"Expediency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... common fields even without appealing to Parliament in each particular case. Finally, in 1845, the general Enclosure Act of that year carried the policy of 1836 further and appointed a body of Enclosure Commissioners, to determine on the expediency of any proposed enclosure and to attend to carrying it out if approved. Six years afterward, however, an amendment was passed making it necessary that even after an enclosure had been approved by the Commissioners it should go to ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... in the house being questioned, the case was referred to all the judges, who assembled in the exchequer chamber, in order to deliberate on so delicate a subject. The opinion delivered was prudent, and contained a just temperament between law and expediency.[**] The judges determined, that the members attainted should forbear taking their seat till an act were passed for the reversal of their attainder. There was no difficulty in obtaining this act; and in it were comprehended a hundred and seven persons ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... one creased and worn bill. Spreading it out, he offered it to the man beside him. To loot an army warehouse was fair play as he saw it. Morgan's command had long depended upon Union commissaries for equipment, clothing, and food. And a horse trade was something forced upon him by expediency. But he still shrank from this kind ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... being no judicatures or Courts of Justice yet established," that, therefore, such an extraordinary step was necessary. It is, indeed, remarkable, that, in the face of their own recorded convictions of expediency and propriety, and in disregard of the provisions of the Charter which, a few days before, they had been sworn to obey, the Council could have been led to so far "take counsel of passion," as to rush over every barrier to ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... laughter was soft and low; the murmurous blend of talk flowed unremarked, yet comforted the ear. The flash of silver, the sparkle of glass, the snow of napery, gladdened the eye. No single circumstance of expediency was unobserved, no detail of propriety was overlooked. Pomp lay in a litter which he had borrowed ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... unnecessary. We seem perversely bent on tormenting and being tormented. We visit people for whom we do not care one straw, because our position in society or our interests demand it. We sacrifice our own judgment to the whims of others as a matter of expediency, and almost ignore our own capacity in the eagerness to agree with everybody. We suffer because a rich snob snubs us, and agonize over unfavorable remarks made concerning our abilities or standing. These things ought not so to be. No man can find a substitute when he lies a-dying;—why should ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... responsibility of debts in his own person would rather add to than remove the objections which he had to their being contracted. He spoke to a premier too busy in devising ways and means to puzzle himself with refuting the arguments offered against their justice or expediency. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... knew her so well, this brilliancy did not seem like perfect ease; it was more like effort than natural spirits. This was no wonder, for not only had the sight of new people thrown Mr. Kendal into a severe access of shyness and silence, but he was revolving in fear and dread the expediency of asking them to Willow Lawn, and considering whether Albinia and propriety could make the effort bearable. Silent he sat, while the aunts talked of their wishes that one nephew would marry, and that the other would not, and no ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... exemplary, that he had no fear to hinder him from being charitable. The cowardice of conscience is one of the saddest penalties of sin; and to avert suspicion from one's self by severity to others is, indeed, the most miserable expediency of self-condemnation. The temper of charity and compassion seems natural to men of letters and of art. They are emotional and sensitive, and by the necessity of their vocation have to hold much communion with the inmost consciousness of our nature; they ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... domination, on some plea of pretended schemes of colonization, and the progress of civilization. But I do not believe in overturning the immutable laws of moral obligation for any questionable policy of expediency. I look upon the great civil wars of the Romans, which followed these conquests, in which so much blood was shed, and in which Marius and Sulla and Caesar and Pompey exhausted the resources of the state, and made an imperial regime necessary, only as the visitation ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... retort is logically specious, but it mistakes the point. It would certainly be rash to put any limit to human gullibility, or to deny that Sir William Saumarez, in the given situation, might conceivably be hoodwinked. The question is not one of psychology but of theatrical expediency: and the point is that when a situation is at once highly improbable in real life and exceedingly familiar on the stage, we cannot help mentally caricaturing it as it proceeds, and are thus prevented from lending it the provisional credence on which ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... with equal chances of success, yet they had always succeeded. But the particular nature of the subject and the special scruples imposed upon my conscience, obliged me to employ a certain number of new conditions, which I had long since, in other connections, foreseen the expediency of. I had taken the pains to arrange an opening at each end of my oval receiver, and fit into it a heavy glass, which enabled me to follow with my eye the effects of the vacuum on the Colonel. I was entirely prevented from shutting the ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... in the affections of Dave Wardle, from the Towers to her own home, had been prompted by the sudden departure of her young ladyship for London. The fact that the whole thing had come about at the bidding of "Gwen o' the Towers" was absolute, final, decisive as to its entire rectitude and expediency. But she could see that this strange son who had not seen his mother for so long had identified her in the first plausible octogenarian whom he chanced upon as soon as he was sure he was getting close to the object of his search, and that he was not ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... this step—with the exception, however, of Zimmermann, who, carried away by his sudden elevation, and by the glamour of personal contact with the Emperor, the Princes and the military chiefs, yielded to the arguments of military expediency. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... religious influences that had been brought to bear upon her, had worked out to the same void of conviction. The code had failed with us altogether. We didn't for a moment consider anything but the expediency of what we both, for all our quiet faces and steady eyes, wanted ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... was condemned in unmeasured terms in many places at the South, but its necessity and expediency was never doubted. To have allowed so great a number to absent themselves from the army at this time, in the face of an overwhelming enemy, and that enemy advancing upon our Capitol, was more than the morale of the army would admit. Not altogether would the absence of the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... angered and disappointed to find that neither the Ambassador nor his tutor could see that Eustacie's worthiness was proved by the iniquity of her relation, or that any one of the weighty reasons for the expediency of dissolving the marriage was remove. The whole affair had been in such good train a little before, that Mr. Adderley was much distressed that it should thus have been crossed, and thought the new phase of affairs would be far from acceptable at ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not hold forth this time in Peckaby's shop. He did not in public urge the delights of New Jerusalem, or the expediency of departure for it. He kept himself quiet and retired, receiving visits in the privacy of his chamber. After dark, especially, friends would drop in; admitted without noise or bustle by Mrs. Peckaby; parties of ones, of twos, of threes, until there would be quite an assembly collected ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Expedience. — N. expedience, expediency; desirableness, desirability &c. adj.; fitness &c. (agreement) 23; utility &c. 644; propriety; opportunism; advantage. high time &c. (occasion) 134. V. be expedient &c. Adj.; suit &c. (agree) 23; befit; suit the time, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... sea; but it cannot consent to abate any essential or fundamental right of its people because of a mere alteration of circumstance. The rights of neutrals in time of war are based upon principle, not upon expediency, and the principles are immutable. It is the duty and obligation of belligerents to find a way to adapt the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... of expediency—political expediency. Sometimes political expediency can overreach itself and perpetrate the most grave injustices. Individuals at times are unnecessarily called upon to suffer in the interests of a cause. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... treaty is silent, but under the operation of the most-favored-nation clause we have like privileges with those of other powers. While it is the duty of the Government to see that our citizens have the full enjoyment of every benefit secured by treaty, I doubt the expediency of leading in a movement to constrain China to admit an interpretation which we have only an indirect treaty right to exact. The transference to China of American capital for the employment there of Chinese labor would in effect inaugurate a competition ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... strong religious feelings nor by any great tendency to idealization. And yet the nineteenth century has its standard, firmly based on public opinion, made up of a respect for decency and justice, a love of refinement, and an appreciation of the expediency as well as the attractiveness of virtue; a standard which influences many minds over which religion has little control. But in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, religion had ceased to govern, and had not yet attained that moral influence which, even ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the instruction of the author's son. Cicero had completed two Books by November, B.C. 44 (xvi. 11, 4), following the treatment of Panaetius, and discussing in Book i. the issue between vice and virtue, in Book ii. the expediency of a given action. In Book iii. he was indebted to Posidonius, for the discussion of apparent conflict ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... Ideala asked the lady, who was sitting next to her, if she were a Catholic, to which the lady answered "No;" and Ideala, satisfied, proceeded to remark: "It may be the true religion, but it certainly is not the religion of truth. The doctrine of expediency, or the latitude they allow themselves on the score of expediency—I don't quite know how they put it—but it has much to answer for. I never find that my Roman Catholic friends are true, as my Protestant ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... a man myself, I despise with my whole heart such weaklings; as a Christian minister I denounce them. Nothing can excuse a soul for wavering in its duty because that duty is hard. It is the hard things we should take delight in facing; otherwise we are babes and not men, and our faith a matter of expediency, and not that stern and immovable belief in God and His purposes which can alone please Deity and bring us into that immediate communion with His spirit which it should be the end and aim of every human soul ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... northern climes both rendering the typical character of Light more deeply felt than in Italy, and necessitating its admission in larger masses; the Italian, even at the period of his most exquisite art in glass, retaining the small Lombard window, whose expediency will hardly be doubted by anyone who has experienced the transition from the scorching reverberation of the white-hot marble front, to the cool depth of shade within, and whose beauty will not be soon forgotten by those who have seen the narrow lights of the Pisan duomo announce by their redder ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Catharine's history every wide-awake young woman among our readers has doubtless finished for herself: she knows the closing-in process by which society, expediency, propinquity, even moral obligations, hedge many a man and woman and drive ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... Allmash asked me last night whether my thoughts had been directed to the topic which is uppermost just now in so many minds in regard to the religion of the future, and I ventured to tell her that it would be found to be contained in the generalised expediency ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... both of France and of England towards the Acadians was based upon political expediency rather than upon any definite or well-conceived plan for the development of the country. The inhabitants, born to serve rather than to command, had honestly striven according to their light to maintain respect for constituted authority. But the state of unrest into ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... hardships are thereby imposed on those foreigners, the planters are so far excusable, having the sanction of the supreme legislature for the purchase they make. The laws of England, from necessity or expediency, have permitted such labourers to be imported among them; and therefore, on their part, the purchase, however injurious, cannot be illegal. Having acquired this kind of property, it then lies with the colonists ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... love but love at first sight. This is the transcendent and surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy. All other is the illegitimate result of observation, of reflection, of compromise, of comparison, of expediency. The passions that endure flash like the lightning: they scorch the soul, but it is warmed for ever. Miserable man whose love rises by degrees upon the frigid morning of his mind! Some hours indeed of warmth and lustre may perchance fall to his lot; some moments of meridian ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... for the striding of half a square. The New England conscience dies hard, and while it lives it is given to drawing sharp lines on all the boundaries of culpability. Kent ended by taking the matter in debate violently out of the domain of ethics and standing it upon the ground of expediency. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... head-dress of eagles' feathers, and clad in a suit of red flannel on which was wrought a rich mosaic of coloured beadwork. White ermine tails dangled from his shoulders, arms, and breast. He was in reality cruel and vindictive, but his cunning and worldly wisdom made him a master in expediency. He had intelligence above the average, but lacked the good qualities of such as the loyal Crowfoot, the Chief of the Blackfoot nation, who also had the benefit of Pere Lacombe, that great ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Rev. J.D. Paxton's 'Letters on Slavery'; the Rev. S.J. May's letters to Andrew T. Judson, 'The Rights of Colored People to Education Vindicated'; Prof. Elizur Wright, Jr.'s, 'Sin of Slavery and Its Remedy'; Whittier's 'Justice and Expediency'; and, above all, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's startling 'Appeal in favor of that class of Americans called Africans' were the more potent of the new crop of writings betokening the vigor of Mr. Garrison's Propagandism," says that storehouse of anti-slavery facts the "Life of Garrison" ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... reply in two letters. First, as to the auction-sales, he agreed "that the good faith of the Government should have been kept in regard to the promised homesteads, however we may differ in opinion as to the expediency of making the promise at this time." Second, as to his scale of wages, he maintained that, on his plantations, "whenever the amount of work done in a day approaches the standard of a day's work in the North, the wages also approach ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... the lawfulness of the mean must be measured by the justice and necessity of the end, then certainly any mean shall be lawful in the case of just and necessary defence, then we may employ Irish cut throats, then we may go to the devil for help, if expediency to compass such a necessary and just end be the rule of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... do not deem it just to detain them longer. The pilgrim, in particular, has a heavy trust; I understand he performs his penance as much for others as for himself, and it is scarce decent in us, who are believers and servants of the church, to place obstacles in his path. I will suggest the expediency, therefore, of giving him at ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... essence. The spiritual is entirely on a higher plane of reality, and there cannot be transition from the natural to the spiritual world. The natural has its limitations, and beyond these cannot go. So far as the natural world is concerned man can never rise above seeking for pleasure, and making expediency and social approbation the standards of life, hence there is little wonder that those ethical teachers who make nature their basis, deny the possibility of action that is unselfish and free. "The Spiritual Life," however, ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... incisiveness of these sentences! Opposition, the mere suggestion of danger, had stimulated his determination to proceed rather than enjoined caution. Himself convinced of the expediency of our deal, no power on earth could make him deviate or face about. Truly a man of blood and iron, as Bismarck or Moltke was, his erected will is a sword and a vise. To gain a predetermined goal Henry H. Rogers will go through ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a matter of opinion, one way or another. It's a matter of expediency. The Administration has to get along with Congress. Senator Crane is in a powerful position. He is on three committees that can hamper legislation the Administration is ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... short letter to Mr. Jones, apprising that unhappy gentleman that my Lords had taken the matter into their fullest consideration, and that nothing could be done to help him. Had Jones been consulted by any other disappointed Civil Service Werter as to the expediency of complaining to the Treasury Lords, Jones would have told him exactly what would be the result. The disappointed one, however, always thinks that all the Treasury Lords will give all their ears to him, though they are deafer than Icarus to the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... found it difficult to believe their ears—but was not old Langdon at this moment narrating the amazing transaction on the floor of the Senate? Would the statue on the pedestal step down? Would the sphinx of the desert speak the story of the lost centuries? Would honor take the place of expediency in the affairs of state? What might not happen, thought the Senate machine, now that Peabody and Stevens had taken to their bosoms what they termed the purple ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... charter. Let us, then, with redoubled vigilance, be on our guard against yielding to the temptation of the exercise of doubtful powers, even under the pressure of the motives of conceded temporary advantage and apparent temporary expediency. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... the parcel-medium? You were in jest about being at Pisa before or as soon as we were?—oh no—that must not be indeed—we must wait a little!—even if you determine to go at all, which is a question of doubtful expediency. Do take more exercise, this week, and make war against those dreadful sensations in ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... not designed to be very scientific, exact or truthful—all they asked was, "Is it plausible?" Expediency, to theology, has always been much more important ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... shall we see light." Things are seen in their true colours only when we bring them before the great white throne. Fabrics seen in the gas-light reveal quite other shades when we bring them into the light of day. We must not make our distinctions in the gas-light of worldly standard and expediency; we must take them into His presence before whose radiance even the angels veil their faces, and we shall see things as they are, and we shall know "the difference between ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... the country, and then for every man to set himself to suppress the further political agitation of this whole subject. These measures were then referred to, one after the other, and the essential justice and expediency of each were declared. The two great political parties of the North, he said, ought at once to strike this whole subject from their respective issues. He was not for any amalgamation of parties, or for the formation of any new one: the two great ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... by-path to the pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was found; and the party was upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers, and many high compliments to "Old Charley" upon his sagacity and consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... servants who wrought for hire, and might be turned away if they refused to labour, but by a farm in which the master was a father, and in which all the servants were sons; which implied, therefore, in all its regulations, not merely the order of expediency, but the bonds of affection and responsibilities of relationship; and in which all acts and services were not only to be sweetened by brotherly concord, but to be enforced ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get everything housed before daylight. It was difficult to say what should he done, and much time was spent in deliberation—so confused were the ideas of all. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... adversity, and promised to exert himself to counteract the operations of the arch-hypocrite Buhellesa. Collecting the sheiks of the various kabyls of Suse, he made an energetic harangue to them; and discussed with them the expediency of their uniting together, to repel the impostor. The sheiks were all loyal, and well affected to Muley Abd Salam; whose 289 government of Suse, by his khaliff Delemy, added to the hospitalities with which the Prince entertained ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... with the States of Barbary would be much facilitated by a previous one with the Ottoman Porte, it was agreed between Mr. Adams and myself, that on my return, I should consult on this subject the Count de Vergennes, whose long residence at Constantinople rendered him the best judge of its expediency. Various circumstances have put it out of my power to consult him, till to-day. I stated to him the difficulties we were likely to meet with at Algiers; and asked his opinion, what would be the probable expense of a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the entrance to Salonica Harbour. He seized it—despite a solemn engagement to the contrary.[1] Then he judged it necessary to occupy the town of Florina. He occupied it. An appreciation of the efficacy or expediency of these measures—beyond a passing allusion to the obvious blunder committed by the destruction of the Demir-Hissar bridge—would be out of place here. For our present purpose their interest lies in the light they throw upon the conditions, apart from the purely ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... Aunt Margaret in horrified protest against the last item on the programme. But Sylvia gave a chuckle of cheerful complacency, and, so far from being overcome, looked so much revived by the prospect that there could be no doubt as to the expediency of the proposed visit, so far as health at ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Expediency probably, rather than inclination, made him a merchant; at the same time the advantages to be derived from foreign commerce were then so considerable, that, with the splendid examples of his father and of his ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... witnessed, even the most simple-minded of the Essenes could suggest a reason for this sudden departure. Nor did they altogether regret it, inasmuch as in many ways Caleb had proved himself but an unsatisfactory disciple, and already they were discussing the expediency of rejecting him from the fellowship of their peaceful order. Had they known that when he vanished he left behind him a drawn sword and one of his forefingers, their opinion on this point might have been strengthened. But this they did ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Atherton will be sorry she acted so," she thought, and she was even revolving the expediency of putting on airs and not speaking to her former mistress, when the carriage stopped and Victor appeared at the window all attention, and asking if he should "assist ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... just proportion—his duty, the plantation, the helpless freedman threatened by lawless fury; the two women—no longer his one tantalizing vision, but now only a passing detail of the work before him. He saw them through no aberrating mist of tenderness or expediency—but with the single directness of the man ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The expediency of the motion, my lords, is, in my opinion, so obvious and incontestable, as to require no farther consideration, and, therefore, it is no argument against it, that we were not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... cause of his downfall marks him as the greatest of the three, for he placed justice above expediency, and not even the attempt upon his life changed his feeling toward the South. Perhaps the wisdom of his judgment was never better exemplified than in his purchase from Russia of the great territory known as Alaska, for the sum of $7,200,000. Alaska was regarded at the time as an icy desert ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... from the George and Vulture. This request Mr. Samuel Weller prepared to obey, with as good a grace as he could assume, but with a very considerable show of reluctance nevertheless. He even went so far as to essay sundry ineffectual hints regarding the expediency of stretching himself on the gravel for that night; but finding Mr. Pickwick obstinately deaf to any such ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... vastly relieved. He was not an inhuman man, even if, on occasion, as has already been demonstrated, he could, for the sake of national expediency, sink a ship without warning. Having missed with both torpedoes, he could now, in the event of national complications, enter a vigorous denial of any affidavits alleging an attempted breach of international law, and his government would uphold him. This knowledge rendered ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... March 5, in favour of his resolution, contains a comprehensive review of the Irish question, as well as an elaborate defence of his own position, resting solely on grounds of expediency. He advocated the measure itself as the only means of pacifying Ireland, reducing the undue power of the catholics, and securing the protestant religion. It was simple in its main outlines, applying to the whole United Kingdom, and purporting to open all political and civil rights ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... a matter of esthetics, ethics and morality. Morality is based on expediency, so it really is a question whether meat is an ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... primitive intimacy in which the family dwelt made every hour at home a sort of torture to him, a torture that he did not wish to forego yet that he scarcely could endure. One cannot say how much of Douglas' self-control was due to innate refinement, how much to expediency, how much to the male power of inhibition when fighting to win the love ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... production from a given quantity of land, by draining, being ascertained beyond question, and the measure of that increase, at its minimum, being more than the interest at six per cent. upon the sum required to effect it—even at $50 per acre—the question of expediency is answered. To the owner of tillage lands there is no other such safe, sure, and profitable investment for his money. He lodges it in a bank that will never suspend payments, and from which better than six per cent. dividend can ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... establishment. This student of divinity knew nothing of God or salvation, and was ignorant even of the gospel plan of saving grace. He felt the need for a better life, but no godly motives swayed him. Reformation was a matter purely of expediency: to continue in profligacy would bring final exposure, and no parish would have him as a pastor. To get a valuable "cure" and a good "living" he must make attainments in divinity, pass a good examination, and have at least a decent reputation. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Does the French language contain a more touching record than that of the great Navarre's farewell to his Huguenot brethren? What bitter tears shed Jeanne d'Albret's son ere he could bring himself to sacrifice conscience on the altar of expediency and a ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... always done good, but who nevertheless betrayed him. At home the Moor was a good and useful ruler, and to the last he reckoned on his popularity both in Milan and in Como. In later years (after 1496) he had overstrained the resources of his State, and at Cremona had ordered, out of pure expediency, a respectable citizen, who had spoken again st the new taxes, to be quietly strangled. Since that time, in holding audiences, he kept his visitors away from his person by means of a bar, so that in conversing with him they were compelled to ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... at the beginning of the seventh century these seventeen ethical precepts merit much approbation. With the exception of the doctrine of expediency, enunciated at the close of the tenth article, the code of Shotoku might be taken for guide by any community in any age. But the prince as a moral reformer* cannot be credited with originality; ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... most desirous of some understanding being established between the government and the representatives of the people, which she urged upon the King the expediency of ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... thing which could gratify him, or by which he could be induced to lay aside his opposition, and to assist in supporting their measures. Many compliments to his talents and eloquence, and all the usual commonplaces, about the expediency and propriety of strengthening the hands of government, were, of course, added. Something specific was at length mentioned: it was intimated, that as he was of an ancient family, it might gratify him that his mother should be made ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... general disfavor with which American pacifist tendencies were regarded in Germany. Nine-tenths of the American nation are pacifists, either through their education and sentimental prepossession in favor of the principle, or out of a sense of commercial expediency. People in the United States did not understand that the German people, owing to their tragic history, are compelled to cultivate and to uphold the martial spirit of their ancestors. The types of the German officer of the reserve ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... passing interest to the American people, while it affords the Trigger a text for a number of 'telling' articles relative to slave-emancipation, in which an appeal is made to the American Congress on the expediency of taking the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... nor had she the slightest wish to encourage it now that the idea was suggested to her. On such a matter she could sympathize with Lady Lufton, though she did not completely agree with her as to the expediency of any interference. Nevertheless, she at once offered to speak to Lucy. "I don't think that Lucy has any idea in her head upon the subject," ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... discordant. Family discipline is relaxed; the new generations shake off early the influence of the past; the sentiment of honour and the rigour of moral, religious, and political principles are weakened by a spirit of utility and expediency by which, more or less openly, confessing it or dissimulating, men always seek to do, not that which is right and decorous, but that which is utilitarian. The civic spirit tends to die out; the number of persons capable ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... about herself by telling me that she had recently been discharged from the hospital on "the Island." I did not need to inquire the nature of the illness that had left her face so white and drawn. Brief as my experience had been among the humble inmates of the "home," I had learned the expediency of not being too solicitous regarding the precise ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... provide a substitute for the shattered idol. To this we may reply that speech or silence does not alter the reality of things. The recognition of Truth cannot be made dependent on consequences, or be trammelled by considerations of spurious expediency. Its declaration in a serious and suitable manner to those who are capable of judging can never be premature. Its suppression cannot be effectual, and is only a humiliating compromise with conscious imposture. In so far as morality is concerned, belief in a system of future rewards and punishments, ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... was heightened, also, by the unanimous nomination of William H. Seward for governor. Seward was now thirty-three years of age. During his four years in the Senate, political expediency neither limited nor controlled his opinions. He had argued for reform in the military system; he had favoured the abolition of imprisonment for debt; he had vigorously opposed the attacks upon the United States Bank and the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... he that being naturally wicked and evilminded followeth evil and he that knoweth not the propriety relative to acts, meet with destruction both in this world and the next. The exertions of that stupid person become fruitless, who is not conversant with the expediency regarding time and acts, and he meeteth with destruction both in this world and the next. And the object of that wicked and deceitful persons is vicious, who, aiming at mastery of every kind, committeth some rash act. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... class, and the easy regard of the unpunished criminal, are the outcome of these qualities. In business matters the Spanish-American, the Mexican, Peruvian, Chilean, Brazilian, or other has a much less sense of rigid observance of agreements, and a far greater latitude of expediency and mental juggling than the Anglo-Saxon. And this insinuation embodies one of the main defects of the race. Ideas of "mine" and "thine" are much less strong than with the Briton or American. It has been said of the Spaniard that he makes excellent laws, but ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... surgeon to carefully weigh the subject of alcohol, and verify for himself the expediency of ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... the meadow by Bulldog's side, with his hands in his pockets, talking at his ease and laughing lightly, amazed us on first sight, but did not count for much, because we considered this manner a policy of expediency and an act of hypocrisy. After all, he was only doing what every one of us would have done in the same circumstances—conciliating the tyrant and covering his own sufferings. We kept a respectful distance till Nestie parted with his guardian, and then we closed in round him and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... not quite so easy to explain matters in the curt language of the wire, he found, and it savored of absurdity to amaze the beer-drinking Scot with a long message. So he compromised between desire and expediency ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... territory the elder bore the same name with the province which he governed, which was Vitachuco. He was far the most powerful of the three, in both the extent and populousness of his domain. His two brothers had united in sending an embassy to him, earnestly enjoining the expediency of cultivating friendly relations with the Spaniards. The following very extraordinary reply, which he returned, is given by Garcilaso de la Vega. And though he says he quotes from memory, still he pledges his word of honor, that it is a truthful record of the message Vitachuco sent ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... commencement—the first instalment—in a system of unlimited extra-territorial dependencies and imperial expansion. With these responsibilities and obligations we here this evening have nothing to do, any more than we have to do with the expediency or probable results of the policy of colonial expansion, when once fairly adopted and finally entered upon. These hereafter will be, but are not yet, historical questions; and we are merely historical inquirers. We, therefore, no matter what others ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... Buttm. Lexil. p. 25. "Achilles speaks of the expediency of terminating the lamentations of the army at large, and leaving what remains to be performed in honour of the deceased to ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... credit. He had, however, friends in Singapore, to one of whom, Kim Cheng, a well-known Chinaman, he had promised a lucrative appointment if he would prevail on the Straits authorities to recognize him as Sultan. Lord Kimberley had previously instructed the Governor to consider the expediency of introducing the "Residential system" into "any of the Malay States," and ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... whether some account should not be drawn up by the friends of the deceased to be inserted in "Phillips's Monthly Obituary;" adding, that Amos was estimable both for his head and heart, and would have made a fine poet if he had lived. To the expediency of this measure Cottle fully assented, but could not help adding that he always thought that the qualities of his brother's heart exceeded those of his head. I believe his brother, when living, had formed precisely the same idea of him; and I apprehend the world will assent to both ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... however, though sufficient for suspense, seem hardly sufficient for not having solemnly protested against the Veto Act immediately upon its passing the Assembly. Whatever doubts a few persons might harbour upon the expediency of such an act, evidently it was contrary to the law of the land. The General Assembly could have no power to abrogate a law passed by the three estates of the realm. But probably it was the deep sense of that truth, which reined ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... on all great questions conciliated the masses, and by preventing the conflict of parties and classes on these occasions, he did much to promote the public welfare at the expense of his own consistency. Measures seemed to be regarded by him, not in the light of principle, but in that of political expediency. He passed bills, not because truth, freedom, and justice demanded them, but because they promoted the interests of party, or, it might be, because he thought it was expedient for the national interests at the time that they should be passed. Even the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... persons of wisdom and integrity, and particularly with the Lady Russell of Southampton House, and Dr. Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. I found them all unanimous in the opinion of the expediency of the settlement proposed, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... which set up its simple, undeniable right to the protection the neutral flag should give to all persons and goods under it, which were not involved in any infraction of belligerent rights. The straits of Great Britain, however, were too dire to allow the voice of justice to override that of expediency. Had the United States Navy been a force as respectable in numbers as it was in efficiency, the same dictates of expediency might have materially controlled the action of her opponent; might have prevented outrage and averted war. As it was, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... to destroy;—and these could not be moved quite at once. 'Mr Brehgert must of course have access to my private room, as long as it is necessary,—absolutely necessary,' said Mr Longestaffe in answer to a message which was brought to him; 'but he will of course see the expediency of relieving me from such intrusion as soon as possible.' But he soon found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor, especially as the man was singularly good-natured and forbearing after the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... not long. I will read it. It invokes a religious sanction and the authority of God on their civil obligations; for it was no doctrine of theirs that civil obedience was a mere matter of expediency. Here ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... is in this case pronounced automatically, without any exercise of reason, we must still admit that it comes from practice and experience, and not naturally and immediately, like a sense. The arguments taken from profit and expediency, which have led to a belief in moral sense, would, of course, have no weight in the case of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... said: "If it were restored to you, Davenport's moral right to it would still be insisted on. The restoration would be merely on grounds of expediency." ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... be necessary for convoys to pass through the Malmoe channel, I trust you have represented the expediency of the co-operation of the Swedish gun-boats stationed there; and I request you will please to signify to the Swedish government that all the protection in my power to afford the trade of Sweden, shall be ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... refute them, should it seem desirable. About the same time, General Lafayette made a similar request, sending me the number of the periodical that contained the communication, and suggesting the expediency of answering it. I never, for an instant, doubted the perfect right of an American, or any one else, to expose the errors that abounded in this pretended statistical account, but I had little disposition for the task. Having, however, good reason to think it was aimed ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... follow New York's example without regard to the value of their titles, so that the Federal Union might be put on a firm basis. Congress did not discuss its own rights, nor the rights of the States; it simply asked that the cessions be made as a matter of expediency and patriotism; and announced that the policy of the Government would be to divide this new territory into districts of suitable size, which should be admitted as States as soon as they became well settled. This last proposition was important, as it outlined the future policy of the Government, which ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... merchant, who but a short time before would have unhesitatingly cast himself bodily to earth on the approach of a city magistrate, now acquired the habit of alluding to mandarins in casual conversation by names of affectionate abbreviation. Also, being advised of the expediency by a voice speaking in an undertone, he sought still further to extend beyond himself by suffering his nails to grow long and obliterating his name from the public ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... suggested to the King the expediency of appointing a secret committee of Roman Catholics to advise on all matters affecting the interests of their religion. This committee met sometimes at Chiffinch's lodgings, and sometimes at the official apartments of Sunderland, who, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... expediency and of getting as much fun out of the work as possible, it is well in the beginning to be versatile. Eventually, the free lance faces two choices: He may become a specialist and put in the remainder of his life writing solely about railroads, or about finance, or about the drama. ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... confirmed Scaife's confidence in his father's worldly wisdom. Big for his age, strong, with his grandsire's muscles, tough as hickory, he had become the leader of the Lower School boys at the Manor. The Fifth were civil to him, recognizing, perhaps, the expediency of leaving him alone ever since the incident of the cricket stump. The Sixth found him the quickest of the fags and uncommonly obliging. His house-master signed reports which neither praised nor ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... because of what is being accomplished in the physical and the intellectual, principles are being apprehended that will finally enable the individual to distinguish between right and wrong, to organize on principle rather than upon expediency his relationships with his fellows, and eventually to become a free moral agent, self-controlled and self-directed. It is the period, therefore, when ideals are being formed, habits fixt, character shaped, life plans ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... we read is almost certainly not that which he delivered, but, as in the previous case of Verres, the finished and elaborate composition of his calmer hours. Milo was convicted by a large majority; in fact, there can be little doubt but that he was legally guilty, however political expediency might, in the eyes of Cicero and his party, have justified his deed. Cato sat on the jury, and did all he could to insure an acquittal, showing openly his voting-paper to his fellow jurors, with that scorn of the "liberty of silence" which he ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... some days, and the army loudly demanded to be led forward to Jerusalem, the grand goal of all their wishes: but none of their leaders was anxious to move;—the more prudent among them, such as Godfrey and Tancred, for reasons of expediency; and the more ambitious, such as the Count of Toulouse and Bohemund, for reasons of self-interest. Violent dissensions sprang up again between all the chiefs. Raymond of Toulouse, who was left at Antioch to guard the town, had summoned the citadel to surrender, as soon as he saw that there was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... traveller—who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods—appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... kindness he made more impression upon us than any before. As Congregationalist he well knew the courts of the temple, but the Holy of Holies he had never seen, and knew nothing of its secrets. He understood expediency; but is not the man to "lay down his life for my sake." He is sincere and seems to think what Major Gould believes cannot be far from right. After his attempt we remained as firm as ever. We must expect all means will be tried upon us, and no ...
— The Record of a Quaker Conscience, Cyrus Pringle's Diary - With an Introduction by Rufus M. Jones • Cyrus Pringle
... Jewels, Mans Misery, Gods Mercy, Christs Treasury, &c. In eight Sermons; with an Appendix of the nature of Tithes under the Gospel; with an expediency of Marriage in Publique Assemblies, by I. Crag Minister ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... an end before, of what are called free institutions. Popular forms of government are possible only when individual men can govern their own lives on moral principles, and when duty is of more importance than pleasure, and justice than material expediency. Rome at any rate had grown ripe for judgment. The shape which the judgment assumed was due perhaps, in a measure, to a condition which has no longer a parallel among us. The men and women by whom the hard work of the world ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... was congenial, as at a later day, in common with all Cowper's works, they pleased Cobden, who no doubt specially relished the passage in Charity, embodying the philanthropic sentiment of Free Trade. There was a trembling consultation as to the expediency of bringing the volume under the notice of Johnson. "One of his pointed sarcasms, if he should happen to be displeased, would soon find its way into all companies and spoil the sale." "I think it would be well to send in our ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... In fact, it would be impossible, in summarily noticing the beneficial tendency of this great work, to particularize its manifold advantages; they are too weighty to be overlooked, either by the Legislature or the community at large, and will doubtless dictate the expediency of bringing them into effectual operation. The different modes suggested of raising the capital required for the undertaking are: 1st. From the Provincial revenue by the annual rate of a loan; 2nd. By an Act vesting it in the City ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the most approved Essay on Cultivating a Flower Pot, and the Expediency of growing Mignionette in preference to Sweet Pea on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a Joint Committee of both Houses of Congress appointed in 1866 to consider the condition of the South with reference to the safety or expediency of admitting the States lately in rebellion to their old relations to the Union, including representation in Congress. It contained, besides such fanatical enemies of the South as Thaddeus Stevens, such ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... in his seat. It did not escape the doctor that he had the air of a man longing to either say or do something startling, but apparently held back by tugging considerations of prudence or of expediency. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Tribes, especially those on the borders of the desert. Assyria had already turned her views towards the fertile lands which skirt the shores of the Mediterranean; and Egypt, in order to protect her rich valley from the aggressions of that rising monarchy, began to open her eyes to the expediency of securing the frontier towns in the nearest parts of Palestine. In a word, it was fast becoming manifest that the existence of the Hebrews, as a free and distinct people, could only be secured by reviving the union which had originally subsisted among their leading families, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... mind of the wisdom or expediency of trying to upset her brother's plans and purposes. She knew what influence she possessed over him. His was a placid, rather weak nature, true and steadfast in his dealings with others, and quite capable of holding his own as long as he kept in a certain groove; but for a man he was strangely ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... want and woe, all calamity and disappointment, all shame and guilt. In Christ there come forward to meet her, love, hope, truth, light, salvation. In Simon are acted out doting conservatism, mean expediency, purblind calculation, carnal insensibility. Generosity in this scene is confronted with meanness, in the attempt to shelter misfortune. The woman is a tragedy herself, such as Aeschylus never dreamed of. The scourging Furies, dread Fate, and burning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... no doubt, a clever man in his way, but he was not a man of high principle. He hated trouble of any sort, and expediency was usually his guide. Still he had had much experience in teaching, and Aunt Annie was quite equal to the task of sounding his knowledge of ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... of their own public affairs. If the Jacobins had not been overwhelmed by the necessity of keeping out the invaders, they might have developed the germ of truth in Rousseau's loose way of stating the expediency of decentralisation. As it was, above all other French schools, the Jacobins dealt most sternly with particularist pretensions. Of all men, these supposed masters, teachers, and models of mine are least to be called Separatists. To them more than to any other of the revolutionary parties the great ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... the subjects submitted by the Constitution to the power of Congress, it must depend for its execution, as to such stipulations, on a law or laws to be passed by Congress. And it is the Constitutional right and duty of the House of Representatives, in all such cases, to deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of carrying such Treaty into effect, and to determine and act thereon, as, in their judgment, may be most conducive to the public good."[169] The upshot of the matter was that the House ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... air, and my uncle, who is a manufacturer, admitted it was all right in theory, but it wouldn't do as a practical measure. That finished me. I'm a woman, you know, and when a thing appears right in theory, I believe it'll be right in practice. Expediency don't count with me, you see. But tell me, do you still live ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... that we began seriously to consider the expediency of organizing "Penny Readings" in the school-room attached to the quaint old square-towered church at Chewton Cudley I haven't the remotest idea. I fancy it must have been Mr. Petifer, the curate, who suggested it after he had been to preach for a friend of ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... soldier never thought of analyzing his bad luck or searching for motive in it. To him the combinations of circumstances that seemed always to deprive him of former pleasures were simply among the things that might happen. Grieving, she left him under that impression for the sake of its expediency, and tried to make it by being more than ever agreeable on the occasions when he came and demanded a cup of tea, and would not be denied. After all, she consoled herself, no situation was improved by being turned too suddenly ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... woman of the world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood, and there was just the specious phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "The triumph was accomplished through the people; it was impossible to be severe with them;"[2135] hence, when insurrections were to be put down, the Assembly had neither the courage nor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of decency; they frame their deeds by expediency." and in turn justly undergo the pressure which they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or four times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring—after the murder of the baker Francois, the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... adrift. If we are fighting for the annihilation of slavery, to be sure it may be a wise object, and offer a tangible result, and the only one which is consistent with a future union between North and South. A continuance of the war would soon make this plain to us, and we should see the expediency of preparing our black brethren for future citizenship by allowing them to fight for their own liberties, and educating them through heroic influences. Whatever happens next, I must say that I rejoice that the old Union is smashed. We never were one people, and never ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... which we hold to-day? How would England, or any great Power, have brooked interference such as is exercised in the case of Greece now? No. As things are among civilized nations to-day, I see not how the action of the powers in this case can be defended, except on the score of expediency, for, in truth, the interference is ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... and mine and the bulk of their fellow-creatures after the manner of their sect. If, in the interval between his first showing himself in my story and its publication in a separate volume, anything had occurred to make me question the justice or expediency of drawing and exhibiting such a portrait, I should have reconsidered it, with the view of retouching its sharper features. But its essential truthfulness has been illustrated every month or two, since my story has ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... committing herself or others, had suggested a really sensible plan by which all trouble would be avoided in future. That was the common-sense way of looking at it. He would lay the plan before the colonel, have him judge of its expediency and its ethics—and even the question whether she already knew the real truth, or was self-deceived. That done, he would return to his own affairs in Sacramento. There was nothing difficult in this, or that need worry him, only ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... is often summarily stigmatized as an immoral doctrine by giving it the name of Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular use of that term to contrast it with Principle. But the Expedient, in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself: as when a minister sacrifices the interest ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... without examination. But this is your consideration, and not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but I cannot make any objection, as you must be the best judge of the expediency of the promised indulgence to the Rannee."] rudely examined and despoiled of all her effects. The Governor-General, however, in this one instance, incurred the full odium of iniquity without reaping any of its reward. The treasures found in the castle of the Rajah ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... hopelessly, that the answer would be all sugary and smiling; at any rate that their master would try a little ogling of the archbishop, who could, if he would, make things ever so much better. While they were exchanging their views upon expediency and the great propriety of saving one's skin, the stout-hearted bishop rose from table. He had consulted none of these scared advisers, so that he might not throw the responsibility upon their shivering backs. He turned to the messenger and said, "These are novelties, and hitherto ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... the fundamental notion of all materialistic philosophy inevitably leads to selfishness, the majority of the citizens have no reason for not sacrificing the minority in their own interests. Thus, those who from the materialistic standpoint deny the necessity of war will admit its expediency from ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... a child under the age of puberty is adopted by rescript of the Emperor, the adrogation is only permitted after cause shown, the goodness of the motive and the expediency of the step for the pupil being inquired into. The adrogation is also made under certain conditions; that is to say, the adrogator has to give security to a public agent or attorney of the people, that if the pupil should die within the age of puberty, he will return his property ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... party, without union and without principle, is breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation—its Irish section into Castle Hacks ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... Another Northern city, with its full complement of grafting officials, was in the market for some train-loads of water-mains, and again Thomas Jefferson was fighting the old battle of conscience against expediency, this time in the evil-smelling ditches where ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... following these metaphysical speculations. To the people at large Buddhism was a moral and religious, not a philosophical reform. Yet even its morality has a metaphysical tinge. The morality which it teaches is not a morality of expediency and rewards. Virtue is not enjoined because it necessarily leads to happiness. No; virtue is to be practised, but happiness is to be shunned, and the only reward for virtue is that it subdues the passions, and thus prepares the human mind for that knowledge which is to end ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... or against it. But with each discussion, difficulties have been removed, objections have been canvassed and refuted, and some of the former opponents of Catholic emancipation have at length conceded to the expediency of relieving the petitioners. In conceding thus much, however, a new objection is started; it is not the time, say they, or it is an improper time, or there is time enough yet. In some degree I concur with those who say, it is not the time exactly; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... was indispensably necessary to maintain the credit of the government, and to keep these notes anywhere near par. In addition, we have the deliberate judgment and vote of the House of Representatives. After a full debate, in which the constitutionality, expediency and necessity of this measure were discussed, in which all the objections that have been made here, and many more, were urged, the House of Representatives, by a large vote, declared that it was necessary to issue United States notes, and that this clause was indispensable ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... which however he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment[121]. He was a zealous high-church man and royalist, and retained his attachment to the unfortunate house of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by casuistical arguments of expediency and necessity, to take the oaths imposed by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... that the act "did not, in any real sense, invest the President with the power of legislation. * * * Congress itself prescribed, in advance, the duties to be levied, * * *, while the suspension lasted. Nothing involving the expediency or the just operation of such legislation was left to the determination of the President. * * * He had no discretion in the premises except in respect to the duration of the suspension so ordered."[71] By similar reasoning, the Court sustained the flexible provisions ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... soul. But to sacrifice others never becomes easy to a man who respects the rights of others. And we shall never begin to comprehend men like Joffre and Foch until we shake ourselves free from any notion we may have that military expediency makes it easy for them to order great ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... cease—marriage could not now reinstate her in the world's sight—she had ceased to remember that her life was a crime. She had heard it said so often that marriage was simply an institution founded upon expediency; that all systems having been tried, the one that worked best was the union of a man to one wife, that she herself began to doubt its being a heaven-ordained institution, and the only state tolerated by Divine Providence. But if she ceased to feel herself actually a guilty and sinning woman, ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... of the general anarchy to enforce the expediency of its original proposition, to which the Great Powers, however, would not assent. Kassim was deposed, after a reign of a few months, amid burning villages and their slaughtered inhabitants; and, as the Porte was resolved not to try another Shehaab, and the Great Powers were resolved ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... him most was the curious fact that, for all her light irresponsibility, it was always she who made the practical suggestion, hit the nail of expediency on the head. No sentimental scruple made the blow waver or deflected her resolute aim. She had thought at once of Laura, and Laura was his only, his inevitable, resource. His anxious mind pictured ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... School of Sensation, is that there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. The Transcendentalist claimed an intuitive knowledge of God, belief in immortality, and in man's ability to apprehend absolute ideas of truth, justice, and rectitude. The one regarded expediency, prudence, caution, and practical wisdom as the highest of the virtues, and distrusted alike the seer, the prophet, and the reformer. The other was by nature a reformer and dissatisfied with men as they are, but with passionate aspirations for a pure social state, he recognized, above ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... It is not the least among the unfortunate results of the disasters of the times; and it is for Congress to devise a fit remedy, if there be one. The money being indispensable to the wants of the Treasury, it is difficult to conceive upon what principle of justice or expediency its application to that object can be avoided. To recall any portion of the sums already deposited with the States would be more inconvenient and less efficient. To burden the country with increased taxation when there is in fact a large surplus ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... realized that no power on earth, no consideration of expediency, would restrain him from laying violent hands on Dubois at the first possible opportunity. She knew there must be a struggle, in which Gros Jean and the Turks, perhaps the four sailors, would participate. They might use knives and ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... position of a Mohammedan converted to Christianity, who is advised by the missionary to choose one of his two wives to have and to hold as a lawful spouse. When one has given his heart to Henry Esmond and the Heart of Midlothian he is in a strait, and begins to doubt the expediency of literary monogamy. Of course, if it go by technique and finish, then Esmond has it, which from first to last in conception and execution is an altogether lovely book; and if it go by heroes—Esmond and Butler—then again there is no comparison, for the grandson ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... themselves in love, and gave the salt to the whole affair. Moreover, there was this ground for it, that had her lord once roused from the straw-yards of his prize cattle, there was a certain stubborn, irrational, old-world prejudice of pride and temper in him that would have made him throw expediency to the winds, then and there, with a blind and brutal disregard to slander and to the fact that none would ever adorn his diamonds as she did. So that Cecil had not only her fair fame, but her still more valuable jewels in ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the less mad, because all mad together. The process by which this state of things is brought about is always substantially the same. Egotism, vanity, disappointed ambition, sectional jealousies, a real or supposed interest or expediency induce them to wish that a wrong course were the right one. They try to convince themselves that it is so, and all such efforts to sophisticate the conscience, if persisted in, are punished by entire success. The spectacle does not inspire me with hate; it ...
— The Spirit Proper to the Times. - A Sermon preached in King's Chapel, Boston, Sunday, May 12, 1861. • James Walker
... interest in the relief of the poor was deep and abiding, and he did a great and mighty work in connection with the factory laws. It was said at the time by the Radicals that his work was dictated by political expediency rather than by pure humane feelings. However, Bill is of opinion that the Radicals were mistaken. The Captain was a stern disciplinarian, but, under a rough exterior, Bill was sure there beat a warm ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... always included. Beyond this, the make-up of the cabinet group is left to the discretion of the premier. The importance of a given office at the moment and the wishes of the appointee, together with general considerations of party expediency, may well enter into a decision relative to the seating of individual departmental heads. In recent years the presidents of the Board of Trade, the Board of Education, and the Local Government Board have regularly been included, together with the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... however, a puritanical fervor which withstood the lure of expediency. He entered the courts not to juggle with words, fence for loopholes out of which to drag dubious acquittals for his clients. His profession was a part of his nature. He saw it as a battle ground on which, under ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... the first shade of disapprobation, with all Low's arguments ready to sweep it aside. But Bella, with maternal instincts in place of a comprehensive humanity, agreed that Low had done right. Nature, in the beginning, combined with the needs of the trail, had given her a viewpoint where expediency counted for more than altruism. She with two children and a helpless man would have gone on and left anyone to his fate. She did not say this, but Susan, with intelligence sharpened by a jealous passion, felt that there ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... and continents of the globe are being from year to year more and more closely associated, and that to those intelligently interested, without regard to the application of their views of justice or expediency, in the labor and silver questions—the convictions, the fanaticisms, of the vast silver nations—and enormous multitudes of the people of Asia, touching the silver standard—and the possible progress ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... expediency and utility of prayer, Homer misses no opportunity of enforcing. Cold and comfortless as the religious creed of the heathens was, they were piously attentive to its dictates, and to a degree that may serve as a reproof to many professed believers ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... poles these two societies are, for each possesses precisely those qualities which the other lacks. The Jesuits are strongly centralized, the Freemasons only confederated. Jesuits are controlled by one man's will, Freemasons are under majority rule. Jesuits bottom morality in expediency, Freemasons in regard for the well-being of mankind. Jesuits recognize only one creed, Freemasons hold in respect all honest convictions. Jesuits seek to break down individual independence, Freemasons to build it up" (Mysteria, by Otto ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... before expediency and cruelty on the other! Paul before Seneca and Nero! He was ready to address Nero, with the eloquence and vehemence which for years ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... opinions, I am sensible, would meet with no favor among us now. The espousal of the slave-man's cause among our Northern people is so humane and hearty that they can stop nowhere, for any consideration of expediency, in doing him justice, after all his wrongs; and I honor their feeling, go to what lengths it will. Nevertheless, I put down these my thoughts, for my children to understand, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... fifteen per cent, if not more; now that he doubles the impost on the native sulphur, which is therefore checked in its sale; now that he keeps an army of 80,000 men to play at soldiers with; now that he constitutes himself the only referee even in questions of commercial expediency, and a fortiori in all other cases, which he settles arbitrarily, or does not settle at all; now that he sees so little the signs of the times, that he will not let a professor go to a science-congress at Florence or Bologna ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... threats, you have but to think of that curious crime which has now assumed a frequency never known to former centuries, namely the making of counterfeit money. For since paper money—from want or for reasons of expediency—has become a substitute of metal coin in the civilized countries, the making of counterfeit paper money has become very frequent in the nineteenth century. Now a counterfeiter, in committing his crime, must compel his mind to imitate closely ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... solution she has insisted on, in the common interest. But concessions as to Upper Silesia and East Prussia would be received, I have little doubt, with general relief and assent; and the common sense of Europe will certainly see both the wisdom and expediency of setting German industry to work again as speedily as possible, and of so arranging and facilitating the payment of her huge money debt to the Allies that it should not weigh too intolerably on the life of an unborn generation—an ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
