"Detriment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to him, but he returns no answer. With a dumb show of misery, quite touching, he hands me a soiled piece of parchment, whereon I read what purports to be a melancholy account of shipwreck and disaster, to the particular detriment, loss, and damnification of one Pietro Frugoni, who is, in consequence, sorely in want of the alms of all charitable Christian persons, and who is, in short, the bearer of this veracious document, duly certified and indorsed by an Italian consul in one of our Atlantic cities, of a high-sounding, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... easy to collect a library of lamentations over the mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, they think, argues degeneracy from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... clangor from their instruments than Eugen d'Albert, then my aural memory is at fault. My recollection of Liszt is a vivid one: to me he was iron; Tausig, steel; Rubinstein, gold. This metallic classification is not intended to praise gold at the expense of steel, or iron to the detriment of gold. It is merely my way of describing the adamantine qualities of Liszt and Tausig—two magnetic mountains of the kind told of in Sinbad, the Sailor, to which was attracted whatever came within their radius. And Rubinstein—what a man, what an artist, what a heart! As ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... as "Magic"—and by this we mean both White Magic, or efforts to produce results beneficial to the person influenced, and Black Magic, or efforts to produce results beneficial to the person exerting the influence, and often to the positive detriment of ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... only surpassed in New England by two. When the contention arose between the Mother country and the colonies, his interest was to take the side of the Mother country. But he sided with the Colonies—to the great detriment of his private business. He served in Congress during nearly the whole of the War, and was almost constantly employed in a struggle with the financial ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... jokes with him, Jones bribed him with cake to the performance of before-unheard-of. feats, and one muscular, fiercely mus-tached and bearded young man, whose artistic forte yas battle-pieces of the most sanguinary description, appropriated him bodily and set him on his shoulder, greatly to the detriment ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... are gone in, one is apt to forget whether they think "promiscuous dancing" immoral or praiseworthy. Well, you must know some of my brother's constituents are alarmingly excellent—fat, suburban, and retired; and we have hatched a juvenile hay-making, where they may eat and flirt without detriment to decided piety; and when they go off, we dress for a second ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desirous of having an opportunity of representing it in its utmost malignancy, to make a merit of their vigilance with a powerful and absolute minister. Of this the Chevalier de Grammont was thoroughly convinced; yet whatever detriment he foresaw might arise from it, he could not help being much pleased ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... its hurrying way to join the Craigwen River. It was not at all an easy progress, for the wall was overgrown with hazel bushes and a tangle of brambles, and its unmortared surface had deep holes, into which the unwary might put a foot. For several hundred yards they struggled on, decidedly to the detriment of their clothing, and rather encumbered by their baskets; then at last they reached the particular corner they were seeking, and scrambled down ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... in a blurred, faint light that they gradually fade out of our memory. A very keen scientist was deploring to me, on one occasion, the fact that stories were told so much in the schools, to the detriment of science, for which he claimed the same indestructible element that I recognize in the best-told stories. Being very much interested in her point of view, I asked her to tell me, looking back on her school days, what she could remember ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... I have given, we have epitomised many of our particular words to the detriment of our tongue, so on other occasions we have drawn two words into one, which has likewise very much untuned our language, and clogged it with consonants, as "mayn't," "can't," "shan't," "won't," and the like, for "may not," "can not," "shall ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... thy soul at all, if thou deem thyself fit husband for a king's daughter, wrest the sceptre from her father, retrieve thy lineage by thy valour, balance with courage thy lack of ancestry, requite by bravery thy detriment of blood. Power won by daring is more prosperous than that won by inheritance. Boldness climbs to the top better than inheritance, and worth wins power better than birth. Moreover, it is no shame to overthrow old age, which of its own weight sinks and totters to its fall. It ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a vacant or absent mind in company is a grave fault, and works greatly to the detriment of one's reputation for intelligence, in spite of all else that one ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... have squandered your heart, your intellect, your health. As a girl I sacrificed for you my pride and my celebrated beauty. You were my first passion, and you have remained the sun of my existence. As a young widow I threw myself at your head. You would not accept me. Perhaps to your detriment. But that is no consolation. I have forced myself to be your sister, in order to possess you a little, ah so little. Let me at last be more to you, Robert. Thiel tells you that you must love no longer. But you may still allow yourself to be loved. Robert, suffer ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... Although this condenser has, as I have said, been in use for thirty or forty years, one still sees engines working without condensation at all, or with waterworks water, purchased at a great cost, and to the detriment of other consumers who want it for ordinary domestic purposes; or one sees large condensing ponds made, in which the injection water is stored to be used over and over again, and frequently (especially toward the end of the week) in so tepid a state as to be unfit for its purpose. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... seized the opportunity of declaring their innocence, and disowning the alleged confessions as forgeries. The old veterans stood up in the church before the assembled multitude, and, raising their chained hands to heaven, declared that whatever had been confessed to the detriment of the illustrious order was only forced from them by extreme agony and fear of death, and that they solemnly and finally repudiated and revoked ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... satisfy you. If you try to keep the discovery to yourselves, you will continue to live a life of shifts and chicanery. You must give in, or else when you are exhausted and at the last gasp, you will end by making a bargain with some capitalist or other, and perhaps to your own detriment, whereas to-day I hope to see you make a good one with MM. Cointet. In this way you will save yourselves the hardships and the misery of the inventor's duel with the greed of the capitalist and the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... have some literary or artistic tastes, not to ignore them entirely because they do not pay so well as your counting-room accounts do, and are not so entertaining to you as billiards. I would even indulge her by sacrificing a whole evening to her, once in a while, even to the detriment of your own business or pleasure. Depend upon it, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer. There is reason to believe, that they make the voyage only for plunder, and that they are permitted to do so, to the great disparagement of my honor, and the detriment of the undertaking itself.[416-2] It is right to give God His own,—and to Caesar[416-3] that which belongs to him.[416-4] This is a just sentiment, and proceeds from just feelings. The lands in this part of the world, which are now under your Highnesses' sway, are ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... opinion, admonished by the past, has returned to its accustomed and healthful channels, from which it will not be readily diverted. There is no portion of our citizens who desire to increase our state indebtedness, or to do aught to the detriment of our common interests, when they are shown the evils that inevitably follow in the train of borrowing large sums of money, to be repaid, perhaps, in periods of pecuniary distress and embarrassment. Neither is it true, on the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... absurd to say that beasts and fowls are defiled with sin, as man; yet doubtless they received detriment thereby. "The creature was made subject to vanity, by reason of him who hath subjected the same," &c. That is, by Adam's sin. Which vanity they also show by divers of their practise; as both in their enmity to man, and one to another, with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stood six feet two, his limbs and torso were splendid, and his head was magnificently proportioned. His vitality must have been wonderful, and his health was absolutely perfect until after the War, during which he too assiduously nursed the sick and wounded, to the lasting detriment of his phenomenal constitution. The flame of his life burnt on for another thirty years, but his strength was seriously undermined, and he is far better entitled to be called a martyr than many who have more cheaply ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... bitterly proud, starves and shivers, and hugs up his bones in his capa between the Bidassoa and the Manzanares; many a wild-hearted, unlettered Manuela applies the inexorable law of the land to her own detriment, and, with a sob in the breath, sits down to her spinning again, her mouldy crust and cup of cold water, or worse fare than that. Joy is not for the poor, she says—and then, with a shrug, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... magistrate for the manacling of Satan in that persecuting power, there is little hope either of the liberty of the subject or the law of God amongst us." And if he was not orthodox, he was sensible, for he says: "I cannot understand what detriment could redound either to Church or Commonwealth by ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... off'n Bennie's Neckties and Toys; Dr. Ernst von Gerhard, Chief Medical Adviser, and Sweller of the Exchequer, with the Privilege of Selecting All Candies. Members of the corporation meet with great frequency evenings and Sundays, much to the detriment of a certain Book-in-the-making with which Dawn O'Hara Orme was wont ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... than if it had happened in his absence—he would rather a hundred times endure the loss of the place than have it succoured with such injurious and dishonourable conditions. After all, he said, the loss of Calais was substantially of more importance to the queen than to himself. To him the chief detriment would be in the breaking up of his easy and regular communications with his neighbours through this position, and especially with her Majesty. But as her affection for him was now proved to be so slender as to allow her to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The Comando Supremo can, of course, have all the motor-cars it wants, but it discourages their use except in cases of necessity. The officers are instructed that, whenever they can travel by railway without detriment to the interests of the service, they are expected to do so, for the trains are in operation to within a few miles of the front and with astonishing regularity, whereas tires and gasolene cost money. Returning at nightfall from the front to Udine, we were nearly ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... positions under him; but Blum had never been successful. Either the post was abolished after he had been appointed to it, or a new chief took charge of the department; once he was almost arrested by mistake with other people. He was precise, but he was gloomy to excess and to his own detriment. He was tall and had red hair; he stooped and was depressed and even sentimental; and in spite of his being humbled by his life, he was obstinate and persistent as an ox, though always at the wrong moment. For Andrey Antonovitch he, as well as his wife ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... So, if without detriment to piety great things may be compared with small, I would contend, that every intelligency, descending by way of emanation or impartition from the Godhead, must needs be a personality of that Godhead, from which it has descended, only so vastly unequal to it in personal perfection, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... visit to London having any great effect upon the character, whatever it may have upon the intellect. But her London—her great apocryphal city—was the "town" of a century before, to which giddy daughters dragged unwilling papas, or went with injudicious friends, to the detriment of all their better qualities, and sometimes to the ruin of their fortunes; it was the Vanity Fair of the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... compelled to perform his duty. Though he always locked the door punctually, he at first neglected his duty of watching me through the peephole; and when I tried to test his firmness by suggesting a change in some rule or other to the detriment of common sense he yielded willingly and quickly. One day, on trapping him in this ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... been on McClellan's staff, and through his influence, doubtless, acquired his present position. Were its trifling details detaining the grand army of the Potomac from an onward movement in this most favorable weather, to the great detriment of national finances, the encouragement of the Rebellion, and the depression of patriots everywhere? Must the earnestness of the patriotic, self-sacrificing thousands in the field, be fettered by these cobwebs, constructed by men interested in pay and ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... within very narrow limits, for there are only 142 stars all told which are of the third magnitude or brighter. The Nautical Almanac gives a list of some 150 stars which may be used, but as a matter of fact, the list might be reduced to some 50 or 60 without serious detriment to the practical navigator. About 30 of these are of the second magnitude or greater and hence easily found. It is not difficult to learn to know 30 or 40 of the brighter stars, so that they can be recognized at any time. ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... camp we forebore to attack them, leaving to Henry Chatillon, who could better judge their fatness and good quality, the task of killing such as we wanted for use; but against the bulls we waged an unrelenting war. Thousands of them might be slaughtered without causing any detriment to the species, for their numbers greatly exceed those of the cows; it is the hides of the latter alone which are used for purpose of commerce and for making the lodges of the Indians; and the destruction among them ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the close geographical connection of the United States with the British Provinces—rendering them in many respects but one country—and of the magnitude of the commercial relations existing between them, it would be impolitic and to the detriment of the interests of the United States to decline the consideration of all propositions looking to the re- establishment of some future and satisfactory international commercial arrangement. Such a course would be in entire opposition to the spirit of the age, the liberality ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... and the justification for its existence lie in the restraint of those who aim at attaining their personal interests to the detriment of the interests ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Swear, and endeavour to show that I could in no way be held liable for Debts which I had never contracted. Such, I was told, was the Law; and such it remains to this day, to the Great Scandal of justice, and the detriment of Gentlemen cavalieros who may be entrapped into marrying vulgar Adventuresses whom they deem Gentlewomen of Property, and who turn out instead to be not worth two-pence-halfpenny in the world. Nor were words wanting to add dire Insult to this astounding Injury; ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and a certain amount of coin for a controlling interest, accompanying the generous offer with a suggestion that if it were not acceded to he would be compelled to buy up various Mexican mines and flood the market with quicksilver to the great detriment of the "Blue Mass Company," which thoughtful suggestion, offered by a man frequently alluded to as one of "California's great mining princes," and as one who had "done much to develop the resources of the State," was not to be lightly considered; and so, after a cautious ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... "The whole Truth and nothing but the Truth." Since the end they have in view is to bring out the philosophy of certain constant and current facts, they must often correct events in favor of probability and to the detriment ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... convince the meat lover that he can radically reduce the proportion of meat in his diet without detriment to health. Many persons adhere to the notion that you are not nourished unless you eat meat; that meat foods are absolutely necessary to maintain the body strength. This idea is entirely without ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... majesty would violate both human and divine law. Reason and justice required him to defend the pontiff, now that the Spaniards were about to profit by the interval of truce to take measures for his detriment. Moreover, as the Pope was included in the truce of Vaucelles, he could not be abandoned without a violation of that treaty itself.—The arts and arguments of the Cardinal proved successful; the war was resolved upon in favor of the Pope. The Cardinal, by virtue ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... door. Once outside he placed his hand upon his heart and made a low bow to the handle, retreating backwards to the head of the stairs. Then he proceeded to slide down the banister, to the trifling detriment of his waistcoat. As he reached the end of his perilous journey a door opened at the foot of the stairs, and a man's form became discernible in ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... illustration of the old land-transfer and other law costs incubus from which my late friend Sir R.R. Torrens has so effectually relieved these colonies; and that, too, as I believe, owing to the multiplied transactions, without any real detriment to our many legal friends. Pounds were pounds in those economy-needing times, and as the Savings Bank had, after a thorough overhaul, accepted the title before giving its loan, I declared myself perfectly satisfied to proceed at once ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... lawyers that acceptance of the new office not only vacated the seat in parliament, but also rendered Mr. Gladstone incapable of election until he had ceased to hold the office. 'This, I must confess,' he told Sir Edward, 'is a great blow. The difficulty and the detriment are serious' (January 17). If some enemy on the meeting of the House in February should choose to move the writ for the vacant seat at Oxford, the election would necessarily take place at a date too early for the completion of the business at Corfu, and Mr. Gladstone still at work ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a deep concern for what might be the consequence of Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now, or at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further mischief, without detriment or danger to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... of this plan, he would have preferred a four years' term without renewal or an extension of six years; an idea adopted by Davis in his plan of disintegration by secession. The presidency, Mr. Gallatin thought, was "too much power for one man; therefore it fills all men's thoughts to the detriment ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... often late in taking the field; recalled, before the time, on account of elections; amidst the very busiest efforts of the campaign, their year of office expired; sometimes the rashness, sometimes the perverseness of a colleague, proving an impediment or detriment; and finally succeeding to the unfortunate administration of a predecessor, with an army of raw or ill-disciplined men. But, on the other hand, kings, being not only free from every kind of impediment, but masters of circumstances ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... you recollect, is it?" he asked. "You don't remember me before, dear? Not Dr. Marten, who used to take you on his knee when you were a tiny little girl, and bring you lollipops from town, to the great detriment of your digestion, and get into rows with your poor father for indulging you and spoiling you? ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... than the steward's rod And making you the tiresomest harangue, Instead of slipping over to my side And softly whispering in my ear, "Sweet lady, Your cousin there will do me detriment He little dreams of: he's absorbed, I see, In my old name and fame—be sure he'll leave My Mildred, when his best account of me Is ended, in full confidence I wear My grandsire's periwig down either cheek. I'm lost ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... that my age may be of no detriment to me as it regards your majesty's good feelings towards me," ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... anything else. There was no terror for him in that old and ever-repeated outcry about "sapping the foundations of society." He believed that the foundations of society had taken, and would still take, a great deal of "sapping," without detriment to the superstructure. He believed that, as we may read in Herodotus of ancient communities established on all sorts of principles, or even whim-principles, and yet managing to get on, and as these crude polities had been succeeded by other and better ones, to the latest known in the world, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... effort so common among singers to pronounce, by sustaining consonant sounds, is entirely misdirected. M, n and ng, which are made by shutting off the escape of the air-current at either the lips or the hard-palate, and so forcing it through the nose, are often sustained to the detriment of beauty of tone ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... 13, 1661. Petition of Col. Jas. Proger and three others to the king for a patent for the sole exercise of their invention of melting down iron and other metals with coal instead of wood, as the great consumption of coal [charcoal?] therein causes detriment to shipping, &c. With reference thereon to Attorney-General Palmer, and his report, June 18, in favour of the petition,—State Papers, Charles II. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... Transvaal Government in refusing public employment to Cape Dutchmen as well as to Englishmen, and in throwing obstacles in the way of trade in agricultural products. This displeasure culminated when the Transvaal Government, in the summer of 1895, closed the Drifts (fords) on the Vaal River, to the detriment of imports from the Colony and ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... form is frequently more poetic than the matter. After this we have a period principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Next, with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression. People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing. But the philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,—namely, feeling itself. As to the former, amongst the verse ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... a little doubtful of going in upon them by myself; now, you are well known to them all, and it will be no detriment to you just to let me go ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Condominium, the French authorities do not even seem to try to enforce this regulation, in fact, they rather impressed me as favouring the sale, thus protecting the interests of a degraded class of whites, to the detriment of a valuable race. As a consequence, there are not a few Frenchmen who make their living by selling spirits to natives, which may be called, without exaggeration, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Further, it seems that what is in us naturally, is not evil, since our natural gifts are from God. Now it is natural to man to fear detriment to his body, and loss of his worldly goods, whereby the present life is supported. Therefore it seems that worldly fear is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... interference originated, and how it has been exercised; and unless some fresh disturbance and another "little war" should concentrate our attention for a moment on these distant States, we are likely to remain so, to their great detriment, and not a little, in one respect of the case ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... more sagely than Schiller does in the sentence: 'The stage is the institution in which pleasure combines with instruction, rest with mental effort, diversion with culture; where no power of the soul is put under tension to the detriment of any other, and no pleasure is enjoyed to the damage ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... we can assign no reason why, notwithstanding the extraordinary profusion of unique types of other kinds which we have seen to occur on oceanic islands, the Deity should have made this curious exception to the detriment of all frogs, toads, newts, and mammals, save only such as are able to fly. Or, if any one should go so far to save a desperate hypothesis as to maintain that there must have been some hidden reason why batrachians and quadrupeds were not specially created on oceanic ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... the Indian Territory, with claims on New Mexico, extended over some millions of square miles. The occupation of a large part of this region by the Federals would have spared General Smith some embarrassments, had he not given much of his mind to the recovery of his lost empire, to the detriment of the portion yet in his possession; and the substance of Louisiana and Texas was staked against the shadow ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... therefore, of democracy, as of all other forms of government, lies in the sinister interest of the holders of power: it is the danger of class legislation, of government intended for (whether really effecting it or not) the immediate benefit of the dominant class, to the lasting detriment of the whole. And one of the most important questions demanding consideration in determining the best constitution of a representative government is how to provide efficacious ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... civilized nations which it is almost impossible to extirpate. Actuated by a desire for the perpetual subjugation of the Chinese, and a vicious craving for aggrandizement and wealth, the Manchus have governed the country to the lasting injury and detriment of the people, creating privileges and monopolies, erecting about themselves barriers of exclusion, national custom, and personal conduct, which have been rigorously maintained for centuries. They have levied irregular and hurtful taxes without the consent of the people, and have restricted foreign ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... lofty and liberal views, and of the most estimable character. He is not what some people would call an "old fogy," and likes to have the boys enjoy themselves in everything that is reasonable and proper; but not to the detriment of their manners or morals, or to the neglect ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... economy and frugality and rend the integrity of mankind. We doubt whether any of the great forms of evil incident to our imperfect civilization—the slave-trade, debauchery, pauperism—cause more individual anguish or more public detriment than these incessant revolutions in the value and tenure of property. Those afflict limited classes alone, but these every class; they relax and pervert the whole moral regimen of society; and if, as it is sometimes alleged, the present age is more profoundly steeped in materialism ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... conflicting interests of a community. Should it from any reason neglect the interests, it not only to some extent prejudices itself as a legal personality, but it injures also the body of private interests which it represents. This incalculably far-reaching detriment affects not merely one individual responsible merely to himself, but a mass of individuals and the community. Accordingly it is a moral duty of the State to remain loyal to its own peculiar function as guardian and promoter of all higher interests. This duty it cannot fulfil unless ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... significance in such a matter, will at once or gradually do the like; and that, in fine, by wise effort and persistence, a blind and disgraceful act of public injustice may be prevented; and an egregrious folly as well—not to say, for none can say or compute, what a vital detriment throughout the British Empire, in such an example set to all the colonies and governors the ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... Saturninus. I read him before I set pen to paper; I read him again after finishing my writing, and again when I am at leisure. He is always the same but never seems the same. Let me urge and beg of you to do likewise, for the fact that the author is still alive ought not to be of any detriment to his works. If he had been a contemporary of those on whom we have never set eyes, we should not only be seeking to procure copies of his books but also asking for busts of him. Why then, as he is still amongst us, should his credit ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... of mind and matter in relation to God, is involved from the very beginning in this latter problem, "How is the appearance of interaction between the two to be explained without detriment to their substantiality in relation to each other?" The denial of the reciprocal dependence of matter and spirit leads to sharper accentuation of their common dependence upon God. Thus occasionalism forms ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... people, that he is thus advanced in consideration of some noble action which he has performed; but when a young man is of such excellence as to have made a name for himself by some signal achievement, it were much to the detriment of his city were it unable at once to make use of him, but had to wait until he had grown old, and had lost, with youth, that alacrity and vigour by which his country might have profited; as Rome profited by the services of Valerius Corvinus, of Scipio, of Pompey, and of many others who triumphed ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... garrison towns to take part in the procession. From every window scarlet damask drapery hung, as well as from the balconies where the lovely daughters of Spain in all their holiday grandeur appeared, fanning themselves gracefully—which art they have cultivated to the detriment of conversation, which to them is still an art little ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... time previously and consequently, a singular effect upon me: they sealed up all that was good elicited all that was noxious in my nature; sometimes they enervated my senses, but they always hardened my heart. I was aware of the detriment done, and quarrelled with myself for the change. I had ever hated a tyrant; and, behold, the possession of a slave, self-given, went near to transform me into what I abhorred! There was at once a sort of low gratification ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... necessities of the Union, soon led to the establishment of a Department of the Navy. But the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, which early after the formation of the Government had been united in one, continue so united to this time, to the unquestionable detriment of the public service. The multiplication of our relations with the nations and Governments of the Old World has kept pace with that of our population and commerce, while within the last ten years a new family of nations ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... Duke of York, ascended the throne. Evelyn comments fully on the virtues and vices of the late monarch. 'He would doubtless have been an excellent Prince had he been less addicted to women, who made him uneasy, and allways in want to supply their immeasurable profusion, to ye detriment of many indigent persons who had signaly serv'd both him and his father..... He was ever kind to me, and very gracious upon all occasions, and therefore I cannot, without ingratitude, but deplore his loss, which for many respects, as well as duty, I ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Piombo and a Bellini, with a keen little sacristan who enjoys displaying their beauties and places you in the best light. The Bellini is his last signed work, and was painted when the old man was in his eighty-fifth year. The restorer has been at it, but not to its detriment. S. Christopher, S. Jerome, and S. Augustine are sweetly together in a delectable country; S. Christopher (as the photograph on the opposite page shows) bearing perhaps the most charming Christ Child of all, with his thumb in his mouth. The Piombo—another company of saints—over the high altar, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... took despairingly to small rivulets, and led ever after a life of undeserved ignominy and obscurity. There were bass in the river from the Falls of the Potomac, near Georgetown, to a point as near its source as any self-respecting fish could approach without detriment to the buttons on his vest by reason of the shallowness of the water. They were in all its tributaries, and in fact monopolized its waters completely. Had the supply of small fish for food held out, it is impossible to say to what extent they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... in Germany; setting the curve representing frequency of talent over against that of income, he attempted to show that all democratic measures which aim at promoting the rise in the social scale of the talented are useless, if not dangerous; that they only increase the panmixia, to the great detriment of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... A slander isn't a slander unless it's uttered to your detriment before a third party. How different would be Mr. Grant's action against you! Your well-wishers simply couldn't muzzle you. Whether before your pot-house cronies or mere strangers, you charged him openly with being a murderer. I'm sorry for you, Elkin, if ever you come before a judge. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... become thoroughly dry, when it is burnt off. A good fire is half the battle, as the subsequent work of burning off the heavy timber left from the first burn is comparatively light. No stumps are taken out, as the bulk are found to rot out in a few years, and their presence in the soil is no detriment to the planting of such crops as bananas or even citrus fruit trees. No special preparation of the land, such as breaking up, &c., is necessary prior to planting. Holes are dug, trees or bananas are planted, and the whole cultivation for the first few years consists in keeping ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... of law and order. But, as, unfortunately, many side-issues have been raised in Ireland of very inferior importance, but of a nature almost exclusively to engage the attention of Irishmen, to the great detriment of real progress, it may be well to dwell a little longer on the consequences which must infallibly follow from a higher state of physical comfort ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of the land as above the law of God; all who are either hostile or indifferent to the Anti-Slavery movement; and all who advocate the necessity of making compromises with the Slave Power, in order that the Union may receive no detriment. ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... the same authority are equally distressing. They are especially fond of cattle, but without any reciprocity of affection. 'According to the general terms of the survival of the fittest and the growth of muscles most used to the detriment of others,' says the lieutenant in an unusual burst of humor, 'a band of cattle inhabiting this district, in the far future, would be all tail and no body, unless the mosquitoes should experience a ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... Russia, especially facilities of communication, as railways, leading to centralization in towns, the development of luxury, and the consequent development of manufactures, credit and its accompaniment of speculation—all to the detriment of agriculture. It seemed to him that in a normal development of wealth in a state all these phenomena would arise only when a considerable amount of labor had been put into agriculture, when it had come ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of wisdom each year, that there was not one who had originality enough to ask the question, Is it natural that this scent bag of filth should always be so full of putrid matter that we cannot abide one moment with it? And, inasmuch as it is so, is it not a great detriment at least to our health to carry this mass of filth around with us, from day to day, from week to week, and from year to year—absorbing its poison back into the circulation? Strange that these questions did not present themselves to some one of the enterprising ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... became apparent that the cookery could not, without serious detriment, be longer protracted. The bursting skin of the taro revealed the rich mealy interior, and eloquently proclaimed its readiness to be eaten. The fish were done to a turn, and filled the cabin with a savoury odour, doubly grateful to our nostrils after a twelve hours' fast. Max declared ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... themselves out of work they throw other people, possibly without their consent. If such a principle had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by Hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of Buckinghamshire agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. And O, good God, when —— treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose that these mistaken men don't feel ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... it is well to remember that, unlike conversation, which only is heard by the ears for which it is intended, written words may come under eyes other than those for whom they were designed. Therefore, it is well never to write anything which the world may not read without detriment to your character or your instincts. You can be joyful, playful, jocose, give vent to your feelings, but never stoop to low language and, above all, to language savoring in the slightest degree of ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... the worthy relations of the imperial consorts could enter the palace on the second and sixth days, any family, having extensive accommodation and separate courts suitable for the cantonment of the imperial body-guard, could, without any detriment, make application to the Inner Palace, for the entrance of the imperial chair into the private residences, to the end that the personal feelings of relations might be gratified, and that they should collectively enjoy the bliss of a family reunion.' After the issue of this decree, who did not leap ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... ruin when it is accomplished. You are, when all is done, not even detestable, not even a worthy peg whereon to hang denunciatory sonnets, you shallow-pated pretty creatures whom poets—oh, and in youth all men are poets!—whom poets, now and always, are doomed to hanker after to the detriment of their poesy. No, I concede it: you kill without premeditation, and without ever suspecting your hands to be anything but stainless. So in logic I must retract all my harsh words; and I must, without any hint or reproach, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... much unlike the advice given to hypochondriacal patients in Dr. Buchan's domestic medicine; videlicet, to preserve themselves uniformly tranquil and in good spirits. Till I had discovered the art of destroying the memory a parte post, without injury to its future operations, and without detriment to the judgment, I should suppress the request as premature; and therefore, however much I may wish to be read with an unprejudiced mind, I do not presume to state ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... upon immemorial usage allowed for ages. If not, it can have no ground to stand upon. The practice is deduced from that trite maxim of the Constitutional Law of England, that private mischief had better be submitted to than that public detriment should ensue." ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... be served in a manner different from that usual to us, it should be so served in order that our friends may with more satisfaction eat our repast than our everyday practice would produce on them. But the change should by no means be made to their material detriment in order that our fashion may be acknowledged. Again, if I decorate my sideboard and table, wishing that the eyes of my visitors may rest on that which is elegant and pleasant to the sight, I act in that matter with a becoming ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... with themselves that by making the addition they can assert their liberty, while they retain the credit of modesty by assenting to the rest. But these mediocrities and middle ways so much praised, in deferring to opinions and customs, turn to the great detriment of the sciences. For it is hardly possible at once to admire an author and to go beyond him; knowledge being as water, which will not rise above the level from which it fell. Men of this kind, therefore, amend some things, but advance little; and improve the condition ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... occurrences were the outcome of a revengeful spirit in the hearts of a few extreme Southerners, and in no sense represented the feeling of the South. It was inevitable, however, that abroad so horrible a crime should react both to the detriment of the Confederacy and to the advantage of the North. Sympathy with the North took the form of a sudden exaltation of the personality of Lincoln, bringing out characterizations of the man far different from those which had been his earlier ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... human servants, groveling and fawning and getting underfoot and doing work robots could have been doing better. What robots there were were inefficient, and much work and ingenuity had been lavished on efforts to copy human form to the detriment of function. ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... their disused eyes but not the disused eye-stalks appear to illustrate the effects of natural selection rather than of disuse. The loss of the exposed, sensitive, and worse-than-useless eye, would be a decided gain, while the disused eye-stalk, being no particular detriment to the crab, would be but slightly affected by natural selection, though open to the cumulative effects of disuse. The disused but better protected eyes of the blind cave-rat are still "of large size" ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... weary and all forspent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual interpretations, no emblem is so common as the heart,—that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears,—the bestuck and bleeding heart; it is twisted and tortured into more ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... than the Chinese; their soil produces in spontaneous profusion many articles which are to us comforts and luxuries, while nearly every thing we produce is in eager demand among its inhabitants, if they can but find the wherewithal to pay for them. Instead of being a detriment and a depression to our own manufacturing and mechanical industry, as the trade induced by our costly steam-ship lines to Liverpool, Bremen, and Havre mainly is, all the commerce with Africa which a more intimate communication with her would ...
— 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
... terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of ourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain habits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others to our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various imaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by that very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that, however much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of certain recurring and common states of being; ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... ships, which rotted gradually into one, could not himself settle the Spanish War: but he did, on his own score, a series of things, ending in beautiful finis of the Acapulco Ship, which were of considerable detriment, and of highly considerable disgrace, to Spain;—and were, and are long likely to be, memorable among the Sea-heroisms of the world. Giving proof that real Captains, taciturn Sons of Anak, are still ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the Consular Question would inevitably be raised afresh on the part of Norway. It was necessary therefore to lead the work of reform in the quiet paths of Union negotiations, in order to prevent the old attempts on Norway's side "to take matters into her own hands", to the detriment of the harmony in the Union. If results in that way could be gained, negotiative operations might win more confidence from distrustful Norwegian politicians. The Swedish government seems also to have taken into account the contingency that, by making this offer, they ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund |
