"Alarmist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at present. Its people are rapidly acquiring a love of commerce, and the wealth that springs from it, which induces me to imagine that they would not be disposed to risk the advantages they possess by any measure likely to subvert the present state of things. Nevertheless, more than one alarmist like —— shake their heads and look solemn, foretelling that affairs cannot long go ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... surprised me, unless it be the foul cruelty with which Belgian civilians have been treated. Indeed, in January, 1913, I wrote a warning which reads now like a summary of events that have since happened. I was denounced as a senile alarmist by some who are now the loudest in calling to arms. Alas! ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... present but the surgeon in charge of the church, the dispensary clerk, and myself; so he was no alarmist, for when he had done speaking, he took his package, mounted his horse and left. People had said, through the day, that the roar of guns was heard in the higher portions of the city, but no news of the battle seemed to have reached it ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... enlightenment would come. 'But in many shops where women work, twelve hours a day is legal. Much of women's employment is absolutely unrestricted, except that they may not be worked on Sunday. And while all that is going on, comfortable gentlemen sit in armchairs and write alarmist articles about the falling birth-rate and the horrible amount of infant mortality. A Government calling itself Liberal goes pettifogging on about side issues, while women are debased and babies die. Here and ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Empire rose to the occasion. Hiding the truth in 1914-15 was a blunder from every point of view, because there never was the slightest fear of the people of this country losing heart. No doubt the incorporation of ordinances directed against the propagation of alarmist reports calculated to cause despondency, as part of the Defence of the Realm Act, was necessary. But one at times positively welcomed the appearance of well-informed jeremiads in the newspapers, as an antidote to the exultant cackle which was hindering a genuine, comprehensive, ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... feud. The very name of Beketoff inflamed his resentment; and no sooner did he see that hated name attached to the despatch, than he felt himself confirmed in his former views with tenfold bigotry, and wrote instantly, in terms of the most pointed ridicule, against the new alarmist, pledging his own head upon the visionariness of his alarms. Beketoff, however, was not to be put down by a few hard words, or by ridicule: he persisted in his statements: the Russian Ministry were confounded by the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... of perception which seems imminent but which never completes itself. In Dr. Crichton-Browne's opinion they connect themselves with the perplexed and scared disturbances of self-consciousness which occasionally precede epileptic attacks. I think that this learned alienist takes a rather absurdly alarmist view of an intrinsically insignificant phenomenon. He follows it along the downward ladder, to insanity; our path pursues the upward ladder chiefly. The divergence shows how important it is to neglect no part of a phenomenon's connections, for we make it appear admirable ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... be dissipated by dungeons. The disputed land-titles got into the law courts, where judges and juries were fixed; but no matter which way the decisions went, the people kept their own. Cranfield sent an alarmist report of affairs to London, declaring that "factions" would bring about a separation of the colony unless a frigate were sent to Boston to enforce loyalty. Nothing was done. Cranfield tried to raise money through the assembly by a tale about an invasion, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... that I had not observed something of that instructive aspect of the war of the Balkans both in its first and in its second phase. But those with whom I touched upon that vision were pleased to see in it the evidence of my alarmist cynicism. As to alarm, I pointed out that fear is natural to man, and even salutary. It has done as much as courage for the preservation of races and institutions. But from a charge of cynicism I have always shrunk instinctively. It is like a charge of being ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... September 27, the Spanish troops retired beyond the Sabine, thus removing an excellent pretext for war. From this time on Wilkinson's hand is against Burr. His conduct is enveloped in an atmosphere of intrigue. At one moment he is sending alarmist dispatches to the President, warning him against a mysterious expedition which was being prepared—by what authority he professed not to know—against the Spanish province of Mexico; at the next moment he is intriguing with the Spanish ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... be a proverbial fire-eater, but in this case, at least, he was no alarmist. For, on the table, as he spoke, he laid ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... mind is perfectly smooth and undisturbed by a single billow. I most heartily wish I could concur in this picture of general tranquillity that has been drawn upon both sides of the Senate. I am no alarmist; nor, I thank God, at the advanced age at which His providence has been pleased to allow me to reach, am I very easily alarmed by any human event; but I totally misread the signs of the times, if there be that state of profound peace and quiet, that ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... extent compensated by a very high death-rate—the highest infantile death-rate in Europe—the birth-rate is falling, and we may anticipate that it will fall very rapidly with the extension of education and social enlightenment among the masses. Driven out of Europe, the alarmist falls back on the "Yellow Peril." But in Japan we find amid confused variations of the birth-rate and the death-rate nothing to indicate any alarming expansion of the population, while as to China we are in the dark. We only know that in China there is a high birth-rate ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... playwright can be scoffed at as an alarmist who ventures to fear that a censorship of the drama will, in practice, be foolish. At the thought of such frivolous and fatuous blue-pencillings of his next drama (which is to be his master-piece, by the way) our playwright becomes profoundly ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... thrilled by these words. He knew that the leader of the Gray Fox Patrol was no alarmist, and that he seldom lost his ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... a minute," he cried frankly. "I felt ready to laugh at you and chaff all your words; but I'm not going to be a dunder-headed fool and shut my eyes to danger if there really is any. Look here, Ingleborough: are you an alarmist, or is there really any truth ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... at the end of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left L1000 broke, one remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never in ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
