"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'I will never deny my Lord Christ!' and arising from his knees, he cried again with a loud voice, 'Well, then, I commit our cause to Almighty God, who shall indifferently judge all.' Whereto my master added his old posy [motto, maxim], 'Well, there is nothing hid but it shall be opened.' So that after they made them ready, and were fastened to the stake; and Mr Shipside brought two bags of gunpowder and tied around their necks. Then they brought a lighted faggot, and laid it at Dr Ridley's feet. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... organs—are constructed for their use; and the harmony of vocal and instrumental music is incessantly repeated in the palaces of Rome. In those palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to that of the mind. It is allowed as a salutary maxim that the light and frivolous suspicion of a contagious malady is of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends and even the servants who are dispatched to make the decent inquiries are not suffered to return home till they ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... up, during the War, between people divided by the barriers of class, or wealth, or circumstance. A statesman of the seventeenth century remarks that It is a Misfortune for a Man not to have a Friend in the World, but for that reason he shall have no Enemy. I might invert his maxim and say, It is a Misfortune for a Man to have many Enemies, but for that reason he shall know who are his Friends. No Radical member of Parliament will again, while any of us live, cast contempt on 'the carpet Captains of Mayfair'. No idle ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... that in climbing it is best to look up—a maxim that has been used for moral illustrations; but it is a mistake. In ascending a tree you should never look higher than the brim of your hat, unless when quite still and resting on a branch; temporary blindness would be the penalty in this case. Particles of decayed ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... to give him credit; but not for mercy; not for any of those divine gifts the loveliness of which was only beginning to be perceived in those days by some few who were in advance of their time. It was still the maxim of Rome that a "supplicatio" should be granted only when two thousand of the enemy should have been left on the field. We have something still left of the pagan cruelty about us when we send triumphant words of the numbers slain on the field of battle. We cannot but remember that Caesar ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... as soul, has declared that only the measurable and necessary remains in man. Thence has arisen the science of averages, pretending to foretell with mathematical certainty what a man must do under given circumstances. Thence also has arisen this maxim, so often quoted as final in all such questions, 'Every man has his price.' Perhaps there is some ground too for this opinion. We have before shown how, by division of labor, affection and volition have been abstracted from life, while only a formal performance of duties by ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... His instinct was not to go near the hospital for a week, when the affair would be no more thought of, but, because he hated so much to go just then, he went: he wanted to inflict suffering upon himself. He forgot for the moment his maxim of life to follow his inclinations with due regard for the policeman round the corner; or, if he acted in accordance with it, there must have been some strange morbidity in his nature which made him take a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... French samples are, I think, not very satisfactory. The subjects are almost all what are called classical: Orestes pursued by every variety of Furies; numbers of little wolf-sucking Romuluses; Hectors and Andromaches in a complication of parting embraces, and so forth; for it was the absurd maxim of our forefathers, that because these subjects had been the fashion twenty centuries ago, they must remain so in saecula saeculorum; because to these lofty heights giants had scaled, behold the race of pigmies must get upon stilts and jump at them likewise! ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... clear as to how, is not at all. Philosophers in general, who tolerate each other's theories much better than Christians do each other's failings, seldom revive Leibnitz's fantasy: they seem to act upon the maxim quoted by Father Eustace[91] from the {47} Decretals, Facinora ostendi dum puniuntur, flagitia autem ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... theory must be that some invisible person fired a silent shot"—the coroner paused a moment, then as if struck by a sudden thought—"of course, a Maxim muffler might have deadened ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... hark back to my boyhood days," said he, "and relate an incident in my early life, and its sequel when I attained man's estate. I suppose all of us have had experiences which have more than once brought home the weight of that bewhiskered old maxim—'Truth is stronger than fiction.' ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... such expedition, and said it was blackmail, and threatened to give me to the police if I did not leave the island in twenty-four hours—he was exceedingly rude. So I showed him receipts for ammunition and rifles and Maxim guns, and copies of the oath of allegiance to the expedition, and papers of the yacht, in which she was described as an armored cruiser, and he rapidly grew polite, even humble, and I made him apologize first, and then take me out to luncheon. That was the first day. The second day ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... by any object ere we have half traversed the world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence time! A better maxim that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... excess on either side; excessive indulgence is overwhelmed by its opposite, so is excessive abstinence; they co-operate, like two valves, for the destruction of the one-sided extremist. Truly Greek is the thought, for the Greek maxim above all others was moderation, no over-doing. Such then are the Plangctae, which Ulysses must avoid wholly, if he wishes to escape. Still, even the danger is by no ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... "an infusion from the will and the affections"; but they were all written with a whole sincerity and utter fervour; they rose from his hot heart, and rushed through the air "like rockets druv' by their own burnin'." Consequently his readers confess that he has never forgot the Horatian maxim— ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... waives the strong and full defence he had made upon stopping of an original writ, and deprecates all offence by that maxim of the law which admits of a mischief rather than an inconvenience: which was as much as to say, that he thought it a far less evil to do the lady the probability of an injury (in her own name) than to suffer those two courts to clash ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... gradually consented to form a commercial treaty. The crown had hitherto appropriated the property of strangers dying in the country. The purchase or display of costly goods by the subject had been interdicted, and a maxim exhibiting the whole jealousy of savage life had been established, that the stranger who once entered was never to depart from Abyssinia. By the articles of the commercial treaty, all those barbarous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... of prevention in time, I have found, Is worth pounds of remedy taken too late! And proof that the sense of my maxim is sound, Will shine where I ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... necessary, however, that the adopter should have no children of his own, and that he should be of such an age as to preclude reasonable expectation of any being born to him. Another limitation as to age was imposed by the maxim adoptio imitatur naturam, which required the adoptive father to be at least eighteen years older than the adopted children. According to the same maxim eunuchs were not permitted to adopt, as being impotent to beget children for themselves. Adoption was of two kinds according ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a shut-in valley, says the jongliere; but Manitou, who strides from peak to peak, knows there is more than one valley, which had been a maxim among the jonglieres long before one Danish gentleman assured another there were more things in heaven ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... above my mean profession, yet I have not omitted to cultivate my mind as much as I could, by reading books of science and history; and allow me, I beseech you, to say, that I have also read in another author a maxim which I have always happily followed: 'We conceal our secret from such persons only as are known to all the world to want discretion, and would abuse our confidence; but we hesitate not to discover it to the prudent, because we know that with them it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... may be added up indefinitely, that is, to infinity. Because a gymnast can leap over two horses, can his son leap over three? and his son over four? and his son over five? and can we in time breed a man who will leap to the moon? And yet the whole theory is based upon forgetfulness of the maxim, that there is a limit to all things, and of the fact, that in creatures of flesh and blood this ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... in mind in connection with "lock" and "draw," that the line of thrust as projected from the locked tooth of the escape wheel should be as near tangential as practicable. This maxim applies particularly to the entrance pallet. We would beg to add that practically it will make but little odds whether we plant the center of our pallet staff at C or h, Fig. 87, provided we ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... considered it immaterial, or to have been ignorant, that, in accordance with the maxim, "Once free, forever free," declared in the courts of his own State of Maryland, the courts of Louisiana held, as did those of Kentucky and other States also, that, "having been for one moment in France, it was not in the power of her former owner to reduce her again to slavery," and to have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Preoccupied with such a thought, they prompted their mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside, and asked him for the two places of honor for her sons.[2] Jesus evaded the request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall be humbled, and that the kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the lowly. This created some disturbance in the community; there was great discontent against James ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... simplicity of ancient times, and is so persistently adhered to that not only what is already dressed is immediately set before a traveler, but the most pressing business is postponed to prepare the best they can get for him, keeping it as a maxim that he must always be hungry. Of this we found the good effects in the flesh and bread they got ready for us." [Footnote: Bartram's Observations, &c, London edition, 1751, p. 16.] We have here a perfect illustration among the Delawares of the Iroquois ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... of this great over-grown Metropolis knows but little how the other is truly supported, is a Maxim, I believe, older than the Walls themselves; that a considerable number of Persons are daily employed and kept in constant pay to go about damaging and destroying all manner of wearing Apparel, when they can find an Opportunity of doing it without any Inconveniences to themselves, is a ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... to be anxious about living but about living well,'" said Miss Diana to a young man who prided himself upon being a philosopher "that is a maxim of Plato's but we can only carry it out by the help of the Lord, my boy." And he listened to Evadne's merry laugh as she pelted Hans with cherries while Gretchen dreamed of the Fatherland under the trees by the brook, and wondered whether after all the men who had made it their ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... do with this. He has a typically homely way of expressing it by one of his favorite maxims, one that he loves to repeat encouragingly to friends who are in difficulties themselves or who know of the difficulties that are his; and this heartening maxim is, "Trust in God ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... idea of ascertaining the truth? Men of science, Catholic and otherwise, have, as a mere matter of fact, been time and again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical authorities to go on searching for the truth, never, however, neglecting the wise maxim that all things must be proved. So long as a theory is unproved, it must be candidly admitted that it is a crime against science to proclaim it to be incontrovertible truth, yet this crime is being committed every ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... Dieu t'aidera" is an old French maxim, but the Spaniards chose to attribute their deliverance from their Chinese rivals to the friendly intervention of Saint Andrew. This Saint was declared thenceforth to be the Patron Saint of Manila, and in his honour High Mass was celebrated in the Cathedral at 8 a.m. on the 30th of each November. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... we reach When promisers are ne'er deceivers; When parsons practice what they preach, And seeming saints are all believers, Then the old maxim you may vary, And say no more, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... handsome Italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been Maxim guns I should ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... had well advanced toward those perfected triumphs which give distinction to this century. Electric lighting was well understood, the Jablochkoff and Jamin lamps were then in use, the incandescent and Maxim light, or arc light were employed, and indeed the panic caused by Edison's premature announcement of the solution of the incandescent system of lighting had then preceded by two years, the excellent results of Mr. Swan in England in the same field. Edison's first carbon light and his original ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... that, Jim. The only way my organization can keep in power is by continually beating the drums, keeping our people stirred up to greater and greater sacrifices by using you as a threat. Didn't the old Romans have some sort of maxim to the effect that when you're threatened with unease at home stir ...
— Summit • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... man who assisted the Merry Widow to make her debut. Also was the press agent for Mr. Maxim, of Paris. Ambition: To find ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... multitude of children.' As to Leicester, Cecil writes 'Nuptiae carnales a laetitia incipiunt, et in luctu terminantur'— 'Weddings of passion begin in joy and end in grief.' This is not a reference, as Mr. Froude thought, to the marriage of Amy and Dudley, it is merely a general maxim, applicable to a marriage between Elizabeth and Leicester. The Queen, according to accounts from all quarters, had a physical passion or caprice for Leicester. The marriage, if it occurred, would be nuptiae ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... deceive us; for they shew one of the principal Persons of the Drama to be as incredulous, in Relation to the Appearance of Phantoms, as we can be; but that he is at last convinc'd of his Error by the Help of his Eyes. For it is a Maxim entirely agreeable to Truth, if we consider human Nature, that whatever is supernatural or improbable, is much more likely to gain Credit with us, if it be introduced as such, and talk'd of as such by the Persons of the Drama, but at last prov'd to be true, tho' an extraordinary ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... rock most to be avoided is ridicule.—"At least, let us be affectionate in public," ought to be the maxim of a married establishment. For both the married couple to lose honor, esteem, consideration, respect and all that is worth living for in society, is ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... a practical people. They have a living faith in the potency of the Horse-Guards, and in the maxim that "Safe bind is sure find." They have a sincere affection for roast beef. They are quite sure "the mob" will do no harm if it is vigilantly watched and thoroughly overawed. Their obstreperous loyalty might seem inconsistent ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... our political opportunity is trammelled only so far as we have trammelled it by our greed and falsehood; and in this aspect the psychology of Mr. White offers the strongest contrast to that of the latest Russian master in fiction. Maxim Gorky's wholly hopeless study of degeneracy in the life of "Foma Gordyeeff" accuses conditions which we can only imagine with difficulty. As one advances through the moral waste of that strange book one slowly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... country, swept away. There is hardly anybody anywhere who now adheres to the doctrine that a married woman can not make a contract, and that she has no rights or liabilities except those which are centered in her husband. Even the old Common-Law maxim that "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband," has been largely modified under the influence of these patriotic, earnest ladies who have taken hold of this question and enlightened the world upon it. There are now in the vaults of this Capitol hundreds of thousands ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... it has often been said, is common-sense; and though there may be a sense in which that maxim is not strictly verifiable, yet in a broad and general way its applicability has never been and cannot be disputed. And, therefore, gentlemen, your common-sense will agree with me when I say that it is a lawful ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... education was definitively settled, and that she was henceforth to remain under the paternal roof. I should, myself, have fallen into the same error, had not a long and intimate acquaintance with the female sex generated and cherished a profound and mournful conviction of the truth of the maxim, that appearances are deceitful. E.g., a woman has set her heart on something, and is refused. She pouts and sulks: that is clouds, and will soon blow over. She scolds, storms, and raves (I speak in a figure; I mean she does something as much like that as a tender, delicate, angelic woman can): ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... pregnant maxim for others; for he himself was overcome by his bashfulness, and granted her one day more, and so was the undoing of his family. And some, when they suspected murder or poison, have failed through it to take precautions for their safety. Thus perished Dion, not ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... very generally pursued by successive Administrations, has been crowned with almost complete success, and has elevated our character among the nations of the earth. To do justice to all and to submit to wrong from none has been during my Administration its governing maxim, and so happy have been its results that we are not only at peace with all the world, but have few causes of controversy, and those of minor importance, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... heard an English maxim," wrote Colonel De Grapion to his kinsman, "which I would recommend you to put into practice—'Fight the devil ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that where the voting register ends the military roster of rebellion begins; and if you leave these four million people to the care and custody ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... questions amongst Christians themselves, and not between them and others. The doctrine itself is by no means necessary to the belief of Christianity, which must, in the first instance at least, depend upon the ordinary maxim of historical credibility. (See Powell's ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... of astonishing phenomena amazed their wondering eyes. He made them see, touch, taste, handle, and smell, and always "the hand assisted the word," always "the example accompanied the precept," for no one more fully valued the profound maxim, so neglected and misunderstood, that "to ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... ignorant of the good old maxim that the early bird gets the worm, and the few hours' daylight they enjoy during the winter months makes it doubly necessary for them to observe this precept. We were all up a good hour before sunrise, my companion making ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... a fine landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make this harmless young sensualist tipsy with pleasure. He seemed to derive an actual hilarity and intoxication as his eye drank in these sights; and, though it was his maxim that all dinners were good, and he could eat bread and cheese and drink small beer with perfect good-humour, I believe that he found a certain pleasure in a bottle of claret, which most men's systems were incapable ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... authority; and the reasons for the doctrine are clear and incontrovertible. Neutrality depends on the fact of war; when, for any cause, that fact no longer exists, neutrality ceases likewise, of course. It is only the application of a well-known maxim of law, that when the reason of a rule fails, the rule itself fails. Let there be 'a cessation of hostilities,' then, as proposed in the Chicago platform, and how long would it be before rebel ships of war from English ports would be ready to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... are the life and soul of the strategical offensive." That maxim reads well but, in practice, it is important to provide against being surprised by the other fellow before you spring your surprise ...
— A Battery at Close Quarters - A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, - October 6, 1909 • Henry M. Neil
... by the success which attended it. Had it resulted disastrously, as it ought to have done, it would have been a serious blow to Lee's military prestige. The "nothing venture, nothing have" principle applies to it better than any maxim of tactics. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... you measure it?"—with sarcasm. "Do you remember the maxim we used to write in copybooks? 'Measure a thousand times, and cut once?' One has ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... our fare. Particularly the Cigarette, for I tried to make believe that I was amused with the adventure, tough beefsteak and all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have been flavoured by the look of the other people's bread-berry. But we did not find it so in practice. You may have a head-knowledge that other people live more poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable—I was going to say, it is against the etiquette ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the law of combinations. The old maxim was, Corpora non agunt nisi soluta. If two substances, a and b, are inclosed in a glass vessel, c, we do not expect the glass to change them, unless a or b or the compound a b has the power of dissolving the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... one other, and a very great, failing observable in literary men—and this is severity and self-consequence. You will find that these severe characters generally set up the trade of Critics; without attending to the just maxim of Pope, that ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... stroll along the Rue Royale, among the jewellers' and milliners' shops and Maxim's, glance up at the Madeleine, down at the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. Little over a hundred years ago, this was the brief distance between life and death for those who one minute were dancing in the "Temple of Victory," ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults; he is too well employed to ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... got in. Our passages both ways were pleasant and safe, and I stuck by the craft, endeavouring to be less thoughtless and careless about myself. I cannot say, however, I had any very serious plans for making provision for old age, my maxim being to ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... operation all persons who are not in the maturity of their faculties, as well as all those backward nations who are not capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. The condition of society in which alone this liberal maxim will be safe and appropriate, must be that of a people so far elevated and enlightened, that persuasion and conviction are the most powerful means of improvement. Wherever is to be found an advanced civilization, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... alone; sheep will follow sheep; So this little maxim I would have ye keep: Would ye conquer all men, make a fool of one— The rest will turn toward thee, as lilies to ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... to kill. materia matter. materialmente really, actually. Matias Mathias. matinal of the morning, matutinal. matiz m. shade (of color), tint. matorral m. briery place, thicket. matrimonio matrimony; married couple. matrona matron. maxima maxim. mayo May. mayor greater, larger, older. mayoral head-shepherd. mecer to stir, to agitate. medallon m. medallion. media noche midnight. mediano middling, mediocre. mediante by means of. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... meanness, which turned everything into money. Even what fell through the sieve when wheat was winnowed, which ought to have been given to anybody, was carefully scraped up, and, dirty as it was, sold. Is not 'nothing for nothing' an approved maxim to-day? Are not people held up as shining lights of commerce, who have the faculty of turning everything into saleable articles? Some serious reflections ought to be driven home to us who live in great commercial communities, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... do so much harm to this fine country, came from Jefferson; and truly his life was a glorious commentary upon it. I pretend not to criticise his written works, but commonsense enables me to pronounce this, his favourite maxim, false. ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... again?—You know quite well that I am thirty-seven. I am very sorry, but just ask your friends to dine at the Rocher de Cancale. I could have them here, but I will not; they shall not come. And then perhaps my poor little monologue may engrave that salutary maxim, "Each is master at home," upon your memory. That is our character,' she added, laughing, with a return of the opera ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... more pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers, still kept up in time of peace (if such a state of a nation can be called a peace); and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you plead for those idle retainers about noblemen: this being a maxim of those pretended statesmen, that it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw men are not to be depended on, and they sometimes seek occasions for making war, that ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... he told a story whose morals are so ludicrously twisted that the right moral, by contrast, spontaneously springs to light. "Never tell a lie—except for practice," is less successful than the more popularly known "When in doubt, tell the truth." Out of the latter maxim he succeeded in extracting a further essence of humour. He admitted inventing the maxim, but never expected it to be applied to himself. His advice, he said, was intended for other people; when he was in doubt himself, he used more sagacity! Mark Twain has ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... and when I come to the Lighthouse, instead of having the satisfaction to meet them with approbation, it is distressing when one is obliged to put on a most angry countenance and demeanour; but from such culpable negligence as you have shown there is no avoiding it. I hold it as a fixed maxim that, when a man or a family put on a slovenly appearance in their houses, stairs, and lanterns, I always find their reflectors, burners, windows, and light in general, ill attended to; and, therefore, I must insist ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you love me, you will do nothing that may make you uneasy when you grow older; nothing that may allow my adversary to say, 'Leontion soon forgot her Epicurus.' My maxim is, never to defend my systems or paradoxes; if you undertake it, the Athenians will insist that I impelled you secretly, or that my philosophy and my ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... late, the latter very late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song; for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation going on there is music. As to the red-breast and wren, it is well known to the most incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... every one for himself, as a celebrated lawyer said, and I like the maxim. But let us talk coolly: this proves to you that Petit Jean (and, between us, I should not be surprised if, notwithstanding his holy reputation, Jacques Ferrand was half concerned in these speculations), this proves to you, I say, that Petit Jean, allured by your first payments, speculates on this ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... protecting them against want? Were not the odds against him far greater in the latter struggle than they could have been, if he were a tolerably good shot, in the former? Why, then, according to your own maxim, was the collective force of society devoted without stint to safeguarding him against violence, which he could have done for himself fairly well, while he was left to struggle against hopeless odds for the means ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... from the very eyes of the high table, or dais, it then became possible to assume as a fiction of law that the three delf fellows, after all, were not present. They could be ignored by the porcelain men, under the maxim that objects not appearing and objects not existing are governed by the same logical construction. [Footnote: De ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... namely, which affirms, against all experience, that whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander. Viewing the goose as the type of woman, and the gander as the type of man, no adage could be more preposterous or untenable. Such a maxim flies dead in the very face of society, and is calculated to introduce disturbance into the orderly sequence and subordination of the sexes. Who first invented it, it is difficult to conceive, unless it was some rustic Mrs. Poyser, full of the consciousness ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... peculiar trace of trust and innocence. Send your boys to sea and the sailors will educate them, is a safe maxim. But Nelson was an exception, for even in his boyhood he had held little converse with his mates, and in the frolics on shore he took no part. Physically he was too weak to meet them on a level, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... its rings as it is put aside, and there will blaze out what has always been, though we saw it not. It is so close, so real, so bright, so solemn, that it is worth while to try to feel its nearness; and we are so purblind, and such foolish slaves of mere sense, shaping our lives on the legal maxim that things which are non-apparent must be treated as non-existent, that it needs a constant effort not to lose the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Others have placed it in surpliced observance or in monastic vow; an equivocal regard to patterns of things in the heavens which common men mistake for idolatry. Others again, reversing the old Pythagorean maxim, and wearing the image of God upon their ring, have expressed it by unworthy familiarity, a continual adverting to the gifts of the spirit, and the experience of the soul in the flippancy of ordinary conversation, as did some of the fanatics of the Commonwealth. Others ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... bargaining away a better right for another of less value. These gentlemen of expedients may beat their brains as much as they please, they will never invent any means so simple, and so sure of attaining the great ends included in the political maxim just quoted, as by adhering to the plain, direct dictates of common honesty. Each trifling temporary advantage they may gain, will certainly and speedily be met by some contingent disadvantage, that will render them losers ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... died for want o' resolution,—that's what came of it. I tell ye, children's got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'tain't no use bringin' on 'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin as they've got to go out,—that's my maxim." ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "our enemies do not regard that maxim: but we must, nevertheless." The ladies conversed sadly enough, but little imagining what was happening to Mandat. At last they heard a shot. They sprang from their couches, observing that this was the first shot, but would not be the last. ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... local and many of them are intensely homely. Quotations of this class occur at all periods of his life, beginning with the first address, and they are sometimes used in such unexpected places as official telegrams to officers in the field. Strange to say, the maxim that is most frequently associated with Lincoln's name cannot with any certainty be regarded as having been used by him, either as a quotation or as an original saying, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... tolerated by the first propagators of Christianity, who justly deemed that the new dogmas would be more readily insinuated into the rude and simple minds of their neophytes, if not too strictly uncompromising. Both past and present facts testify to this compromise. It was a maxim with some of the early promoters of the Christian cause, to do as little violence as possible to existing prejudices[33]—a judicious method still pursued by the Catholic, though condemned by the Protestant, missionaries of the present day.[34] It was not seldom that an entire ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... him of the tormentores* leave, *torturers And led them to his house withoute more; And with their preaching, ere that it were eve, They gonnen* from the tormentors to reave,** *began **wrest, root out And from Maxim', and from his folk each one, The false faith, to trow* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... historians yet. The explanation, however, is simple enough. He reigned through corruption that he had himself been instrumental in creating; through militarism and an abominable Chauvinism—this last as effective an instrument as the oppressor can wield. Divide et impera is a maxim of despotic state-craft, old as despotism itself; "flatter and rule" is a method equally sure, and such Santa Anna practised to its full. He let pass no opportunity of flattering the national vanity, which brought the Mexican nation to shame, with much humiliation—as the French at a later period, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... interests were pursued cooperatively. Each group produced its own language which held that group together and sundered it from others.[233] All are now agreed that, whatever may have been the origin of language, it owes its form and development to usage. "Men's usage makes language." "The maxim that 'usage is the rule of speech' is of supreme and uncontrolled validity in every part and parcel of every human tongue."[234] "Language is only the imperfect means of men to find their bearings in the world of their memories; ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the contemporaries of a street-building generation, but the grand maxim of the nineteenth century, in their management of masonry, as in almost every thing else, as far as we can discover, appears to lie in that troublesome line of Macbeth's soliloquy, ending with, "'twere well it were done quickly." It is notorious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... arrested and influenced me, even when they did not gain my assent. He professed openly his admiration of the Church of Rome, and his hatred of the reformers. He delighted in the notion of an hierarchical system, or sacerdotal power and of full ecclesiastical liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim, "The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants;" and he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main instrument of religious teaching. He had a high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of virginity; and he considered the Blessed Virgin its great pattern. He delighted in thinking ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... struck out or can imagine. In a word, the Sacred Cubit, thus realised, forms an instance of the most advanced and perfected human science supporting the truest, purest, and most ancient religion; while a linear standard which the chosen people in the earlier ages of the world were merely told by maxim to look on as sacred, compared with other cubits of other lengths, is proved by the progress of human learning in the latter ages of time, to have had, and still to have, a philosophical merit about it which no men or nations at the time it was first produced, or ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... all, but entangling alliances with none," has long been a maxim with us. Our true mission is not to propagate our opinions or impose upon other countries our form of government by artifice or force, but to teach by example and show by our success, moderation, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... control of the patronage, though this was one of the unwritten charges. J. W. Schuckers, in his life of Chase, says that the radical leaders "felt the vast importance of the presidential patronage; many of them felt, too, that, according to the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, the Republican party was rightfully entitled to the Federal patronage, and they determined to get possession of it. There was but one method and that was by impeachment ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... the steamer's stern. His invention was somewhat tried by Flower's questions on the way to the wharf, but he answered them satisfactorily, and left him standing on the jetty imparting to George valuable thoughts on the maxim that speech is silver ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... captured by two brigands, who deprived him of his arms. The cupidity of these men was aroused by a splendid gold chain which he wore, and one of them snatched it from his neck. Presently, however, forgetting the maxim that there is honour even amongst thieves, the two bandits began wrangling for the possession of the booty, and whilst they were so occupied Hunniades managed to recover his sword, and, engaging ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Commissioners; but that sympathy has deserted them; they are now hidden in holes and corners from their oppressors, and have to go by false names, and are kept out of work; for odisse quem loeseris is the fundamental maxim of their oppressors. Not so the assassins: they flourish. I have seen with these eyes one savage murderer employed at high wages, while a man he all but destroyed is refused work on all hands, and was separated by dire poverty from another scarred victim, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... he did not know then, he certainly knew later. And as soon as he got where he could impress his convictions upon other soldiers of the new France he began training them in his great maxim: "A battle is ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... heads, that he may divide their hands; when Jacob had prophesied of the cruelty of Simeon and Levi, who were brethren, he threatens them with the consequent of it (Gen 49:7): 'I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.' The devil is not to learn that maxim he hath taught the Machiavellians of the world, divide et impera—divide and rule; it is a united force that is formidable: hence the spouse, in the Canticles, is said to be 'but one,' 'and the only one of her mother' (Cant ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with a savage whose traditional speech is holophrastic. Whatever be his mental power, the former has a much better chance of making the most of it under the given circumstances. "Give them the words so that the ideas may come," is a maxim that will carry us far, alike in the education of children, and in that of the peoples of lower culture, of whom ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... lips, for her mother had just repeated to her the surgeon's prediction that Captain Farnham would be well in a week or two. "He said the scalp wound was healing 'by the first intention,' which I thought was a funny phrase. I thought the maxim was that second thoughts were best." Alice had never mentioned Farnham's name since the first night, but he was rarely out of her mind, and the thought that his life was saved made every hour bright and festal. "He will be well," she thought. "He will ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... dissensions, in which it was impossible to say which side was right and which wrong. Then, as a prophylactic against malaria, his wife administered doses of whiskey. The rest of the history need not be told. It illustrates the maxim that "blood will tell," which I fear is as true in scientific work as in any ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... disposition to keep every thing within measure, is a marked characteristic. Their sense of form—including a perception of beauty, and of harmony and proportion—made them in politics and letters the leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work of art. "The whole language resembles the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... prohibitory laws, which, at least, suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone, Commentaries iv. 60. The learned judge, however, concludes with calling it a "dubious crime," and approves the maxim of the philosophic Montesquieu, whom no one would lightly accuse of superstition, that "il faut etre tres circonspect dans la poursuite de la magie et de l'heresie." Esprit des Lois, xii. 5. Selden attempted to justify the punishing of witchcraft capitally. Works, iii. 2077. See Spectator, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... ordering all his prisoners to be quartered and hung upon trees, which was much disapproved of by his officers, who, either from humanity or a motive of self-interest, urged him not to give the enemy a pretence for retaliating by similar cruelties. But Quinones obstinately adhered to an old maxim of endeavouring to conquer by means of terror, and was deaf to all their remonstrances. We are ignorant of the loss sustained by the Spaniards in this battle, but it must have been considerable, as Arauco and Canete were both immediately abandoned, and their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... exclaimed. "You should use oil or gas for fuel, and should press every drop of sugar out of that valuable cane. Waste not; want not, is as good a maxim for a nation as ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... be naturally inferior in mind and character, they are not less entitled to the rights of humanity; that if they are happy in their condition, it affords but the stronger evidence of their degradation, and renders them still more objects of commiseration. They repeat, as the fundamental maxim of our civil policy, that all men are born free and equal, and quote from our Declaration of Independence, "that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Entrechat, and all his fast and fashionable acquaintances, male and female, say to such declension? The thought was overwhelming, and thereupon Oakley resolved to give up all idea of earning an honest living, to "drown care," "d— the consequences," and act up to the maxim he had frequently professed, when the champagne corks were flying at his expense for the benefit of a circle of admiring friends, of "a short life and a merry one." So he stopped in London till the very close of the season, "keeping the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... paid, and the glory of the occupant of the debtors' prison waxed greater still. The story of his incarceration and of the homage paid him, even by Mussulmans, spread through the world. What! The Porte—so prompt to slay, the maxim of whose polity was to have the Prince served by men he could raise without envy and destroy without danger—the Turk, ever ready with the cord and the sack, the sword and the bastinado, dared not put to death a rebel, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... It is a maxim in war that "cavalry shall never act without a support," that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns," and that a line of cavalry should have some squadrons in column on its flanks, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to man, and which is obviated neither by an implicit faith in a human infallibility, nor an exclusive reference of that faith to cases in which reason is synonymous with demonstration, that is, to cases which leave no room for it, is at once relieved, and effectually relieved, by the maxim—the key-stone of all ethical truth—that only voluntary error condemns us;—that all we are really responsible for, is a faithful, honest, patient, investigation and weighing of evidence, as far as our abilities and opportunities admit, and a conscientious pursuit of what ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... alluded to in the beginning of this my apology, should he, instead of boisterously rushing in upon the company, endeavor (his sense of the becoming overcoming his bashfulness) to twist his body into the likeness of a bow, thereby only illustrating and confirming the profound wisdom of the maxim, non omnia possumus omnes. Should our awkward attempts be classed together, I shall nevertheless indulge the hope, that better acquaintance with you will increase my facility of saying nothing with grace, and improve my manners, even as I doubt not that under the tuition of Monsieur Pied, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... inconsistent is this maxim of Machiavel with the semblance even of Christian integrity! Pascal, however, has supplied us with ample proofs not only from the books of the Jesuits but from their public Theses, that they hold it to be perfectly justifiable to calumniate their enemies or ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of this maxim gradually drove it into Sheen's head, so that towards the end of the lesson he no longer lowered his right hand when he led with his left; and he felt the gentle pressure of Joe Bevan's glove less frequently. At no stage of ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... religious convictions were fully reconciled with the theory of human existence which was nothing more or less than an optimistic hedonism. There is nothing parallel to this in classic literature. The greatest of Roman Epicureans, the materialist, whose maxim was: enjoy the present for there is no God, and no to-morrow, speaks despairingly of that drop of bitterness, which rises in the fountain of Delight and brings torture, even amid the roses of the feast. It is with mocking irony that Dante places Epicurus in the furnace-tombs of his Inferno ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... my sympathies were with him, and that I would have helped him if I could; but in accordance with the maxim which I have elsewhere explained, that he who places any consideration before the King's service is not fit to conduct it, I did not see my way to thwart M. de Saintonge in a matter so small. And the end justified my inaction; ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... rebellion; and, if they were made the sole dispensers of public instruction, he and his successors might be kings in name, but would be slaves in effect. The wisest of those who had swayed the sceptre since the days of Solomon had given his sanction to the maxim "no bishop no king;" and his own history furnished a melancholy confirmation of the sagacity of his father. 2. The origin of episcopacy was a theological question, which he had made it his business to study. He was convinced ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... and High-Church principles were associated against Whigs and Dissenters. By that kind of dumb instinct which outruns reason, the Whig had learnt that there was some occult bond of union between the claims of a priesthood and the claims of a monarchy. The old maxim, 'No bishop, no king,' suggested the opposite principle that you must keep down the clergy if you would limit the monarchy. The natural interpretation of this prejudice into political theory, is that the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... absurd soothing process, as practised by manly husbands upon quivering and somewhat hysterical wives, and ended with a formal apology. "You must not think that I am passionate; on the contrary, I am always practising self-government. My maxim is, Animum rege qui nisi paret imperat, and that means, Make your temper your servant, or else it will be your master. But to ill-use my dear little wife—it is unnatural, it is monstrous, it makes my ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... mention of moral philosophy. The change of epithet does, however, no injustice to Aristotle's argument. His context makes it plain, that by political philosophy he means the ethics of civil society, which are hardly distinguishable from what is commonly called "morals." The maxim, in the slightly irregular shape which Shakespeare adopted, enjoyed proverbial currency before the dramatist was born. Erasmus introduced it in this form into his far-famed Colloquies. In France and Italy the warning against ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... form; but Fafnismal gives a dialogue between the wounded dragon and his slayer. Fafni warns the Volsung against the hoard: "The ringing gold and the glowing treasure, the rings shall be thy death." Sigurd disregards the warning with the maxim "Every man must die some time," and asks questions of the dragon in the manner of Vafthrudnismal. Fafni, after repeating his warning, speaks of his brother's intended treachery: "Regin betrayed me, he will betray thee; he will be the death of both ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... illustrating his maxim that "in every country, in every race, beauty stimulates passion," Westermarck cites (257) part of a sentence by Lumholtz (213) to the effect that Australian women take much notice of a man's face, particularly of the part about the eyes. He does not cite the rest ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Here I am with a great task on my hands. It is to enlist the sympathy and help of France. I must take things, not as I could wish them to be, but as I find them. At this court women are all powerful. It has long been a maxim here that a diplomatist must stand well with the ladies. Even though he is venerable, he must be gallant, and I do not use the word in a shady sense. The ladies are not so bad as you would think them. They are playthings. To them, life is not ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... history, both ancient and modern, in the biographies of most of the celebrated men of all ages, and was also well acquainted with the most eminent poets, from Chaucer to Tennyson, ever having an apt quotation at his command to fasten home a maxim or make more pungent a witticism. In fact he had further developed a mind naturally broad by making his own the best thoughts of the ages, and his sensitive nature could not, knowingly, have given pain to a worm—no one that was worthy appealed in vain to his generosity, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... Duchesse de Grammont, 'as for that, we women, we are happy to be counted for nothing in this revolution; when I say for nothing, it is not that we do not always mix ourselves up with them a little; but it is a received maxim that they take no notice of us, and of our sex.' 'Your sex, ladies,' said Cazotte, 'your sex will not protect you this time; and you had far better meddle with nothing, for you will be treated entirely as men, without any difference whatever.' ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... objection to solemnize marriage in the merry month of May, however fit a season for courtship, is also borrowed from the Roman pagans, which, had these fanatics been aware of it, would have been an additional reason for their anathema against the practice. The ancients have given us as a maxim, that it is only bad women who marry ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... be nothing left for the critic to do. I quite understand now, and indeed admit most readily, that it is far more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it. But it seems to me that this sound and sensible maxim, which is really extremely soothing to one's feelings, and should be adopted as its motto by every Academy of Literature all over the world, applies only to the relations that exist between Art and Life, and not ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... from the semi-papal hierarchy of the Anglican Church. But on the royal office of Immanuel, their prelatic training and associations seem to have blinded their minds. "No bishop, no king," is a maxim which seems to lie at the foundation of all their political disquisitions and speculations, and which gives a tincture to all their expositions of prophecy. Nevertheless, even in this field of labor, the diligent student may consult with much advantage the learned works of such writers ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... most of Bathurst's views, practically I see that a score of officials like him would excite a revolution throughout a whole province. In India, of all places in the world, the maxim festina lente—go slow—is applicable. You have the prejudices of a couple of thousand years against change. The people of all things are jealous of the slightest appearance of interference with their customs. ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... of your bankroll, grape fruit that won't hit back while you're eatin' it, non-refillable jails and so forth. All you got to do is stake yourself to a couple of test tubes, a white apron and a laboratory, hire Edison, Marconi, Maxim and Hennery Ford as assistants—with the U. S. Mint in back of you in case expenses come up—and you'll wake up some mornin' to find yourself ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... of this day fortnight were proposed by the founder of this Association, as simply and entirely the literal and the sole reiteration of the resolutions upon which he founded this Association. He had no doubt upon the subject. It is a maxim that all pledges and tests are to be taken in the sense and in the spirit of the person who gives or proposes the tests, otherwise they should be refused to be accepted. Now, my father moved these resolutions this day fortnight, in order to bring back to men's minds the principles ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... learned the truth of that ancient and profound maxim, that "he who would aspire to govern, should first learn ...
— The Flag Replaced on Sumter - A Personal Narrative • William A. Spicer
... smallest child, only he must know that help and guidance are at hand if he wishes them, and if a tendency to over-read in any one direction or in all is noticed, the librarian should feel at liberty to make suggestions. And as to freedom of action, the maxim should be that one man's liberty ends where another man's begins. No child should be allowed to disturb the room or to interfere with the quiet of those who are studying, for many children, more than one would think, really come to study. But the stiffness and enforced routine of the school-room ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... "you see that she is a combination of two principles—those of the Aeronef and the Aeroplane. The first reached its highest development in Jules Verne's imaginary "Clipper of the Clouds," and the second in Hiram Maxim's Aeroplane. Of course, Jules Verne's Aeronef was merely an idea, and one that could never be realised while Robur's mysterious source of electrical energy remained ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... be done, and a firm resolve to 'do the duty that lies nearest thee,' and to let everything else, however necessary, wait till it is done, is a great part of Christian prudence, and goes far to make works or lives truly prosperous. 'First things first'!—it is a maxim that carries us far and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... moment and see if then it seemed so strange to you that God should come into the presence and person of His universe, of His children, and take possession of their life. We grow so easily to forget our noblest and most splendid times. It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this: Count always your highest moments your truest moments. Believe that in the time when you were the greatest and most spiritual man, then you were your truest self. Men do just the other thing. They say it was "an exception, a derangement of my nature, an exultation, ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... the people by their actions"—tis a rule you often get— "Judge the actions by their people" is a wiser maxim yet. Have I known you, brother, sister? Have I looked into your heart? Mingled with your thoughts my feelings, taken of your life my part? Through the warp of your convictions sent the shuttle of my thought Till ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of the Quarter, but the Taverne du Pantheon is a refuge for her at times, when she grows tired of Paillard's and Maxim's and her ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... chapter in Machiavelli's Prince which treats of cruelty and clemency, and whether it be better to be loved or feared, anticipates the defence of the Terrorists, in the maxim that for a new prince it is impossible to avoid the name of cruel, because all new states abound in many perils. The difference arose on the question when Terror should be considered to have done as much of its work as it could ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... filled up, not indeed with deliberate carelessness, but with that heavy painfulness which, taking no interest in the work, often produces as pitiful a result as downright carelessness. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn" is a maxim which has a great application here. The man who provides the information should be the first to profit by it and to be interested in it. The first man to criticise these tables should be the missionary who fills them up on the spot; and his most valuable criticism might be a demonstration ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... religion, in so far as that there is a deep meaning in those pangs of our fate which, if we live by faith, will become our most precious possession. "Live for thy faith and thou shalt yet behold it living," is with me, as it hath been, a maxim. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... is for the most part rooted in the impulse of self-preservation. This passes into a kind of selfishness, and makes a duty out of the maxim that we should always fix our minds upon what we lack, so that we may endeavour to procure it. Thus it is that we are always intent on finding out what we want, and on thinking of it; but that maxim allows us to overlook undisturbed the things which we already possess; and so, as soon as ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... established in his imaginary commonwealth, is, [Greek quotation here]. Scite enim istud et dicitur et dicetur, Id quod utile sit honestum esse, quod autem inutile sit turpe esse. [De Rep lib v p 457 ex edit Ser]. And this maxim will admit of no doubt, where public utility is concerned, which is Plato's meaning. And indeed to what other purpose do all the ideas of chastity and modesty serve? "Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... his maxim not to displace his Marshals, which he had carried to a fault in the case of Marmont, who lost his cannon by treachery, he believed—I forget where. The Army liked him, he ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... of an affectionate mind, possessed of a maxim, that he himself, as an individual, is no more than a part of the whole that demands his regard, has found, in that principle, a sufficient foundation for all the virtues; for a contempt of animal pleasures, that would supplant his principal enjoyment; for an equal contempt ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... was to accompany his brother, was in the mean time engaged in pacifying his provinces, and established many regulations for maintaining public order. He, above everything, endeavored to abolish slavery; having for a maxim "that men are born free, and it is always wise to bring back things to their origin." This good prince drew upon himself the benedictions of his people; and the love of his vassals assured the duration of the laws ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... the trials which followed, though they showed the strength, the nobleness, the rare balance and solidity of his character, did not create these virtues, which had been formed and established by habit long before. Respice finem is not here a wise, at least a sufficient, maxim: we must look along the whole line to discern satisfactorily and thoroughly what manner of man this was in ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... contrivances and inventions, of making "short cuts" to the object in view. He avoided complexities, did away with roundabout processes, however ingenious, and went direct to his point. "Simplicity" was his maxim in every mechanical contrivance. His mastermind enabled him to see through and attain the end he sought by the simplest possible means. The reputation which he had acquired by his minting machinery enabled him to supply it in its ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... squadrons, with which my walks about London, in past years, have made me familiar. I was quite unaware of the existence of evidence respecting the present administration of the Salvation forces, which would have enabled me to act upon the sagacious maxim of the American humourist, "Don't prophesy unless you know." The letter you were good enough to publish has brought upon me a swarm of letters and pamphlets. Some favour me with abuse; some thoughtful correspondents ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... at this moment, there are no lenders.—But, to our new revolutionary statesmen, the cost-benefit of a service is of much less consequence than the application of a principle. In conformity with the Social Contract they establish the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporate bodies: they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, the depositary of all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad of solitary individuals. Special associations, specific groups, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fiercely that I might be overpowered. Even the most cowardly troops will fight, under those circumstances. Therefore, while threatening their line of retreat, I still leave it open to them. It is a maxim in war, you know, always to leave a bridge open for ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty |
