"Unprincipled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... woman from the state of degradation to which she had, for ages, been subjected—when we consider not only what it has done, but what it is destined yet to do for her advancement,—it is impossible not to shrink from the presence of an impious, and above all an unprincipled atheistical female, as from an ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... for sale were not always honest, and they often charged for more than they delivered. James, in measuring their loads, soon found out that his master was being systematically robbed. He put an end to such unprincipled conduct, and thereby still further increased ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... upon one that after all it is a matter for debate whether the Reformation was a "progressive" movement at all: whether it did not in reality delay progression. For it is well known to-day that it was really managed by the machinations of one of the most selfish and unprincipled of kings [Footnote: Whose conduct at this time largely hinged on the refusal of the Pope to grant him his wished-for divorce from Katherine.]—who was only progressive in the matter of wives—and by his ministers, who were, many of them, men of vile ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... course just a trifle, but was now heading straight for the unprincipled schemer, who would have taken the chances of seriously injuring some of the party in order to ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... my only child, and the proud and unblemished name of a noble family, have been wellnigh wrecked; but my profound reverence for your holy office, persuades me to believe that you were unconsciously the dupe of unprincipled and designing parties. When my son Cuthbert entered —— University, he was all that my fond heart desired, all that his sainted mother could have hoped, and no young gentleman on the wide Continent gave fairer promise of future usefulness and distinction; but one year of demoralizing ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Lomen in the first Great Adventure the Wonder Workers had undertaken; and Ben bitterly regretted that he could not also have been one of the brave knights who had so valorously risen in defense of the weak and distressed against the strong and unprincipled. ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... Stephen Watson to be unprincipled," he said, "but I didn't think him as bad as that. He has ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... otherwise obtaining, a place of dignity and a means of livelihood. That it necessarily involved a profession of the Roman Catholic religion was sufficient to condemn it in the eyes of Hyde, as at once unprincipled and impolitic. With the Duke's immediate advisers such considerations counted ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... his bed with the painful conviction that he must kill his intelligent but unprincipled four-footed friend. It is said nothing will cure a dog of the habit ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... were hung out in heaven to shew the republicans that the balance of Divine will had turned, and that their duty was submission. "Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum—" The only sign vouchsafed to them was the conversion of an unprincipled debauchee. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... gesticulations, "how the rude contact of a plebeian fist with my tender skin must have impressed me. Really gentlemen, I was so surprised that I literally lost my balance. I was, as you are no doubt aware, merely asserting my rights as a free citizen to protest against the presumptions of the unprincipled oligarchy which is at present ruling this fair city. My case is exactly parallel to that of Caius Gracchus, who, I admit, reaped a ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... injustice of his conduct by giving it a pretty long one. My opinion now, as you are anxious to know it, is, that it was a lady, a sweetheart of Aristotle's; for what was to hinder Aristotle having a sweetheart? I dare say Thomas Aquinas, dry and arid as he was, raised his unprincipled eyes to some Neapolitan beauty, began a sonnet to some lady's eyebrow, though he might forget to finish it. And my belief is that this lady, ambitious as Semele, wished to be introduced as an eternal jewel into the great vault of her lover's immortal Philosophy, which was ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... other as well as Henry and myself. I always read his motives through the veil which he flung over them, and which, perhaps, concealed them sometimes from himself. He was a practical artist; his own life was the canvass on which he worked; and that was the reason why, with a selfish heart and an unprincipled mind, he possessed all the graces of emotion, all the charms of feeling. This letter (clever and well aimed as it was—for it touched upon the very wound which had been rankling in my heart during ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... that he was informed of everything, and of manifesting his august disapproval. It needed only a word of admonition to Paula, and she at once recognised how improper it would be to hold further relations with so unprincipled a man. So they turned away, and, in the vulgar phrase, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... or more miles away I would have taken a berth in the sleeper, but we were due there at 2 o'clock, so I dozed and nodded and swore to myself during the two hours' ride. I wanted to get there, but I dreaded it, too. Stories I had heard traveling men tell about poor beds, mean men, dirty food, and unprincipled competitors all came back to me in a distorted fashion, and if I didn't have a nightmare I must have experienced a ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... his young rival for the possession of the throne, is superlatively masterly: the cautious criminal hardly ventures to say to himself what he wishes the other to do. The young and amiable prince becomes a sacrifice of unprincipled ambition: his fate excites the warmest sympathy. When Hubert, about to put out his eyes with the hot iron, is softened by his prayers, our compassion would be almost overwhelming, were it not sweetened by the winning ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... ground of general condemnation of the stage, than the works of lord Rochester can be set up as a reason for condemning Milton, Pope, Thomson, Goldsmith, and all our other poets, or the innumerable murders committed by unprincipled quacks, be alleged as a cause for abolishing the whole practice ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... of evil, smart equally under thy rod. Owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies as usual bring him to want; and when his unprincipled necessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. His early follies and extravagance, are spirit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... brother-in-law, a member of the Claudian family, a patrician of the patricians, and connected by blood and marriage with the proudest members of the Senate. If Cicero is to be believed, he had graduated even while a boy in every form of vice, natural and unnatural. He was bold, clever, unprincipled, and unscrupulous, with a slender diminutive figure and a delicate woman's face. His name was Clodius Pulcher. Cicero played upon it and called him Pulchellus Puer, "the pretty boy." Between this promising ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... their servants, being old hands or expiree convicts from New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, are thoroughly unprincipled men." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Earl of Bristol, was one of the most prominent figures at the court of George II. He had been made vice-chamberlain of the royal household in 1730, and was the intimate friend and confidential adviser of Queen Caroline. Clever, affable, unprincipled, and cynical, he was a perfect type of the Georgian courtier to whom loyalty, patriotism, honesty, and honor were so many synonyms for folly. He was effeminate in habits and appearance, but notoriously licentious; he affected to scoff at learning but made some pretense to literature, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... EFFECTING A CURE. Reader, if you suffer from chronic nasal catarrh, do not expect to be very speedily cured, especially if your case is one of long standing. Unprincipled quacks and charlatans, who possess no knowledge of disease, or medicine either, and whose sole design is to palm off upon you a bottle or two of some worse than worthless strong, caustic solution, irritating ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... residence; he likewise learns from the same person much of the secret history of the Roman See, and many matters connected with the origin and progress of the Popish superstition. The individual with whom he holds these conversations is a learned, intelligent, but highly-unprincipled person, of a character however very common amongst the priests of Rome, who in general are people void of all religion, and who, notwithstanding they are tied to Rome by a band which they have neither the power nor wish to break, turn her ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... unprincipled libertine, cold, selfish, and unfeeling. He was eminently successful too in his diabolical enterprise, although there was nothing prepossessing in his person or in his manners; but he had the reputation of being irresistible, and of course he was so; for, whatever may be the reason, it is a most ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... was a silly, romantic, headstrong girl,—my parents were compelled to go abroad, and I was left in the charge of one of my mother's society friends—a thoroughly worldly, unprincipled woman whose life was made up of intrigue and gambling. And I ran ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... various other acts of violence were projected and supported by the Governor and a junto of unprincipled men, amongst whom it was well known and has since been proved, the notorious George Crossley, sent to this colony for perjury, was the principal person, and the one most confided in ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... very wicked young man; that he has no right to be in her company, to be standing there with her, all alone. Yes; he's a very wicked, unprincipled young fellow." ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Britain. This statute, even more objectionable than the law of Poynings, continued unrepealed till 1782, notwithstanding all the arguments and all the protests of the Irish patriot party. The Lords of Ireland, unsupported by the bigoted and unprincipled oligarchy in the Commons, were shorn of their appellate jurisdiction, and their journals for many years contain few entries of business done, beyond servile addresses to successive Viceroys, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... celebrated in the city for successfully managing the most intractable cases, and securing the most princely fees. If a rich criminal were brought into straits before the law, he always sent for Mr. Cavendish. If the unprincipled managers of a great corporation wished to ascertain just how closely before the wind they could sail without being swamped, they consulted Mr. Cavendish. He was everywhere accounted a great lawyer by those who estimated acuteness to be ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... be confessed that her supreme calmness and incredible audacity saved her more than once. The Conde de Onis, the colossal man with a long beard, was a mere puppet in the hands of the bold, unprincipled little woman. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... operas she has seen, giving good descriptions of them. One of her letters is full of anxiety as to Allegra, who has been placed in the convent of Bagnacavallo by Byron. She feels that the child ought, as soon as possible, to be taken out of the hands of so "remorseless and unprincipled a man"; but advises caution and waiting for a favourable opportunity. She hopes that he may be returning to England. "He may be reconciled with his wife." At any rate, Bagnacavallo is high and in a healthy position, quite different from the dirty ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... lament, that subsequent events afforded proofs of the unfitness of the French people, at that period, for the blessings of a more popular government. It must also be admitted, that many who professed republicanism, and boasted of their regard to the people's rights were unprincipled and ambitious men, whom power had intoxicated, or who entertained views of government utterly inconsistent with the just authority of the laws, and the safety of individuals. Lafayette offered the declaration of the rights of man, at this period, for the sanction of the assembly: ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... having a stormy scene with Sumpter. The latter had of late grown bold and impetuous. Admitted in confidence to all Hardin's nefarious schemes and plottings, he gained a power over the wicked man, and began to exercise it with arbitrary sway. He was a reckless, unprincipled gambler, and, having recently encountered heavy losses, came with a ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... let me appeal to your pride. You are traveling with a hard crowd, a cruel pack, Miss Bettany's pack, and a silly lot of men like Jake Vanderveer. And you mustn't, my child. You just mustn't get hard and brazen. Couldn't you give up Miss Bettany? She's an absolutely unprincipled creature. She's bad, and you must know it. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... than bad, selfish rather than vicious. George Osborne braves the consequences of marrying poor Amelia Sedley, and yet prefers his own pleasure to that of his wife. Rawdon Crawley is ignorant, rude, and unprincipled, but yet is loving and faithful to Rebecca. Weakness, pettiness, self-deception were the main objects of Thackeray's satire. Where are the absurdities of youthful woman-worship held up to such derision as in Pendennis' love ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the Scylla of calling everything by one name, and recognising no individual existences of any kind, by falling into the Charybdis of having a name for everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp practice like that of the shrewd but unprincipled Ulysses. If we were consistent honourable gentlemen, into Charybdis or on to Scylla we should go like lambs; every subterfuge by the help of which we escape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... convince him, without wounding his self-love, was exactly the one which the young girl could not give him. She was, therefore, doomed to send Claudet away with the impression that he had been jilted by a heartless and unprincipled coquette. And yet something must be done. The grand chasserot had been too long already in the toils; there was something barbarously cruel in not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... not a queen of beauty and of fashion, leading the elite of society in London. Ah, no! she was a despised and neglected wife, wasting the flower of her youth in a remote and dreary coast castle, and daily insulted and degraded by the presence of an unprincipled rival. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... system consisted in the power to banish a man who had committed no offence at all. The loss of services and the expense of exiling a serf may have been a slight guarantee against this, but if the proprietor were an unprincipled tyrant or a sensualist, (and he might be both,) there was no protection for his subjects. It has happened that the best man on an estate incurred the displeasure of his owner and went to Siberia in consequence. Exile is a severe punishment ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... complaints and requests, the English had failed to punish unprincipled white men who had done wrong ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... was utterly unselfish. That she was nothing to him but a friend and never would be, and that while it might be hard to see her belong to some fine man and know he never might be more than a passing friend, still it would not be like seeing her tied to a rotten unprincipled fellow like Wainwright. The queer part of it was that the word "rotten" in connection with his enemy played a great part in his ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... ask you for some more sooner than I otherwise might have done, and you will also have to buy me a new watch and a knife." But then fancy the consternation which such an announcement would have occasioned! Fancy the scowl and flashing eyes of the infuriated Theobald! "You unprincipled young scoundrel," he would exclaim, "do you mean to vilify your own parents by implying that they have dealt harshly by one whose profligacy ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... upon the right shoulders! I certainly intend to teach Aleck to read. I certainly won't tell Mr. —— anything about it. I'll leave him to find it out, as slaves, and servants and children, and all oppressed, and ignorant, and uneducated and unprincipled people do; then, if he forbids me I can stop—perhaps before then the lad may have learnt his letters. I begin to perceive one most admirable circumstance in this slavery: you are absolute on your own plantation. No slaves' testimony avails against you, and no white testimony exists but ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... in less than a week Israel found himself at Portsmouth, and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty's ship of the line, "Unprincipled," scudding before the wind down channel, in company with the "Undaunted," and the "Unconquerable;" all three haughty Dons bound to the East Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... inclinations regard the dance-hall as a favorable place to betray unsuspecting girls and frequent it for that very purpose. Their victims are usually the sweetest and most trusting girls. Their beauty attracts undesirable attention, and their ignorance makes them an easy prey. O Bessie, there are so many unprincipled men in the world who love to win and betray the confidence of young ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... flash Mr. Twist realized what he had come for,—it was solely to see and talk to the twins. He must have noticed them at the Cosmopolitan, and come out just for them. Just for that. "Unprincipled old scoundrel," said Mr. Twist under his breath, his ears flaming. Aloud he said, "As I was telling you—" and went on distractedly ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... tyrant's life, and in his later years he lived in continual apprehension and distress. His fate, however, was still more striking as an illustration of the manner in which the old age of ambitious and unprincipled men is often embittered by the ingratitude and wickedness of their children. Agathocles had a grandson named Archagathus, who, if all the accounts are true, brought the old king's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The story is too shocking to be fully believed, but it is said ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not unaware that many people in Kirton frowned on him as an unprincipled deceiver, or, at best, a fickle light-o'-love; he would have been much more surprised, and also more displeased, to know that there was even one who thought of him as a deluded innocent, and had determined ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... the first offices of state, wielding the whole power of the mightiest kingdom of the Continent, absorbing its revenues, directing its armies, and moving in the rank of princes among the proud hereditary sovereignties of the world. To the crowd of unprincipled men, engendered by the habits of European life, and their consciousness of abilities fully equal to those which had won such opulent enjoyments and lofty distinctions in France, the success of the Revolution was an universal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the wish of hunting with Mr. Vernon, and of course I cannot receive that pleasure from the length of his visit which my brother's company would otherwise give me. I am, indeed, provoked at the artifice of this unprincipled woman; what stronger proof of her dangerous abilities can be given than this perversion of Reginald's judgment, which when he entered the house was so decidedly against her! In his last letter he actually gave me some particulars of her behaviour at Langford, such ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... came when it was finished, and a success. Then one of the largest stockholders of the railroad, an unprincipled man, planned a plot. At first his fellow stockholders would not agree to it, but he persuaded them, painting the ruin of their railroad, and saying only slight damage would be done to ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... and has found his advantage in it. But I cannot help always thinking, that if Bonaparte had fairly encountered among his adversaries a man of character and probity, he would have been stopped short in his career. His great talent lies in terrifying the feeble, and availing himself of unprincipled characters. When he encounters honour any where, it may be said that his artifices are disconcerted, as evil spirits are conjured by ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... I was firmly determined—I was not going to allow myself to sleep. I firmly believed in Baxter's good intentions—in spite of his record, strange and shady by his own admission, there was something in him that won confidence; he was unprincipled, without doubt, and the sort of man who would be all the worse if resisted, being evidently naturally wayward, headstrong, and foolishly obstinate, but like all bad men, he had good points, and one of his seemed ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... fatal follies the King was artfully encouraged by a minister who had been an Exclusionist, and who still called himself a Protestant, the Earl of Sunderland. The motives and conduct of this unprincipled politician have often been misrepresented. He was, in his own lifetime, accused by the Jacobites of having, even before the beginning of the reign of James, determined to bring about a revolution in favour of the Prince of Orange, and of having, with that view, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for fear she would put out a palmist's sign, or a notice of seances at twenty-five cents a head. Esther knew she could get no help from grandmother. When she sought it, with tears in her eyes, begging grandmother to turn the unprincipled old witch out for good, grandmother only pulled the sheet up to her ears ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... he smoothed her hair back from her face. "Remember, I am not deceiving myself, Diana," he said huskily. "I have acted like a selfish, unprincipled brute. If I had not, in Washington, let you see that I cared, you would have ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... bring you to see how unlikely it is that a sensible, superior woman could really attach herself to a mere lad. An unprincipled person might pretend it for the sake of your property—a silly one might like you because you are good-looking and well-mannered; but neither would ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was among the students who came almost every day. He made love to her from the start, and one day attempted liberties which she was prompt to resent in a way he did not relish. After that he let her alone. She never liked the man. She knew him to be unprincipled as well as vicious. One night he brought Howard Jeffries to the restaurant. They seemed the closest of cronies and she was sorry to see what bad influence the elder sophomore had over the young freshman, to whom she was at once attracted. Every time they came ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... life which connected me with my brother William,—this certainly was memorable to myself,—and, secondly, the visit of a most eccentric young woman, who, about nine years later, drew the eyes of all England upon herself by her unprincipled conduct in an affair affecting the life of two Oxonian undergraduates. She was the daughter of Lord Le Despencer, (known previously as Sir Francis Dashwood;) and at this time (meaning the time of her visit to Greenhay) ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ran away," said the very satisfied one. "Funny they should let a man as unprincipled and dangerous as Haywood slip through their hands after sending him ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia, from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and it was an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to the most debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, and thus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... a thousand. Suppose he should be arrested and the story get into the papers? How his stepmother would exult in the record of his disgrace! He could anticipate what she would say. Peter, too, would rejoice, and between them both his father would be persuaded that he was thoroughly unprincipled. ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... entirely different from that of Gogol, he was born not far from the latter's beloved Ukraine. He came honestly by the patrician quality that unconsciously animated all his books, for his family was both ancient and noble. His mother was wealthy, and in 1817 was married to a handsome, unprincipled military officer six years younger than herself. Their life together was an excellent example of the exact opposite of domestic bliss, and in treating the boy like a culprit, they transformed him—as always happens in similar cases—into a severe judge of their ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... regarded as speaking the high-toned sentiments of American churchmen, contained an elaborate article, as early as in 1839, in which the conduct of Congress, reference to the famous "British Authors' petition," was severely rebuked, and criticised as scandalously unprincipled and disgraceful. About the same time, under cover of its provincial blue and yellow, the North American, or, as Mr Cooper calls it, the East American came out in defence of justice as toweringly as even Maga herself. The "British Authors' petition" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... whom I considered friends, and in whom I had placed implicit confidence, was what first led me to and induced me to prefer this mode of life, to any of a less criminal nature—but, although I voluntarily became the associate of a band of wretches the most wicked and unprincipled perhaps on earth, yet I solemnly declare that I have not in any one instance personally deprived an innocent fellow creature of life. It was an act of barbarity at which my heart ever recoiled, and ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... publicity would wound the sensitive feelings of friends, who would have to share her disgrace, without being responsible for her faults. I simply record the incident to show how I often was approached by unprincipled parties. It is unnecessary to say that I indignantly refused every ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... of Christendom, from the unscrupulousness of the private associations that now control the monetary affairs, and regulate the transit of persons and property, in almost every civilized country. More than one American State is literally governed by unprincipled corporations, which not only defy the legislative power, but have, too often, corrupted even the administration of justice. The tremendous power of these associations is due not merely to pecuniary corruption, but partly to an old legal superstition—fostered ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... perceived that Elma was in real trouble. With all her low, idle, careless, and unprincipled ways, at the bottom of her heart she was fond of her sister. She made up her mind to visit Sam Raynes that evening and get him to return ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... my kind sir, heartless, unprincipled creatures. I did them many favors, and then they went and related a batch of falsehoods to ruin me. I have always been too kind ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... suspension for three months changed into a severer one, and of an indefinite period. The annals of the most arbitrary government in the world—the history of the most despotic tyrant that ever lived—could not show an instance of more unprincipled violation of law and justice than this. And yet it may naturally be the result of the doctrine, that in a sentence of definite suspension, the party can be restored only by a vote of the lodge at the expiration of his term of ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... whispered together again, and laid their plans, which were quite as deep, and quite as wicked, as the most unprincipled could desire. ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... to Miles McLaren. He is a brilliant fellow when he chooses to work—one of the brightest intellects of the university; but he is wayward, dissipated, and unprincipled. He was nearly expelled over a card scandal in his first year. He has been idling all this term, and he must look forward with ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... course she would be told that it was her duty to give him up. Of course she would give him up unless he could get such a hold upon her heart as to make her doing so impossible to her. She would have to learn that he was an unprincipled spendthrift,—nay worse than that, as he hardly scrupled to tell himself. But he need not weight his own character with the further burden of cowardice. The Baronet could not eat him, and he would not be afraid ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... least equal strength contributed to promote persecution. The pure and spiritual religion of the New Testament was distasteful to the human heart, and its denunciations of wickedness in every form stirred up the malignity of the licentious and unprincipled. The faithful complained that they suffered for neglecting the worship of the gods, whilst philosophers, who derided the services of the established ritual, escaped with impunity. [309:1] But the sophists were not likely ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... right to be justly dealt with, at the hands of those with whom it is connected by the double alliance of kindred predilection. A pernicious, temporizing policy has of late caused such wounds as may not be healed up very easily, we fear. The upright colonist has seen an unprincipled faction permitted to ride triumphant over those whose intentions are honest, and whose loyalty is proven. Let us hope, that ere long something of the chivalrous generosity of other days will pervade ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... clever one, with strong traits, both of character and talent, that ought to have made it the most successful of ruling races, and would have made it so, if its chiefs could have learned to march with the times. They had to contend, in Scotland, with one of the fiercest and most unprincipled aristocracies that ever tried the patience and traversed the purposes of monarchs who really aimed at the good government of their people; and the idiosyncrasy contracted during more than two centuries of Scottish rule clung ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... man will not accept bribes and will give justice." Indeed, it may be said that the chief difficulty which confronts the Government in its great work is that of saving the people from low, mercenary and unprincipled native officials—especially those of the lower and ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... not help despising him for the slighting and insulting way in which he had spoken of Kitty McKenzie, who, he felt, was far too true and lovely a girl to throw herself away upon such a flippant and unprincipled fellow. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... off to great advantage by the fringe of green boulevard along the river bank,—a fine enough setting for an architectural monument of whatever rank, be it new or old, consistent or conglomerate. As for the classification of the architectural style of the cathedral itself, it is an unprincipled mixture of components, but little related to each other. The southern influence is apparent, alike in the scanty remains of the Romanesque, and the restored Renaissance portions, while Gothic peeps out here and there, in no mean proportions, as though it were misplaced and out of its ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... from recent events and an examination of the condition of Ireland some better grounds for the passion they display. It is noticeable that such reproaches come more often from the so-called Liberal Unionists than from the present Ministry. Perhaps, with their belief that all Liberals are unprincipled revolutionaries, the Tories deem a sin more or less to be of small account. Perhaps a recollection of their own remarkable gyrations, before and after the General Election of 1885, may suggest that the less said about the past the better for everybody. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... and referred in passing to "its accursed fecundity." It also strongly resented the omission of the Apocrypha from the Scio Bible. Borrow promptly replied to this attack in a letter of great length, and entirely silenced his antagonist, whom he described to Mr Brandram (20th Nov.) as "an unprincipled benefice-hunting curate." "You will doubtless deem it too warm and fiery," he writes, referring to his reply, "but tameness and gentleness are of little avail when surrounded by the vassal slaves of bloody Rome." {212a} Borrow's response to the "benefice-hunting ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... much disturbed, and with good reason. Arnold Baxter had been an enemy to Mr. Rover for years, and this meant a good deal when the desperate character of the man was taken into consideration. He was a well-educated fellow, but cruel and unprincipled to the last degree, and one who would hesitate at nothing in order to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... associate whatever is odious in hypocrisy or base in craft with the name Pharisee, while really it was the most distinguished title among the Jews. Many of the Pharisees were hypocrites; not all of them. The name is significant of profession, not of character. He could not have been an unprincipled, villanous man, or he would never have tendered to Jesus the hospitalities of his house. Indeed, Christ allows him, in the sense of moral indebtedness, to owe but fifty pence. He was probably a rich man, which might appear from the generous entertainment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a woman who was probably responsible at that very moment—as a prominent organiser in the employ of the society contriving them—for some of the worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... diminished. Let us oppose any rash or undue alteration, from whatever quarter it may come; but, above all, let us resist to the uttermost the attempts of selfish Leaguers and the more reckless portion of the Whigs, whose interested or unprincipled policy would overlook all those large and deep-seated considerations, which in every view require so much management, and such nice computation, before any thing can be done in so momentous a matter as the providing permanently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of an army. However, everyone thinks that the senate has had a regard for your position. For there is no one that is ignorant of the fact that it was all the doing of your opponents that no division took place: and if they, under the pretext of a regard for the people, but really from the most unprincipled villainy, attempt to carry anything, I have taken very good care that they shall not be able to do so without violating the auspices or the laws, or, in fact, without absolute violence. I don't think I need write a word either about my own zeal or the injurious proceedings of certain persons. ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... agencies of summer's heat could superadd to those of frost and winter. To this sequel of their story we shall immediately revert, after first noticing a little romantic episode which occurred at this point between Oubacha and his unprincipled cousin Zebek-Dorchi. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... were proved to be slaves, and the other seven were discharged. This decision greatly exasperated the Southerners, and they vented their anger in very violent expressions. The constables employed were unprincipled men, ready for any low business, provided it were profitable. The man-hunters had engaged to give them fifty dollars for each slave they were enabled to take back to Virginia; but they were to receive ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... unprincipled manner to me—that Fitz-Warene," said Lord Milford, "always took my bouquets and once made me ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Sherwood, "this may be merely a scheme by unprincipled people to filch small sums of money from gullible people. The 'foreign legacy swindle' is worked in many different ways. There may be calls for money, by this man who names himself Andrew Blake, for preliminary work on the case. We haven't ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... her teaching in my own way, that certain passages of one of my Volumes have been brought into the general accusation which has been made against my religious opinions. The writer has said that I was demented if I believed, and unprincipled if I did not believe, in my own statement, that a lazy, ragged, filthy, story-telling beggar-woman, if chaste, sober, cheerful, and religious, had a prospect of heaven, such as was absolutely closed to an accomplished statesman, or lawyer, or noble, be he ever so just, upright, generous, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... till we have that vague but most melancholy notion which pervades the life of all elaborate civilization, that goodness and greatness, as we call them, are not to be looked for together, till we expect to see and so do see a feeble and narrow conscientiousness on the one hand, and a bad, unprincipled intelligence on the other, dividing the suffrages ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... cheatery, nor are they reckoned to the advantage of the debtor. These may be practices of experience, custom, and money-getting, but they are not rules of conscience. In truth, there is not a more painful scene than the ruin of a young man of family. There is so much vice and unprincipled waste opposed to indignant and rapacious clamour, often accompanied with idle jests. Here again is food for the vitiated appetites of scandalmongers, and that miserable but numerous portion of mankind, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 277, October 13, 1827 • Various
... surround me here, the weak, the vicious, the licentious of all the earth. A band of unprincipled adventurers, vile Canadians and half-breeds, all too lazy to work, or even to feed themselves out of the bountiful earth which would give everything we need almost for the asking. The air is full now of rumors of a Spanish war, and a Natchez-Chickasaw alliance. If these things ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... a corrected copy of the work into Mallet's hands for publication with an advertisement in which Pope is treated with contempt. He had not the courage to assail the memory of his friend openly, and hired an unprincipled man to do it. The poet had acted trickily, after his wonted habit, though in all likelihood with the design of doing Bolingbroke a service. It was a fault to be forgiven by a friend, but Bolingbroke, after nursing his ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... sate their thirst of gain, by the base and wicked arts of courts. Had my cousin shared the plunder of the war among these men, he had not fallen the martyr of their intrigues, and died in the Spielberg. His accusers were, generally, unprincipled men of ruined fortunes, and so insufficient were their accusations that a useful member of society ought not, for any or all of them, to have suffered an hour's imprisonment. Being fully informed, both of all the circumstances of the prosecution and the inmost secrets of his heart, justice requires ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... is one that is just now of special interest to the American housekeeper in Paris. I have elsewhere spoken of some of the trials inflicted by these accomplished but often unprincipled domestics on their masters and mistresses, so will not expatiate further on the subject. I will merely specify as a special grievance the law that forces the employer who discharges a servant to inscribe on his or her character-book a good character: should the departing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... unhappy Church. As year by year she saw the ruin of the Missions steadily going on, their vast properties melting away, like dew before the sun, in the hands of dishonest administrators and politicians, the Church powerless to contend with the unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved Franciscan Fathers driven from the country or dying of starvation at their posts, she submitted herself to what, she was forced to admit, seemed to be the inscrutable will of God for the discipline and humiliation of the Church. In a sort ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... sweet and touching on the part of Miss Fosby, so far as Miss Fosby alone was concerned. To her there was but one woman in the world, and that was Lady Wicketts. But the majority of people saw Lady Wicketts in quite another light. They knew she had been, in her time, as unprincipled as beautiful, and that she had 'gone the pace' more openly than most of her class. They beheld her now without spectacles,—an enormously fat woman, with a large round flaccid face, scarred all over by Time's ploughshare with such deep furrows that one might have ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... he was leaving aside the most powerful of all his motives, and one which demanded closest scrutiny. Not ambition, in any ordinary sense; not desire of material luxury; no incentive recognised by unprincipled schemers first suggested his dishonour. This edifice of subtle untruth had for its foundation a mere ideal of sexual love. For the winning of some chosen woman, men have wrought vehemently, have ruined ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... laws do exist," said Arthur, "where is the cause? You may trace it to the interference of meddling, and unprincipled men. They excite the minds of the slaves, and render these laws necessary for the very protection of our lives. But without this interference, there would be no such necessity. In this Walsh's Appeal, which is now open before me, you will find, where Abel left off reading, these remarks, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... improvement in many respects, and Duncan junior was of that heart-breaking character which is known as ne'er-do-weel. Possibly, if differently treated by his father, he might have been a better man. As it was, he was unprincipled and hasty ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... have known of his spending whole nights at the gaming table, and losing immense sums of money. He was intimate with an unprincipled set. Once he was mixed up with one of my clients, M. de Clameran, in a scandalous gambling affair which took place at the house of some disreputable woman, and wound up by being tried before the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... and his statesmanship. He was a Charlemagne made on a smaller scale, and without a conscience. Not one of the successors of Clovis or of Pepin had so intelligently grasped the sources of permanent growth in a nation. He may have been false of tongue and unprincipled in deed, but he took the free cities under his personal protection, opened up trade with foreign lands, beautified Paris and France. He may, under the cloak of religion, have permitted unjustifiable cruelties against the most innocent, the most gifted ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... with the President over certain appointments unacceptable to the New York senator; Guiteau pretended to think the removal of Mr. Garfield necessary to the unity of the party and the salvation of the country. The prosecution showed that Guiteau had long been an unprincipled adventurer, greedy for notoriety; that he first conceived of killing the President after his hopes of office were finally destroyed; and that he had planned the murder several weeks in advance. Guiteau was found guilty, and executed at Washington on June 30, 1882. The autopsy showed ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... was that had not her brother had in his possession a note from the captain asking him to come aboard, and had he not known the penalty for not returning a landsman to his port under such conditions, the unprincipled seaman would have carried him to Seattle, leaving Beth to shift for herself. He reached home on a gasoline schooner some ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... his uncle and aunt lived in that old and dilapidated house, and he did his best to keep the peace with them. In the most literal manner he returned good for evil. It is true he could not respect his uncle, or get up a very warm regard for him,—he was too mean, selfish, and unprincipled to win the respect and regard of any decent person,—but he could treat him ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... answered Barlasch, who, like many unprincipled persons, had soon found that a lie is much simpler ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... and impulsively clasped my hand. "Ruggles, dear old chap, I shan't know at all how to repay you. The Bohemian set, such as are possible, will be bound to come over to us. There will be left of it but one unprincipled woman—and she wretched and an outcast. She has made me absurd. I shall grind her under my heel. The east room shall be prepared for his lordship; he shall breakfast there if he wishes. I fancy he'll find us rather more like ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... astray; hug a sin, hug a fault; sow one's wild oats. render vicious &c. adj.; demoralize, brutalize; corrupt &c. (degrade) 659. Adj. vicious[1]; sinful; sinning &c.v.; wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal; naughty, incorrect; unduteous[obs3], undutiful. unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores[Lat], indecorous, unseemly, improper; dissolute, profligate, scampish; unworthy; worthless; desertless[obs3]; disgraceful, recreant; reprehensible, blameworthy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... policy: the butler should make it his business to understand the proper treatment of the different wines under his charge, which he can easily do from the wine-merchant, and faithfully attend to it; his own reputation will soon compensate for the absence of bribes from unprincipled wine-merchants, if he serves a generous and hospitable master. Nothing spreads more rapidly in society than the reputation of a good wine-cellar, and all that is required is wines well chosen and well cared for; and this a little knowledge, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... so exalted that, though they might have been cut to pieces, they could never have been defeated or routed. I pity our children when I reflect that their tranquillity and happiness will, perhaps, depend upon such a corrupt and unprincipled people of soldiers,—easy tools in the hands ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... say he was more than honest with the Tsar; Hinting that his becoming an ally Makes him accomplice of the Corsican In the unprincipled dark overthrow Of his poor trusting childish Spanish friends— ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the adventurers should pay to the Crown a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines. See Marshall's "Life of Washington," vol. i. pp. 18-66.] [Footnote b: A large portion of the adventurers, says Stith ("History of Virginia"), were unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees; and others of the same class, people more apt to pillage and destroy than to assist the settlement, were the seditious chiefs, who easily led this band into ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... receiving in like manner disposable scrip again. But the officers of the North-West must know that the half-breed people, in general, are constant-working, and are desirous of achieving comfort, and of affluence. Yet because of the acts of a few unprincipled, lazy wanderers, some will seek to convey the impression that the conduct of the small few is a type of ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... to future insults. He is not reformed; but, satiated with other enjoyments, and fascinated with your attractions, his feelings towards you are those of renewed inclination, and not arising from conviction, or remorse at his unprincipled career. You are happy at present—your refusal may, by stimulating his attentions, increase your happiness: but if you yield, it will only be a source of misery to you both. Such is my opinion. Do not let him know that I have influenced you, or it will interrupt an intimacy, which I shall ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... assurance, because, in addition to being unprincipled, he was in a manner ordained by election and birthright to rule over Kensington. His father had been one of those strong-willed, clear-visioned, intelligent young Eastern divinity students who brought to a place of ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... blind as some—the unprincipled jade!" he retorted. "But that's another thing I've heard about you, Mr. O'Mara, if you will pardon a garrulous old gossip's personalities. They tell ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat," there was related the incidents following a pursuit after a gang of unprincipled men, who sought to get Possession of some of Mr. Swift's patents, and it was while in this boat that Tom, his father, and a friend, Ned Newton, rescued from Lake Carlopa a Mr. John Sharp, who fell from his burning balloon. Mr. Sharp was a skilled aeronaut, and after his recovery he ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton |
