"Unfair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wished to divide his treasures among the new settlers, and expressed some other intention of transferring the settlement of the country from the Senate to the people. As to the second of these propositions it would be unsafe as well as unfair to Gracchus to pronounce judgment on it without a knowledge of its details. The first was both just and wise and necessary, for previous experience had shown that the first temptation of a pauper land-owner was to sell his land to the rich, and, as the law of Gracchus forbade ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... white with rage, and his dark eyes blazed, because the same "puling woman" said very lightly and playfully: "Why did poor Nell come home from rehearsal looking so tired yesterday? You work her too hard." He thought this unfair, as the work had to be done, and flamed out at us with such violence that it was almost impossible to identify him with the kind old gentleman of the Colonel Newcome type whom I had seen stand up at the Tom Taylors', on Sunday evenings, and sing "The Girl I Left Behind Me" with such pathos that ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... friends feared unfair play. So Siegfried put on his cap of darkness, stepped into a boat, and went to the Nibelung land where Alberich the dwarf was guarding the ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... A not unfair criterion is afforded of the long prevailing and continued misconception as to the origin of chess, by the lack of knowledge regarding early records as to its history exhibited in the literature of last century, and the press and magazine articles ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... means. There is a story (possibly without historical foundation) that a foreign visitor to Oxford said that the thing that struck him most in that great university was the fact that there were 3000 men there who would rather lose a game than win it by unfair means. It would be absurd to pretend that that spirit is universal: the commercial organisation of professional football and the development of betting have gone a long way to degrade a noble sport. But the standard of fair play in school games is high, and it is the encouragement of this spirit ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... is no danger, I think. We must not stay here listening: it would be so unfair. Come and stand in Mr Brettison's passage. You will be out of ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... a thin, stately man, always dressed in hessian boots and the old-fashioned shirt-frill. A proud, impassive countenance was his, but it darkened now. "I will not act," he began. "I beg to state my opinion that the will is an unfair one—" ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... year 1759, a somewhat unfair pamphlet was written, which gave occasion to several others in quick succession, wherein, amidst other complaints of President Clap's administration, mention is made of the large amount of fines imposed upon ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... could show fight, and even fling himself into positions of danger; but in a contest such as that in which he was now engaged a cool strife, in which Fortune was his only antagonist, and in which he could derive no advantage from any unfair subterfuge, his artificial ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... of the family is great in Corsica. It must be or women would not renounce their natural and beautiful dress to adorn themselves with colours. It was curious to see at times some young girl not in mourning. I could not help thinking that she had an unfair advantage over her ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... has it ever been to me but an unfair judgment? I owe Salem no consideration; I can't see that I ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... than the fear that he would continue his search and expose them to new privations: and it seems that in providing for this emergency, he had even increased his dangers." Dr. Asher's excuse, I should add, refers more to concealment of food than to unfair apportionment. ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... "It would be unfair to judge him by yourself. Boys of to-day are not having the early training that fell to your lot, and their latent ability is just that much slower in showing itself. You see so much of the serious ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... laughing, the Colonel saw at once what had been passing in her mind. It was an unfair suspicion, he thought, one unworthy of her, and for an instant his anger flamed. He'd show her what kind of stuff the son of his old friend was made of! He'd make her repent bitterly, by letting her realize that, once in France, Jeb might be lost to her forever! ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... It would be unfair to hold you responsible for these light sketches of a summer trip, which are now gathered into this little volume in response to the usual demand in such cases; yet you cannot escape altogether. For it was you who first taught me to say the name ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... as with great relief, the story of how he won away Giles's father's chosen one—by nothing worse than a lover's cajoleries, it is true, but by means which, except in love, would certainly have been pronounced cruel and unfair. He explained how he had always intended to make reparation to Winterborne the father by giving Grace to Winterborne the son, till the devil tempted him in the person of Fitzpiers, and he broke his ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... youth, or Mr. WELLS, companion of my riper years, read like the peaceful annals of a country rectory. To quote again from the publishers, "only the man who created Tarzan could write such stories." If Tarzan were in any way comparable with the present volume, it would perhaps not be unfair to add the corollary that only those readers who appreciated the one could swallow the other. Mercifully, Mr. BURROUGHS writes so continually at the top of his voice that after a time the clatter comes to have an effect ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... range of individual efficiency among the unskilled as compared with the skilled is in some measure to be attributed to their present low wage levels. Inefficiency is likely to grow upon itself. Mr. Aves has remarked pertinently in this regard, "As with the 'unemployed' or the 'unfair employer' so with the 'incompetent' and the 'slow,' none of these represent well defined classes. All are elastic. Some can be created and all merge by imperceptible degrees into the classes above."[128] The enforcement of a living wage policy, it may be hoped, ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... But of the three concerned, the Queen puts all the blame upon the sea; for the other two accuse the third to her, and hold it alone responsible for their guilt. Some one who is not at fault is often blamed for another's wrong. Thus, the Queen lays all the blame and guilt upon the sea, but it is unfair to put the blame upon the sea, for it is guilty of no misdeed. Soredamors' deep distress continued until the vessel came to port. As for the King, it is well known that the Bretons were greatly pleased, and served him gladly as their liege lord. But ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... you for a rug for him; that would be to make an unfair use of kindness. In the winter the poor exile will probably leave the place, and will bless you, and to some degree me as well. I would not have troubled you, but you know that my Grandmother has all my money, which ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... the contrary, can as little have Unity of Sentiment as they can be real friends, except to a very slight extent, desiring as they do unfair advantage in things profitable while they shirk labour and service for the common good: and while each man wishes for these things for himself he is jealous of and hinders his neighbour: and as they do not watch over the common good it is lost. The result ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... the Germans had left of the stately old Cathedral, and of the famous Cloth Hall—one of the very finest examples of the guild halls of medieval times. Goths—Vandals—no, it is unfair to seek such names for the Germans. They have established themselves as the masters of all time in brutality and in destruction. There is no need to call them anything but Germans. The Cloth Hall was almost human in its pitiful appeal to ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... but who, in fact, created them; as plotters against the administration of justice; as arch-crooks, who lived off the proceeds of crimes which we devised and planned for others to execute. It was false and unfair; but the jury believed him—I could well ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... situation never occurred to him, his training having effectually prevented any growth of respect for the status quo as such. Nor did he realise at this time that his determination might perhaps prove unfair to Mrs. Branscome. A certain habit of abstraction, nurtured in him by the spirit of inquiry which he had imbibed from his books, had become so intuitive as to penetrate even into his passion. From the first he had been accustomed ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... he could not be content to ignore the claims of the German inhabitants of the duchy; there was, therefore, no course left but to make hostile demonstrations against Denmark. The pretext was not an unfair one. The November constitution, by which Denmark, immediately after the accession of the protocol prince, the present king, Christian IX., proposed to incorporate Schleswig, was a violation of treaty obligations. The Danish Government was required to retract ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... here, those who drew it up might justly have been blamed for the unfair and ill natured manner in which they had discharged their functions; but they could not have been accused of usurping functions which did not belong to them for the purpose of insulting the Sovereign and exasperating ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... their innings. The governor in a message of November 24, 1803, recited that his best exertions to enforce the law had been of no avail. Inhabitants of the coast and the frontier, said he, were smuggling in slaves abundantly, while the people of the central districts were suffering an unfair competition in having to pay high prices for their labor. He mentioned a recently enacted law of Congress reinforcing the prohibitory acts of the several states only to pronounce it already nullified by ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... continued Braxton, "if the player also could leave his club by giving ten days' notice. But he can't. That's what makes it unfair. The club can do to the player what the player can't do to the club. So the supposed contract is only a bit of paper. It's ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... have been a statement both adequate and explicit; but it could not have been absolutely flattering to Margaret, and it would have been exceedingly unfair to ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... students. The affair got wind, and other students, not connected with medicine, came pouring in, with no worse motive, probably, than to see the lark. Some of these, however, thought the introduction of the sheep unfair to so respected a lecturer, and proceeded to remove her; but the professor put up his hand, and said, 'Oh, don't remove her: she is superior in intellect to many persons ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... for four drinks.) Most unfair punishment. I only thought of Curtiss as Actaeon being chivied round the billiard tables by the ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... excellent thing in exact proportion to the exhaustion of the fair trader's stock and the consequent advance in prices. As time passed, therefore, the fair trader became aware that the non-importation experiment, practically considered, was open to certain objections; whereas the unfair trader was more in favor of the experiment the longer it endured, being every day more convinced that the non-importation agreement ought to be continued and strictly adhered to as essential to the ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... themselves to it. Magnus Derrick joined it, and Annixter. Again and again, Dyke recounted the matter, beginning with the time when he was discharged from the same corporation's service for refusing to accept an unfair wage. His voice quivered with exasperation; his heavy frame shook with rage; his eyes were injected, bloodshot; his face flamed vermilion, while his deep bass rumbled throughout the running comments of his auditors like the thunderous reverberation ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... the Emperor gave a wrong estimate of the numbers of a certain corps, no correction had the slightest effect on him; his mind always reverted to the first figure. In weightier matters this peculiarity was equally noticeable. His clinging to preconceived notions, however unfair or burdensome they were to Britain, Prussia, or Austria, had been the underlying cause of his wars with those Powers. And now this same defect, burnt into his being by the blaze of a hundred victories, held him to Moscow for five weeks, in the belief that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to consider the evidence on which our belief of the resurrection stands. And here I am stopped again. A general exception is taken to the evidence, that it is imperfect, unfair; and a question is asked, Why did not Christ appear publickly to all the people, especially to the magistrates? Why were some witnesses culled and chosen out, and others excluded ? It may be sufficient perhaps ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... and confirmed by the National Assembly election results: Ilham ALIYEV reelected president; percent of vote - Ilham ALIYEV 88.7%, Igbal AGHAZADE 2.9%, five other candidates with smaller percentages note: several political parties boycotted the election due to unfair conditions; OSCE observers concluded that the election did not meet ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... it, he knew, was his native, inbred loathing for falsehood. Fair or unfair, Dal had always disliked lying. Among his people, the truth might be bent occasionally, but frank lying was considered a deep disgrace, and there was a Garvian saying that "a false tongue wins no true friends." Garvian traders were known throughout the ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... specified in the census returns who would attain maturity. I regret extremely that when I had the copies taken, I did not give instructions to have the ages of all the children inserted; but I did not, and it is too late now to remedy the omission. I am therefore obliged to make a very rough, but not unfair, estimate. The average age of the children was about 3 years, and 25 years may be taken as representing the age of maturity. Now it will be found that 74 per cent. of children in Manchester, of ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... to me," Johnny said with some warmth, "that you are as unfair to her as to yourself in not giving her a chance. You don't know how willing she may be to overlook everything ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... for the revival of impossible ambitions, or the accumulation of enormous armaments. President Krueger has said that he wants no more Conventions, and I entirely agree with him. A compromise of that sort is unfair to everybody. If there is one thing of which, after recent experiences, I am absolutely convinced, it is that the vital interests of all those who live in South Africa, of our present enemies as much as of those who are on our side, demand that there should not be ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... understood it; and yet it was really pitiful, for the struggle was so unfair—some had so much the advantage! Here he was, for instance, vowing upon his knees that he would save Ona from harm, and only a week later she was suffering atrociously, and from the blow of an enemy that he could not possibly have thwarted. There came a day when ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... various parts, such as the hand and the membranes of the brain, as absolute perfection, although his idea of the human hand was derived from a study of the ape's, and he had no knowledge of the arachnoid membrane of the brain, but it would be unfair to criticize his conclusions because of his failure to recognize a few comparatively unimportant details. He discovered the function of the motor nerves by cutting them experimentally, and so producing paralysis ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... of the show, and the big grizzlies are the walking delegates who control the amalgamated association of working bears, and the occupants of the other cages have got to cater to Uncle Ephraim, the walking delegate, or be placed on the unfair list and slugged. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... "You are unfair to yourself, when you say that," remarked Alice earnestly. "Your voice has never jarred upon my ears, and I have always been ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... which it had been modelled, was divided into four "nations"—four groups, that is, or families of scholars—each of these having in academical affairs a single collective vote. These nations were the Bavarian, the Saxon, the Polish, and the Bohemian. This does not appear at first an unfair division—two German and two Slavonic; but in practical working the Polish was so largely recruited from Silesia and other German or half-German lands that its vote ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... origin in material conditions, and these he takes to be embodied in economic systems. Political constitutions, laws, religions, philosophies—all these he regards as, in their broad outlines, expressions of the economic regime in the society that gives rise to them. It would be unfair to represent him as maintaining that the conscious economic motive is the only one of importance; it is rather that economics molds character and opinion, and is thus the prime source of much that appears in consciousness to have no connection with them. He ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... with Madame Wachner, she sat down some way from the tables. In a very few minutes they were joined by the other two, who had by now lost quite enough gold pieces to make them both feel angry with themselves, and, what was indeed unfair, with poor Sylvia. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... him—and what would he give? Nothing. Not even his prejudices. His face twisted. If she was only human, If she wasn't just an animal. If he wasn't a Betan. If, if, if. Resentment gorged his throat. It was unfair—so damned unfair. He had no business coming here. He should have stayed on Beta or at least on a human world where he would never have met Copper. He loved her, but he couldn't have her. It was Tantalus and Sisyphus ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... had given place to anger. He had been beaten by unfair means; his opponent had cheated at the game, and his opponent enjoyed the respect of the community as a high-minded, able, dignified member of the bar. It was unthinkable! A man caught cheating at cards would most certainly be expelled ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... desolation, or who thinks that stained glass and an organ are sinful. I grant you that there is a certain fairness in trying the blackguard and the religionist by different standards. Where the pretension is higher, the test may justly be more severe. But I say it is unfair to puzzle out with diligence the one or two good things in the character of a reckless scamp, and to refuse moderate attention to the many good points about a weak, narrow-minded, and uncharitable good person. I ask for charity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... not speak again till supper-time, when he began asking his son an endless number of hypothetical questions on what might induce Miss Aldclyffe to listen to kinder terms; speaking of her now not as an unfair woman, but as a Lachesis or Fate whose course it behoved nobody to condemn. In his earnestness he once turned his eyes on Edward's face: their expression was woful: the pupils were ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... some old fellow who wrote the rules of arithmetic, I believe; it's only a bit of slang. But, I repeat, you have a right to be sad, and it's taking an unfair advantage of your relations to look as ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... I know it. I shall be on that tack to the end of my life. And I think it so unfair of you to condemn anybody without even ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... he is divorced from her," said Lady Caroline, sarcastically, "and seems to think it is no drawback to have been divorced. I and your father think differently. I do not mean there is any legal obstacle; but he took a very unfair advantage of your youth and inexperience by never letting you know that fact—or, at any rate, letting us know it before he paid you any attention. That stamps him as not being a ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... I have stirred up this puddle sufficiently. I now finish. Nor must you think me unfair for having turned my argument against Lutherans and Zwinglians indiscriminately. For, remembering their common parentage, they wish to be brothers and friends to one another; and they take it as a grave affront, whenever ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... minimize the importance of the part he played in the national militia. Doubtless much of his plotting was puerile and melodramatic. His activities as a revolutionist cannot have greatly affected the course of events. But it is unfair to deny him credit for constant willingness to risk his life in any cause which seemed noble. That his conduct was inconsistent merely proves that he followed no calmly reasoned political system. He reflects ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... from this unreasonable attitude, though why it was that he had taken it up he himself could not have said. Perhaps it was that rooted hatred a boxer instinctively acquires of anything in the shape of unfair play that influenced him. He revolted against the idea of a whole house banding together ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... the paper while Madame played solitaire. When she turned the queen of hearts, she remembered the red-haired woman whom she had seen in the crystal ball. And they were not going away, after all! Madame felt that she had in some way gained an unfair advantage over the red-haired woman. There would be no one, now, to take her boy ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... sakka is gone without a whole month's pay—two shillings!—the highest pay by far given in Luxor. I am interested in another story. I hear that a plucky woman here has been to Keneh, and threatened the Moudir that she will go to Cairo and complain to Effendina himself of the unfair drafting for soldiers—her only son taken, while others have bribed off. She'll walk in this heat all the way, unless she succeeds in frightening the Moudir, which, as she is of the more spirited sex in this country, she may possibly do. You see these Saeedes are a bit less ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... been employed in the public service as "writers"—some for years. Now, if these were held competent to fulfil the duties of office life, as they must have been, or they would not be thus employed, surely, it was unnecessary, as well as unfair and absurd, to subject them to test the school-boy acquirements, that many had forgotten, which offered no real proof of their aptitude ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... will do well to be on their guard against unfair statements in reference to "Dr. Webster's" principle of pronunciation by accents. The old system of pronunciation by mis-spelling words has become obsolete, and Dr. Webster's method ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... made personal honour and fidelity the chief tie among them; and rendered it the capital virtue of every true knight, or genuine professor of chivalry. The solemnities of single combat, as established by law, banished the notion of every thing unfair or unequal in rencounters; and maintained an appearance of courtesy between the combatants till the moment of their engagement. The credulity of the age grafted on this stock the notion of giants, enchanters, dragons, spells [f], and a thousand wonders, which still multiplied during the time ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... there wouldn't! But I think maybe I was sort of unfair to all country people because the crowd at Hedgeville was so mean to you. And I like the country well enough, for a little while. I couldn't bear living there all the time, though. I think that would ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... the play. It must be passed over with a sigh of regret, in the same way as we accept, as inexplicable, the 'Out, vile jelly!' of King Lear. To seize upon it as typical of the nature of the tragedy would be very unfair. ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... sure of succeeding in a community so well acquainted with him as Sangamon County. But to make assurance doubly sure his friends resorted to tactics which Lincoln, the most magnanimous and placable of men, thought rather unfair. Baker and his wife belonged to that numerous and powerful sect which has several times played an important part in Western politics—the Disciples. They all supported him energetically, and used as arguments against Lincoln that ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... understand, the time-table of his comings and goings about the city was not issued to the Press, so that the people of Washington had but vague ideas of where to see him. The Washington journalists protested to us that this was unfair to a city that has such a great and just reputation ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... don't profess to know anything about business, but I flatter myself that I understand my fellow men. If I had been in Bob's place, I should have pretty soon seen what that fellow Marcus was up to. I don't want to be unfair to Bob; I don't think that any son of mine would do a dishonourable action; but the Law is the Law, and if the Law sends Bob to prison I can't help feeling ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... order, but come despite its constant teachings and warnings. Bad work they of course make, and so at times and to a limited extent bring the fraternity under the ban of popular displeasure, but shall the world predicate unfavorable judgment upon a few and unfair tests? If so, and the principle logically becomes general, pray who shall be appointed administrator of the effects of other social and moral organizations, and even of the church itself? For in ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... penalty is death is to make a distinction which makes no sense in terms of the absence or presence of need for counsel. Yet it is the need for counsel that establishes the real standard for determining whether the lack of counsel rendered the trial unfair. And the need for counsel, even by Betts v. Brady standards, is not determined by the complexities of the individual case or the ability of the particular person who stands as an accused before the Court. That need is measured ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... water still stood in the pipe three-fourths of an inch deep. About half the water first put into the pipe had run out at the end of twenty-four hours. If the pipe was stopped at both ends and plunged four feet deep in water, it would undoubtedly fill in a short time; but such a test is an unfair one, for no drain could be doing service, over which water could collect to the depth of ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... unfair and ungrateful to speak thus of the American University. All superstition and prejudice may not have disappeared here; enough it is that they tend to disappear so rapidly. But what of the large country outside the university? What of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... this opportunity of raising a protest against an abuse which I consider is beginning to creep into our Guild, and which, unchecked, may be liable to lead to very serious results. You will remember that this Guild was founded in consequence of the very unjust and unfair treatment of the Lower School by the Seniors. This tyrannical attitude of the monitresses had been long resented by the Juniors, and though one new girl happened to seize upon the matter and voice the discontent, it was felt in many quarters that her action had been given undue prominence, ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... of honour; while another, enraged that he should be in waiting and have a dish to carry up to the emperor's table, requests he would condescend to live till he can come down again, that he may shew he knows what honour is as well as his disingenuous enemy, who had taken such an unfair advantage. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... her neck. "I don't want to be unfair. I guess love is a great thing, all right. But think it would stand much of that kind of stuff? Oh, honey, am I so bad? Can't you like me at all? I've—I've been so ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... will protest against what they will call the unfair competition of State industry, and some of them may threaten to leave the country and take their capital with them... As most of these persons are too lazy to work, and as we will not need their money, we shall be very glad to see them go. But with regard ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of Mr. Browning's minor pieces, and almost inseparable from wordiness, and an easy acceptation of somewhat cheap finish. There is nothing here of that compression which is the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair, perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by side with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very perfect poet; and yet it is interesting, when we see how the portraiture ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... break in his voice. For a long moment he stood looking at her, bewildered, disgusted. It somehow seemed to him utterly wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should have happened, and above all that it should have happened now. He had taken other girls, as had every other man, but never before had any such hard luck as this befallen him. And now, of ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... things that you do which seem to me unfair. You still have, at times, that far-away, absent expression which excludes me; and when I venture to break the silence, you have a way of answering, 'Yes, child,' and 'No, child'—as though you were inattentive, and I had not yet become an adult. That is my first complaint! ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... offspring exemplify it by tending to exhibit the same deviation from the parental stock as themselves. Indeed, there seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent influence about a newly-arisen variety which gives it what one may call an unfair advantage over the normal descendants from the same stock. This is strikingly exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, who married a woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities, and had by her four children, Salvator, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... in on this planet, in which case she should by all means go back to Earth. It's cruel and unfair to keep an intelligent—loosely speaking—life-form anywhere against her will, ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... anything unfair about this man. He is dead now. I saw him die. He was brave. He knew his job all right, but he was a fine example of what an officer ought not to be. The only reason I speak of him is because I want to say ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... exclamation which was rising to his lips, for he saw at once how unfair it would be to betray Chippy's presence. He approached the bush, and tossed the ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... to fling out both hands, catch the oncoming blow, his fingers clamping deep about the wrist above the hand that held the rock—some ore fragment tossed away by an old-timer—that Russell had found in the dirt, and used in unfair, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Buchanan had not the courage either to order a surrender, or to provoke real warfare by reinforcing the place. In vain did the unfortunate Major Anderson seek distinct instructions; the replies which he received were contradictory and more obscure than Delphic oracles. This unfair, vacillating, and contemptible conduct indicated the desire to lay upon him alone the whole responsibility of the situation, with a politic and selfish reservation to the government of the advantage of disavowing and discrediting him, whatever he might do. On January 9 a futile ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... letter of the 9th November, in which I expected to find just reproaches for my apparent negligence, you having sent me the money and as yet received nothing in return. Unfair as this may appear, I know you would be mollified towards me in a few minutes were we ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... is the negroes who are fleeing from the South, it is natural to look among the dominant class for the injustice which is driving them away; but it would be unfair to conclude that the blame rests entirely upon the whites, and still more so to leave the impression that there is no extenuation for the mistakes and abuses for which the whites are responsible. Much of the intimidation ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... fighting the stern battle which in his innocence he had roused in her hungry mind, and for a moment he trembled for the result. Vaguely he felt that he had done something unfair in shifting the responsibility to her shoulders, but whatever her answer he knew what his duty was; and only her ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... at catch, to watch for an opportunity to take an unfair advantage. See the conversation between Faithful and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... interrupt the preachings; and some of the preachers, under the charge of having performed their office in places not appointed to them, were brought to trial, condemned, and executed. On more than one occasion the regent publicly declared that the confederates had taken unfair advantage of her fears, and that she did not feel herself bound by an engagement which had been ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 18th century, gamestresses became so numerous that they excited no surprise, especially among the higher classes; and the majority of them were notorious for unfair play or downright cheating. A stranger once betted on the game of a lady at a gaming-table, who claimed a stake although on a losing card. Out of consideration for the distinguished trickstress, the banker wished to pay the stranger as well; but the latter ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... that I had marked the passages which contained matters not creditable to the clergy, and passed unnoticed those portions of the work which set forth the services which the Church and Christianity had rendered to civilization. I also remembered how eagerly I had swallowed the unfair representations and fallacious reasonings of Buckle with regard to Christianity and skepticism, and how impatiently I had hurried over what reviewers friendly to Christianity said on the other side of the subject. The balance of my mind ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... might and did suspect one person, Michael Rust, to be the kind friend to whom he owed your ill will, yet he had no proof of it that would justify him in calling him to account. Ned had a hard task before him; for the charge you made against him was that of harboring evil thoughts and of cherishing unfair designs against your child. It was a serious charge, and one that he could not refute; for a man's thoughts are not susceptible of proof; all that he can do in justification, is to point to his past life and say: 'Judge by that;' and unless Ned could impeach the character of his traducer, of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... can't imagine the intrigues that have been got up here. They have even been pestering our poor Praskovya Ivanovna, and what reason can they have for worrying her? I was quite unfair to you to-day perhaps, my dear Praskovya Ivanovna," she added in a generous impulse of kindliness, though not without ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... received so many complaints from legitimate dealers, who can not stand this unfair competition, that we have been ordered to get the smugglers at ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... "Mother, that is unfair. As long as I have a house over my head, you shall share it, if you please to do so. If it suits you to go elsewhere, I will be with you as often as may be possible. I hope, however, ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... that at the creation there was neither superiority nor inferiority ordained between Adam and Eve; and that the partial distinctions which have for ages existed, and which still exist, are of man's invention; and may, therefore with propriety, be examined, and, where found unfair or ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... that benevolent business; makes his own little job out of it at all events, come what will. And thus, out of every mass of men, you have a certain number of bag-men—your 'fee-first' men, whose main object is to make money. And they do make it—make it in all sorts of unfair ways, chiefly by the weight and force of money itself, or what is called the power of capital; that is to say, the power which money, once obtained, has over the labour of the poor, so that the capitalist can take all its produce to himself, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... regard the supposed Count as one who lived and wrote in the last century, but who (dimly conscious that the tone of his mind harmonized less with his own age than with that which was to come) left his biography as a legacy to the present. This assumption (which is not an unfair one) liberally conceded, and allowed to account for occasional anachronisms in sentiment, Morton Devereux will be found to write as a man who is not constructing a romance, but narrating a life. He gives to Love, its joy and its ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Scottish and Irish dialects of the Gaelic, it may be inferred that the former, having less of inflection or incorporation, than the latter, differs less from the parent tongue, and is an older branch of the Celtic, than its sister dialect. It were unfair, however, to deny that the Irish have improved the Verb, by giving a greater variety of inflection to its Numbers and Persons, as well as by introducing a simple Present Tense. The authors of our metrical version of the Gaelic Psalms were sensible ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... Buckingham has given you a very troublesome commission in offering me as a companion for your promenade. Your heart is elsewhere, and it is with the greatest difficulty you can be charitable enough to lend me your attention. Confess truly; it would be unfair on your part, vicomte, not to ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have the truth if I be ever so unfair," he said. And by this time probably some inkling of the truth had reached his intelligence. There was already a tear in Nora's eye, but he did not pity her. She owed it to him to tell him the truth, and he would have ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... discussing was, whether the hero of the story was worthy the name of lover, seeing he deferred offering his hand to the girl because she told her mother a FIB to account for her being with him in the garden after dark. "It was cowardly and unfair," said Christina: "was it not for HIS sake she did it?" Mercy did not think to say "WAS IT?" as she well might. "Don't you see, Chrissy," she said, "he reasoned this way: 'If she tell her mother a lie, she may tell me a lie some day too!'?" So indeed the youth did reason; but it occurred to neither ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... pained and pointed out that such a course on the part of Bourke would be obviously unfair; the only real difference between them, he explained, was that where he filched a louis Bourke filched thousands; and if Bourke insisted on turning him over to the mercy of Madame and Papa Troyon, who would certainly summon a sergent de ville, he, Marcel, would be quite justified ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... occasion for a new complaint and demand of justice against him and them. For as soon as William Penn returned to London, he in print exhibited his complaint of this unfair dealing, and demanded justice by a rehearing of the matter in a public meeting to be appointed by joint agreement. This went hardly down with the Baptists, nor could it be obtained from them without great importunity and hard pressing. At length, after many delays and ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... unemployed, their sensations are all unworn, and, consequently, fresh and green; and he, on the contrary, has had his fill of pleasure, and can with impunity make a mere pastime of other people's torments. This is an unfair state of things; the match is not equal. I only wish I had the power to infuse into the souls of the persecuted a little of the quiet strength of pride—of the supporting consciousness of superiority (for they are superior to him because purer)—of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Opera audience. In this they more than succeeded—for they caused it to be amusing; they made the most of what they had to do, which was not much, and of what they had to say, which was a great deal too much; for the piece would be far more tolerable if considerably shorn of its unfair proportions. The translator seems to have followed the verbose text of his original with minute fidelity, except where the idioms bothered him; and although the bills declare it is adapted by Mr. Charles Selby to the English ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... "theft and unfair dealing" were fearfully prevalent among the Anglo-Normans, and mentions, as an example, how some Irish merchants were robbed who came to Ely to sell their wares.—Domestic Manners, p. 78. It would appear that there was considerable slave-trade ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... ornaments which Mrs. Behn mentions must have formed a quaint but doubtless striking addition to the actress's pseudo-classic attire. Bernbaum pictures 'Nell Gwynn[5] in the true costume of a Carib belle', a quite unfair deduction ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... roared and thundered, and made a great deal of noise; and, if the council were held on this side, the distant Indian nations who dwelt to the west of the Delaware could not hear what was said at the council, and therefore it would be unfair to them to hold it on this side of the river. He concluded with a cordial invitation to the governor and his party to meet the Indians at ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discretion, but giving an invaluable realistic picture,—relates an encounter with the village bully, Jack Armstrong. The "boys" at last teased Lincoln into a wrestling match, and when his victory in the good-natured encounter provoked Jack to unfair play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like friendly Caesars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's playfulness ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... live with the greatest chiefs and feed at their table. So he was bathed, and his hair was cut and combed and anointed with oil, and soon he was eager and ready to fight, and to use his great bow and poisoned arrows on the Trojans. The use of poisoned arrow-tips was thought unfair, but Philoctetes had ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... only in taking the fair advantages of their neutrality, but also in supplying the French with naval stores, and transporting the produce of the French sugar-colonies to Europe, as carriers hired by the proprietors. The English government, incensed at this unfair commerce, prosecuted with such flagrant partiality for their enemies, issued orders for the cruisers to arrest all ships of neutral powers that should have French property on board; and these orders ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... unfair to Sammy," Alves had replied, with some warmth. "She would do very well to marry him; he is ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... thus presented as giving an instance of a man who had lived without uneasiness, was much offended, for he looked upon such a quotation as unfair. His anger burst out in an unjustifiable retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety; 'Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command: when you have drunk out that glass, don't drink another[846].' Here was exemplified ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... for them. Some of the "Corks" openly scoffed at this line of talk and threw the gaff into him without mercy. This hurt the great man's feelings, and he jumped up and told them that he was rarely asked for a guarantee, but since suspicion had been cast upon him in an unfair way, he would clear himself by giving each purchaser a written guarantee. Whereupon he pulled out a book like a cheque-book and filled out the details, signed it, and handed each purchaser a "guarantee." This had a tendency to restore confidence and he made some more sales; but ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the Times has practically two representatives to other newspapers' one gives them a manifestly unfair advantage. ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... what is everywhere cried on the housetops about the crooked exploiting devices of these monopolies, why should not its interest and its fidelity fall off? The law of cause and effect will work here as it works elsewhere in the universe. Labor is learning that unfair industrial privilege flouts every essential principle of democratic government. The real iniquity of it is hidden from us until we see that secrecy, cunning, and unscrupulousness may be good pecuniary assets. Yes, this has to be plainly ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks
... to hold the view That when you claimed to touch their level You were unfair to heathens who Candidly called their god a devil; Who fought some barbarous fights, But fought at least according ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... defying the inhabitants of a besieged town to this sort of contest, was highly fashionable in the middle ages; and an army could hardly appear before a place, without giving rise to a variety of combats at the barriers, which were, in general, conducted without any unfair advantage being taken on ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... The Senate's influence had made Curio tribune for the year 49. Antony had been chosen tribune also. To the astonishment of everybody but Cicero, it appeared that these two, who were expected to neutralize each other, were about to work together, and to veto every resolution which seemed an unfair return for Caesar's services. Scandal said that young Curio was in money difficulties, and that Caesar had paid his debts for him. It was perhaps a lie invented by political malignity; but if Curio ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... absurd. It's a most unfair proposition. It will make all the difference to us. On that extra two hundred and fifty a year ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... as he called it, it must be done in such a way as to leave her free. Free she was in law, and she must be given a chance to claim her freedom without talk or publicity. Absolute secrecy he demanded of me in the mean time. I begged him to see how unfair it was to her to bring her face to face with such a discovery without one word of preparation, of excuse for him. She would condemn him on the very fact of his being alive. So she would, he said, if she were going to judge him; not if she felt towards ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... that a Socialist Party which had seized the reins of political power might, through motives of caution and self-protection, use greater severity against those of the capitalists whom they thought had played an unfair part in the welfare against the installation of the new government. It is scarcely to be doubted, for instance, that those capitalists who tried to embroil us in foreign wars in order to prevent the establishment of social democracy would probably be exiled and their property ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... pumps, her skirt I don't know where, and an expression of self-satisfied determination on her face. I don't think I am old-fashioned, but I am sure my own dear little girl, if she had ever come to me, would not have bicycled; and though I had no wish to put any unfair restraint on Tabitha, still I did not want her to have a bicycle. And that this Aunt Rennie, as Tabitha would call her, without a word of warning, should send her one of those hideous things, as if it was her business to arrange for Tabitha's exercise—I do ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... plunged Chia Jui in such a state of dismay, that he even went so far as to knock his head on the ground; but, as Chia Se was trying to get unfair advantage of him though he had at first done him a good turn, he had to write another promissory note for fifty taels, before the matter ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... forces which enter into the making of character are so complex, including as they do not only acquisitions of new moral standards, but temperamental qualities, early training, potent example, physical stamina, dozens of accidental circumstances, that it is unfair to use the tests applicable, let us say, to a course ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... to set down these which were, in truth, formed opinions, and not random sayings; but it would be most unfair if one concluded from them, written and spoken in the freedom of friendly intercourse, that there was anything sour in his spirit, or harsh and narrow in his practice; when you discussed any of these things with him, the discussion was pretty ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... these were the men who had been forced to serve by the Governor of Cassala. There was no possibility of proceeding for some days, therefore I sent El Baggar across the river to endeavour to engage camels, while I devoted myself to a search for the crocodile. I shortly discovered that it was unfair in the extreme to charge one particular animal with the death of the two Arabs, as several large crocodiles were lying upon the mud in various places. A smaller one was lying asleep high and dry upon the bank; the wind was blowing strong, so that, by carefully ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... printed in italics was underlined by Coke for omission when the statement was read at the trial. The "4 besides himself," having reference to Monteagle, was therefore suppressed; the other suppressions in the statement were made for obvious and unfair reasons.] ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker
... which has led his contemporaries and his unfriendly biographers to charge him with hypocrisy. And it must be admitted that his preference for indirect methods of achieving a purpose exposed him justly to the reproaches of those who liked frankness and plain dealing. It is not unfair, then, to wonder whether the President was not thinking rather of his own convenience when he elected to address Congress by written message, for he was not a ready nor an impressive speaker. At ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... our poor little brats by day, makes us value our present castle. Oh, Janet, know thou, if thou art given to building castles in the air, that that is easy work to erecting cottages on the ground." He could not quite forget that it was unfair treatment that had driven him from Mabotsa, and involved him in these labors. "I often think," he writes to Dr. Bennett, "I have forgiven, as I hope to be forgiven; but the remembrance of slander often comes boiling up, although I hate to think of it. You must remember ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie |
