"Opportunist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grateful for it. He knew that Trescorre, ambitious of the regency, had intrigued against him to the last. He knew that an intemperate love of power was the mainspring of that seemingly dispassionate nature. But death had crossed Trescorre's schemes; and he was too adroit an opportunist not to see that his best chance now lay in making himself indispensable to his new sovereign. Of all this Odo was aware; but his own motives in appointing Trescorre did not justify his looking for great disinterestedness in his minister. The irony of circumstances had ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... disappointment at our submitting to what they regard as German dallying with us and to German insults. They believe that, if we had sent Bernstorff home when his government made its unsatisfactory reply to our first Lusitania note, Germany would at once have "come down"; opportunist Balkan States would have come to the help of the Allies; Holland and perhaps the Scandinavian States would have got some consideration at Berlin for their losses by torpedoes; that more attention would have been paid by Turkey to our protest against the wholesale massacre ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... something swell, from the point of view of a smart rustic who hasn't absorbed any city nonsense," observed Miles Berryman, seating himself comfortably in a chair and gazing about with great satisfaction. "I think, Ernie, that we must all agree that you are a very wide-awake opportunist." ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... socialization in industry is the expression not of a radical but of a moderate social philosophy. It does not look to the abolition, but only to the modification and limitation in some directions, of private property and of competitive industry. The spirit of this movement is opportunist, or experimental. It is ready to try public action, but recognizes that it has difficulties and limitations. The ultra-radical and the ultra-conservative alike declare that these measures "logically" lead on to the complete destruction of ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... necessary. But you—you are up against a cul-de-sac, a black mountain of prejudice and custom. Nothing can save you but an earthquake or a revolution, and you know it. You came to England with those ideas, Maraton. You have turned opportunist. It was the only thing left for you. You didn't happen to see the one way out. To-morrow it will be a new day with you. To-morrow we will ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... parliament it became clear that the Old Czech Party, now led by Rieger, was inclined to be too conservative and too opportunist. In 1887 the Young Czechs left the national party and entered into opposition. Their party grew steadily, and during the elections in 1889 gained a decided victory in the country districts. The Old Czechs finally sealed their fate when, in 1890, they concluded an unfavourable ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... co-operating with the land forces, and having that scouted and maligned thing, "horse marines," at his quick command, he wore the enemy to a frazzle. His tactics were those of Quintus Fabius, who supplied us our word "Fabian"—opportunist. Fabius fought the combined hosts of Hannibal for ten years, as one to five, and was never captured and never defeated. When peace was declared he dictated his own terms, and was given royal honors when he rode through the streets of Rome at the head of his tattered troops, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... put to trial was that of President Lincoln. It was a definite plan designed to meet actual conditions and, had he lived, he might have been able to carry it through successfully. Not a theorist, but an opportunist of the highest type, sobered by years of responsibility in war time, and fully understanding the precarious situation in 1865, Lincoln was most anxious to secure an early restoration of solidarity with as little friction as possible. Better than most ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... religion which began under the Waddington Ministry almost as soon as it took possession of the government in 1879. It was formally opened under the leadership of M. Ferry. M. Ferry is admitted to be the ideal statesman of the Opportunist Republicans now in power. To him M. Carnot owes his Presidency of the Republic. In March 1879 M. Jules Ferry asked the Republican majority of the House to pass a law concerning the 'higher education,' in the draft of which he had inserted a clause ever since famous as 'Article 7,' depriving ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... children to maintain, to say nothing of her own luxurious habits, Anne Turner would see in the Countess's appeal a chance to turn more than one penny into the family exchequer. She was too much the opportunist to let any consideration of old acquaintance interfere with working such a potential gold-mine as now seemed to lie open to her pretty but prehensile fingers. Lady Essex was rich. She was also ardent in her desire. The game was too big for Anne to play single-handed. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... arguments more effective than if he had alienated his audiences by indiscriminate attacks on all the institutions of society. No one could justly accuse Frederick Douglass of cowardice or self-seeking; yet he was opportunist enough to sacrifice the immaterial for the essential, and to use the best means at hand to promote the ultimate object sought, although the means thus offered might not be the ideal instrument. It was doubtless ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... I'm a cat, but I can see through her so clearly. Not that she's bad; she's simply an opportunist. She's awfully sweet and deferential and 'frank' with women, but with men—well, she simply tucks her head so that her shoulder-length black curls fall forward enchantingly, gives them one wistful smile out of her big eyes that are like black pansies ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... liberal conservative, an opportunist, a pessi-optimist, an in-medio-tutissimist, and attend divine service at ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Affairs had all occasion to complain of his incursions into their departments. In contrast to his colleagues, he was not only extremely energetic, but he was ever ready to assume an astounding amount of responsibility; and as he was something of an opportunist, he was perhaps not always quixotically scrupulous in the choice of expedients for ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... began to realise that he had taken the long, long chance of the opportunist who rolls the bones with Death. He had kept his pledge to the little Grand Duchess. It was a clean job. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... better, a safer, and a fairer life to the masses. But as yet it is only a theory, a hypothesis. It has never been tried in toto.... It has succeeded only where it has allied itself with liberal and opportunist rather than ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... self-preservation had no place in the litany of Isaac Brock. He was a daily dealer in self-sacrifice. Besides, this was not the time or place to calculate involved issues. He was not a cold-blooded politician, nor was he an opportunist; he was merely a patriot and a soldier fighting for hearth and home, for flag and country. It was not an issue that could be left to arbitration in the hereafter, or threshed out by judge and jury. The situation called for instant action. To do ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... money," said Father Payne firmly, "and I shall compliment him on his delicacy; and then, thank God, I shall forget, until it all begins again. I am a wretched old opportunist, of course; a sort of Ally Sloper—not fit company for ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... there not, let us in the end ask ourselves, here and there at least, a man who is of real account in the world of affairs, and who is—not simply a luke-warm Platonic friend or an opportunist advocate—but an impassioned promoter of the woman's suffrage movement? One knows quite well that there is. But then one suspects —one perhaps discerns by "the spirit sense"—that this impassioned promoter of woman's suffrage is, on the sequestered side of his life, an idealistic dreamer: ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... full-blooded. Publicist, dry, thin-lipped, pedantic, opinionative, hard." That was what he, no doubt, expected of the cast. In a word, his attempt to fascinate lacked polish. It was clumsy, almost to the point of innocence, and opportunist to the point of weakness. He did not know how to take me, and ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... my good Elodie," said Bakkus, hurriedly opportunist. "If I have had one ambition in my life it is to sun myself in the vicarious ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... accident—the unprincipled opportunist of a godling who rules these matters will league himself with any chance—that the Tyro's eyes fell upon her hand, which lay, pink and warmly half-curled in her lap, and remained there. It certainly was not accident that the hand was ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... up his mind, a trait that results partly, perhaps, from his Scotch blood and partly from his academic training. Except for his steadfast adherence to what he regards as basic principles, he might rightly be termed an opportunist. For he is prone to temporize, anxious to prevent an issue from approaching a crisis, evidently in the hope that something may "turn up" to improve the situation and obviate the necessity of conflict. "Watchful waiting" in the Mexican ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... Marquis were alive, he would understand. He was always an opportunist, the Marquis. 'Drink your wine,' he would say, 'drink your wine and break your glass. We may not have heads to drink it with tomorrow.' I am merely drinking the wine, Mademoiselle. He would not blame me. Besides, the Marquis owes ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... be satisfied at convenient intervals. It was unfortunate, in their view, that they could not always be at war; but they recognized that there must be breathing times and that it was important to choose the right moment for massacre and pillage. Daring but sagacious, they followed an opportunist policy. At times their warriors delighted to lurk in the outskirts of Montreal with tomahawk and scalping-knife and to organize great war-parties, such as that {89} which was arrested by Dollard and his heroic companions at the Long Sault in 1660. At other times they held fair speech with the governor ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... State will disappear after the Socialist society has been firmly established. In 1882 the Socialists split between the followers of Guesde, who claimed to represent the revolutionary and scientific Socialism of Marx, and the followers of Paul Brousse, who were more opportunist and were also called possibilists and cared little for the theories of Marx. In 1890 there was a secession from the Broussists, who followed Allemane and absorbed the more revolutionary elements of the party and became leading spirits in some of the strongest ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... still an ingenuous youth in the fulness of strength with my life before me I do not know that I would not be a Social reformer—I would profess myself a Social agnostic, and prosecute my mission by the methods of the opportunist. I would endeavor to direct the Social ax to the most obvious and obtrusive roots of the Social evil, and having removed them and watched the result, would then determine what to do next. Possibly I would endeavor to begin with the abolition of wills and collateral inheritance, ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... professing Socialism, it has aimed rather at securing the return of labour members to Parliament, and to local governing councils than at the conversion of the working class to a dogmatic social democracy. Often frankly opportunist and experimental, the Independent Labour Party and its offspring, the Labour Party in the House of Commons, have followed the national custom in politics of attacking and redressing evident evils, and have done this ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... was a piece of acting which she enjoyed for its effect upon the others. She most mischievously enjoyed her privilege. And she had a new cause for triumph, a double success. She felt herself a schemer, an intriguer, which she was not. She was merely an opportunist, seizing the main chance. Not only had she a secret understanding with Gaga; she had also a secret understanding with Gaga's mother. She was most marvellously Sally Minto. The world was open to her. It was not ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... and ran lightly up-stairs; but, fast as she fled, thought outran her slender flying feet, and she came at last very leisurely into Celia's room, a subdued, demure opportunist, apparently with nothing ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... elbows. Fonder even of power, which had become a habit, than in his twenties, he saw it slipping from his grasp at an age when the 'downfall of his government meant that he should never hold the reins again. He had been called an ambitious demagogue and a makeshift opportunist by his enemies, but the crowd liked him for his ready strategy, his genius for appealing phrases, and for the gambler's virtue which hitherto had made him ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... of opportunist philosophies under the names of Pragmatism, Pluralism, etc., have endeavoured to elude the pressure of the dilemma and to solace mankind for the failure of Kantianism by advising them to accept Experience as it is. But though ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... fallen emperor, and that he now completed, as it would seem, the abandoned poem of 1860. He saw in him a man of generous impulses doubled with a borne politician, a ruler of genuine Liberal and even democratic proclivities, which the timid calculations of a second-rate opportunist reduced to a contemptible travesty of Liberalism. The shifting standpoints of such a man are reproduced with superfluous fidelity in his supposed Defence, which seems designed to be as elusive and impalpable as the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... in cotillon. Which prevoyance had been coped with successfully by Nina, who, noticing it, at first took merely a perverse pleasure in foiling Mrs. Orchil; but afterward, as the affair became noticeable, animated by the instinct of the truly clever opportunist, she gave Gerald every fighting chance. Whatever came of it—and, no doubt, the Orchils had more ambitious views for Gladys—it was well to have Gerald mentioned in such a fashionable episode, whether anything ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... negotiations, he showed the same grip upon his subject, the same capacity and judgment as in his speeches, and a mingling of tact and dignity which proved the greatest fitness for the conduct of the gravest public affairs. As a statesman Mr. Webster was not an "opportunist," as it is the fashion to call those who live politically from day to day, dealing with each question as it arises, and exhibiting often the greatest skill and talent. Still less was he a statesman of the type of Charles ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... limit the weight of competitors to 12 lb. The Bull-terrier Club put 15 lb. as the lowest weight allowed for the large breed, and it seems a pity to have an interregnum between the large and miniature variety; still, in the interests of the small valuable specimens, this seems inevitable, and opportunist principles must be applied to doggy matters as to other business in this world. At present there is a diversity of opinion as to their points, but roughly they are a long flat head, wide between the eyes and tapering to the nose, which should be black. Ears erect and bat-like, straight legs ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... career of Douglas in Washington was the career of an opportunist, at once full of good and full of evil, full of right and full of wrong. He was a born politician, an expert manager of men and a natural machine builder. Many others outranked Douglas in set speeches, but few ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... to allow the young Emperor to issue twenty-seven edicts, disposing of twenty-seven difficult problems such as I have given above in about twice that many days, and it is this hot-headed and unstatesman-like young "Confucius" who now calls Yuan Shih-kai an opportunist and a traitor because he did not enter into ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... thinking it over ever since you told me Henty had fought shy. I 've a poor opinion of Henty. He's one of those fellows that says one thing and does another. An opportunist! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... quantitatively in politics, that to do so fritters away the plain consideration of principle. 'Logical principles' may be only an inadequate representation of the subtlety of nature, but to abandon them is, it is contended, to become a mere opportunist. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas |
