"Opportunist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and ran lightly up-stairs; but, fast as she fled, thought outran her slender flying feet, and she came at last very leisurely into Celia's room, a subdued, demure opportunist, apparently with nothing on her ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... not to allow ourselves to think quantitatively in politics, that to do so fritters away the plain consideration of principle. 'Logical principles' may be only an inadequate representation of the subtlety of nature, but to abandon them is, it is contended, to become a mere opportunist. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... subject, the same capacity and judgment as in his speeches, and a mingling of tact and dignity which proved the greatest fitness for the conduct of the gravest public affairs. As a statesman Mr. Webster was not an "opportunist," as it is the fashion to call those who live politically from day to day, dealing with each question as it arises, and exhibiting often the greatest skill and talent. Still less was he a statesman of the type of Charles ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... his arguments more effective than if he had alienated his audiences by indiscriminate attacks on all the institutions of society. No one could justly accuse Frederick Douglass of cowardice or self-seeking; yet he was opportunist enough to sacrifice the immaterial for the essential, and to use the best means at hand to promote the ultimate object sought, although the means thus offered might not be the ideal instrument. It was doubtless this trait that led ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... good, earnest, hard-working man, possessed of considerable personal magnetism and a good political nose—a man who could scent how the pack was running, take a short-cut, and presently appear to be leading. In other words an opportunist. Though he has not much education, and though as a writer he is far from polished, it is said that he has written powerful editorials. "When his editorials have been good," said one gentleman, "it is because ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... world, and it deserves study because it promises a better, a safer, and a fairer life to the masses. But as yet it is only a theory, a hypothesis. It has never been tried in toto.... It has succeeded only where it has allied itself with liberal and opportunist rather ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... liberal conservative, an opportunist, a pessi-optimist, an in-medio-tutissimist, and attend divine service at the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... expansive, and full-blooded. Publicist, dry, thin-lipped, pedantic, opinionative, hard." That was what he, no doubt, expected of the cast. In a word, his attempt to fascinate lacked polish. It was clumsy, almost to the point of innocence, and opportunist to the point of weakness. He did not know how to take me, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... realise that he had taken the long, long chance of the opportunist who rolls the bones with Death. He had kept his pledge to the little Grand Duchess. It was a clean job. It was ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... speech. If he made it, business would support him for President. He made the speech; he declared for Government ownership of railroads. Business, roaring with pain, fell back into the Republican arms, and Bryan was defeated for President. No, Bryan is not an opportunist—not in things that ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I've been thinking it over ever since you told me Henty had fought shy. I 've a poor opinion of Henty. He's one of those fellows that says one thing and does another. An opportunist! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it he had no definite idea. He would have to be an opportunist, he foresaw. He had no illusions about his funds in hand being a prime lever to success. That four hundred dollars would not last forever, nor would it be replenished by any effort save his own. It afforded him a breathing spell, a chance to look about, to discover where and how he should begin ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... note of the eternal in it. It can meet the present because it is not of the present. We have grown familiar with the phrase, 'The man of the moment.' But who is this man? Sometimes he is very literally a man of the moment—an opportunist, a gambler with the hours, a follower of the main chance. The moment makes him, and passing away unmakes him. But the true man of the moment is the man to whom the moment is but one throb in the pulse of eternity. For him the moment does not stand out in splendid ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... purely American in its origin as the Knights of Labor nor so persistently idealistic. On the contrary, its first membership was foreign and its program, as we shall see, became before long primarily opportunist and "pragmatic." The training school for this opportunistic trade unionism was the socialist movement during the sixties and seventies, particularly the American branch of the International Workingmen's Association, the "First Internationale," ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... such persecutions essentially are: an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the interests involved in the established law and order, organized and maintained in the name of religion and justice by politicians who are pure opportunist Have-and-Holders. People who are shown by their inner light the possibility of a better world based on the demand of the spirit for a nobler and more abundant life, not for themselves at the expense of others, but for everybody, are naturally ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... social philosophy. It does not look to the abolition, but only to the modification and limitation in some directions, of private property and of competitive industry. The spirit of this movement is opportunist, or experimental. It is ready to try public action, but recognizes that it has difficulties and limitations. The ultra-radical and the ultra-conservative alike declare that these measures "logically" lead on to ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... not, let us in the end ask ourselves, here and there at least, a man who is of real account in the world of affairs, and who is—not simply a luke-warm Platonic friend or an opportunist advocate—but an impassioned promoter of the woman's suffrage movement? One knows quite well that there is. But then one suspects —one perhaps discerns by "the spirit sense"—that this impassioned promoter of woman's suffrage is, on the sequestered side of his life, ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... wisdom. A man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that cause is promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed. The opportunist politician is like a man who should abandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golf because he was beaten at golf. There is nothing which is so weak for working purposes as this enormous importance ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... complain of his incursions into their departments. In contrast to his colleagues, he was not only extremely energetic, but he was ever ready to assume an astounding amount of responsibility; and as he was something of an opportunist, he was perhaps not always quixotically scrupulous in the choice of expedients for attaining ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... murdered a few years since in China, the Kaiser, ever an opportunist, was justly angry, and Pekin shuddered at the possibility of national castigation. "Could the Mighty One at Berlin condone the offense if China gave Germany a harbor to be used as coaling station and naval headquarters?" "Possibly; but how can ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... that the social conditions of the day, the democratic current which runs with increasing spirit in political channels, is unfavourable to the development of individual genius. The prize falls to the sagacious opportunist; the statesman is less and less of a navigator, and more and more of a pilot, in times when popular feeling is conciliated and interpreted rather than inspired and guided. To be far-seeing and daring is a disadvantage; the most approved leader is the man who can harmonise discordant sections, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sections. He succeeded in 1854 in bringing together in Canada West a strong Liberal-Conservative group and in effecting a permanent alliance with the main body of French-Canadian Liberals, now under the leadership of Cartier, a vigorous fighter and an easy-going opportunist. With the addition of Galt as the financial expert, these allies held power throughout the greater part of the next dozen years. Their position was not unchallenged. The Clear Grits had found a leader after their own heart in George Brown, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... clear that the Old Czech Party, now led by Rieger, was inclined to be too conservative and too opportunist. In 1887 the Young Czechs left the national party and entered into opposition. Their party grew steadily, and during the elections in 1889 gained a decided victory in the country districts. The Old Czechs finally sealed their fate when, in 1890, they concluded ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... Dr. Crawford," Ostrander said. "I've kept up with this situation since you had that conference in Timbuktu. The State Department has no intention of allowing some opportunist, backed by known communists and fellow travelers, to seize power in this portion of the world. In a matter of months the Soviets would be ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the Reformers went even further in the marriage question, true enough, only for opportunist reasons, and out of complaisance towards the Princes whose strong support and permanent friendship they sought to secure and keep to the Reformation. The friendly Duke of Hessen, Philip I, had, besides his legitimate wife, a sweetheart, willing to yield to his wishes, but ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... have feared with Platt of Connecticut, that a party split would ensue unless the wishes of the westerners were acceded to—hence an act which gave liberal assistance to silver to please the West and South but stopped short of free coinage so as to please the East. That opportunist politics had an influence with certain members is indicated by the remarks of a Massachusetts Republican representative who ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... at the door of the redoubtable Wong. Another, the fellow who chanced to take up his quarters at Smith's Hotel, is a delegate sent here specially to hunt out Wong, and destroy him. I asked him how he meant to set about it, but his scheme is vague. He's an opportunist of the first water. 'Me catchee and killee Wong Li Fu one time,' was his best effort. I'm going to confront Len Shi with these two in Bow Street. They may worm something out of him. But will they own up if they do? Dashed if I know. The Oriental mind is on a par with ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... came and went in the blue eyes. "I told you the other day," answered Vetch in a low voice, "that I used the tools at my command, and I tell you now that I am sometimes forced to use rotten ones. People say that I am an opportunist; but who has ever discovered any other policy that deals with life so completely? They say also that I am without public conscience—another name for opinions that have crystallized into prejudices. The ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... his horse, it was because this was the due of a man; if the Christian knight helped his wife off her horse, it was because this was the due of a woman. Definite and detailed dues of this kind they did not predicate of the babe unborn; regarding him in that agnostic and opportunist light in which Mr. Browdie regarded the hypothetical child of Miss Squeers. Thinking these sex relations healthy, they naturally hoped they would produce healthy children; but that was all. The Moslem ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the federalists, Vitringa, Van Marle and De Mist. After the death of Pieter Paulus the most influential man in an Assembly composed of politicians mostly without any parliamentary experience was the eloquent and astute Schimmelpenninck, whose opportunist moderation sprang from a natural dislike of ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom
... heard," he stated, "and what I've . . . seen, I should say that you are my man, O'Mara. Mr. Elliott himself has informed me that your quite spectacular success in one or two vital campaigns has been entirely due to the fact that you are an—er—opportunist! I agree with Mr. Elliott, absolutely—that is, if my first ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... principles, and makes an honest attempt to satisfy those who wished to help the Arcadians, but at the same time desired to regain ground against Thebes, it is not always convincing, and the tone is more frankly opportunist than is usually ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... submitting to what they regard as German dallying with us and to German insults. They believe that, if we had sent Bernstorff home when his government made its unsatisfactory reply to our first Lusitania note, Germany would at once have "come down"; opportunist Balkan States would have come to the help of the Allies; Holland and perhaps the Scandinavian States would have got some consideration at Berlin for their losses by torpedoes; that more attention would have been paid by Turkey ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... youth into practical acquaintance with the exigencies of his intended profession. Personally I have always favored the latter, being somewhat of the opinion of the old practical politician—"Never contrive an opportunity." Naturally an opportunist, the experience of life has justified me in rather awaiting than contriving occasions. One learns more widely and more thoroughly by reefing topsails when it has to be done, than by doing it at a routine ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan |
