"Middleman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon him, eye and brow and mouth. So I did not get his story, but I got a thrilling picture of the recent generation in American letters—I, being the public; the truth of his story representing the producer, and the miserable thing he fancied I was ready for, being the middleman's part. ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... and mean, and one or two got uncomfortable and shifted round uneasily. But presently the traveller came to the rescue. He said that no doubt the oranges belonged to a middleman, and the middleman was the curse of the ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... drawing heavily laden barrows, driving donkey-carts, the piled-up fruit and vegetables making a blaze of colour. For three sous I recorded the purchase of more wild strawberries, peaches, and greengages than I knew what to do with, each grower doing business on his own account, no middleman to share his profits; choicest fruit and vegetables to be had almost for the asking. On this lovely Sunday evening plenty of peasant folk were about, the men fishing in the Loire, the women minding their children under the trees. But I noted here, ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... the middleman's work," said the gambler tranquilly. "Now, gentlemen, we have not been agreeing very well of late. Eric, in particular, has been far from flattering in his estimates of my social and civic value. ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... far as journalism was concerned by their surrender to commerciality with its frequent demand for the ready-to-hand rather than the superior thing. But his surrender was not the fault of the engravers, but was rendered inevitable by the advent of the middleman, to whom application was made by the Press for blocks, and whose employees all engravers were practically forced into becoming, instead of being able to retain their independence and make their own ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... incentives to the employment of patent medicines. This method of saving the doctor's fee is engendered by those physicians who themselves write prescriptions for nostrums. "Why not, indeed, eliminate this middleman (the doctor) and buy the nostrums direct?" So say the unthinking. But what doctor worthy of the name would prescribe a medicine the composition of which he was ignorant? Yet it is frequently done. As Dr. Cabot has so aptly put it, what ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... of the book. That is true. But in the book-trade—that profit-devourer unknown to Mrs. Eddy's book—a three-dollar book that is made for thirty-five or forty cents in large editions is put at three dollars because the publisher has to pay author, middleman, and advertising, and if the price were much below three the profit accruing would not pay him fairly for his time and labor. At the same time, if he could get ten dollars for the book he would take it, and his morals ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... those in possession, whom they had ruined by their extortion; the consequence was, they were too happy to abandon their interests, and leave the landlord to deal with the paupers they had created. In a few years after the peace, the middleman system had ceased to exist; the owner of the soil, coming into immediate contact with the tenantry, saw the monstrous injustice and the destructive tendencies of the copartnership plan—and it was discontinued. Yet such is the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... catspaw of reaction. The whilom "friends of the working-man," in their haste to overturn Lassalle's position, tumbled into their own pits. Schulze-Delitzsch himself, founder of co-operative working-men's societies, denouncer of the middleman, now found himself—in the face of Lassalle's uncompromising analysis—praising the Law of Competition, while that Iron Law of Wages, their tendency to fall to the minimum of subsistence (which was in the canon of all ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... which these guns were procured shows the marvelous nature of the organization and its resources. Finding that the cost of the guns was greatly increased by the profits of the manufacturer and the middleman, and that it was, in fact, very doubtful whether the government would permit them to purchase them in any large quantities, they resolved to make them for themselves. In the depths of abandoned coal mines, in the wildest and most mountainous part of Tennessee, they established, years ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... buy the land, if I can only get it at a reasonable price," replied Yin, "and I shall be glad if you will consent to act as middleman and negotiate the matter for me. You might go at once and see Lin, and find out what are the terms upon which he is willing to transfer the property ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... districts. The work was still carried on in the master's house, although he had lost the economic independence that he had under the old guild system where he acted both as merchant and manufacturer. He now received his raw material from the merchant and disposed of the finished goods to a middleman, who looked after ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... new instructions to the agents to identify and trace all dust and bullion offered to them went into force, you see, they can't get rid of their swag. All the gang are spotted at the offices, and it costs too much for them to pay a fence or a middleman of any standing. Why, all that flaky river gold they took from the Excelsior Company can be identified as easy as if it was stamped with the company's mark. They can't melt it down themselves; they can't get others to do it for them; they can't ship it to the Mint or Assay Offices ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... suspicion of oppression are but symptoms of the vigorous vitality which, in former centuries, seemed to have no existence at all. On the other hand, industrial co-operation seems to promise successful development; it involves immense economies, and consequent profit to producers. The middleman has his uses, and especially is he a convenience; but it is easy to pay too dear for conveniences; and there seems no reason why the producer should not, as time goes on, become constantly better equipped for ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... condition of surrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter to the government and the middlemen. And this tax, levied upon him by the State, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is always increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system of culture. If he turns to industry, he is allowed to work—though not always even that—only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds of the product to him whom the land recognizes as ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... you have found the girl you want, you have to go and get her yourself, while we can send a middleman ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... organization. The arrangement of industry was planned in detail, a co-operative system was organized that would keep every man busy at useful labor without working him too hard, would take away the profits of the middleman by a well-planned system of distribution, and would allow liberty in social relations as far as consistent with the general good, but would subordinate the individual to the community. Certain of the Utopians thought that it would be necessary ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years. They do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship; they aim at the less difficult, but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who (to borrow a phrase of Augustine's) "believe in thinking" and wish to "think ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... zamin-dar, who is a servant of government and not the proprietor of the land, as some have erroneously supposed. The word means keeper of the land, and not the proprietor. In fact, he is like the Irish middleman, in every sense of ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... restrained, for both men instinctively felt that between them lay a gulf which it would be difficult to bridge; but, as Dr. Hale played well the part of middleman, the ministers were drawn out towards each other, and in a little while struck mutual chords in one ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... undertaken with greater pleasure," adds the King. And both did proceed upon it with all zeal; but only the King as real "mediator," or MIDDLEman; Kaunitz from the first planting himself immovably upon the Turk side of things, which is likewise the Austrian; and playing in secret (as Friedrich probably expected he would) the strangest tricks with his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... imitation can bring themselves into ecstatic convulsions. They alone know from the gods the means to treat diseases and their personal influence overcomes the ailment. In early America, before the European discovery, the cure of disease belonged in the same way to the middleman between the gods and human beings. In the Antilles, for instance, the bohuti heals the diseases which are regarded as punishments of the gods for human neglect. The priest by inhaling a certain powder brings himself into an ecstatic condition, then ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... him have a steer's hide or a wagon load of wheat to sell, and it's somebody else's ox that's gored. Consumers pay big prices for farm products, goodness knows, but they don't pay them to the farmer. Not on your tintype. The middleman gets his, you needn't question that. We beg pardon a thousand times. We mean the middlemen. There's no end to those ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... doing better now," continued Mrs. Mitchell. "He's at work again, and Miss Sutton—that's a kind lady—is trying to bring us women face to face with our employers and no middleman between. But I don't know how it will act. I've done work for Miss Sutton and her friends, but the same people don't keep on wanting mantles. I could have borne anything if I hadn't to make ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... Protestant clergyman commonly has with the Catholic population of his parish—have made the introduction of tithe proctors very general, sometimes as the agent of the clergyman, sometimes as the lessee or middleman between the clergyman and the cultivator of the land, but, in either case, practised, dexterous estimators of tithe. The English clergymen in general are far from exacting the whole of what is due to them, but sacrifice a little to the ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... understand," she explained earnestly. "In Russia it was the aristocracy who oppressed the people, shamefully and malevolently. In England it is the bourgeoisie who rule the country and stand in the light of Labour. It is the middleman, the profiteer, the new capitalist here who has become an ugly and a dominant power. Labour has the means by which to assert itself and to claim its rights, but has never possessed the leaders or the training. That has ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... because he was about the post all that day after the Plumes' departure and with never a sign of inebriety. He could not himself buy whisky, but among the ranchmen, packers, and prospectors forever hanging about the post there were plenty ready to play middleman for anyone who could supply the cash, and in this way were the orders of the post commander made sometimes abortive. Downs was gone, that was certain, and the ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the State. The Italian tobacco is generally bad, and formerly one had to smoke it or go without; but now the best of imported cigars may be found in all the large cities, cheaper in some respects than those in America, and not a whit inferior, since there is no middleman's profit, buying, as one does, direct from the State. The hotels, however, sell the same brands at an outrageous advance; the proprietor must have his commission, the concierge, the head-waiter, the waiters, the porters, and the chef, for this slight favor to the guest. ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... Minos, Draco; arbiter &c (judge) 967; boss [U.S.], political dictator. board &c (council) 696. secretary, secretary of state; Reis Effendi; vicar &c (deputy) 759; steward, factor; agent &c 758; bailiff, middleman; foreman, clerk of works; landreeve^; factotum, major-domo^, seneschal, housekeeper, shepherd, croupier; proctor, procurator. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... specified time. BONDED WAREHOUSE. Is a building in which goods are stored until the duties or revenues on them are paid. BONDSMAN. One who goes security for the faithful performance of a contract. BONUS. A premium for a loan or other privileges. BROKER. An agent or middleman between the buyer and the seller. BULLION. Uncoined gold or silver. CHARTER. A written authority from the proper National or State authority defining the rights and privileges of corporations. CHARTER PARTY. A written contract ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... MIDDLEMAN'S KNOT. Somewhat similar to the fisherman's knot but in this case only one rope is used. Can safely be used as ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... in Liberal governments to entrust to their departments decisions which trench upon the legislative functions of parliament. The trend of hostile opinion is to regard parliament as an unnecessary middleman, and to advocate in its stead a sort of plebiscitary bureaucracy, a constitution under which legislation drafted by officials would be demanded, sanctioned, or rejected by direct popular vote, and would be discussed, like the Insurance Bill, in informal conferences outside, ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... my trade,' he said once to Harvey Rolfe; 'it's clean and sweet and useful. The Socialist would revile me as a middleman; but society can't do without me just yet, and I ask no more than I fairly earn. I like turning over a sample of grain; I like the touch of it, and the smell of it. It brings me near to the good old Mother Earth, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... you ass, about camping out. I am talking now about farm life. Farmers eliminate the middleman pretty effectually, and that in itself is going a long way toward complete happiness. Take the making of soap, that I told you about; there you have it, cheap and good. When you've made it, you know what is in it, and I'll be ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... planted. We see such communities naturally growing up in Ireland, with perhaps a little stimulus from outside from rural reformers and social enthusiasts. If this ideal of the organized rural community is accepted there will be difficulties, of course, and enemies to be encountered. The agricultural middleman is a powerful person. He will rage furiously. He will organize all his forces to keep the farmers in subjection, and to retain his peculiar functions of fleecing the farmer as producer and the general public as ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... in the lower classes are acquainted with and see each other frequently before marriage. The business of selection, betrothal and marriage is attended to by the parents or friends of the pair, who carry on negotiations by means of a third factor, a middleman or go-between. Children are often betrothed at birth or when on their nurses' backs (there are no cradles in Japan). Of course the natural results, mutual dislike and severance of the engagement at mature age, or love and happy marriage, or marriage, mutual dislike and subsequent divorce, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... that he, the creative artist, who was solely responsible for the architecture and decoration of the monument, in whose unique mind it had existed long before the second brick had been placed upon the first, should be bracketed in a toast with the tradesman and middleman who had merely supervised the execution of his scheme according to rules of thumb. He flushed. He wanted to walk out. But nobody else appeared to be disturbed. George, who had never before attended an inauguration, was simply not aware that the toast 'architect and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... farm about seven miles from the city limits, and the tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebody motors out from town and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper. There ain't much in the nursery business anymore. These landscape fellows buy their stuff direct, and the middleman's out. I've got a good orchard, and there's a spring, so I could put running water in the house. I'd be good to you, Tillie,—I swear it. It'd be just the same as marriage. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The Middleman, the blessed agent, to them, of all good, tells them of the bright free land, where a golden harvest of profit is waiting them, if they will only realise their "all" and hand it over to him. With a shout of joy, in grateful paeans they sing the praises of their ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... completed all His suffering; but He meant that He had then done all which the world needed to have done in order that it should be a redeemed world. But for the distribution and application of that finished work God depends on men. You all know, in your own daily businesses, how there must be a middleman between the mill and the consumer. The question of organising a distributing agency is quite as important as any other part of the manufacturer's business. The great reservoir is full, but there has to be a system ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... selling great quantities of food at a comparatively small profit on each item is put into practice in chain stores, which are operated by different companies throughout the United States. Such stores are a boon to the housewife who must practice economy, for they eliminate a middleman by acting both as wholesaler and as retailer. Because of this fact, foods that are purchased in large quantities from the producer or manufacturer can be offered to the consumer at a lower price than in a ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... then to be taken over by the state at a low rate, and held for a rise or forwarded to some centre where there happened to be a demand. There would be thus a certainty of market for the farmer, and an equal certainty for the state to make profits as a middleman. Another part of this scheme consisted in obligatory advances by the state to cultivators of land, whether these farmers required the money or not, the security for the loans being in each ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... latter, at all events, was willing to pay a fixed sum yearly; and if the sum paid was generally considerably below the real value of the rents, the arrangement at least assured a fixed income to the landlord, with the certainty of getting it without trouble to himself. The middleman then proceeded to grind the tenants at his leisure and discretion in order to make the best of his bargain. The result was, that while the tenant starved and the landlord got less than his due in consideration of being saved from ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... something new and appetising. He knows perfectly all the possible sources of income. Whatever he has to sell he'll get payment for it from all sorts of various quarters; none of your unpractical selling for a lump sum to a middleman who will make six distinct profits. Now, look you: if I had been in Reardon's place, I'd have made four hundred at least out of "The Optimist"; I should have gone shrewdly to work with magazines and newspapers and foreign publishers, ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... (c) The honest middlemen, who, I regret to say, are few and far between. As far as possible we always try to deal with the farmers direct, as they are fairly honest, though very obstinate. An honest middleman is very useful, but there are not many of him. Business difficulties are increased by the extraordinary accent in which the country people hereabouts talk. Sometimes even French interpreters find themselves at a loss. I am getting into it famously, and can even speak with the local ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... "Eliminate the middleman," demands a contemporary. It might prove a simpler affair, after all, than the present system of suppressing the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... inhabitants in England but has its Mrs. Quickly and its Tom Jones. These good people never understand themselves, they go over their own heads, they speak in unknown tongues to those around them and the interpreter is the rarer and more important person. The vates sacer is the middleman of mind. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler |
