"Initiative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dissatisfied, sold it again at a loss, but subsequently made final arrangements for establishing a very large farm. When he once became actually interested in this he shook off something of his moodiness and settled himself to develop the thing. He had good talent for initiative and administration, and at last, in the time when his wife was a feature of the London season, he found his scheme in working order, and the necessity of going to England was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... air of being on the turf. He held a white hat in one hand, and on the other, which was ungloved, he wore a large seal ring. Katherine did not know how to say that her uncle would not see him, but the stranger took the initiative. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... was in peril, and grave peril. Even though the storm-swept marsh had not stood in his way he was quite too weary to walk farther. He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. His life depended upon his own initiative, for he was quite beyond help from others. It was a great unpeopled wilderness in which Jamie was lost, and he was but a wee lad, and even though Doctor Joe and David were looking for him there was scarce a chance that they could find him ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... Avicenna (a Neoplatonist of the tenth century) and Averroes (an Aristotelian of the twelfth century who betrayed tendencies towards admitting the eternity of nature, and its evolution through its own initiative during the course of time). Their doctrines were propagated, and the ancient books which they made known became widely diffused. From them dates the sway of Aristotle ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... unfolding new power at each step. He passes through the graded schools, slowly acquiring elementary lessons. College follows with higher and more difficult mental acquirements. Then he enters professional life and begins to use his intellect with more and more initiative. He moves on into public life with increased duties and responsibilities. From one post of honor he rises to another with increasing ability and mastery, until at last he is the head of a nation and has become a world figure. ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... absolutely to excite a sense of wasted commiseration and uninteresting prosperity. Conversation constrained both by the grating and the presence of the warder, and Aubrey, more tenderly sensitive than his brother, and devoid of his father's experienced tact, was too much embarrassed to take the initiative, was afraid of giving pain by dwelling on his present occupations and future hopes, and confused Leonard by his embarrassment. Hector Ernescliffe discoursed about Charleston Harbour and New Orleans; and Aubrey stood with downcast eyes, afraid to seem to be scanning the convict garb, and thus ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... vie ne pouvait trouver que dans la societe sa pleine satisfaction. He seems inclined to turn his attention to the unity of life, not simply as due to an identity of original impulse but to a common aspiration. There is involved a process of subordination and initiative on the part of the individual. The existence of society necessitates a certain subordination, while its progress depends on the free initiative of the individual. It is extremely dangerous for any society, whether it be an International League, a State, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... well be called the cavalry of the sea. It calls for dashing initiative, aggressiveness and courage and daring to the point of rashness. Where an officer would be justified —even duty bound — by navy standards to run away with a bigger and more valuable vessel, the commander of a destroyer often must close in ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature; like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... initial disorder of her first attempt as follows: "I must confess that the first four weeks were disheartening; the children could not settle to a task for more than a few moments; they showed no perseverance, no initiative; at times they followed one another like a flock of lambs; when one child took up an object, all the others wanted to imitate him, sometimes they rolled on the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... and, failing to subdue them by force, effected a compromise, and bought up their leaders. The concession which followed of the tribunitial veto was only a further development. By that veto the plebeians gained no initiative, no positive power, indeed, but their tribunes, by interposing it, could stop the proceedings of the government. They could not propose the measures they liked, but they could prevent the legal adoption of measures they disliked—a faculty Mr. Calhoun ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... if we dared to presume to criticise this magnificent theory of disease, we would simply say that it is not "cellular" enough, that it hardly as yet sufficiently recognizes the individuality, the independence, the power of initiative, of the single constituent cell. It is still a little too apt to assume, because a cell has donned a uniform and fallen into line with thousands of its fellows to form a tissue in most respects of somewhat lower rank than that ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... afternoon; but, for all that, Lee Bryant was proceeding on important business—important for him, anyhow. When everything one possesses is about to be risked on a venture, the matter is naturally vital; and at this moment he was moving straight to the initiative ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... think for himself; and even if little more were accomplished than this, it would be of ten thousand times greater value to the individual, and to the community at large, than the acquisition of a large stock of facts at the price of losing all power of reflection and initiative. ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... rested upon Orchard Knob that night, having taken thus the initiative in the great battle of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. That night was a busy one all along the lines of both armies. Mystic signs were written upon the skies all night by the signal corps of each army. Hooker upon the right was preparing to assault Lookout Mt. We of the center ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... in Miss Gorman, "would be two active, intelligent young men with some initiative and executive ability. You see, I am giving a going away dinner for some soldiers of the Rainbow Division who are about to be sent to the transports. It's an official secret, of course. No one is supposed to know that they are going to sail ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that it has not what you are pleased to call an organisation. Organisations are only a means for intriguers and rogues to climb to power on the shoulders of their fellow-men; and at best only serve to trammel initiative and enterprise. With us every individual enjoys complete liberty of action. This of course does not mean to say that several individuals may not unite to attain some common object, as is shown by our groups which are scattered all over the globe. But each group is autonomous, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... without making known what could only cause hostility and distress between the two families, unless the young man himself on his return should make the confession. This the Bishop evidently considered the sounder, though the harder course, but he held that Anne had no right to take the initiative. She could only wait, and bear her load alone; but the extreme kindness and compassion with which he talked to her soothed and comforted her so much that she felt infinitely relieved and strengthened when he dismissed her with his blessing, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... untold advantage that she had to take the initiative in excuses. Sophy was so meek with weariness, that she took pretty well all the kind fidgeting that could not be averted from her, and Miss Meadows's discourse chiefly tended to assurances that Mrs. Kendal was right, and grandmamma was nervous—and poor Mr. Bowles—it ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... economy in which the group life of the household prevailed over the individual life had by the nineteenth century superseded the pioneer period, in which individual action and independent personal initiative were the prevailing mode. ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... there is out there. No reason for everyone to live in the suburban centers any more. With millions of empty apartments in them, high time we built something else, eh? Trouble with people today, no initiative in ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... Internet and Unix communities. Perhaps the single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... gunboats. Now we had been reinforced by a fleet of six naval vessels, a large division of troops under General L. Wallace and 2,500 men brought over from Fort Henry belonging to the division of C. F. Smith. The enemy, however, had taken the initiative. Just as I landed I met Captain Hillyer of my staff, white with fear, not for his personal safety, but for the safety of the National troops. He said the enemy had come out of his lines in full force and attacked and scattered McClernand's division, which was in full retreat. The roads, as I have ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... wars between France and Germany becomes mere imposture when it seeks to dictate dogma to wars in which the British Empire is involved. The particular dogma about concentration had three defects: it left the initiative to the enemy, thus surrendering the advantage, secured by the command of the sea, of being able to strike in other directions; it assumed that the enemy could be beaten on that front without disturbance on his flanks or in his ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... and self-contained; and Carpenter carried Hicks away to bestow him, together with Dunne, in a hole in the malt-house under a heap of sacking. Nelthorp had already vanished completely on his own initiative. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... humanitarian and civilizing work? Venice was by no means in a disarming state of decrepitude. On her own lands she had brought her stock-raising, her agriculture and her industries to such a pitch of development that she had the experience, as well as the initiative and the means, to do something for the Dalmatians who, and especially in the interior, knew no other trade than that of arms. Terrible was the desolation of those days; over large areas there was no drinking-water; the land was merely used to pasture ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... colonel, with a sigh, "I must hasten to my conclusion. I wish to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to your faithful teacher, Miss Grey, by reason of whose patriotic initiative the opportunity was presented to me to make this gift. I wish also to commend the vigilance and effort of the young gentleman who brought the matter to my immediate and personal attention, and who, I am informed, will fittingly and eloquently respond to this brief and somewhat unsatisfactory ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the county moulded and sustained local feeling during the generations when local government and local initiative were dying elsewhere; it has preserved a sort of aristocratic independence, the survival of custom, and the differentiation ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... Bombay and Persia were not confined to this single benevolent initiative of the Bombay Committee. [62] We should also notice the establishing of schools in the towns of Yezd and Kirman (1857) due to the munificence of the Parsee notabilities, and the pecuniary gifts given for the purpose of settling in life young girls exposed on account of their ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... speak to fall in love with me? Not mine: I hate it: it bores me to distraction. At first it flattered me—delighted me—that was how Julia got me, because she was the first woman who had the pluck to make me a declaration. But I soon had enough of it; and at no time have I taken the initiative and persecuted women with my advances as women have persecuted me. Never. Except, of course, in ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... vides; seulement a chercher dans sa poche on y eut trouve les cles de la Tunisie"—as one of his friends defined the situation some years ago. He was almost disavowed by his Government. The ministers were timid and unwilling that France should take any initiative—even his friend, Leon Say, then Minister of Finances, a very clever man and brilliant politician, said: "Notre collegue Waddington, contre son habitude, s'est emballe cette fois pour la question de la Tunisie." (Our colleague ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... haunted me, rather—I thought about him a good deal while I was closing up my affairs in other directions before taking over the Consolidated Resumption. Meanwhile the company's cashier, Joshua Dean, a man of trust but small initiative, was filling ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth) to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... offer themselves to noted warriors in the hope of thus calling attention to their personal attractions. As we shall see later, one of the ways in which an Australian wins a wife is by means of magic. In this game, as Spencer and Gillen tell us (556), the women sometimes take the initiative, thus inducing a man to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the idea of a sort of Brotherhood of Defense (in lieu of a better title) among the boys who used the reading-room whose existence Janice Day's initiative had established. Whoever got the papers from the mail and spread them on the file in the reading-room, first examined the columns carefully for any mention of the execution of prisoners by either belligerent party in Mexico; especially was the news searched for any mention ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... BEVERIDGE.—For conspicuous gallantry and initiative. He repeatedly carried messages back from the firing line under heavy fire and, at a critical moment, rallied his comrades after a counter-attack and led them to the final capture of the position. His courage and dash ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... munificence. Under the ninth Ramesses the order was reversed—"now it is the king who testifies his gratitude to the High-Priest of Ammon for the care bestowed on his temple by the erection of new buildings and the improvement and maintenance of the older ones." The initiative has passed out of the king's hands into those of his subject; he is active, the king is passive; all the glory is Amenhotep's; the king merely comes in at the close of all, as an ornamental person, whose presence adds a certain dignity to the ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged, should be stimulated; and yet we should remember that, as society develops and grows more complex, we continually find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under the changed conditions, be performed with better results by common ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... was going on a fortnight's leave to England; and no Tommy in the trenches could have been more excited over the prospect. Her own hospital, which occupies the rest of the lot, is one of those marvels which individual initiative and a strong social sense such as hers has produced in this war. Special enterprise was required to save such desperate cases as are made a specialty of here, and all that medical and surgical science can do has been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the act, was empowered; and that all laws or ordinances so made, subject to the provisions thereinafter contained for disallowance thereof by her majesty, should have the like force and effect as laws passed by the legislative bodies. The governor was further to have the initiative of all measures proposed in the council, five of whom were required for a quorum. Certain restrictive provisoes followed these provisions; and it was directed that a copy of every such law or ordinance "be transmitted to the home government;" and her majesty ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... power on their own initiative to lease the card for a term of years? Or should the approval of the transaction by the Court, under the Settled Estates Act, be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action of the decomposing elements, in the prevailing form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... had its origin in the initiative of a few pilots who recognised a chance, took it, and thus opened yet another branch in the huge departmental store of aerial tactics. The exploits of these pioneers were sealed with the stamp of official approval, and airmen on contact patrol have since ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... face, waiting for the confidently expected greeting; later, she eyed them with a distinctly grieved expression—the greeting had never been given; but at last, her hunger to talk with some one not of her own family led her to take the initiative herself. Meeting a tall, slender woman, whom she had already seen ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... him a berth, and a chance to lie back and look on. And while that helped to ripen his wisdom, it sapped his initiative. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... Initiative in war is no less valuable than in business life. Become at once imbued with the desire to put "the other fellow" on the defensive. That makes him somewhat dependent upon your own actions. That gives you opportunities to fool him that ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... weavers; so, of course, there is such a division of labor. It would be well enough to speak thus if the colony of weavers had arisen by the free will of its member's; but we know that it is not thus formed of their initiative, but that we make it. Hence it is necessary to find out whether we have made these weavers in accordance with an organic law, or ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... himself is a historical specialist, and his historical syntheses deserve the most careful consideration. But there is much in the process of development which on such assumptions is not explained, especially the initiative of individuals. Historical development does not proceed in a right line, without the choice of diverging. Again and again, several roads are open to it, of which it chooses one—why? On Lamprecht's method, we may be able to assign the conditions which limit the psychical ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... of national sentiment brings another evil, moreover, which is the absence of all opposition to measures prejudicial to the people and the absence of any initiative in whatever may redound to its good. A man in the Philippines is only an individual, he is not a member of a nation. He is forbidden and denied the right of association, and is therefore weak and sluggish. The Philippines are an organism whose cells ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... to Miss Foster again, and Mr. Widden, with a despairing gesture, abandoned himself to gloom. He made no further interruptions, but at the conclusion of the walk hesitated so long on the door-step that Mr. Letts had to take the initiative. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... well," the Kaiser pronounced, "that my counsellors were unanimous in advising your withdrawal to what will shortly become the great centre of interest. From the moment of receiving our commands you appear to have displayed initiative. I gather that your personation of this English baronet has been ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and good in you, you need not be afraid they will fail of it, and they will not be so long about finding it out as some travellers say. When it comes to the grace of the imaginative in your pleasantry, they will be even beforehand with you. But in their extreme of impersonality they will leave the initiative to you in the matter of humor as in others. They will no more seek out your peculiar humor than they will name you in speaking ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... this book, he remarks, "The present rhymer has no ambitions as a stage manager. The Poem Game idea, in its rhythmic picnic stage, is recommended to amateurs, its further development to be on their own initiative. Informal parties might divide into groups of dancers and groups of chanters. The whole might be worked out in the spirit in which children play King William was King James's Son, London Bridge.... The main revolution necessary for dancing improvisers, who would ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... all entertaining." The author adds: "I believed it useless to persist, and I trampled under foot, laughing at myself, my awkward attempt at a childish construction."[45] "I had already read it in many a book, but this time I had learned from experience that the free initiative of children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make for them. In addition, this experience and others like it have taught me that their creative force is much weaker than ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... assume the initiative here. They make no advances; they wait until a girl pays them attentions so ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... faculties. He concluded that our educators, overwhelmed by the size and vigor of American industry, were too timid to seize upon the industrial situation, and to extract its enormous educational value. He lamented that this lack of courage and initiative failed not only to fit the child for an intelligent and conscious participation in industrial life, but that it was reflected in the industrial development itself; that industry had fallen back into old habits, ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... "I think you are right, Maxime, in the main. Our people are in the awkward position of fighting the Constitution, and the old flag is a dead weight against us. We must take the initiative in an unnecessary war. This Abe Lincoln is no mere mad fool. I will send a messenger East, and urge that ten thousand Texan cavalry be pushed right over to Arizona. We must seize the coast. You are right! There is one obstacle, Valois, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... said. "There is the difference. A Russian captain would have done it, if he had been ordered, and he and his men would, without a question, have sacrificed themselves to cover the retreat of the rest, but he would never have done it on his own initiative. The idea would never have struck him. He would have plodded along until the enemy's cavalry came up and annihilated them all. By the way, why did you not ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... officer separately and in writing, and to relate only to the duties of their respective offices.[114] The Cabinet, as we know it today, that is to say, the Cabinet meeting, was brought about solely on the initiative of the first President, and may be dispensed with on Presidential initiative at any time, being totally unknown to the Constitution. Several Presidents have in fact reduced the Cabinet meeting to little more than a ceremony with ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... world-civilizations of history; but, understanding neither, he remains only a muddy place in the road along which Greek and Hebrew passed to world-conquest. Haman, a blend of vanity and cruelty and cowardice but not without some power of initiative, was a fit minister for his king. He lives in history as one who, better than in Hamlet's illustration, was "hoist with his own petard," the petard in his case being a gallows. He typifies also the just fate of the man who, spurred by the hate of one, includes in his scheme of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... Greenbrier under Colonel Albert Rust, of Arkansas, was given the initiative, and on its success the plan detailed pivoted, but the several columns were expected to act at the same time and in concert. Colonel Rust's command, about 2000 strong, by a blind road to the Union right reached its designated position ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... immediately assigned to the command of a corps of two infantry divisions. Three days later (June 14), detached, with Boudet's division, at Rivalta, he heard the cannon of Marengo on his right. Taking the initiative he marched at once towards the sound, meeting Bonaparte's staff officer, who had come to recall him, half way on the route. He arrived with Boudet's division at the moment when the Austrians were victorious all ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... contrasted with English railroad practice is reviewed, and the differences which exist, with the necessities for such differences ably discussed. Mr. Colburn shows these differences to be external rather than fundamental, and traces many of the peculiarities of American construction to the "initiative of English engineers." The cause for the adoption and retention of these peculiarities he attributes to "the necessities of a new country and the comparative scarcity of capital," and thinks that but for these causes" American railways and ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... we entered, was like her children. None of them has the initiative or the energy of the man. They are subdued by the changeless conditions of their environment; his one adventure of the week keeps him alert ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... he was alone with his cousin, he never recurred to the subject of Rieseneck or his return, though the baroness constantly expected him to do so, and watched his inscrutable face to detect some signs of a wish to discuss the matter. For two reasons, she would not take the initiative in bringing up the topic. In the first place, as he was the person most nearly concerned, her tact told her that it was for him to decide whether he would talk of his brother or not. Secondly she was silent, because she ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... excuse to separate from him once the ranges of mountains were crossed. Why did she not drop off then on the excuse, say, of the wonderful new hunting grounds? That would be simple. Kingozi concluded that she wished the initiative to come from him. And the more convinced he was that she wanted to get rid of him, the more firmly he ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... Spirit starts the condensation of the primary substance into concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and of taking an Initiative on its ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... chief and his prime minister came in. They were evil-looking savages. To them we paid not the slightest attention, but went about our usual business as though they did not exist. At the end of an hour they of their own initiative greeted us. We did not hear them. Half an hour later they disappeared, to return after an interval, followed by a string of young men bearing firewood. Evidently our bearing had impressed them, as we had intended. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... method of putting their mutual relationship on a basis richer in future potentialities Derek still felt himself unable to adopt of his own initiative act. The vow which bound him to his dead wife was one from which circumstances—and not merely his own fiat—must absolve him; but as winter advanced it seemed to him that life had begun to speak on the subject with a ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... many as he crouched there. He wanted to feel decisive; but the weary walk, heavily-laden as he was, had dulled his brain a little, and he could not come to a conclusion as to whether it would not be best to take the initiative and attack at once, trusting to their sudden appearance and the shots they could be creating a panic; for it was not likely that the enemy would imagine such an attack would be made unless by a force at least equal ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... too often forgotten that from the first Hugo was associated with men of pretensions and capacities not greatly inferior to his own, and that in no direction was victory the work of his single arm. In painting the initiative had been taken years before the publication of the Cromwell manifesto by Gericault with the famous Radeau de la Meduse, and by Delacroix with the Dante et Virgile (1822) and the Massacre de Scio (1823). ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... initiative, Lil Artha now also picked up his gun, and started to keep a sharp watch. As Toby had truly said, they could not really continue on their way without passing under the wide-stretching branches of the tree where he claimed to have seen "something ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... arrived, Andrea employed in riding, paying visits,—designed to induce those of whom he had spoken to appear at the banker's in their gayest equipages,—dazzling them by promises of shares in schemes which have since turned every brain, and in which Danglars was just taking the initiative. In fact, at half-past eight in the evening the grand salon, the gallery adjoining, and the three other drawing-rooms on the same floor, were filled with a perfumed crowd, who sympathized but little in the event, but who all participated in that love of being present wherever there ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... said she. 'I felt that, considering my shortcomings at our parting so many years ago, I owed you the initiative now.' ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... destruction and defense. The individual, save as he gives himself up to the great machine, everywhere is inconspicuous, and while no less courage is demanded than in the days of the short-range weapons and personal combat, yet the heroic note of personal valor and initiative in most cases is unheard, and the individual is sunk in the mass. One is almost tempted to believe that chivalry and individual heroism no longer bulk large in the profession of arms, and that in the place of the knightly soldier there is the grim ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... have heard; it is enough to say they reach many, many thousands of pounds; that the difference between the highest and the lowest represents a handsome fortune. And this great sum has been earned by brains alone, without increase of expenditure, by boldness of initiative, thought, care, and patience; without special knowledge also, at the beginning, for ten years ago Mr. Cookson had no more acquaintance with orchids than is possessed by every gentleman who takes an interest in them, while his gardener the early time was both ignorant and prejudiced. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... initiative this time!" and the Chief embraced the old man. "You know me upon that point. I cannot trust him. I do not. But, if we make such a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into it, is such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my friend! See ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... does not wait for them to take the initiative, as they ought to have done to declare their joy and their gratitude to him. In his first utterance he pours out the joy of his heart, fervently thanking God for them, etc. Well might they have blushed, and reproached themselves, when they received ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... "that he is somewhat inclined to vacillate. That, after making up his mind to do a thing, and even after initiative steps are taken, he is apt to pause, look back, and reconsider. This, of course, will not suit us. The best way to manage him will be to get his money in our boat, and then we are sure of him. He is very wealthy, and can be of great use in the ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... the military situation, has attributed the success of the Germans to their possessing the initiative and to the weather. Members have found it a little difficult to understand why, if even at the beginning of March the Allies were equal in numbers to the enemy on the West and if, thanks to the foresight of the Versailles Council, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... Persian monarch, after the high tone which he had taken, would have maintained an aggressive attitude, have crossed the Euphrates, and spread the hordes at his disposal over Syria, Cappadocia, and Asia Minor. But it seems to be certain that he did not do so, and that the initiative was taken by the other side. Probably the Persian arms, as inefficient in sieges as the Parthian, were unable to overcome the resistance offered by the Roman forts upon the great river; and Artaxerxes was too good a general to throw his forces into the heart of an enemy's country without having ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... anxious to do so to re-convoke the council. He would not so much as consider the idea of selecting Trent or any German city as a fit place for such an assembly, while the Austro-Spanish rulers were equally strong against Rome or any other place in Italy. But of his own initiative Paul IV. took strong measures to reform the Roman Curia, established a special commission in Rome to assist him in this work, stamped out by vigorous action heretical opinions that began to manifest themselves in Italy, and presided frequently ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... paradox, but it is a truism, that, in matters of love, it is the weaker and the defenseless sex that takes the initiative. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... he who, as we have already remarked, had taken the initiative several times, and whose voice, even in its most familiar intonations, denoted the habit of command, was about thirty years of age. His black hair was parted in the middle, falling straight from his temples to his shoulders. He ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... persons, both named William Shakespeare, should on two successive days not only be arranging with the Bishop of Worcester's official to marry, but should be involving themselves, whether on their own initiative or on that of their friends, in more elaborate and expensive forms of procedure than were habitual to the humbler ranks of contemporary society. But the Worcester diocese covered a very wide area, and was honeycombed with Shakespeare families of all degrees of gentility. ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... as scanty as those of the patriarchs, straight from the classic, the antique; grandchildren of the courts of law and temples of Pagan Rome, children of the Byzantine basilicas of early Christian days; strange survivals from distant antiquity, testifying to the lack of artistic initiative in the barbarous centuries between Constantine to Barbarossa. No period in the world's history could have produced anything so organic without the work of previous periods; and when the Middle Ages did in their turn produce an architecture original ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... tale suited to the first grade, delights with its strong sense of adventure and of the heroic. Puss is a Master-Cat, a hero clever and quick, and with fine imagination to see what would happen and prepare for it. He is successful, combining initiative and motivation delightfully. His devotion to his master seems like disinterested loyalty, love, and sacrifice. While it is true the plot is based on a lie, the moral effect is not bad because we recognize Puss as a match-making character similar to the ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... hoary-bearded elderly son, and, erewhile, an official, were he to express a wish to have her as an inmate of his household! I sent for you for no other purpose than to deliberate with you, and here you take the initiative and enumerate a whole array of shortcomings. But is there any reason why I should commission you to go? Of course I'll go and speak to her! You make a bold statement that I don't give him any good counsel; but don't you yet know that with a disposition, such as his, he rushes, before I can very ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... undoubted ability and consecration, are backward to inaugurate such a movement. That many are in hearty sympathy with such a reformation, I know well. Only let the men in the Missionary Movement take a constitutional initiative in the matter, and they will be surprised how many ministers will be with them. I know for a fact that many are longing for just ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Church schools and in the struggle between our modern proprietary classes and the proletariat, but in the part played by Christian missionaries in reconciling the black races of Africa to their subjugation by European Capitalism, we can judge for ourselves whether the initiative came from above or below. My object here is not to argue the historical point, but simply to make our theatre critics ashamed of their habit of treating Britain as an intellectual void, and assuming that every philosophical ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... attaches special importance to the play activities, or natural activities of childhood, on which the Kindergarten is founded. This is probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative. ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... and confidential position in my business—to represent us at one of the foreign ports where we have considerable interests." He smiled. "It's the sort of place where he will perhaps find himself less trammelled by—er—legalism, and with more opportunities for his undoubted gift of initiative." ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... Association" to create public sentiment were vigorously seconded by the efforts of high official personages to set on foot concerted official action in aid of disunion. In this also, with becoming expressions of modesty, South Carolina took the initiative. On the 5th of October, Governor Gist wrote the following confidential letter, which he dispatched by a secret agent to his colleagues, the several Governors of the Cotton States, whom the bearer, General S.R. Gist, visited in turn during ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... offer unusual opportunity to the Artist, at the same time imposing handicaps - the briefness of time, the poverty of material. It affords chances for experiment, invention, and originality only limited by the necessary formal settings of the architecture, out of proportion to the initiative of the artists, a majority of whom prefer, either from inclination or necessity, to take the safe course, the beaten path of precedent. Artists are of two kinds - the Imitators and the Innovators. The public also is of two corresponding kinds - those who accept only what they have learned to regard ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... fortunate that the Bryants were there to take the initiative, for Mr. and Mrs. Maynard seemed incapable of action. Usually alert and energetic, they were so stunned at the thought of real disaster to Marjorie that ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... investigating committee should display initiative I broke the silence by questioning the little sergeant, and I began on a line which I felt would please the Commandant, "You were at Labiau during the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... that in the performance and carrying out of great deeds (and nearly all of his were terrific) it is men aflame with courage and enthusiasm that carry the day, and take them as a whole, conscripts are never wholehearted. The two great characteristics of the British race—initiative and endurance—are due to this burning ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... disease which had practically disabled her. It might confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. It was Amos who tacitly rebelled. When a boy in school, he virtually gave up ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... disturbing cause, which is not likely to occur to the English mind. In England, individuals and companies habitually act according to their private interests, and the State interferes as little as possible; private initiative acts as it pleases, unless the authorities can prove that important bad consequences will necessarily result. In Russia, the onus probandi lies on the other side; private initiative is allowed to do nothing until it gives ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... soldier, he succeeded in bringing his command to a high state of efficiency, and the battalion owed much to his careful preparation. It was due largely to his teaching that the men knew how to advance from cover to cover and displayed such ready 'initiative' in the various battles of the Natal Campaign. The opportunity of putting into practice this teaching soon presented itself, for on October 12th news was received that the South African Republics had declared war on ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... shortly to unfurl their banner beneath the shadow of St. Canice's; and the crowds who hung on their words vowed their determination to do so. But in Kilkenny, as in every town they visited, the patriot leaders found the greatest disinclination to take the initiative in the holy war. There as elsewhere the people felt no unwillingness to fight; but they knew they were ill prepared for such an emergency, and fancied the first blow might be struck more effectively elsewhere. "Who will draw the first ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... better say "Not at home." The call counts as a visit whether the lady is at home or not, and must be returned. It is not customary to invite a visitor to be seated, to come again, or urge a longer stay. It is supposed she will take the initiative in these particulars; and too, that the fact that the two exchange visits warrants a certain wontedness of habit. Still, among intimates it is by no means unusual for the hostess to say "Do come again soon; I always enjoy you ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Gazette, Daily Mail, and Herald. The subject had long been felt to be a sore grievance and rock of offence among the working classes, and periodical agitations had taken place without leading to any decided action. From the very first Glasgow took the initiative in seeking to modify or get rid altogether of a law which pressed with greater severity on the lower orders than, perhaps, any other enactment that ever found its way into the Statute Books of Scotland. The late Neale Thomson, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... of intensive sleeplessness broken only by dreams of seeing Oliver being married to somebody else in the lobby of the Hotel Rosario can only wonder rather dully when it could ever have been that poor father was allowed enough initiative of his own to take even the passive part in a quarrel over a trifle and why mother thinks the prospect implied in her speech of her daughter's marriage being like unto hers can be so comforting. Nancy made one New Year's resolution the second ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... other good and loyal burgher; bearing in mind, too, the labour he has undergone and the diligence he has displayed, gratis and of his free will, in the said work (of fortification) up to this day; and wishing to employ his industry and energies to the like effect in future; we, of our motion and initiative, do appoint him to be governor and procurator-general over the construction and fortification of the city walls, as well as every other sort of defensive operation and munition for the town of Florence, for one year certain, beginning with the present date; adding thereto full authority over ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... gray squirrel as our subject in this chapter, as this little rodent has a tough skin that is easily manipulated. A cottontail rabbit might be more easy to procure, but is not so satisfactory for the purpose of initiative steps in this work, as his skin is extremely delicate and requires especially careful handling in ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... supplement income. The war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 and recurrent drought have buffeted the economy, in particular coffee production. In November 2001 Ethiopia qualified for debt relief from the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. Under Ethiopia's land tenure system, the government owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans. Drought struck again late in 2002, leading ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and most important political subdivisions in Santo Domingo are the communal governments, and whatever progress has been made in the Republic has been due largely to their initiative. They correspond to the Spanish "municipios" and the French "communes." In Santo Domingo the French name was introduced during Haitian occupation. The various towns constitute the centers of government, their ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... and began to speak. He said that the Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not desire war, and had ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the danger. But the imbecile commander-in-chief was enjoying himself and shirking care in the mountains; and Lord Canning and his advisers at Calcutta seem to have preferred to allow to take the initiative in their own way. Generally throughout Northern India the common routine of affairs went on at the different stations, and the ill-feeling and insubordination among the Sepoys scarcely disturbed the established quiet and monotony ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... from annihilation by the quick wit and daring courage of a single Brigadier General who had moved his five regiments on his own initiative in the nick of time and saved the Confederates from ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Nugent; "I can no longer contradict your imperial highness, I cannot deny that many a wrong has been inflicted on you and us; that you have have always been prevented from taking the initiative in a vigorous manner; that you and your army have constantly been kept in a secondary and dependent position; that your plans have incessantly been frustrated, and that your superiors have often done the reverse of what you wished and deemed prudent ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... particular, will have no difficulty in entering into his meaning; namely, that no investigation in the non-mathematical sciences can be carried on in a way deserving to be called philosophical, unless the investigator have in himself a mental initiative, or, what comes to the same thing, unless he set out with an intuition of the ultimate aim or idea of the science or aggregation of facts to be explained or interpreted. The analysis of the Platonic and Baconian methods in "The Friend," to which I have before referred, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Control of Marriage Choices.—Social wisdom obliges more deliberation in the case of young people seeking a marriage license on their own initiative and perhaps after a very brief acquaintance. There is a strong demand that a certain period shall elapse between the request for the license and its granting and that sufficient publicity be secured to make it easy for interested parties to ascertain any facts concerning both the man and the ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... no longer necessary because no one longer dares to resist. All liberty, all self-government, all self-initiative have been crushed in the iron vise of dictated policy. This is the case, as Eyre says, "twenty-seven months after the social revolution gripped the nation in a clutch of steel that never has been relaxed since." Is not such mental, moral and spiritual ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... the Marshall children heard no forebodings about the future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their father the right of a teacher to say what he believed. Professor Marshall had gone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was "investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securely held in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of their strictures on his teaching and of the worth of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... aware that anything had taken place. The whole case was so insignificant that some of the people who were alleged to have been illtreated declared, under oath, at a later period before a court of investigation that they would never have made any complaint on their own initiative. What happened, however? ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... love right and left, and to end, after many years of triumph, in the possession of the best and wisest and fairest of her sex. I know the breed, my dear sir; I have been a young man myself. We men have liberty, we have initiative; we are not chaperoned; we can go to this one and that one freely and fearlessly. But women must sit still, and be come to or shied off from. They cannot cast the bold eye of interest; they can at most bridle under it, and furtively respond from the corner of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... operations with a Farm Colony, and there seems some prospect that the Scheme will get itself into active shape at the other end of the world before it is set agoing in London. The eager welcome which has thus forced the initiative upon our Officers in Melbourne tends to encourage the expectation that the Scheme will be regarded as no quack application, but will be generally taken up and quickly set in operation all round ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... that infinity {7} as a basal axiom should have been comparatively blind to its logical implications. For if God is infinite, then He is all; and if He is all, what becomes of human individuality, or how are human initiative and responsibility so much as thinkable? Benjamin Jowett, in his Essay on Predestination and Freewill, glanced at this problem in passing, and the remarks he made upon it more than fifty years ago, if somewhat tentative, are well worth ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... this passage the frequent and emphatic application of the principle is justified that we should neither design nor do anything, especially in respect to God's service and worship, without the initiative and command of the Word. As above narrated, Noah enters the ark upon God's command; and he leaves the ark upon God's command to leave it. He does not follow superstitious notions, as we see the Jews do, who, when they establish ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... "the boy with a hobby." Stamp collections, butterfly and moth collections (over 70 different varieties), seashore collections, and wireless apparatus all show that the appellation is fully merited. He chooses his hobbies and "rides" them entirely on his own initiative. ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... in some form or other. The preliminary step is federation among the colonies. This is at present much hindered by their mutual jealousies. "The proper way," said to me a prominent statesman here who has been twice a Minister of the Crown, "is for England to take the initiative. Let her send out some leading man who would not be regarded as the representative of a party—such as Lord Dufferin—and let him make proposals to the various colonies in which they might acquiesce, without one seeming to ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... without sufficient food and clothing to comfort them until they could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with which the pioneer usually provided himself in going to establish a home in the wilderness, and lacking, above all, initiative of which slavery had deprived them. Furthermore, these refugees with few exceptions had to go to places where they were not wanted and in some cases to points from which they were driven as undesirables, although preparation for their coming ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... our style. Cross out 'some toothless old people' and write 'certain edentulous persons.' Put 'masticate' instead of 'eat.' Then you must not say, 'What shall I do about it?' That sounds too helpless. You, or rather Higgins, must appear as a man of unbounded initiative and resource. You must write, 'I suggest that a special ration of soft food be issued to such persons.' That will help the Government of India to solve a very difficult problem, and Higgins will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... divided in two, and deprived of all means of deliberating with each other. It is plain that the Boer Delegates in Europe can do nothing because they are not acquainted with the condition of affairs in Africa, and that the Boers, who are under arms, must refrain from taking the initiative because they are not informed on the ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... had composed the majority of the Council only a few years since, they had been cast out of office, partly through a strong reaction which had taken place against them, partly in consequence of a quarrel among themselves. And so the existing Town Council took the initiative in memorializing the Directors in favour of the recent resolution not to run Sunday trains. Of all the voters of the burgh, only five stood aloof; all the others made common cause with the Town Council in attaching their ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... of twenty-five had the wants and the sense of power inherited from a line of men eager of initiative, the product of an environment where only such could survive. Doubtless in him was the soul and body hunger of his grandfather, cramping and denying through hardship year after year, yet sustained by dreaming in the hardest times of the soft material ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... hero had halted for a moment at Brown's Point, only to learn that Cameron's Toronto company of volunteers had already started, on their own initiative, up the river. Riding hard, he overtook the excited militiamen. Speaking a word to the officer in charge, he wheeled his horse in the direction of the Heights, calling upon the detachment in his well-known voice, and in a way that ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... pleasant. The experiences were annoying, but only his own action seems blameworthy. In some way he was responsible for the circumstances leading to arrest of that feeble old man, yet made no explanation or protest. What an initiative in a new world was such selfish, unfeeling discretion! Why hope for exalted aid in his own troubles, while shirking ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... Eleanor took the initiative of going toward the door. "I never saw such a darling bungalow! I just love everything spread out on the ground floor. No stairs and no elevators—Oh, ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the country are indebted for the magnificent architectural creations which adorned the exposition grounds. Their relations to the work of construction and to the affairs of the company enabled them to act with a necessary degree of self-reliance and independence on their own initiative. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Nehemiah is gracious almost to the point of romance. Seldom did the Hebrew people produce so attractive and versatile a figure—at once a man of prayer and of action, of clear swift purpose, daring initiative, and resistless energy, and endowed with a singular power of inspiring others with his own enthusiasm. He forms an admirable foil to Ezra the ecclesiastic; and it is a matter of supreme satisfaction that we have the epoch-making events in his career told in his ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... taken, from the very initiative of that step, I have announced my ground and my determination. When a bill was up here before, proposing to enlarge and widen the franchise in this District, I stated that if negroes were to vote I would persist in opening the door to females. I said that if the thing were ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... terrific din and gathering that something out of the ordinary was happening, though he did not know what, slung a maxim tripod over his shoulders, picked up a gun under each arm, and went straightaway to the centre of activity—a feat not only of wonderful physical strength, but considerable initiative and courage. We did not suffer heavy casualties, but 2nd Lieut. Mould's platoon had their parapet destroyed in one or two places, and had to re-build it under heavy fire, in which Pte. J.H. Cramp, the Battalion ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... he done this he would have been voted a boor, while the girl's action was condoned by hostess and guests. One thing must always be considered—namely, that a woman's part is, in many points of etiquette, passive. It is the man who takes the initiative, and who is made such a prominent figure that all eyes are drawn to him. Have you ever noticed it? Man proposes, woman accepts. Man stands, woman remains seated. Man lifts his hat, woman merely bows. Man acts as escort, woman as the escorted. So, when a man is careless or thoughtless, it is ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... that they understood he was in the best of health. "If any wrong impression does exist regarding myself and my position at the Court," continued the Emperor, "it is owing to the very conservative customs of the Chinese Court. I am not expected to either say or do anything on my own initiative, consequently outsiders never hear much about me and I am regarded as being nothing more than a figure-head. I know this is so. Whenever they ask you about me in the future just explain to them exactly what my position here ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... the Honorable Milton Waring had told Nickleby and Alderson he would have nothing to do with their proposed campaign fund contribution. Nickleby must have a pretty strong connection even to dare such an approach; evidently he had felt pretty sure of himself to go ahead with the plan on his own initiative. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... country his home. He was even then a man of powerful frame, with broad brow, keen blue eyes, and a dash of red in his hair from a Scottish ancestress—a man, too, of ardent patriotism, strong common sense, and exceptional powers of initiative and leadership. Small wonder that in the rapidly developing commonwealth beyond the mountains he quickly ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... was probably through those long years spent between sea voyages and brief sojourns with his family in Genoa or Savona that he conceived that vague Idea which, as I have tried to show, formed the impulse of his life during its brief initiative period. Having once received this Idea of discovery and like all other great ideas, it was in the air at the time and was bound to take shape in some human brain—he had all his native and personal qualities ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young |
