"Impolitic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the natives took advantage of this impolitic weakness; and so eagerly did they purchase the coveted firearms of their rivals, that Morton sent to England for a fresh supply of the dangerous merchandise. Such conduct was quite sufficient to arouse the fears and the vigilance ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... once united in the same object & it was accidentally their mutual Interest to fight Side by Side? If the Cincinnati had a Right to erect themselves into an order for the national Purposes of their Institution, had they a Right to call in foreign Aid for those Purposes? It appears to me as impolitic, preposterous & dangerous as it would be for the United States to invite & admit a Delegation from that ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... the principles of constitutional government, but who at this time seems to have been animated by no other feeling than that of hatred for the existing ministers, even went the length of affirming that there was "something not only impolitic but immoral in the idea of any palace belonging to a queen of France.[2]" But when the arrangements had once been made, Marie Antoinette not unnaturally thought her honor concerned in not abandoning it in deference to clamor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... future navigators of this ocean, with whom it cannot but be a principal object of curiosity to trace the future fortunes of our traveller. At present, I can only conjecture that his greatest danger will arise from the very impolitic declarations of his antipathy to the inhabitants of Bolabola. For these people, from a principle of jealousy, will, no doubt, endeavour to render him obnoxious to those of Huaheine; as they are at peace with that island at present, and may easily effect ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... in common; or, in other words, the social equality they claim is not a right, and ought not to and cannot exist under present circumstances, and any law that overreaches the moral reason to the contrary must be admitted as unjust if not impolitic. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... organization, and to whatsoever might draw Israel into the paths of other nations, they were the true authors of the religious preeminence of the Jewish people. Very early they announced unlimited hopes, and when the people, in part the victims of their impolitic counsels, had been crushed by the Assyrian power, they proclaimed that a kingdom without bounds was reserved for them, that one day Jerusalem would be the capital of the whole world, and the human race become Jews. Jerusalem and its temples appeared to them as a city placed on the summit of ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... calculating as was Napoleon III., it drove him out of his, for in every respect such a marriage was an unwise and an impolitic one. It lent to his new-founded throne neither the lustre of an alliance with royalty nor the popularity that might have been gained by the selection of a Frenchwoman as the partner of his fortunes. The Spanish blood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... miserable." From this speech of Dan Hoolan's, I had no difficulty in understanding the state of the case. The wretched man would not give up his own sins, and, therefore, tried to keep the chief in heathen darkness. It would, however, be impolitic to quarrel with him, or, rather, wrong, because the so doing would have increased the difficulty of bringing him round. I should explain that the term lotu means ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... ground. "And is it really so, Friend Iwan? To be poor, to be wretched, to be a slave, are hard indeed; existence is not worth enjoying on those terms. I am afraid thy country can never flourish under such impolitic government." I am very much of your opinion, Mr. Bertram, though I am in hopes that the present reign, illustrious by so many acts of the soundest policy, will not expire without this salutary, this necessary emancipation; which would fill the Russian empire with tears of gratitude. "How long ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... being my golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... and prudently in peace, trusting only in their mother-wit; who consider not justly that civility, prudence, love of the public good more than of money or vain honor, are to this soil in a manner outlandish,—grow not here, but in minds well implanted with solid and elaborate breeding; too impolitic else and rude, if not headstrong and intractable to the industry and virtue either of executing or understanding true civil government. Valiant indeed, and prosperous to win a field; but to know the end and reason of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... is the passion repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... all his care is tenderly directed to save his son, who performs his first deeds of arms under his eye. After Talbot has in vain sacrificed himself, and the Maid of Orleans has fallen into the hands of the English, the French provinces are completely lost by an impolitic marriage; and with this the piece ends. The conversation between the aged Mortimer in prison, and Richard Plantagenet, afterwards Duke of York, contains an exposition of the claims of the latter to the throne: considered by itself it is a beautiful ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Economist that it seems to be as ungenerous as impolitic to throw on the poor's rates a burthen which ought to be borne by those who profit from the labour thus inadequately remunerated. It could not, and ought not, to be difficult to fix a minimum (not a maximum) on twelve hours' labour per day, such as should be sufficient to support an average-sized ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... animadversion. Because she is not fond of society, it revenges itself by circulating reports detrimental to the owner of a house which is elegantly furnished, not for popular praise, but solely for her own comfort and gratification. While I regard her course as very deplorable, and particularly impolitic for one so young and unprotected, I am totally unacquainted with the reasons that control her; and, in this hour of grief and bitterness, I earnestly desire to shield her from intrusion ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... enjoyment of all our fellow-citizens, exempt from the payment of tolls or any imposition of that character. The practice of thus mingling the concerns of the Government with those of the States or of individuals is inconsistent with the object of its institution and highly impolitic. The successful operation of the federal system can only be preserved by confining it to the few and simple, but yet important, objects for which it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... against him there were only forty-six. Something similar was done in the landward part of the Roman State. Better, surely, no right beyond what the sword could give, than such a transparent semblance of right. No wonder that Victor Emmanuel's best friends condemned such an impolitic and ridiculous proceeding. None could be so simple as to believe that there were only forty-six voters against him, when all the numerous officials, both civil and military, protested against his aggression by resigning their offices. It is bad enough when men ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... sappers and miners were accordingly brought to Washington. This movement gave offense to the Southern men who still remained in Congress, and Mr. Branch of North Carolina offered a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on the table by a vote of 125 to 35. Ex-President Tyler had ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... specified limits of age, are physically able to do military service. But, as a class, it would have been cruel and impolitic to have forced men into a service which would have wrecked health and happiness for life, or, by a short and swift passage through the military hospitals, have shuffled them into premature graves. Few men under twenty-five have the power of endurance necessary for a long and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic. It is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who MAY reason calmly, it is ridiculous. The ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Wilding had said, and bethought him that it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely answer. He hesitated, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... realized that he had said what, of all things, was the most impolitic. It was nothing less than a bid for a "canvass," and he fully expected to be confronted with the necessary order blanks without delay. But, strangely enough, the book lady made no such move. She looked at him, it is true, but with an expression of surprise and what seemed ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... by destiny, by your own understanding, and by Kesava. Vasava's dart is lost, having effected the slaughter of Ghatotkacha who was as insignificant as straw. Karna, and my sons, as all the other kings, through his highly impolitic act, have already entered the abode of Yama. Tell me now how the battle once more raged between the Kurus and the Pandavas after the fall of Hidimva's son. How did they that rushed against Drona, arrayed in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... hypocrite ought not to reign over us; that we ought to treat with Cromwell and give him security not to trouble England with a king; and whoever marred this treaty, the blood of the slain in this quarrel should be on their heads.' Strange words if true."—Letters, vol. ii. p. 363. The ungrateful, impolitic, and barbarous treatment which his Scottish subjects received from Charles II. after the Restoration, must be held to be a proof of the sagacity at least of Binning, and a justification of the suspicion with which he and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has effectively ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... 19th October, 1844, Dr. Ryerson was appointed Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. Of his appointment, Rev. Dr. Bethune, Editor of The Church, on the 25th October, said:—It was an impolitic and a heartless step, as regards the Church of England in this colony, to raise to the office of Superintendent an individual who has thriven upon his political obliquities, and who owes his fame, or rather his notoriety, to his unquenchable dislike to the National Church. In a moment of danger ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... we are given the text of a despatch to the Kaiser in which General Baron von Fuechter assured his Imperial master that any interference with The Citizens and their meetings would be gratuitous and impolitic: ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... there is a large body of men in this country, as in France and Italy, who condemn the demand for these precautions as un-Christian and impolitic. Such laxness is the soil in which thrives the upas tree whose shade has so long darkened the organs of our empire and now threatens ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... a mistake. We treat the invader as very poor and simple people do a pompous visitor. For this incommoding guest of a day, they pillage their garden, bully their children and servants, and neglect their work. Such conduct is not only wrong, it is impolitic. One should have the courage to remain what he is, in the face of ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... in New Holland, from Batavia directly. The prudence shown in the conduct of this affair deserves the highest praise. To have attempted heretofore, or even now, the establishing colonies in those countries, would be impolitic, because it would be grasping more than the East India Company, or than even the republic of Holland, could manage; for, in the first place, to reduce a continent between three and four thousand miles broad is a prodigious undertaking, and to settle it by degrees ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... fashionable world; but they said that it was not their object to dispose of their daughters, as it is called, to the best advantage. The arts which are commonly practised for this purpose they thought not only indelicate, but ultimately impolitic and absurd; for men in general are now so well aware of them, that they avoid the snares, and ridicule and detest those by whom they are contrived. If, now and then, a dupe be found, still the chance is, that the match so made turns out unhappily; at ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... obvious, that if in such situations parents were to attempt to educate their children at home, they would harass themselves, and probably spoil their pupils irrecoverably. It would, therefore, be in every respect impolitic and cruel to disgust those with public schools, who have no other resource for the education of their families. There is another reason which has perhaps operated upon many in the middle ranks of life ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... overtaking Julian, and his deep concern in the matter. This hypocrisy was so transparent and so offensive that there were moments when it stank in the doctor's nostrils, and he could scarcely repress his horror and disgust. Yet to show them would be not only impolitic, but would only add fuel to the flames of Valentine's pyre of triumph. So the doctor, too, sought to play his part, and never wearied in seeking Julian, although his quest was in vain. From Valentine he gathered that Julian was now dropped even by the gay world; that his clubs looked askance at ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for thus freeing us of a ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... said Cromwell, "alike ungrateful and impolitic—wouldst thou have destroyed our decoy-duck? This doctor is but like a well, a shallow one indeed, but something deeper than the springs which discharge their secret tribute into his keeping; then come I with a pump, and suck it all up to the open air. Enlarge him, and let him have money ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears irons."—Kingston to Cromwell. Later writers have assured themselves that Smeton's confession was extorted from him by promises of pardon. Why, then, was the government so impolitic as to treat him with especial harshness so early in the transaction? When he found himself "ironed," he must have been assured that faith would not be kept with him; and he had abundant time to withdraw ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... Ajumba have a horror of cannibalism, and I honestly believe never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were "bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... extension of useful manufactures, more especially in the general application to household fabrics, we behold a rapid diminution of our dependence on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy of reflection that this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no slight degree a consequence of those impolitic and arbitrary edicts by which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct our trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring the productions and manufactures of which our own are ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... confounded with the enemies of my country and ought the patriots inconsiderately to sacrifice a general who has not been useless to the Republic? Ought the representatives to reduce the Government to the necessity of being unjust and impolitic? ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... reliance on military display—was almost destitute of troops. As an illustration of this it is related that during this war the Sultan of Deli elected to pay a visit to Batavia. As only two battalions of troops were left it was considered impolitic that he should know it, therefore the men were marched past him first when he was dining in the capital, and then despatched by train to represent other battalions, and march past him once again on the occasion of his visit to Buitenzorg ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Italian violinist, a week later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of the French violinists, so the public indulgently considered me to be the best player in Italy. Lafont not looking ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... very wisely decided upon surrender. It would have been very impolitic and cruel to do otherwise. He having thus given his word, the Indians placed implicit confidence in it. They were also perfectly faithful to their own promises. Boone was allowed to approach his men, and represent the necessity of a surrender, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... in the first place to confinements, of which his book was always full; and secondly, to outlying bush-cases, the journey to and from which wasted many a precious hour. And where it would have been impolitic to refuse a new and influential patient, some one on his list—a doubtful payer or a valetudinarian—was gently to be let drop. And it was Mary who arranged who this should be. Some umbrage was bound to be given in the process; but with her help it was reduced to a minimum. For Mary knew ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Canale Grande, and you shall pay no more for them. Follow me, sir, and pardon me that you were not at once worthily served. I did not know you were a Prussiano, and it would have been most dangerous and impolitic to have received a stranger who might have been a Teresiano; it might have deprived me of all the Prussian custom. Have the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Lordships to advise his Majesty to take every method to check the progress of these settlements, and not to make such grants of the land as will have an immediate tendency to encourage them; a measure which we conceive is altogether as unnecessary as it is impolitic, as we see nothing to hinder the government of Virginia from extending the laws and constitution of that colony to such persons as may have already ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... America; nor, therefore, what can be the object of a fleet stationed in the western ocean, to intercept that intercourse. Experience, however, has taught us to infer that the fact is probable, because it is impolitic. On the supposition that this interruption will take place, you suggest Ostend as a convenient entrepot for the commerce between America and Ireland. Here, too, I find myself, on account of the same ignorance of your ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and the life and health of a poor destitute fellow-creature. They all left him—part of them came to Florence—and long before he had cured his small-pox patient, he had not one of his old patients left to witness the cure! However impolitic it may appear, I cannot but express my admiration of Dr. S.'s noble conduct on the occasion, who proved himself not only an honest adherer to our excellent mode of treatment, but also a kind and generous man, worthy of more encouragement than ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and another statute was then made, 'for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec,' &c. All which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... for the last two or three years, and the statute in question was enacted with, a hope that it might unite the people in a kind of legal confederacy against a system so destructive of industry and morals. The act, however ill-judged, and impolitic at best, was not merely imperative,—but fraught with ruin and bloodshed. It immediately became the engine of malice and revenge between individual enemies—often between rival factions, and not unfrequently between ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... spirit of party, roused by impolitic provocation from its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the spirit of national animosity. The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled with the grudge of Englishman against Scot. The two sections of the great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... banks, ditches, and ravines, and that the houses had rained down afterward. Over all there was dust impossible to conceive. The bombardment has done little injury. People have returned and resumed business. A gentleman asked H. if he knew of a nice girl for sale. I asked if he did not think it impolitic ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... have already made reference. Nevertheless, it is certainly no wish of ours that there should remain any distance between us and any true followers of Christ by whatever name they may be called. And so we keep firmly, even where it may seem difficult or impolitic to do so, to our original attitude of entire friendliness with all those who name the ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... confined rigidly to your own circle of acquaintances. The chief advantage of such a work is that you will continue to write while the notes are being dictated. To throw your pen down with an air of finality and begin reading some congenial work of fiction would be a gallant action, but impolitic. No, writing of some sort is essential, and as it is out of the question to take down the notes, what better substitute than an unofficial journal could be found? To one whose contributions to the School magazine are constantly being cut down ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... to death without the simplest forms of justice and perished in the presence of an indignant multitude, whilst he called heaven to witness his innocence and direct its vengeance against his interested accusers. This iniquitous and impolitic proceeding had such an effect upon the minds of the people that all of any property or repute forsook the place, execrating the government of the Portuguese. The consequences of this general odium reduced them to extreme difficulties for provisions, which the neighbouring ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... Government of New South Wales to land a native chief named Philip at New Zealand, whom he subjected to a cruel and impolitic punishment. This man, smarting from his stripes, and burning with a desire to revenge his dishonourable treatment, excited all his friends to the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... seldom speak at hazard; if I do not speak more distinctly now, it is because I will never magnify suspicions into certainties, which we must do even if we mention them. But I suspect, greatly suspect. An open rupture would be disagreeable, would be unwarrantable, would be impolitic. The season draws to a close. Quit town somewhat earlier than usual, and, in the meantime, receive her, if necessary; but, if possible, never alone. You have many friends; and, if no other, Lady Caroline St. Maurice ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... Conscious how impolitic it would be to press this matter further, the captain casually remarked that he should have supposed that all the elements of Nerina had been calculated long since by astronomers on the earth. It was about as unlucky a speech as he could possibly have made. The professor glared ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... order" was the expression he wished to avoid. To his mind Ann was the only known antidote for Ogden, but he felt it would be impolitic to say so."—look after him on the boat," he concluded. "You know you are a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... ill success of his predecessors, proposed the establishment of a colony at Bolae, a town in the country of the Volscians, which had been recently conquered. The patricians[28] opposed this by the same method which they had adopted in the preceding case, the veto by tribunes. Livy criticises the impolitic opposition of the patricians in these words: "This was a most seasonable time, after the punishment of the mutiny, that the division of the territory of Bolae should be presented as a soother to their minds; by which proceeding they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian law, ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... pleasure and doubtless be altogether proper as a matter of abstract justice; but I fear rather impolitic. Best ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... you, yet more. If I should write to you "often," what would be the condition of us both? I very empty, and you with a great clatter in your ears. Think of a hopper, with very little grain in it, to keep shaking! It would be a very impolitic hopper. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... acquired so much glory, and which our ancestors thought so important to the safety and independence of Athens. Philip's power was but beginning, and supported itself more by craft than force. I saw, and I warned my countrymen in due time, how impolitic it would be to suffer his machinations to be carried on with success, and his strength to increase by continual acquisitions, without resistance. I exposed the weakness of that narrow, that short-sighted policy, which looked ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... superior to Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his followers were, it is altogether probable, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... much liking for the Fine Arts, some time since expressed an intimation to display his ability in sketching landscape from nature. The Royal Academicians immediately assembled en masse; and as they wisely imagined that it would be impolitic in them to let an opportunity slip of not being the very foremost in the direction of matters connected with royalty and their profession, offered, or rather thrust forward, their services to arrange the landscape according to the established rules of art laid down by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... the fullest life compatible with the fullest life of fellow-citizens." All beyond this, all interference with this life of the individual, whether by way of assistance, restraint, or education, proves in the end both unjust and impolitic. The remaining parts of the Ethics will treat of Negative ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... part of the winter of 1860-'61. When he told me of the work that had been done, or was doing, at Fort Moultrie—that is, the elevation of its parapet by crowning it with barrels of sand—I pointed out to him the impolicy as well as inefficiency of the measure. It seemed to me impolitic to make ostensible preparations for defense, when no attack was threatened; and the means adopted were inefficient, because any ordinary field-piece would knock the barrels off the parapet, and thus to render them only hurtful to the defenders. He inquired ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... "an old slab" as Whaling anything more impolitic than the conduct of these two cavalry subalterns could hardly have been imagined. Warner never told the colonel what Ray said; but, of course, had to say that Ray expressed no desire to see him. By the following morning the colonel was chafing ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... availing ties: They who proceed on certainties advance, These are not times when men prevail by chance; But still he tries, till, after years of pain, He finds, with anguish, he has tried in vain. Debtors are these on whom 'tis hard to press, 'Tis base, impolitic, and merciless. To these we add a miscellaneous kind, By pleasure, pride, and indolence confined; Those whom no calls, no warnings could divert, The unexperienced, and the inexpert; The builder, idler, schemer, gamester, sot, - The follies different, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... count Vergennes, to suppose after what had passed, that I was not on as good and safe footing in France, as they or any other gentleman could be. However, his uneasiness made him write to the Count what he had advised, who returned for answer, that such a step was both unnecessary and impolitic, as it would only strengthen suspicions by giving every thing an air of mystery, while there was not the least ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... troublesome boy, frequently involved in controversies with the teachers, and sometimes punished in the old-fashioned way with the ferule and the switch, which habit I then regarded as tyrannical and now regard as impolitic. I do not believe that the policy of punishment adopted in the schools of those times would be expedient to-day. It tended to foster a constant irritation between the teacher and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... in an automobile, denotes that you will be restless under pleasant conditions, and will make a change in your affairs. There is grave danger of impolitic conduct intimated through a dream ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... he left England. The horrible scenes of depravity he has witnessed in the barracks whence he has emerged, must have produced their natural effect on his mind. I cannot help thinking that this system of concentration is extremely impolitic. We all know what a detrimental influence the associating of men, punished for an offence comparatively trifling, with others convicted of the most flagrant outrages upon society, exerts upon the former. The experience of our prisons testifies to the fact. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... not have expected that his overtures of peace would be accepted by Austria. The rough, impolitic response made by England, helped him by ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... greatly weakened, the remembrance of many reverses, whilst slight and dubious successes, carefully treasured up, have swollen by the keeping into mighty victories; and at the present day, foreigners who should be so uncourteous and impolitic as to express, in the hearing of Spaniards, a doubt that Spanish valour was the main agent in driving the French from the Peninsula, might reckon, not on a stab—knifeing being less in vogue beyond the Bay of Biscay than is often imagined—but certainly on a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... brief civilization has not quenched the "red fire" of race; and his hint regarding the judicious disposal of the king in the event of annexation, was felt by many of the more sober whites to be highly impolitic. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... indeed, wise checks upon power in favor of the people. But power vested in some rulers can brook no check. To assert the most undoubted rights of human nature, and of the British Constitution, they term faction; and having embarrassed a free government by their own impolitic measures, they fly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... but determined change of front, improbable at first, and evidently impolitic, is the true cause of the disastrous conflict in which the movement of 1789 came to ruin. Had there been no ecclesiastical establishment to deal with, it may be that the development of Jacobin theory, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the shop hands and everybody." Mrs. Munger explained the point fully. She repeated some things that Annie had said in ridicule of Mr. Peck's position regarding it. "If you do think that part would be bad or impolitic," Mrs. Munger concluded, "we could drop the invited supper and the dance, and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... got down, they pressed around me until I could scarce breathe, crying congratulations, Comyn embracing me openly. Mr. Fox vowed he had never seen so fine a sight, and said many impolitic things which the duke must have overheard . . . . Lady Carlisle sent me a red rose for my buttonhole by his Lordship. Mr. Warner, the lively parson with my Lord March, desired to press my hand, declaring that he had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... which cannot be gainsaid of the justice of its sentiments and the wisdom of its predictions. Governor Ford, himself a Democratic leader as able as he was honest, writing seven years after these proceedings, condemns them as wrong and impolitic, and adds, "Ever since this reforming measure the Judiciary has been unpopular with the Democratic majorities. Many and most of the judges have had great personal popularity—so much so as to create complaint of so many of them being elected or appointed ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... centralized control of that industry was associated with a practical monopoly of some mineral, land, or water rights, the government might be confronted by another instance of a natural monopoly, which it would be impolitic and dangerous to leave in private hands. In all such cases some system of public ownership and private operation should, if possible, be introduced. On the other hand, in case the tendency to combination was strengthened in an industry, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Equally impolitic was the attitude of the President toward questions of public policy in his first message to Congress. Just when the opposition was in a fluid state and the winds of conflicting doctrines were ruffling the surface of national politics, Adams gave ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... ordered to cruise along the northern shore of the Mediterranean, gathering up all the American merchantmen, and convoying them to sea. The "President" and the "Enterprise" made sail for Algiers, to convince the ruler of that country that it would be impolitic for him to declare war against the United States at that time. The desired effect was produced; for the sight of an American frigate did more to tone down the harshness of the Dey's utterances, than ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... are taken from among the blacks. He draws a moving picture of the wretched condition of these forlorn islanders, under the indolent and yet oppressive government of the court of Lisbon. Mr G.F. be it known, was peculiarly sharp-sighted in discovering, and vehement in inveighing against, every impolitic violation of human liberty. In the judgments of some persons, he had imbibed too readily the intoxicating beverage of revolutionary France. Many strong heads, it is certain, were not proof against ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... be difficult to imagine any thing more unconstitutional, more crude, or more glaringly impolitic than the mode of reconstruction indicated by the various executive proclamations that have been issued, bearing on the subject, or even by the bill for guaranteeing the States republican governments, that passed ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... girls should have definite ideas of the impression which they wish to create. The natural girl is always either impolite or impolitic. I am quite willing to allow that a girl who appears artificial is equally detestable. To be unnatural, and to appear natural, is the end at which the young girl should aim. Much, then, will depend on the choice of a pose. It should be suitable; there should be something in your appearance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three lines, contains the adjectives, unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, monarchical, impeachable. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the ratification, displays ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... that, my dear colleague, I am responsible. You know the view I take of that order. I am not alone. Several of my brother Prefects agree with me. It is impolitic, and worse, offensive. The Emperor is reasonable, and does not expect a blind obedience which would really ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the cause of Jacobinism in Spain, I allow myself to hope that things there are going on well. I am entirely of opinion that the war is a most unadvised step on the part of France, and that nothing could be more impolitic, except our having the folly to mix ourselves in the squabble either way by ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes; "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Of necessity in these Christian tales there would be more of sameness than in those heathen; because it would be improper and impolitic, with such theses, to enter much into the lower human passions and the common events of life. But my intentions of further proceeding in this matter have, as at present, very sensibly subsided; for many wise and many good might reasonably object to making those holy last dying ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas? From these, four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more is to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... gentleman whose intelligence revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... on to prove it is also impolitic in us to discourage foreigners; since it is easy to make it appear that the multitudes of foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here, have been the greatest additions to the wealth and strength of the nation; the essential whereof is the ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... circle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a good thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it appears as impolitic as unnecessary." ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... one of these agreements could be kept without grossly violating the rest."(261) The war in which the Bombay Government had engaged with the Mahrattas had been as unsuccessful in its prosecution as it was impolitic in its commencement, until, early in 1780, a force under General Goddard was dispatched from Bengal to co-operate with the Bombay troops. Goddard's arrival turned the tide of events. The province of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." But the thing was far from being so simple as that. Denouncing the Constitution as Garrison did could not but affront patriotic hearts. It was impolitic, to say the least, to import English co-agitators, who could not understand the intricacies of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... an editorial, published March 10, "the theoretic justice of the proposed amendment to the constitution conferring suffrage upon women," but hoping it would be rejected because "whatever may be said for it, the measure has the fatal defect of being premature and impolitic." The opposition of the Telegram was more aggressive and even of a scurrilous type. To offset this hostility if possible the suffrage association hired a column of space in the Journal and half a column in the Telegram and kept this daily filled with suffrage arguments; toward the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... an act is, that an act implies a choice, and that it is felt to be impolitic and unjust to make a man answerable for harm, unless he might have chosen otherwise. But the choice must be made with a chance of contemplating the consequence complained of, or else it has no bearing on ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... shortly to find one,[280] if his accomplices at Rome should succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast numbers [281] had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it impolitic [282] to appear to share the cause ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... Georgia yet; but it is supposed there is intelligence of an important character in the city, which it would be impolitic to communicate to ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... would be informed once and for all that the Prime Minister was in confidential communication with the Jew- proprietor of a stock-jobbing newspaper! And that would never do! It would, at the least, be impolitic. Inwardly chafing with annoyance, he assumed an ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... hand, wished everything done in strict accordance with the laws; as a bold and wise statesman, he urged that nothing was more impolitic than lawless violence on the part of the rulers. Cicero was the timid magistrate; Cato, the injudicious reformer; but Caesar, with his keener knowledge and stronger hand, was the ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... tell you volumes, but I have not time, and it would, perhaps, be impolitic in the present state of affairs. I only wish that among the infatuated party men I may not find my father, and I hope that he will be neutral rather than oppose the war measure, for (if he will believe ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... complete. He was perfectly cognizant of the real causes of Irish discontent. He was aware of the grievances of Ulster, and his description of the conditions of the Munster peasantry in the Whiteboy debates of 1787 is classical. If pressed, he would have answered, we may suppose, that it was impolitic to cure evils which were at once the consequence of ascendancy and the condition of its maintenance. That other strange lapse in 1798, when he described the unparalleled prosperity of Ireland since 1782 under a Constitution which, in ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... of nine; during his minority the kingdom was wisely and faithfully served by the Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh; when he came to years he proved himself a weak ruler, and, according to Stubbs, his administration was "one long series of impolitic and unprincipled acts"; with the elevation of Peter des Roches, a native of Anjou, to the post of chief adviser, French interlopers soon became predominant at the Court, and the recipients of large estates and pensions, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to the consideration of the laws making gambling a penal offence, and particularly referred to the act of Assembly passed by the last legislature, which he denounced as unjust and impolitic. He did not appear for the purpose of defending gambling, but to speak a word in favour of those who had been represented to be the worst members of society, and against whom the voice of proscription had been raised. He contended ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... worked out the main lines of the story during the night; but it was not until she had done so that its full significance appeared to her. Having grasped that, she could scarcely wait for daylight in order to go to Evie, and yet when morning came she abandoned that course as impolitic. Reflection showed her that her struggle must be less with Evie than with Ford, while she judged that he himself would lose no time in putting the battle in array. He must see as plainly as she did that she stood like an army across his path, and that he must either ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... must thus remain a mystery, an isolated deed of blood unlike anything else in William's life. It seems to have been impolitic; it led to no revolt, but it called forth a new burst of English feeling. Waltheof was deemed the martyr of his people; he received the same popular canonization as more than one English patriot. Signs and wonders were ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... destroyed themselves. Francois acted the part of mediator, but not without great difficulty; he had made promises to the Huguenots, and could not offend them without offending at the same time all Flanders. On the other hand, to offend the Catholics sent by the king to aid him would be most impolitic. The arrival of this re-enforcement, on which the duke himself had not reckoned, filled the Spaniards and the Guises with rage. However, all these different opinions interfered sadly with the discipline of the duke's army. Joyeuse, who we ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... Missionary Society, visited India, remained there three years at the various missionary stations, and was firmly convinced that to interfere with the social customs of the native Christians would be at once unjust and impolitic. As regards the exact action of the Roman Catholics at present, I have no information to lay before the reader, but I know that they always had the wisdom to interfere as little as possible with the prejudices of the people, as long as they ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... easy to represent this as a piece of impolitic narrowness, and to say that its surly bigotry was rightly punished by the evils that it brought down on the returning exiles. The temper of much flaccid Christianity at present delights to expand in a lazy and foolish 'liberality,' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... How impolitic, then, as well as unjust, to brand this meek and magnanimous class as 'the wild stirrers ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... asked how it was that he could praise a certain poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebris imbribus ac nebulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the stirring of the gastric juices. And such a revival by any of us would be impolitic, were it a possible attempt, before our systems shall have been fortified by philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply to relate, and we can copy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... government agreed to their stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country, in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... whites regarded the emancipation of the negro simply as an arbitrary exercise of power, intended as a punishment for the act of attempted secession—which act, while many believed it to have been impolitic, few believed to be in conflict with the true theory of our government. They considered the freeing of the slave merely a piece of wanton spite, inspired, in great measure, by sheer envy of Southern superiority, in part by angry hate because of the troubles, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... His first thought was that he had some extremely dangerous friends; his second, that it would be impolitic to break with them; for if Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Chatelet should fail to keep their word with him, he might need their terrible power yet. By this time Etienne and Lucien had reached Barbet's miserable bookshop on ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... superiors is both impolitic and impertinent, but there are three who cannot be omitted—two of them live in England and may never see this book, and the third—well, he has expressed his opinion of me quite ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... population was liable to render compulsory labour to the crown; but wisely reflecting that it was not only derogatory to the sacredness of the object, but impolitic to exact any avoidable sacrifices from a people so recently suffering from internal warfare, Dutugaimunu came to the resolution of employing hired workmen only, and according to the Mahawanso vast numbers ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... further remarks. It would have been easy, not only to indicate what letters or portions of letters are new, but also to state the sources whence they are derived. But, in the circumstances, such a course, at all events for the present, is so impolitic as to be impossible. On the other hand, anxiety has been expressed as to the authority for the text which is adopted in these volumes. To satisfy this anxiety, so far as circumstances allow, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... class of proprietors, and a class of labourers, but by no means infers that the present great inequality of property is either necessary or useful to society. On the contrary, it must certainly be considered as an evil, and every institution that promotes it is essentially bad and impolitic. But whether a government could with advantage to society actively interfere to repress inequality of fortunes may be a matter of doubt. Perhaps the generous system of perfect liberty adopted by Dr Adam Smith and the French ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... weather, to a little innocent trifling with Irish stews, meat pies, and toads in holes. Another drawback on the Whitechapel establishment, is the absence of beer. Regarded merely as a question of policy, it is very impolitic, as having a tendency to send the working men to the public-house, where gin is reported to be sold. But, there is a much higher ground on which this absence of beer is objectionable. It expresses distrust of the working man. It is a fragment of that ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... out of earshot she beckoned Edgar with her whip. It was impolitic, but she was too deeply moved to make accurate calculations. "Dear Edgar, do not be offended with me," she said in her noblest, most sisterly manner. "Of course I do not wish to interfere, and it is no business of mine, but is it right to fool that unhappy girl as you are doing? I put ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... that the wisest among us would very likely have erred with him; and I am not sure that, taking all his plans together, and taking for granted, as he did then, that his influence at court was to last, his suggestion about the negroes was an impolitic one. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... be time enough to consider the question as one of military necessity when our armies advance. To proclaim freedom from the banks of the Potomac to an unarmed, subject, and dispirited race, when the whole white population is in arms, would be as futile as impolitic. Till we can equip our own army, it is idle to talk of arming the slaves; and to incite them to insurrection without arms, and without the certainty of support at first and protection afterward, would be merely sacrificing them to no good end. It is true, the war may lack ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... immaculate, immanent, imminent, immobile, immure, immutable, impalpable, impeccable, impecunious, imperturbable, impervious, implacable, implicit, impolitic, imponderable, importunate, imprecation, impromptu, improvise, imputation, inadvertent, inamorata, inanity, incarcerate, inchoate, incidence, incision, incongruent, inconsequential, incontinent, incorporeal, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... objection was as palpable then as it is now; and it was as good for preserving the five duties as for retaining the sixth. Besides, the minister will recollect that the repeal of the Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal; and the ill policy of that measure, (had it been so impolitic as it has been represented,) and the mischiefs it produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of the honorable gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the minister has nothing at all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the corporals. To employ any newly subjected race or tribe as soldiers or in any responsible capacity is unwise, for ties of blood are liable to lead to treachery; to trust to the idiosyncrasies and personal values of any native interpreter is equally impolitic. Zu Pfeiffer and his party were as unaware of the meaning of the phrases exchanged as they were of the message in the throbbing of that distant drum. Between the conqueror and the subjected tribe was a wall denser than any steel; ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... temporary and partial advantages over one or more of the powers of Europe may be, the day of retribution must at length come. According to my feelings, then, it would not only be unjust in the sovereigns to gratify the French people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the French nation a ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... generally, and only three per cent, upon manufactures. Now wine certainly falls properly under the head of agricultural productions. Upon this ground it might justly claim exemption from taxation. The wine-growers of California allege that the tax is oppressive and impolitic: oppressive, because it is equal to one-fourth of the original value of the wine, and because no other article of production or manufacture is taxed in anything like this proportion; impolitic, because the business is now in its infancy, struggling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... were filled with apprehension for the future of the state under such guidance. The noted misanthrope Timon gave expression to this feeling when, after Alcibiades had secured the assent of the popular assembly to one of his impolitic measures, he said to him: "Go on, my brave boy, and prosper; for your prosperity will bring on the ruin of all this crowd." And it ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers |
