"Opportunist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the heavens." No doubt this automatic and balanced theory of government suited admirably that distrust of the people which seems to have been a dominant feeling among the Fathers. For they were the conservatives of their day: between '76 and '89 they had gone the usual way of opportunist radicals. But had they written the Constitution in the fire of their youth, they might have made it more democratic,—I doubt whether they would have made it less mechanical. The rebellious spirit of Tom Paine expressed itself in logical formulae as inflexible to the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... to develop a constructive programme in connection with the public regulation of its affairs. It does not seem to have any fixed principles or positive convictions as to excise methods and liquor laws. Its policy has been that of an opportunist, at the best,—or an obstructionist, at the worst. As in all other industries which affect the welfare of the people, reforms have been forced from the outside, with no help from within. Of course this is equally true of insurance and railroad ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... 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 their blessed language. It has ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... was entertained at the Philipse house, the Plaza not having then been built. Mary was twenty, pink and lissome. Immediately after supper, George, finding himself alone in the parlor with the girl, proposed. He was an opportunist. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... tenets are at many points so rational that they command wide support among people who do not bear the party name. Throughout a generation the party has grown steadily more practical in its demands and more opportunist in its tactics. Instead of opposing reforms undertaken on the basis of existing institutions, as it once was accustomed to do, in the hope of bringing about the establishment of a socialistic state by one grand coup, it labors for such reforms as are adjudged ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... touring by automobile are many: to see the country, to travel agreeably, to be independent of railways, and to be an opportunist—that is to say to be able to fly off at a tangent of fifty or a hundred kilometres at a moment's notice, in order to take in some fete or fair, or ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... "Yet the opportunist arrives; and to arrive is the main thing, after all—at least I imagine so.—Now I really cannot stay here any longer giving you priceless advice; but must take the General his newspapers.—By the way, did Sir Charles ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to settle upon 49 degrees, which limit the rapid growth of our population in the region induced England in 1836 to accept. Whether Polk's blustering demand for "all Oregon," which came near bringing on war with England, and his much condemned recession later, were mere opportunist acts, is still a question. Many consider them pieces of a deep-laid policy by Polk to tole Mexico to war in hope of England's aid, then, suddenly pacifying England, to ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... accident—the unprincipled opportunist of a godling who rules these matters will league himself with any chance—that the Tyro's eyes fell upon her hand, which lay, pink and warmly half-curled in her lap, and remained there. It certainly was not accident that the ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ideals of Mamie Magen, for the fine, strained, hysterical enthusiasms of Walter Babson, as an enchantment of thought which she was dispelling in her effort to become a "good, sound, practical business woman." Mr. Fein's drab opportunist philosophy disappointed her. Yet, in contrast to Mr. Schwirtz, Mr. Truax, and Chas., he was hyperbolic; and after their dinner she was gushingly happy to be hearing the opportunist melodies of "Il ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... lover and children to maintain, to say nothing of her own luxurious habits, Anne Turner would see in the Countess's appeal a chance to turn more than one penny into the family exchequer. She was too much the opportunist to let any consideration of old acquaintance interfere with working such a potential gold-mine as now seemed to lie open to her pretty but prehensile fingers. Lady Essex was rich. She was also ardent in her desire. The game was too big for Anne to play single-handed. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... be given up as the votes in dispute were too many. Revenge was taken on the electors. Gendarmes, in the communes, investigated the conduct of the cures, forest-guard, and storekeeper. The hospital doctor, a conservative, was replaced by an opportunist. The tax-comptroller, a man of the district, and of suspicious zeal, was sent far into the west. Every functionary who, on the even of the election, did not have a contrite look, was threatened with dismissal. A road-surveyor was regarded as having been lukewarm, and accordingly put on the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... same Principle for or against a matter. He is so erratic that he can be adduced as authority by both sides to a controversy. The Catholic may succeed with certain people in getting rid of Luther on the claim that his is a confused mind, and that in weighty affairs he adopts the policy of the opportunist. Most men will demand a better explanation of the seeming self-contradiction in Luther's attitude toward the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Frankly, I'm an opportunist; essentially, a practical sort of fellow. I have a great admiration for idealists, but a much greater admiration for results. For instance, I have seldom given my word, even though the matter is unimportant; for I will cheerfully break my word if, later ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint |
