"Unjustifiable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an insane and unjustifiable love of adventure, and a false curiosity, he had associated himself with a man whom he believed, if he did not actually know, to be infamous and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Jane Eyre, she is not only awakened, but awake as she has never been awake before, with all her virgin senses exquisitely alive, every nerve changed to intense vibration. Sometimes she is perniciously awake; she is doing appalling things, things unjustifiable, preposterous; things that would have meant perdition to any other writer; she sees with wild, erroneous eyes; but the point is that she sees, that she keeps moving, that from the first page to the last she is never once asleep. To come to Jane Eyre after The Professor is to pass into ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... theology—if a man may ask a woman to sit naked to him; and then if it would be justifiable to employ a naked woman for a statue of the Virgin. Father Brennan said, 'Nakedness is not a sin,' and Father McCabe said, 'Nakedness may not be in itself a sin, but it leads to sin, and is therefore unjustifiable.' At their third tumbler of punch they had reached Raphael, and at the fourth Father McCabe held that bad statues were more likely to excite devotional feelings than good ones, bad statues being further removed ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... often used, in order to enable the builder to avail himself of short and slender shafts. It has been noted that these are often easily attainable, and of precious materials, when shafts large enough and strong enough to do the work at once, could not be obtained except at unjustifiable expense, and of coarse stone. The architect has then no choice but to arrange his work in successive stories; either frankly completing the arch work and cornice of each, and beginning a new story above it, which is the honester and nobler ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... political affairs which seemed to indicate that they were to be reduced from a position of superiority to one of equality,—if our forefathers had acted after this wild fashion, we should not only think that the Revolution they achieved was altogether unjustifiable, but we should blush at the thought of being descended from such despot-demagogues. This is a very feeble statement of the case which would connect the Revolt of the American Colonies with the Revolt of the American Liberticides; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... 'Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas,—eh, Bran? How do I know that, though? Why should it not be a piece of excellent fortune for her, if she had but the equanimity to see it? Why—what will happen to her? She will betaken to Rome, and sold as a slave.... And in spite of a few discomforts in the transfer, and the prejudice ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... of his arm. To him the idol was now, as to Paul, "nothing in the world." But if the king had said, "You must bow to show the people that you worship Syria's god," then plainly the bowing would have been unjustifiable. And similarly, if a matter which to us is of no moral significance becomes a test of our disposition or attitude towards truth, we must be guided in our conduct not solely by our own view of the indifference ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... classes, with reference to this point of representation—are delusive; no such divisions as classes actually exist in society. There is an indissoluble blending and interfusion of persons from top to bottom; and no man can trace a line of separation through them, except such a confessedly unmeaning and unjustifiable line of political empiricism as 10l. householders. I cannot discover a ray of principle in the government plan, —not a hint of the effect of the change upon the balance of the estates of the realm,—not a remark on the nature of the constitution of England, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... risks in such enterprises amount to the possible loss of the whole investment, and the possible returns must consequently be commensurate. Such business is therefore necessarily highly speculative, but not unjustifiable, as the whole history of the industry attests; but this makes the matter no easier for the mine valuer. Many devices of financial procedure assist in the limitation of the sum risked, and offer a middle course to the investor between purchase of a wholly prospective value ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... in tones of calm and dispassionate reproof, "your conduct is absolutely unjustifiable. You seem to forget that you are in the presence of ladies and of my guests. If you had a quarrel with M. de ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... provocation, and the word which is the speaker's last resource. When "Bobus" Smith told Talleyrand that his mother had been a beautiful woman, and Talleyrand replied, "C'etait donc Monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien," we hold the witticism to have been cruel because unjustifiable. A man should be privileged to say his mother was beautiful, without inviting such a very obvious sarcasm. But when Madame de Stael pestered Talleyrand to say what he would do if he saw her and Madame ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... one belonging to his "missis," which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the curtain—thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... what I had seen of the skill in the manipulation of their weapons possessed by the Freeland youth. Even the easily gained victory over the enemy's vanguard had not raised my expectations high enough. I confess that I regarded it as unjustifiable indiscretion, and as a proof of his total misunderstanding of the task which had been committed to him by the commander-in-chief, that Colonel Ruppert, the leader of our little band, should accept battle, and that not in the form of a covered retreat, but as a regular engagement ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... "Extravagant and unjustifiable as they are in themselves, [they] must have led us to believe that the First Consul would have been more anxious than ever to have closed his account ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... he was saying, who has no fear of his enemies, and no dread of consequences. His sermon lasted an hour, yet I was sorry when it was done. I do not say that I agree either with him, or with Mr. W., either in all or in half their opinions. I consider them bigoted, intolerant, and wholly unjustifiable on the ground of common sense. My conscience will not let me be either a Puseyite or a Hookist; mais, if I were a Dissenter, I would have taken the first opportunity of kicking, or of horse-whipping both the gentlemen for their stern, bitter attack on my religion and its teachers. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... more just course prevailed, and he finally decided the balance by vigorously declaring his resolution for peace; and the treaty was consequently signed at Nimeguen, on the 10th of August, 1678. The Prince of Orange, from private motives of spleen, or a most unjustifiable desire for fighting, took the extraordinary measure of attacking the French troops under Luxemburg, near Mons, on the very day after the signing of this treaty. He must have known it, even though it were not officially notified to him; ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... bitter, irreclaimable, to the death. It is idle to mince phrases; I do not vindicate our mutual feelings, I may regret that they have ever arisen; I may regret it especially at this exigency. They are not the feelings of good Christians; they may be altogether to be deplored and unjustifiable; but they exist, mutually exist; and have not been confined to words. Lord Monmouth would crush me, had he the power, like a worm; and I have curbed his proud fortunes often. Were it not for this feeling I should not be here; ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... was about ten years old, and when his mind had received all the seeds of those evil weeds which afterwards grew apace, his mother died, and his father, half heart-broken, returned to England. To sum up her imprudence and unjustifiable indulgence, she had contrived to place a considerable part of her fortune at her son's exclusive control or disposal, in consequence of which management, George Staunton had not been long in England till he learned his independence, and how to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Government in imposing a tax per head on all labourers leaving their ports on the Ivory Coast. This tax, I believe, is now removed or much reduced; but as for the Liberian Republic, it simply gets its revenue in an utterly unjustifiable way out of taxing the Krumen who ship as labourers. The Krumen are no property of theirs, and they dare not interfere with them on shore; but owing to that little transaction in the celebrated Rubber Monopoly, the Liberians ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... their parents be equally wholesome. There was then, however, strong love and self- sacrificing devotion; but not manifested in softness or cultivation of sympathy. Nothing was more dreaded than spoiling, which was viewed as idle and unjustifiable self-gratification at the expense of the objects thereof. There were an unlucky little pair in Russell Square who were said to be 'spoilt children,' and who used to be mentioned in our nursery with bated breath as a kind of monsters or criminals. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... methods of business must have caused to a very busy and overworked lady who always loved few words and simple and direct arguments.[53] At all times the Queen had decided political opinions, and the experience of a long reign had given her a large measure of not unjustifiable self-confidence. Few persons had studied as she had during all those years the various political questions that arose, and she had had the advantage of discussing them at length with a long succession of the leading statesmen of England. Under such circumstances her opinions had ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... has to be taken for granted which might readily enough be proved; and hence, while the adept, who can supply the missing links in the evidence from his own knowledge, discovers fresh proof of the singular thoroughness with which all difficulties have been considered and all unjustifiable suppositions avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's pregnant paragraphs, the novice in biology is apt to complain of the frequency of what he fancies ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... should be justified in keeping it more than a few days. After all, it might possibly contain some message, or some especial injunction which Greif ought to receive at once. To keep such a document concealed for any length of time would have been wholly unjustifiable. On the other hand Berbel was not sure how such a disclosure might affect Greif. So far as she knew, his illness had been caused by the shock of his father's and mother's deaths, and it could not be foreseen whether a circumstance which must remind him so vividly of that catastrophe might not cause ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... It is simply an unjustifiable libel on the entire class to accuse them of wilful extravagance. I deliberately affirm that the majority of farmers in Wiltshire are exactly the reverse; that, while they practise a generous hospitality to a friend or a stranger, they are decidedly saving and frugal ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... the tail of the peacock, the mane of the lion, and even the gorgeous coloring of many insects and butterflies. In the early years of Darwinism, the theory of sexual selection was pushed to what now seems an unjustifiable extent. Experiment has often failed to demonstrate any sexual selection, in species where speculation supposed it to exist. And even if sexual selection, conscious or unconscious, could be demonstrated in the lower animals, yet the small percentage of unmated individuals ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... the German Empire, no interference with her internal affairs. We should deem either the one or the other absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have professed to live by and to hold most sacred throughout our life as ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... young fellows, who were doubtless envious of Gifted's popularity with the fair sex, attempted in the most unjustifiable manner to play upon his susceptible nature. One of them informed him that he had seen that Lindsay fellah raound taown with the darndest big stick y' ever did see. Looked kind o' savage and wild like. Another one told him that perhaps he'd better keep a little ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... deceive his conscience with the hope that Lucy Tempest, in her girlish innocence, had not understood his hinted allusions to her becoming his wife; that she had looked upon his snatched caresses as but trifling pastime, such as he might offer to a child. Most unjustifiable he now felt those hints, those acts to have been, and his brow grew red with shame at their recollection. One thing he did hope, hope sincerely—that Lucy did not care for him. That she liked him very much, and had been on most confidential terms with him, he knew; but he did hope her liking ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... nature." This statement, appearing in an official publication, has been largely quoted, especially in Mr Egmont Hake's "Story of Chinese Gordon," and the original injury done by Gordon, for which at the time he atoned, was thus repeated in an offensive and altogether unjustifiable form twenty years after Gordon had stated publicly that he was sorry for having written this passage, and believed that Sir Halliday Macartney was actuated by just ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... It is because, alas, the Great Agony through which the world has passed has not dealt kindly with any form of established faith. Dogmatic theology, which admits and exalts the direct interference of the divinity in our affairs, has received some serious wounds. The useless and unjustifiable sacrifice of so many innocent lives, of women, of old men, of children, left us deeply perplexed. We could not grasp the reason for so much suffering. Never, at any period in the past, have the enemies of humanity and of God so blasphemed against the eternal ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... a preface, defending Lord Hervey against Pope's attack, but Pope—quoad Pope, the poet—against all the world, in the unjustifiable attempts begun by Warton and carried on at this day by the new school of critics and scribblers, who think themselves poets because they do not write like Pope. I have no patience with such cursed humbug and bad taste; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... concern you to know how it came here," answered Beroviero. "By your wholly unjustifiable haste, to say nothing worse, you have caused an innocent man to be arrested, and his rescue and disappearance have made matters much worse. I do not care to ask what your object has been. Keep it to yourself, pray, and do not remind me of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... continual cycle in my feverish brains. I should have remained probably much longer in this state of absorption, had I not been summoned to attend Mr Drummond. It appeared that in the meantime Mr Hodgson had come to his own senses, and had given his own version of the fracas, which had been, to an unjustifiable degree, corroborated by the stupid young clerk, who was no friend of mine, and who sought favour with his principal. I walked up to the drawing-room, where I found Mr and Mrs Drummond, and little Sarah, whose eyes were red with crying. I entered without ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of conscience that followed this sinful omission, the calls of a flourishing business concern and the prospect of an increasing family appeared so pressing, that he found an easy excuse to himself for this unjustifiable neglect of an obvious family duty. But when his conscience was almost seared as with a hot iron, it pleased God to awaken him by a peculiar though natural providence. One day he received a letter from a young man who had formerly been an apprentice, previous to his omitting family ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... southern port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago to South Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint. The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as the cases occur constantly ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... authorities, at that period, should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover, these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of warfare seemed to them unjustifiable; and the description given by Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,—"the grandest of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a provision-ground, or cut ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... ever gains entrance on the mind, till a sufficient number of years have given a solidity to the thoughts, and made us know for what we wish, and why we wish.—Every one, however, does not experience its force, and happy may those be accounted who are free from it, since it is not only the most unjustifiable and dangerous, but also the most restless and self-tormenting emotion ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... attempt the inquiry on the wider field of universal consciousness, the first unfoldings of mind in humanity are lost in the border-land of mystery, of which history furnishes no authentic records. All dogmatic affirmation must, therefore, be unjustifiable. The assertion that religious feeling precedes all cognition,—that "the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being, and the instinct of worship" are developed first in the mind, before the reason is exercised, is utterly groundless. The ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... rest began to shoot at our people in the boat with their poisoned arrows, and wounded one of our men in the small of the leg, who had nearly died in spite of every thing our surgeons could do for him. Notwithstanding this unjustifiable conduct, our general sent another message to the negroes, offering any terms they pleased to demand as ransom for our men. But they gave for answer, that three weeks before we came an English ship had forcibly carried off ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... appear before the people. The Agra'rian law, which had been proposed some time before, for equally dividing the lands of the commonwealth among the people, was the object invariably pursued, and they were accused of having made unjustifiable delays ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... magistrate in Nepenthe were to take, on legal grounds, the same view of the case as I hold on purely moral ones, namely, that your action towards Miss Wilberforce would amount to an unwarranted persecution. He would regard it, very likely, as the unjustifiable incarceration of a perfectly harmless individual. Signor Malipizzo, I may say, has pronounced views as to his duties ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... world was strangely blind to its significance. Abstractly regarded, a German dominion over the wasted and misgoverned lands of the Turkish Empire would have meant a real advance of civilisation, and would have been no more unjustifiable than the British control of Egypt or India. This feeling perhaps explained the acquiescence with which the establishment of German influence in Turkey was accepted by most of the powers. They had yet to realise that it was not pursued as an end in itself, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... disregard to common delicacy toward the dead or self-respect in the living, unauthentic gossip is made to desecrate the reticent and consistent tone of the work, pervert its spirit, and detract from its harmonious attraction and truth. A greater or more indecent and unjustifiable liberty was never taken by a publisher with a foreign work; it was an insult to the memory of Washington Irving, to his biographer and those ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... it at the moment of action, and the leaders of the inland levies go over to the enemy! Ethelred sought for safety by an alliance with the Duchy of Normandy, then daily rising to greater power. Thus supported, he proceeded to unjustifiable outrages against his domestic as well as his foreign foes. The great nobles whom he suspected were mercilessly killed or exiled, and their children blinded. The Danes who remained in the land he caused to be murdered ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... lofty and unselfish spirit. They were both samurai. I mentioned that a man of worth and distinction has said to me that, while he recognised the nobility of Nogi's action, he could but not think it unjustifiable. I was at once told that Japanese who do not approve of Nogi's action "must be over-influenced by Western thought." "Those who are quintessentially Japanese," it was explained, "think that Nogi did right. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... their folds, that the possibility of escape was obviously out of the question; as their victim was met and entangled at every turn, until at last the fatal blow descended, and the unequal contest was ended. But more infamous and unjustifiable still, when "the foul invader" found himself occasionally unable to cope successfully with his brave and chivalrous antagonists, he had recourse to a darker and deeper treachery than even that which characterized the stealthy ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... have but a few tools at home," Mr. Breeze says. "When they go on the farm they will be compelled to use these tools. Why, then, should they be taught mechanics with tools which they cannot duplicate on their farms without an unjustifiable extravagance?" ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... weak, thoughtless, irresolute person, and took no such precaution; though, to do the poor man justice, it is only fair to say that such an intervention of authority at such a time and place would be considered on all hands as a very impertinent, unjustifiable, and discourteous interference with the private pleasures ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... intemperate language like yours has before now provoked an invasion of our peace of a most undesirable kind. I entreat you to calm yourself, to accept the apologies of the Court for the incidental and indeed unjustifiable violence with which you were treated. If you will only return to your own community, the nature of which I will not now stay to inquire, you may be assured that you will be conducted to our gates with the utmost honour. Will you pledge yourself as a gentleman, and, ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... true, no right to take the lives of others but if we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of self-defence, exile and imprisonment are equally unjustifiable. ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... do." It would seem that an intellect of any pretensions would recognize the fraudulent nature of this claim, yet thousands of bottles of this stuff are annually sold to a gullible public. These wide and unjustifiable claims are real danger signals, and any medicine making them should be avoided. There are many other remedies for which just as great claims are made; the two instances cited are merely representative of a large class. It is a waste of time, money, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... last night and this morning Much indeed has occurred to me, that now renders my longer silence as to prospects and proceedings unjustifiable to myself. I will therefore now address myself to both my beloved confidants, and open to them all my thoughts, and entreat their own with equal plainness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... think it right?' objected the Bishop. 'You will say, of course, that it is only killing a plumber; but yet one asks oneself whether it wouldn't be just a leetle bit unjustifiable.' ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... desire to enlarge the powers of the government by unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within a fair interpretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of the whole. So far as respects the exercise of such a power, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... as Mr. Fish shows them apart from their connection, do very certainly seem in bad taste, if not actually indiscreet and unjustifiable. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of striking employees. The answers, as reported in the proceedings of the Twenty-third National Conference of Charities,[5] seem to take it for granted that either all strikes are equally justifiable or else equally unjustifiable; the fact being, of course, that some strikes are entirely justifiable, that others are quite the reverse, and that still others, which are justifiable at one stage, become unjustifiable at another stage, where the ground of contention has ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... the glass, gave a nod of approbation. Exultation overcame the usual wariness of the attorney, for his pride, too, had got to be enlisted in the success of his speculation,—men being so strangely constituted as often to feel as much joy in the accomplishment of schemes that are unjustifiable, as in the accomplishment of those of which they may have ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... was besides unwilling to incense Miss Matthews, whom he expected to be bailed out the next day, and who had more money left than he intended she should carry out of the prison with her; and as for any violent or unjustifiable methods, the lady had discovered much too great a spirit to be in danger of them. The governor, therefore, in a very gentle tone, declared that, if he had given any offence to the gentleman, he heartily asked his pardon; that, if he had known him to be really a captain, he should not have ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... party halted I proceeded, with the freshest man,* in a southerly direction; urged on by what was, perhaps, now the unjustifiable hope of discovering some distant point rising above the far horizon as a definite result and reward of my exploration. It seemed, however, almost impossible that this same wearisome monotony could long continue; and I experienced much ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... a true Roman woman, simple and honest: Agrippina would never consent to this absolutely unjustifiable divorce. To force Nero to a decisive move against his mother, Poppaea had her husband sent on some mission to Lusitania and became the mistress of the Emperor. From that point the situation changed. Dominated by Poppaea's influence, Nero found the courage to force Agrippina ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... girl of your age, Pamela," she said sternly, "I consider that you express your opinions far too freely. Your attitude, too, is unjustifiable." ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... personage, whose part had hitherto been to remain contemplative, flew off his branch, threw himself on the dog and gave him a formidable blow on the spine. Seized with indignation, the dog turned round to punish the author of this unjustifiable aggression; but the bird was already far away, and in the meanwhile from the other side the first Anomalocorax seized the long-coveted bone and also took flight. The feelings of the sheepish dog who saw both his vengeance ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... consequences of the Duc d'Enghien's death were not confined to the general consternation which that unjustifiable stroke of state policy produced in the capital. The news spread rapidly through the provinces and foreign countries, and was everywhere accompanied by astonishment and sorrow. There is in the departments a separate class of society, possessing ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... been false of tongue and unprincipled in deed, but he took the free cities under his personal protection, opened up trade with foreign lands, beautified Paris and France. He may, under the cloak of religion, have permitted unjustifiable cruelties against the most innocent, the most gifted province in Europe, in order to secure access to the sea for France. But he left the communes richer and happier, his kingdom freer from local tyrannies, transformed from a pandemonium of struggling knights and barons into the nearest ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... not always or wholly evil. Sometimes it is justifiable and necessary. Sometimes it is professedly and in part really due to some strong wave of philanthropic feeling produced by great acts of wrong, though of all forms of philanthropy it is that which most naturally defeats itself. Even when unjustifiable, it calls into action splendid qualities of courage, self-sacrifice, and endurance which cast a dazzling and deceptive glamour over its horrors and its criminality. It appeals too, beyond all other things, to that craving for excitement, adventure, and danger which is an essential and imperious ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... stocking swung in the breeze from the cracked window. Also he loved the wretched woman who with himself shared the honours of parentage to the poor but hopeful mite who was also dreaming of Christmas and the morning. And his love inspired him to action. Singular into what devious courses, utterly unjustifiable, even so exalted and holy an emotion may lead fallible man. Love—burglary! They do not belong naturally in association, yet slip cold, need, and hunger in between and we may have explanation even if there be no justification. Oh, Love, how many ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... no greater wonders: and it frequently happened, that the first the quiet citizens heard of a theft, or a robbery, was the news of its punishment! Their acts may sometimes have been high-handed and unjustifiable, but on the whole—and it is only in such a view that social institutions are to be estimated—they were the preservers of the communities for whom they acted. In time, it is true, they degenerated, and sometimes the corps fell into the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... organisms were in existence. For this reason, the scientists for a long time thought it unprofitable to occupy themselves with this question; and even in our time a great many of them declare the question to be absolutely insolvable, and every attempt at answering it to be an unjustifiable use of hypotheses. But the impulse toward investigation admits of no limitation so long as there is any probability of extending its field of action. Especially in the province of nature, so many things which could not be discovered by mere ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... conversation, and your unjustifiable interference. I am entirely in your hands: at the mercy of your extraordinary notions of duty. Tell her what you will, if you must; and pave the way to your own success. I shall say nothing; but I swear you love the girl yourself; ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... September 5th, 1857, to be published at the same time with Wallace's essay, are given in the "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society," 1858, page 45. I was at first very unwilling to consent, as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on the other hand, was admirably exprest and quite clear. Nevertheless, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... glowering like a tiger at bay. He scanned our resolute little party, and looked helplessly at the sullen, scowling faces of his own men. "I yield to force of arms," he said hoarsely; "but I protest against this unjustifiable outrage. Lagarde, bring the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... of corn and green crops. Under present conditions nothing is more certain than the abandonment of arable land as such; and it is folly to talk of novel systems of transport for a dwindling output, or of building labourers' cottages at an unjustifiable cost, which are never likely to be wanted by ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... seems to have been of an uncommonly warm temper, and zealous in whatever religion he professed: his zeal, before his conversion, shewed itself in the most unjustifiable actions, by furiously persecuting the innocent Christians: but, though his actions were bad, we may be sure his intentions were good; otherwise we should not have seen a miracle employed to convince him of his mistake, and to bring him into ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... D'Aguesseau, who had been dismissed in 1718 for his opposition to the projects of Law, was now recalled to aid in the restoration of credit. The regent acknowledged too late, that he had treated with unjustifiable harshness and mistrust one of the ablest, and perhaps the sole honest public man of that corrupt period. He had retired ever since his disgrace to his country house at Fresnes, where, in the midst of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... thirteen were executed, and only one of these, General Harrison, had played any conspicuous part in the rebellion. Twenty others, who had been prominent in what were now called "the troubles" of the past twenty years, were declared incapable of holding office under the State: and by an unjustifiable clause which was introduced into the Act before its final adoption Sir Harry Vane and General Lambert, though they had taken no part in the king's death, were specially ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... world, and particularly to blame the severity of creditors, who seldom or never attended to any unfortunate circumstances, but without mercy inflicted confinement on the debtor, whose body the law, with very unjustifiable rigour, delivered into their power. He added, that for his part, he looked on this restraint to be as heavy a punishment as any appointed by law for the greatest offenders. That the loss of liberty was, in his opinion, equal ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... strength of her faith gave her an ascendant over the sentiments of nature, and she even desired this cruel separation, bearing it with joy, out of a pure and heroic love of God. She had indeed taken a previous care to have all her children brought up saints; otherwise her design would have been unjustifiable. Being therefore fixed in her resolution, and having settled her affairs, she went to the water side, attended by her brother, relations, friends, and children, who all strove by their tears to overcome her constancy. Even when the vessel was ready to sail, her little ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... is constrained to hold in view of the present indisputable doctrines of accepted international law, that any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war, which would affect unequally the relations of the United States with the nations at war, would be an unjustifiable departure from the principle of strict neutrality, by which it has consistently sought to direct its actions, and I respectfully submit that none of the circumstances, urged in your Excellency's memorandum, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... been such a case before,—so impudent, so cruel, so gross, so uncalled for, so unmanly, so unnecessary, so unjustifiable, so damnable,—so sure of eternal condemnation! All this she said to him with loud voice, and clenched fist, and starting eyes,—regardless utterly of any listeners on the stairs, or of outside passers in the street. In very truth she was moved to a sublimity of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... possibly be deduced from any general proposition which simply embodies experience. But it does not follow that the belief, or expectation, expressed by the axiom, is not a product of experience, generated antecedently to, and altogether independently of, the logically unjustifiable language ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... agitation, the other in a flood of tears. Their appearance affected me, and I wept like an infant. When I had a little recovered myself, I begged him to sit down. He answered, No. I then told him that however unjustifiable my conduct might appear, perhaps I might explain it to his satisfaction if he would hear me; that my motives were innocent, though they doubtless wore the aspect of criminality in his view. He sternly replied, that no palliation could ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... the transaction. We know better. It was a carefully devised Plot to take CARSON'S hundred thousand armed and drilled men at their word and compel them to fight. Not since war began has there been such unjustifiable—don't wish to use strong language, but must say—such really rude procedure on part of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... numerous are the prayers which reflection and an awakened moral sense rule out of court: prayers which ask God to do for us by special intervention what we ought to do for ourselves by our own effort and industry; prayer for success in dealings and enterprises which in themselves are ethically {213} unjustifiable, and to which the only answer could be, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself"; prayers which carry the spirit of egoism, of competition, of bargaining even into our relations with the Most High; ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob though the younger obtained the rights of primogeniture; he also procured his father's blessing by very unjustifiable means; and then repaired to Padan-aram to take a wife out of his own family. He married Leah and Rachel, and had twelve sons, who were called the twelve Patriarchs or fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel, their names were, ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... consider me as a friend, by your using me without ceremony." The soldier, thus convinced of the falsehood of the information he had received, began to imagine, that Pickle had projected the plan which was executed by his servant; and looking upon it as a piece of unjustifiable finesse, which might be attended with very melancholy consequences to his sister or wife, he answered, in a supercilious tone, that Mr. Pickle must blame himself for the interruption of his repose, which was entirely owing to the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the college apologists. The plan was acted upon, and a dispensary was eventually established (some nine years after the vote of 1687) at the College of Physicians, Warwick Lane, where medicines were vended to the poor at cost price. This measure of the college was impolitic and unjustifiable. It was unjust to that important division of the trade who were ready to vend the medicines at rates to be paid by the college authorities, for it took altogether out of their hands the small amount of profit which they, as dealers, could ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... reader may suppose, yet not with an irrecoverable confusion; being conscious that it was from no emotion of incautious admiration, nor yet in a spirit of unjustifiable inquisitiveness, that I had incurred this reproof. I might have cleared myself on the spot, but would not. I did not speak. I was not in the habit of speaking to him. Suffering him, then, to think what he chose and accuse me of what he would, I resumed some work ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... to confidence. Shame hindered me from acknowledging my past reserves. Ludloe, from the nature of our intercourse, would certainly account my reserve, in this respect, unjustifiable, and to excite his indignation or contempt was an unpleasing undertaking. Now, if I should resolve to persist in my new path, this reserve must be dismissed: I must make him master of a secret which was precious to me beyond all others; by acquainting him with past concealments, ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... only one end of it. You hear questions asked; you don't hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear no thanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by apparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or sorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk, because you never hear anything that the person at the other end of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable series of observations, all from the one tongue, and all shouted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to give you some advice respecting the employment of your time; perhaps I ought to follow up that letter with a few remarks upon PUNCTUALITY. Unless you acquire the habit of punctuality, you will be apt, not only to lose your own time, but to make unjustifiable inroads upon the time ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... Warren Hastings has been guilty of a high breach of trust and duty, in the unnecessary expenditure of the Company's money, and in subjecting the Company to a profusion of expense, at all times wholly unjustifiable, but particularly at the time when that expense was incurred. That the said Warren Hastings was guilty of breach of orders, as well as breach of trust, in not advertising generally for proposals; in not contracting indifferently for the supplies with such merchants as might offer ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... allowed to lie in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, and refit, was afterwards captured with two hundred and twenty-five slaves on board.[59] The real reason that prevented many belligerent Congressmen from pressing certain search claims against England lay in the fact that the unjustifiable detentions had unfortunately revealed so much American guilt that it was deemed wiser to let the matter end in talk. For instance, in 1850 Congress demanded information as to illegal searches, and President Fillmore's report showed the uncomfortable fact that, of the ten American ships wrongly ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... against Anarchists, Socialists and all radicals, were not certain they could render an impartial verdict—and ruled that they were not disqualified! He said from the bench that "Anarchists, Socialists and Communists were as pernicious and unjustifiable as horse thieves," and, finally, in charging the jury, that even though the state had not proved that any of the eight men on trial had actually thrown the bomb, they were nevertheless guilty of a conspiracy ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... it would be quite unjustifiable, quite mad; but—I thought I felt signs of spring madness when I looked out of that ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... a syllable, much less to stem the torrent which, in accusing her country in general terms, was aimed at her in particular: her conscience accused her of many crimes, which, though far removed from atrocity like this, were yet utterly unjustifiable, and, as she now believed, might have led to the utmost limits of tyranny, cruelty, and oppression; and all she felt or feared in her own conduct, seemed to rise to her memory, and stamp conscious guilt on her expressive features; and while thus ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... necessity of having them fulfilled he treated me with contempt. Where, I ask, is the happy home he promised me at Tiverton. Where, also, are the half dozen of homes he has since reared for me in London. He also promised me a home in Canada; an unjustifiable plea, as I may term it, to smoothe down his intention of deserting me and my dear child, leaving us to be subjected to the biting scorn of the uncharitable world, and without even the nominal existence of a home that we could call our own. Again, the evil spirit of his soul has been ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... as their love of praise and affection is ardent. Thus children, who have the most lively sympathy, are, unless they be judiciously educated, the most in danger of feeling early the malevolent passions of jealousy and envy. It is inhuman, and in every point of view unjustifiable in us, to excite these painful feelings in children, as we too often do, by the careless or partial distribution of affection and applause. Exact justice will best prevent jealousy; each individual submits to justice, because each, in turn, feels the benefit of its protection. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... frequently plundering them of their hard-earned property with lawless violence. Some even went so far as to inflict tortures on their Indians, to compel them to give up every thing they possessed, often carrying their cruelty to such a pitch as to put them to death in the most wanton and unjustifiable manner. To put a stop to these violent proceedings, the taxes of each province and district were regulated in proportion to the number of Indian and Spanish inhabitants which they respectively contained; and, in forming their arrangements, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... a deputy of the legitimist opposition, who had been favorable to the election of Sallenauve, hastened, after the reading of this report, to ask for the floor, and entreated the Chamber to remark that its adoption would be wholly unjustifiable. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... and other small articles of women's gear which lay scattered about the room. The gloves particularly attracted him, and he flattened them out and laid them on his own large brown hand, and smiled at the contrast, and took further unjustifiable liberties with them; after which he returned to college and endured much banter as to the time his call had lasted, and promised to engage his cousins as he called them, to grace some festivities in St. Ambrose's at ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... members only; but this amendment was likewise negatived. No division took place on the clause giving three members to certain of the middle-sized counties, although it was denounced as monstrous and unjustifiable on any principle of fairness or common equity. In the preceding session, while the former bill was in committee, the Marquis of Chandos had succeeded in carrying as an amendment a provision which conferred the county franchise on tenants-at-will paying a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... article just quoted had a wholesome effect upon many thoughtful men at the South, and brought the blush to the cheek of the nation. A few of the Southern journals agreed with Mr. Greeley that the resolves of the Confederate Congress were unjustifiable; that the Congress had no right to say what color the Union soldiers should be; and that such action would damage their cause in the calm and humane judgment of all Europe. But the Confederate Congress was unmoved and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... grandfather's spectacles on; execrated in my heart the cheerful canary and the distracting parrot that few barbers' shops are without. Finally, I searched out the least dilapidated of last year's illustrated papers that littered the foul center-table, and conned their unjustifiable misrepresentations ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... emphatically repudiated it. He addressed the British Government, saying "that the disloyal communication of the emigrant farmers had been repelled with indignation, and that the King of Holland had taken every possible step to mark his disapproval of the unjustifiable use made of his name by the individuals referred to." Captain Smith, who fortunately had not been imposed upon by what the Boers considered their neat ruse, made preparations to attack them. But he overestimated his own or underrated his adversary's strength. He fell into ambush and lost ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... I know how to appreciate so great a blessing,' replied Venetia; 'but I should be sorry if the natural interest which all children must take in those who have given them birth, should be looked upon as idle and unjustifiable curiosity.' ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... won over to her opinion. Then she added that his coldness was unjustifiable; she did not understand how a man of such good taste had not fallen hopelessly in love ere this. She joked him, she laughed at him, and she praised the qualities of the gentle ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... rightfulness of vivisection as a method either of study or demonstration, was there at that period any question in my mind. Whatever Science desired, it seemed to me only proper that Science should have. The fact that certain demonstrations or experiments upon living animals had already been condemned as unjustifiable cruelty by the leading men in the medical profession, and by some of the principal medical journals of England, was then as utterly unknown to me as the same facts are to-day unknown to the average graduate of every medical school in the United States. It was not long until after this early ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... hedgerows.... One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a Nursery-Gardener. And there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory—that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the long ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... is indispensable. Let the people of Ohio now repay the debt which their fathers incurred to the gallant people of Kentucky for the defense of Ohio against the British and Indians. They now appeal to us for help against an invasion more unjustifiable and barbarous. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... they were intended to kindle. The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this unfortunate people. He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were everywhere destroyed. Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general rebellion broke out, which his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... admirably suited the conditions in Aboukir Bay and off Cape Trafalgar. But these considerations do not diminish the credit of either admiral, though they help to explain the fullness of their success, and justify proceedings which under different circumstances would be unjustifiable. Rather, it may be said that, in the adaptation of their measures to the conditions opposed to them, what would otherwise invite condemnation as ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... that he was addressing a lady. He raised the hand respectfully to his lips. But he felt now that his suspicions were groundless, and that he did wrong in deceiving a person, who, however romantic and unjustifiable her behavior might seem, was still one entitled to respect and honor. But as he was framing an apology for taking advantage of her mistaking him, the stranger suddenly sprang upon him like a tigress. The delicate hand he had just kissed now compressed his throat like an iron vice; the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... permanent will indicates a habit of mind, a way of acting, which may be expected to make its influence felt with the persistency of that which exerts a steady pressure. To refuse it the name of will seems arbitrary and unjustifiable. ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton |
