not in a remote hemisphere. They swarmed in the desert. Nothing daunted them. Spain's best blood poured into the New World, a fact which doubtless accounts, in part, for the devitalized energies and genius of this mother country of their birth and hopes and initiative. "Florida" is a Spanish tide-mark. "St. Augustine" is a gravestone of history, marking the mound where lies the dust of the first permanent colony planted in America. The Spaniard headed toward the southern provinces of America, as the Englishman to the east, and ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... a government to educate our children? Only let the worker have leisure to instruct himself, and you will see that, through the free initiative of parents and of persons fond of tuition, thousands of educational societies and schools of all kinds will spring up, rivalling one another in the excellence of their teaching. If we were not crushed by taxation and exploited ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... War a boring business; the glamour has decidedly worn off. Oh, if we could but get through the Boche lines! As things are at present, there is no thrill and not much scope for initiative. It is just a sordid affair of mud, shell-holes, corpses, grime and filth. Even in billets the thing remains intensely dull and uninspiring. One just lives, eats, drinks, sleeps, and all apparently to no purpose. The monotony is excessive. My chief function in life seems to be the filling up ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... will apparently play no mean part. The object of the People's Power League of Oregon is to free the representative assemblies of the State from the domination of political bosses, and an amendment to the constitution, providing for the adoption of proportional representation was, on the initiative of this League, submitted to the electorate in 1908 and carried with a large majority. The Oregon Legislature, which met in January 1909, was bitterly opposed to the change, and refused to pass the Representation ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... lovely country below Tours, became the destination of a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and seat covers woven of wool. This was by order of the third Abbot Robert of the Monastery of St. Florent, one of those vigorous, progressive men whose initiative inspires a host. It is recorded that he also ordered two pieces of tapestry executed, not of wool exclusively, but with silk introduced, and in these the figures of the designs were the beasts that were then favourites in decoration and that still ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... farm of three hundred acres fully stocked, on which to begin operations with a Farm Colony, and there seems some prospect that the Scheme will get itself into active shape at the other end of the world before it is set agoing in London. The eager welcome which has thus forced the initiative upon our Officers in Melbourne tends to encourage the expectation that the Scheme will be regarded as no quack application, but will be generally taken up and quickly set in operation ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... investigating committee should display initiative I broke the silence by questioning the little sergeant, and I began on a line which I felt would please the Commandant, "You were at Labiau during the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... opinions thus elicited were codified by the officials and submitted to the Tsar, and he was free to adopt or reject them, as he thought fit. We may say, therefore, that the Zemski Sobor was merely consultative and had no legislative power; but we must add that it was allowed a certain initiative, because it was permitted to submit to the Tsar humble petitions regarding anything which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... manifested itself at the side of Joe Mauser's mouth, but he said nothing. If long years of the military had taught him anything, it was patience. The other man had the initiative now, let him ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... took the initiative. She rose and approached nearer to Mrs. Warrender's side. "I want you to tell me," she said, herself growing for the first time a little tremulous, "if you dislike this ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... been adhered to only because the two governments had fallen out. The Venetians wanted the Pope to be the first in giving free passage through his frontiers, and the Pope insisted that the Venetians should take the initiative. The result of this trifling pique between the two governments was great hindrance to commerce, but very often that which bears only upon the private interest of the people is lightly treated by the rulers. I did not wish to be quarantined, and determined on evading it. It was rather a delicate undertaking, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... reason, by saying that Paris has committed a similar sin of omission—for things in which other people fail we should not imitate. Moreover Paris has been for years past developing a dramatic activity and initiative which Germany is far from attaining—and if special, regrettable personal circumstances prevent Berlioz from performing his works in Paris, the Germans have ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... was, that Sir Bartle Frere was a statesman who had the courage of his convictions; he saw that a Zulu disturbance of one kind or another was inevitable, so he boldly took the initiative. If things had gone right with him, as he supposed they would, praise would have been lavished on him by the Home authorities, and he would have been made a peer, and perhaps Governor-General of India to boot; but he reckoned without his Lord ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Prussian fire-deluge, stands to his arms; makes, in front, vigorous defence; and even takes, in some sort, the initiative,—that is, dashes out his Cavalry on Ziethen, before Ziethen has charged. Ziethen's Horse, who are rightmost of the Prussians: and are bare to the right,—ground offering no bush, no brook there (though Ziethen, foreseeing such defect, has a clump ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the sun and wind of all the zones had smitten it. His eyes, gray, steadfast and humorous, had in them when half closed the twinkle of self-confidence, but also, in their wide-open stare, the intensity of a man of initiative and sudden action. In his voice were character, individuality, and the habit of command; yet he wore the short jacket of a waiter, and might have accepted a tip. I could not recall having ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... looked straight at me during the propounding of this question I took the initiative in replying, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... in Constantinople I do not know, but there was certainly no hostility shown us in Santa Sophia nor in the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. Be that as it may, forbidden fruit is always sweet, and the Tommies were inclined to force an entrance. During a change of guard a Tommy who had his curiosity and initiative stimulated through recourse to arrick, the fiery liquor distilled from dates, stole into the most holy mosque in Kerbela. By a miracle he was got out unharmed, but for a few hours a general uprising with an attendant ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... in no vain chase of an equality which would eliminate all individual initiative, and check all progress, by ignoring differences of capacity and strength, and rating muscles equal to brains. But we are in pursuit of equal laws, and a fairer chance of leading happy lives than humanity in ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... Brandenburg, whom he knew to be influential with the emperor, and who was a leader in the anti-Burgundian and anti-Bohemian German party. This seemed fair, but the emperor suddenly put on a show of authority and declared, with an injured air, that he was perfectly free to act on his own initiative without confirmation. In the interests of Christianity and of the empire he would appoint Charles of Burgundy chief of the crusade, and he would crown ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... friends. In the light of Mr Vladimir's philosophy of bomb throwing they appeared hopelessly futile. The part of Mr Verloc in revolutionary politics having been to observe, he could not all at once, either in his own home or in larger assemblies, take the initiative of action. He had to be cautious. Moved by the just indignation of a man well over forty, menaced in what is dearest to him—his repose and his security—he asked himself scornfully what else could have been expected from such a lot, this Karl ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... as though waiting for her to depart first, but as she made no movement, and offered no further word, he was forced to the initiative. With an astonishing deference, which, perhaps, was even too elaborate, he wheeled his horse about ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... consider the Dramatic Club ought to be put upon a general basis. Everybody, except those who were already members, agreed. Many had thought the present arrangement unfair, and had grumbled loudly, though nobody had had the initiative to start a revolt. Now Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer took the matter in hand seriously, tackled the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... the teller to know that Mr. Castle would take a drink, particularly with Penton. Was it a trick of the inspector's? If it was, he would approach the teller before going back to Toronto. Evan would let it rest at that. He would not take the initiative, both on account of Castle's peculiar ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Pepita not desired Antonona to carry messages to Don Luis, but she did not even know that she had gone to see him. Antonona had taken the initiative, and had interfered in the matter simply because she herself had wanted ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... the Confederate army retired from Fairfax Court House, and soon after that its line of fortifications at Centreville—the most extensive system of field fortifications in military history up to that time—was abandoned. As the Union armies took the initiative in their repeated efforts to reach Richmond, the crossroads at Fairfax Court House had key importance in the communication and supply ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... R. Johanan (199-279) and terminated toward the end of the fourth century, which Is called the Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud; the other drawn up in Babylonia under the influence of Rab and of Samuel (third century), and brought to a conclusion about 500 through the initiative of R. Ashi and his disciples; this Is called the Babylonian Talmud. The latter covers the greater part of the Mishnah. It is by far the more important of the two Talmuds from the juridic point of view, and it is the one that has been the chief subject of studies and ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... the previous year at college Hal had listened to lectures upon political economy, filled with the praises of a thing called "Private Ownership." This Private Ownership developed initiative and economy; it kept the wheels of industry a-roll, it kept fat the pay-rolls of college faculties; it accorded itself with the sacred laws of supply and demand, it was the basis of the progress and ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... was received by the manager Radnodfay. There I met a really very talented violinist named Remenyi, who at one time had been a protege of Liszt, and showed boundless admiration for me, even declaring that the invitation to me had been given entirely on his initiative. Although there was no prospect of large earnings here, as I had professed myself content to accept a thousand marks for each of the two concerts, I had reason to be pleased both with their success and with the great interest manifested by the audience. In this city, where ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... activities, or natural activities of childhood, on which the Kindergarten is founded. This is probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative. ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... related by disappointed and dignified middle-aged men whose too eager patriotism had been rendered ridiculous by the vicious foolery of Government departments. No! He had some work to do and he was doing it. People were looking to him for decision, for sagacity, for initiative; he supplied these things. His work might grow even beyond his expectations; but if it did not he should not worry. He felt that, unfatigued, he could and would contribute to the mass of the national resolution in the latter and more racking half ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... silence, a silence which could almost be felt, and which became so uncanny as time went on that the women found it quite insupportable and had no peace by night or by day until the day on which, a month later, the enemy took the initiative and made what may be called an attack in front. There was only one noisy actor in the game, which was played for four solid weeks before the crash came, and as many after, and that was Carlo, but, although his feelings found relief ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Salve was far from being the equal of many of these men, who, he knew very well, were now only looking out for an occasion to get the better of him. His only chance was to take the initiative on all occasions, and to seem the most reckless and the most careless of life, and the most eager to fight of them all. He therefore flew at his man without hesitation on the slightest provocation, and whenever he threatened took care to ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... objections raised against our Susan B. Anthony amendment,[154] for it goes further and proposes a universal method of amending 48 State constitutions. State law-makers and Judges and even State voters from the North as well as the South will resent such dictation as an unwarrantable interference. The Initiative and Referendum scheme will have its own enemies, who will fear that this way may be an entering wedge for more Initiative and Referendum amendments to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... they may be able to fight the battle of life. He does not see that by using authority he is doing the very opposite of what he intends; he is making the child dependent on him, and for ever afterwards the child will lack initiative, lack self-confidence, ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... Blue in boldly plunging into the Cuban wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since the ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... they had received direct communication from God to make this offering to the sanctuary. But God said to Moses: "If it had been a direct command from Me, then I should have ordered thee to tell them, but they did this on their own initiative, which indeed meets with My wish." Moses now accepted the gifts, not without misgivings, fearing lest a wagon should break, or an ox die, leaving the tribe or that unrepresented by a gift. But God assured him that ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... of Michigan. Balch was not required to pay a cent in advance, except his railway fare, and before he was many years older he had sold his lease for a handsome fortune of a quarter of a million dollars, honestly earned by his initiative ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil only ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... he took the initiative. "I am afraid I wasn't too hospitable just now," he said. "It's this fellow's fault. Dick, it's up to you ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... extremely difficult for the clergy to know personally the men of their congregations, since it is rare in most neighbourhoods for the men to be at home during the hours when it is possible for the clergy to visit. In these circumstances a man ought to be willing to take the initiative in making himself known to the clergy of his parish, and to co-operate as far as possible in any effort which may be made, through parochial Church Councils or otherwise, to develop the spirit of fellowship in a congregation. There is very often about Anglican Church worship a stiffness and frigidity ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... feeling that the initiative lay with him; but we drove on till we were at the gates of Gorice, and I burst out laughing when I heard the count order the coachman to drive ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for an entirely different condition of affairs, when a strong, centralized government would not have been accepted even if it had been wanted. It provided for a "league of friendship," with the primary purpose of considering preparation for action rather than of taking the initiative. Furthermore, the final stages of drafting the Articles of Confederation had occurred at the outbreak of the war, when the people of the various States were showing a disposition to follow readily suggestions that came from ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... adventure he found a second source of dissatisfaction. He had not called up to ask after Amy; but Mrs. Phillips, with a great show of solicitude, had called up early on Monday morning to ask after him. He had then, in turn, made a counter-inquiry, of course; but he could take no credit for initiative. Neither had he yet called at the house; nor did he feel greatly prompted to do so. That must doubtless be done; but he might wait until the first fresh impact of the event should somewhat ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... unexpected and to master it. Hans Nelson, immigrant, Swede by birth and carpenter by occupation, had in him that Teutonic unrest that drives the race ever westward on its great adventure. He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in whom little imagination was coupled with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty and affection as sturdy ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... after-times it was arranged that Lafai was to live in one district, Fune in another, and the aunt Fotu between them to prevent quarrelling. If Lafai commenced strife, Fune and Fotu united to put it down; if Fune took the initiative, then Lafai and Fotu united ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... new Corps. A new element in which to work. New conditions in peace akin to those in war. And there had to be developed a new spirit, combining the discipline of the old Army, the technical skill of the Navy, and the initiative, energy and dash inseparable from flying. There were the inevitable accidents, but training had to be done. We existed for war and war alone would show whether we had thought and worked without respite aright. We had to prove our value to the other arms, many of the leaders of which, owing to ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... upon her when Alfred Corning Clark died, at the age of fifty-three years, in 1896. With cultivated tastes, she had also a practical talent for business, and, although well served by agents in the management of her large interests, was always thoroughly informed and full of initiative. In New York, among men of affairs, she was regarded as one of the most far-seeing judges of real estate values in the city. In the management of her domestic and other concerns she had an extraordinary faculty for administration, ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... French soldiery had more cause to dread their own generals than those of the enemy; and these forces, besides being insufficient, were placed under the command of Marshal de Tesse, a cunning courtier but mediocre general, incapable of any initiative strategy, and whose sole study was to carry out to the letter the personal instructions of Louis XIV. and Chamillard. However, either from want of sufficient resources or want of skill, Tesse failed this once in the execution of his master's ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... If their Lordships were to send us the most judicious of all money bills, should we not kick it to the door? Yet to send us a money bill would hardly be a grosser affront than to send us such a bill as this. They have taken an initiative which, by every rule of parliamentary courtesy, ought to have been left to us. They have sate in judgment on us, convicted us, condemned us to dissolution, and fixed the first of January for the execution. Are we to submit patiently to so degrading a sentence, a sentence too passed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... county, school, age, and tutor of every one to be admitted to the College." This was commenced in January 1629-30, and has been continued, with varying care and exactness, ever since. It seems probable that the initiative in this matter was due to Gwyn, as few Masters have so carefully ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... and his Council having consulted various experienced officers on the subject, replied in June, that in their opinion the present time and circumstances were unsuitable for taking the initiative. They pointed out that the Sirdars and many of the people of Afghanistan would strongly object, and that in the Ameer's somewhat insecure position he could not afford to disregard their feelings in the matter. ...
— Indian Frontier Policy • General Sir John Ayde
... amidst his slumbers," by John Dickenson, 1594, &c.[103] All these authors continued their model's work in contributing to the development of literature written chiefly for ladies; in that way especially was Lyly's initiative fruitful. ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... marriages, children who knew no homes, work that was not work, eugenics that didn't work; Ku-Lis who envied the richer classes but were too lazy to reach out for the rewards freely offered for individual initiative; the intellectually active and physically lazy Ki-Lings who despised their lethargy; the Man-Din drones who regarded both classes with supercilious toleration; the Princes of the Blood, arrogant in their assumption of a heritage from a Heaven ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... you plenty of proofs of this.... The following sentences occur in a letter written from Delhi during our recent panic, by an officer.... 'The native force here is much too small to be a source of anxiety, and unless they take the initiative it is my opinion that there can be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Delhi are a contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare on this side of the Sutlej. The terrors of that period when every man who had two enemies was sure to swing are not forgotten. The people declare that the work of Nadir ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... The Hellenic horse were drawn up like an ordinary phalanx four deep, the barbarians presenting a narrow front of twelve or thereabouts, and a very disproportionate depth. There was a moment's pause, and then the barbarians, taking the initiative, charged. There was a hand-to-hand tussle, in which any Hellene who succeeded in striking his man shivered his lance with the blow, while the Persian troopers, armed with cornel-wood javelins, speedily despatched a dozen men and a couple of horses. (11) At ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... that such conduct would not be permitted; and that if such a scene should occur again, I should not allow the troops to be surrounded by thousands of armed men, in hostile attitudes, without immediately taking the initiative. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... "Imagination," Ribot says: "The free initiative of children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... of these self-conceited fellows that are always trying to stir up trouble deceive you with the belief that there's anything to all these smart-aleck movements to let the unions and the Farmers' Nonpartisan League kill all our initiative and enterprise by fixing wages and prices. There isn't any movement that amounts to a whoop without it's got a moral background. And let me tell you that while folks are fussing about what they call 'economics' and 'socialism' and 'science' and a lot ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... December. The Emperor then demanded that something should be done about the Working Class Question. The Chancellor was against doing anything. The Emperor held the view that if the Government did not take the initiative, the Reichstag, i.e. the Socialists, Centre and Progressives, would take the matter in hand, and then the Government would lag behind. The Chancellor wanted to lay the anti-Socialist Bill with the expulsion paragraph again ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... not want to turn back, but she would like a plausible excuse to separate from him once the ranges of mountains were crossed. Why did she not drop off then on the excuse, say, of the wonderful new hunting grounds? That would be simple. Kingozi concluded that she wished the initiative to come from him. And the more convinced he was that she wanted to get rid of him, the more firmly he resolved ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... child scream loudly just near the spot where the clothes were found. Mrs. Toop, who had eleven other children, was decently resigned to her bereavement, but Miss Van Cheele sincerely mourned her lost foundling. It was on her initiative that a memorial brass was put up in the parish church to "Gabriel-Ernest, an unknown boy, who bravely sacrificed ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... you," he said, "that you came on your own initiative. I owe you the idea, however, so I will tell you the sort of person I shall look out for. In the first place, I do not require ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that no revolution was ever the work of the body of the people,—of the majority. Revolutions are made by minorities, by orders, by classes, by individuals, but never by the people. The people may be dragged into them, but they never take the initiative even in those movements which are called popular, and which are supposed to have only popular ends in view. That very portion of mankind who are most feared by timid men of property are those who are the last to act in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... into her life and taken her into their hearts in this way as if she really belonged, as if they loved her! She was too excited to talk. She hardly knew what to do first. But they did not wait for her initiative. Allison was off with his car and his man, munching cookies as he went, and promising to return in fifteen minutes hungry as ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... every confidence that the trench army could open the gate for a field army at any point in the line required. But a trench army in so doing would lose one third of its effectives, and putting a regiment in the trenches for a long tour of trench work destroys its initiative as far as field manoeuvring is concerned. All these things were planned and marches calculated. It was figured out where the Germans might make a stand, generally where some famous battle had been fought in the past, how they would be overwhelmed with fresh divisions ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... admits, that Achilles has the right, being so grievously injured, to "renounce his fealty," till Agamemnon makes apology and gives gifts of atonement. Such, plainly, is the unwritten feudal law, which gives to the Over-Lord the lion's share of booty, the initiative in war and council, and the right to command; but limits him by the privilege of the peers to renounce their fealty under insufferable provocation. In no Book is Agamemnon so direfully insulted as in the First, which is admitted ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... visiting this world to a correct fulfilment of the polite functions of our domestic shrine; and we succeed unhappily well. We rear a world of people who put manners before morals, conventions before principles, conformity before initiative. Sorely do we strive with the new soul, to choke questionings and crush ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... own opinion, their initiative extended over a vast field and in all directions. They seriously maintained that they were the first to introduce the poor into French fiction, the first to awaken the sentiment of pity for the wretched; they admitted the priority of Dickens, but they apparently forgot ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... layers must be made crystal clear, that surround the inner sulphur [Symbol: Sulphur] like a crust and hinder it from its free radiation. Sulphur is to be regarded as a symbol of the expansive power, as individual initiative, as will. Mercury stands opposite to it as woman does to man, as that which goes to the subject from without, or as absolute receptivity. Salt is midway between both; in it the equilibrium between [Symbol: Sulphur] and [Symbol: Mercury] is found. It is a symbol of what ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... towns which later put themselves on record as opposed to Government schools, the Jews yielded gladly to the innovations of such Maskilim as S. Perl, G. Klaczke, I. Bompi, and the distinguished philanthropist David Luria, who took the initiative in transforming the educational system of these cities. Under the superintendence of Luria, the Minsk Talmud Torah became a model institution; the training conferred there on the poor and orphaned surpassed that given to the children of the rich in their private schools. This ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Bennett never knew her pain. By degrees a course of action planned itself for her. A direct appeal to Bennett she believed would not only be useless, but beyond even her heroic courage. She must influence him indirectly. The initiative must appear to come from him. It must seem to him that he, of his own accord, roused his dormant resolution. It was a situation that called for all her feminine tact, all her delicacy, all her ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Bombay and Persia were not confined to this single benevolent initiative of the Bombay Committee. [62] We should also notice the establishing of schools in the towns of Yezd and Kirman (1857) due to the munificence of the Parsee notabilities, and the pecuniary gifts given for ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... enfeebled, with his hands tied by uncertain authority, could not meet them. A genius was needed in his place, and the good fortune was that the genius eventually came. In the meanwhile Ward, pottering at his task, depended much on the initiative of his subordinates. The passage from the Neck to Roxbury was now guarded by Brigadier-General John Thomas of Marshfield,[86] who to deceive the enemy as to his numbers occasionally marched his force of seven hundred ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... There are persons who are packed with the most curiously inaccurate information on the most abstruse subjects, and they insist on imparting it to you. I have no ground to complain if I ask Jones what is the capital of Illinois and he says Chicago. The initiative was mine, and taken at my own peril, and it is fair that I should pay the penalty. But frequently Jones will break in upon me in the middle of a column of figures and tell me that the largest ranch in the world is situated in the State ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... on the great occasion was ordered from Chabot and Potel, and not from Chevet, by which act Brigitte intended to prove her initiative and her emancipation from the late Madame de Godollo. The invited guests were as follows: three Collevilles, including the bride, la Peyrade the groom, Dutocq and Fleury, whom he had asked to be his witnesses, the extremely limited number of his relatives ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... plan of city government, which the progressives unanimously regard as a sort of democratic municipal panacea. The commission plan for cities vests the whole local government in a board of half a dozen elected officials subject to the initiative and referendum and recall. The Socialists approve of the last feature. They object to the commission and stand for the very opposite principle of an executive subordinate to a legislature and without ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... though the peril had lifted so that they could venture to draw a deep breath and move a cramped limb. However, all waited a while longer before they dared speak in the most cautious whisper, it being considered the duty of the whites to wait until Lena-Wingo took the initiative. Suddenly, in the gloom, it was noticed that the tall Mohawk was standing perfectly erect, as though looking at something in the direction of the river. He held this singular position a few minutes, and then knelt to the earth and applied his ear to the ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... had the advantage of having taken the initiative, and who had presumably chosen their own time for the opening of hostilities, did not immediately take full advantage of their favorable situation has caused much surprise among impartial military critics. On the same day that they ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... in Brazil in about 400 years? The answer is found in facts that prove the absence of all initiative of will, of strength, of energy and of activity. Brazil has only been a field for torpid exploitation by these gain-hunting libertines. And what of the attacks against ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... then was inclined to take the initiative. He had been to Tessa. She led the way through the nearest door, set down her lamp, and turned towards ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... to obey authority. From the past the families on the Hill inherit their willingness respectively to command and to obey. This is true socially of certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some are not led is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the households which, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, inherit and claim the ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson |
