"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which distinguish the American. Observe that the provision against throwing dirt on another man's claim anticipated by many years the famous hydraulic decision of Judge Sawyer. It is another way of stating the maxim of law and equity: 'so use your own property, as not ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... thirty to forty paces from each other, which served as schanzes. In each of these trenches were placed ten to thirty men. They had also a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which, at first, kept up a hot fire; but soon was silenced as the gunners were shot down. The rest of the troops retired with the gun, but had to leave the caisson behind them. It was evident to me from the way in which they fired ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... This maxim in the statesman's school Is always taught, divide and rule. All parties are to him a joke: While zealots foam, he fits the yoke. Let men their reason once resume; 'Tis then the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... limbs." "The special laws of the Sabbath are: 1. To rest from all labor; 2. To recruit our physical energies by rest and innocent enjoyments; 3. To sanctify our moral nature; 4. To improve our intellect." "The best maxim of conduct to our parents is, treat them as you would wish to be treated by your children." "No offensive words or actions afford a shadow of justification for killing a human being, or injuring him in his limbs or health." "Only self-defence with equal arms, defence of others, or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... could float which, bulk for bulk, is lighter than the mass of liquid displaced by it; and so we now make iron float by the very same law by which it sinks, because by the introduction of the PERSONAL factor, we provide conditions which do not occur spontaneously—according to the esoteric maxim that "Nature unaided fails." Now we want to apply the same process of specializing a generic Law to the first of all Laws, that of the generic life-giving tendency of Spirit itself. Without the element of INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY the ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... granny, it is out of the question. If it were as he does us the honour to imagine, I should be the last person to confess it. My evidence could be of no service to Fitzjocelyn, when my uncle's maxim is to place confidence in no one. The sole refutation in my power is the terms on which ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not alone; sheep will follow sheep; So this little maxim I would have ye keep: Would ye conquer all men, make a fool of one— The rest will turn toward thee, as lilies ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... right," quoth Adams; "knowledge of men is only to be learned from books; Plato and Seneca for that; and those are authors, I am afraid, child, you never read."—"Not I, sir, truly," answered Joseph; "all I know is, it is a maxim among the gentlemen of our cloth, that those masters who promise the most perform the least; and I have often heard them say they have found the largest vails in those families where they were not promised any. But, sir, instead of considering any farther these ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... master Hall; everything will come right in time; and if you only resolve to take it in the proper and manly temper, it may even prove all the better that this has happened. Nothing is without a remedy in this world; and I'll do what I can to make good this maxim in your case. In the mean time, however, come along, and help me to rout out these rascally white ants. Off coat, however, if you please; for we shall have a ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... alone made the repeal possible, had been his personal antagonist in Illinois politics for almost twenty years. The other was moral, in that the new question involved the elemental principles of the American government, the fundamental maxim of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. His intuitive logic needed no demonstration that bank, tariff, internal improvements, the Mexican War, and their related incidents, were questions of passing ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... intercommunication with other nations may be found at a very early period of history. It is probable, however, that for a long time they themselves did not engage in commerce, but were merely visited by traders from foreign countries; for at this era it was a maxim with them, never to leave their own country. The low opinion they entertained of commerce may be gathered from Herodotus, who mentions, that the men disdained to meddle with it, but left it entirely to ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... judgment was against her as well as England. In his maturer wisdom, he could now appreciate the great good sense of Washington's neutrality. Besides, the grand old man Thomas Jefferson was determined to preserve peace, for it was his favorite maxim that "the best war is more fatal than the worst peace." A further reason led him to refuse the alternative of war. He was not without hope that one or both of the belligerents would return to reason and repeal the obnoxious acts, if the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... said Socrates, "it would appear to be unreasonable; yet still, perhaps, it has some reason on its side. The maxim, indeed, given on this subject in the mystical doctrines,[29] that we men are in a kind of prison, and that we ought not to free ourselves from it and escape, appears to me difficult to be understood, and not ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... training for both sexes, and to take the milder methods of exercise in use among the Grecians, we find that the chace, that foot-races, and especially dancing, principally composed the amusement of the young ladies of that country; where, in the great days of Greece, no maxim ever more practically prevailed, than that sloth or inactivity was equally the parent of diseases of the body, as of vices of the mind. Agreeable to which idea, one of the greatest physicians now in Europe, the celebrated Tronchin, while at Paris, vehemently declaimed against this false ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... An' 'e din call it me ag'in. No, seh. But 'e din like to 'ush up. Thass the rizz'n 'e was a lil miscutteous to you. Me, I am always polite. As they say, 'A nod is juz as good as a kick f'om a bline hoss.' You are fon' of maxim, Mistoo Itchlin? Me, I'm ve'y fon' of them. But they's got one maxim what you may 'ave 'eard—I do not fine that maxim always come t'ue. 'Ave you evva yeah that maxim, 'A fool faw luck'? That don't always come t'ue. I ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... think I see symptoms in the Irish people both of greater reliance on their own energies and exertions, and of greater intelligence to co-operate with each other. Happy will it be, indeed, if the Irish take for their maxim, "Help yourselves and Heaven will help you," and then I think they will find there is some ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... without a battle. But lacking money, and fearing that on that account his soldiers might desert him, he was forced to hazard an engagement. It was for this reason that Quintus Curtius declared money to be the sinews of war, a maxim every day cited and acted upon by princes less wise than they should be. For building upon this, they think it enough for their defence to have laid up great treasures; not reflecting that were great treasures all that is needed for victory, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... remained to me; I knew that the days of the tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do. Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... or anything particularly godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that they are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of all the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that they agree in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite. They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... know. Our furniture goes that way, so we judged it best to do the same, and keep an eye on it ourselves. Never be separated from your property, if you can help it, that's my maxim. It's the Prairie Belle,—one of the finest boats ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... order to receive sympathy. His instinct was not to go near the hospital for a week, when the affair would be no more thought of, but, because he hated so much to go just then, he went: he wanted to inflict suffering upon himself. He forgot for the moment his maxim of life to follow his inclinations with due regard for the policeman round the corner; or, if he acted in accordance with it, there must have been some strange morbidity in his nature which made him take a grim pleasure ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... he added to it the important truth that man, to be apprehended in his proper position in the universe as well as in his natural powers, must be studied from below in the hierarchical progression of higher function from the lower forms of life. The important maxim, that to obtain a clear conception of anything we must 'study it in its growth from the very beginning' is formally set down in the opening of the Politics, where, indeed, we shall find the other characteristic features of the modern Evolutionary theory, such as the 'Differentiation ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... all etiquette will be found in that Golden Rule from Holy Writ that enjoins upon us to "do unto others as we would that they should do unto us," and whereon Lord Chesterfield based his maxim for the cultivation ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... past it has been conceded that the maxim, "vox populi, vox dei," is true when taken in its broad or universal sense. "We are apt to attribute that to be true which all men presume. It is an argument with us that anything which seems true to all, as that there are gods, shows that they have engrafted in them an opinion concerning ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various
... doctors which can guess what's the matter with you instead of your bankroll, grape fruit that won't hit back while you're eatin' it, non-refillable jails and so forth. All you got to do is stake yourself to a couple of test tubes, a white apron and a laboratory, hire Edison, Marconi, Maxim and Hennery Ford as assistants—with the U. S. Mint in back of you in case expenses come up—and you'll wake up some mornin' to find yourself the ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... three or four passages, when we carried the fine weather the whole way out and home, but if we do not, we must do our best and trust to God, Mr Haliday, that is my maxim, and I have always found it hold good. I have been at sea ever since I was a boy, and in more hurricanes and gales of wind than I can well count up, and yet I never was shipwrecked, and here I am alive and well," answered Captain Johns, to whom ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Highlander, "ye ken our fashion—foster the guest that comes—further him that maun gang. But ye cannot return by Drymen—I must set you on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the Ferry o' Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there. It's a maxim of a wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another's free ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... TANS. That is a maxim of the Epicureans which, being well understood, would not be considered so unworthy as the ignorant hold it to be, seeing that it does not detract from what I have called virtue, nor does it impair the perfection of firmness, but it rather adds to that perfection ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Caffraria, to the desert plains of North America, or to the Cordilleras, you will not escape from the miserable spectacles of human hypocrisy. The Turks have a proverb which says, 'Cure the hand you cannot spare.' Now we can add to this maxim, 'Cure the hand which can serve you, satisfy your pride, avarice and egotism.' Young and happy when you first entered on life, dear Ireneus, you have seen much. A sudden revolution has covered your eyes with a cloud, and unexpected treachery ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... most eminent editors of the London journals. I found them men of talent, certainly, and much more men of the world, than "the cloistered student from his paling lamp"; but I was astonished to find it considered, tacitly, as a sort of maxim among them, that an intermediate party was not bound by any obligation of honour to withhold, farther than his own discretion suggested, any information of which he was the accidental depositary, whatever ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... of a syllogism, against a man who denies the validity of this kind of reasoning process itself. Such a man cannot in fact be forced to a contradiction in terms, but only to a contradiction, or rather an infringement, of the fundamental maxim of ratiocination, viz. 'Whatever has a mark, has what it is a mark of;' and, since it is only by admitting premisses, and yet rejecting a conclusion from them, that this axiom is infringed, consequently nothing ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... wrote me that he had repeatedly ordered Rosecrans to advance, but that the latter had constantly failed to comply with the order, and at last, after having held a council of war, had replied in effect that it was a military maxim "not to fight two decisive battles at the same time." If true, the maxim was not applicable in this case. It would be bad to be defeated in two decisive battles fought the same day, but it would not be bad to win them. I, however, was fighting no battle, and the siege of Vicksburg had drawn from ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... and ROCKWELL'S Circus at NIBLO'S, have shared abundantly in the favor bestowed now-a-days upon popular entertainments. . . . 'DRESS always and act to please your partner for life, as you were fain to do before the nuptial-knot was tied.' This is an old maxim, and here is 'a commentator upon it.' A newly-married lady is suddenly surprised by a visit from a newly-married man, when she straightway begins to apologize: 'She is horribly chagrined, and out of countenance, to be caught in such a dishabille; she did not mind how her ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... squaring the circle, but they said it was a good deal easier to square Mr. GLADSTONE. The friends of Total Prohibition of Vaccination and of Beer were waiting, also a deputation, who wanted subscriptions for a SHELLEY Memorial, Russian Jews, Maxim guns for Missionaries, and other benevolent objects. I declined to see them, however, and was left to solitude, and to the reflection that I am unfitted for the sphere of active politics. In this belief the neighbours ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... show her letter to the author. Mme. de Hautefort expresses her disapproval of a theory which drives honor and goodness out of the world. After many clever and well-turned criticisms, she says: "But the maxim which is quite new to me, and which I admire, is that idleness, languid as it is, destroys all the passions. It is true, and he had searched his heart well to find a sentiment so hidden, but so just... ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the habit of passing these days in the country, and Chupin feared he might fail to see him if he was not expeditious in his movements. And while running to the Place de la Bourse, he carefully prepared the story he meant to relate, deeply impressed by the wisdom of the popular maxim which says: "It is not always well to tell the whole truth." Ought he to describe the scene at the restaurant, mention Coralth, and say that there was nothing more to be done respecting M. Wilkie? After mature deliberation he decided in ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Naturalists have exposed the pit whence man has been digged and the rock whence he has been hewn, but it is surely a heartening encouragement to know that it is an ascent, not a descent, that we have behind us. There is wisdom in Pascal's maxim: ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... as instruments of tyranny. It was found that Spartan governors and generals, when away from home, gave loose to their vicious inclinations, as if to indemnify themselves for the strictness of domestic discipline. It became a maxim in their politics, that the end justified the means. The most flagrant proof was given by the seizure of the Cadmea at Thebes; a measure, which led to a formidable confederacy against Sparta, and brought her to the verge of destruction.] a general war was declared against ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... Greek politician had ever kept this fact more steadily in view, or put this obvious truth into more vehement language than M. Venizelos: "To tie Greece to the apron-strings of the Sea Powers," was his maxim. And the times were such that those Powers needed a Greek statesman whom they could trust ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... for the aforesaid canny Scot—the man who without being stingy (oh, dear, no!) has "all his generous impulses under perfect control." The sixpences do not "bang" in this country: they crepitate, they crackle, as though shot from a Maxim quick-firer. For instance, the lowest electric-trolley fare is twopence-halfpenny. It is true that for five cents you can, if you wish it, ride fifteen or twenty miles; but that advantage becomes inappreciable when you don't want to ride more than half a mile. Take, again, the ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... whither universal philanthropy leads us. The Friend of Man is seldom the friend of men. At his best he is content with a moral maxim, and buttons up his pocket in the presence of poverty. "I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first!" It is not for nothing that Canning's immortal words were put in the mouth of the Friend of Humanity, who, finding that he cannot turn the Needy Knife ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... wisdom of this maxim Mr. Slope was ignorant, and accordingly, having written his letter to Mrs. Bold, he proceeded to call upon the Signora Neroni. Indeed, it was hard to say which was the old love and which the new, Mr. Slope having been smitten with both so ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... your Deputy must be inspected by his brother Deputies, and found valid: it is the preliminary of all. Neither is this question, of doing it separately or doing it conjointly, a vital one: but if it lead to such? It must be resisted; wise was that maxim, Resist the beginnings! Nay were resistance unadvisable, even dangerous, yet surely pause is very natural: pause, with Twenty-five Millions behind you, may become resistance enough.—The inorganic mass of Commons Deputies ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... a drunken, immoral husband, incurring the risk of her own health and poisoning the life-blood of the young beings that result from this unholy alliance. Such company as ye keep, such ye are! must be the maxim of married, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... be said concerning the opinions of a sect whose fundamental maxim was that nothing could be known, and nothing should be taught. It lay midway between the other philosophies; and in the altercations of the various schools it was at once attacked by all,[168] yet appealed to by each of the contending parties, if not to countenance ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the cool reply; "but they could afford it, which was more than we could do. Remember the maxim, my young friend, when you shall come to be a general, that the only security for gaining battles is, to have good troops, and a good many of them.—The French recruits fought like recruits, without knowing whether the enemy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... of that maxim, however, could not be made without sometimes provoking opposition among the handful of white settlers in India who, even when not connected with the administration, claimed a kind of class ascendancy which was not ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... think of it," he said, "there was the name of the shop or maker on it, stamped on the steel. 'Maxim,' that was the name, now I put my mind back, with a ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... There are many versions; there is but one Bible. Whatever the translators put into the various tongues, the Bible itself remains the same. There are values in the new versions; but they are simply the old value of the Bible itself. It is a familiar maxim that the newest version is the oldest Bible. We are not making the Bible up to date when we make a new version; we are only getting back to its date. A revision in our day is the effort to take out of the original writings what men of King James's day may have put in, and give ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... right that awakens Kant's enthusiasm. "The preservation of one's own life, for instance, is a duty; but, as every one has a natural inclination to which most men usually devote to this object has no intrinsic value, nor the maxim from which they act any moral import." [Footnote: The Metaphysic of Morality, sec. I.] What ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... always wanting to be something different. One day a clerk, with a nice quiet routine, another a soldier, another a ——' she hesitated, and gave Constance an extra squeeze—'a colonist, and fire off Maxim guns. If you could only see him! He sits in front of the fire, with his glasses on, and talks about the roaring ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... what is his indignation, when he finds that a family of saucy sparrows, going upon the old maxim of "might makes right," have taken up their abode in his house, without so much as saying, "By ...
— The Nursery, December 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 6 • Various
... superstitious feelings. They refuse to adopt any of those expressions that their brethren of the plain have learnt from other races, considering them as impure and perilous as the people themselves. This is an implacable application of the maxim "timeo danaos et dona ferentes" by folks who do not understand Latin and who ignore the existence of the Greeks but who know thoroughly ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... we had got through very comfortably, for Bentley made it the occasion of a somewhat pretentious luncheon at Maxim's. There had been twelve of us at table, and the two young Poles were thirsty, the Gascon so fabulously entertaining, that it was near upon five o'clock when we put down our liqueur glasses for the last time, and the red, perspiring waiter, having pocketed the reward of his ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... expression which impressed me immensely. I recollect how, on being accused of a want of clearness in his writing and style, he justified himself by saying that the deep problems of the human mind could not in any case be solved by the mob. This maxim, which struck me as being very plausible, I at once accepted as the principle for all my future writing. I remember that my eldest brother Albert, to whom I once had to write for my mother, grew so disgusted with my letter ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... in the least down-hearted: indeed I have so much to attend to, that I have little time to myself. I receive great benefit from Alexander, who is as systematic, cautious and careful as ever. I sometimes think he has forgot his old maxim 'Take it easy.' I can easily imagine how little Ibe[27] will be stotting about the house and garden. Tell her if she can say her questions[28] well, I will bring her two new frocks. My compliments to Mrs. Anderson, George, Thomas, and Bell. I suppose Andrew ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... like my own; which was, That when he (my uncle) had represented to him, that he might, if he pleased, make three or four hundred pounds a year of his paternal estate, more than he did; he answered, 'That his tenants paid their rents well: that it was a maxim with his family, from which he would by no means depart, Never to rack-rent old tenants, or their descendants; and that it was a pleasure to him, to see all his tenants look fat, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... hero is of another ilk. Romantic flight with his lady-love does not occur to him. Surrender to the wrong is out of the question. He finds another form for the return to nature and puts into practice the maxim, Here or nowhere is America. He stays and fights at the head of a troop of bandits. Thus the play which was originally to have been called 'The Lost Son' ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... disproportions of the ungrown giant. His works had nothing of the definite neatness of that precocious talent which stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to him ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... My life has been one eternal up and down. I have often compared it to those whirligigs set up by louts in our market-places on the No Rouz, which keep one dangling between heaven and earth. Unfortunately, I am one of those who has never adopted the maxim of "spread not your carpet ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... universal experience; and now that the French, from whom we had copied the system, have utterly "proscribed" it, I hope that our Congress will follow suit. I admit, in its fullest force, the strength of the maxim that the civil law should be superior to the military in time of peace; that the army should be at all times subject to the direct control of Congress; and I assert that, from the formation of our Government to the present ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... away. There is hardly anybody anywhere who now adheres to the doctrine that a married woman can not make a contract, and that she has no rights or liabilities except those which are centered in her husband. Even the old Common-Law maxim that "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband," has been largely modified under the influence of these patriotic, earnest ladies who have taken hold of this question and enlightened the world upon it. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... diplomacy worthy of a King whom his mother, from boyhood upwards, had caused to study Macchiavelli's "Prince," and who had thoroughly taken to heart the maxim, often repeated in those days, that the "Science of reigning was the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... standing by themselves as a unit proverb. In the examples given the two lines in each epigram that stand out on the left may be read as a proverb complete in itself. Such a germ proverb is the text of the epigram, the remaining lines serve to expand this text. The corresponding prose form is the Maxim, a unit proverb text with ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... the sensational success of his father. Young Mr. Wharton was seen yesterday at his Wall Street office and took time from his many duties to modestly assure our representative that his ability was inherited, and merely illustrates anew the maxim that "a chip of the old block will return after many days." That will please dad. He'll relent when I attribute my ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... o' that. Why ain't I worryin'? Because it's picayune. It's peanut politics. It ain't where the money is. No, sir, this campaign is on the treasurership. Taylor P. Singleton is runnin' fer treasurer on the Republican ticket, and Gil. Maxim on the Democratic. But that ain't where the fight is." Mr. Pixley spat contemptuously. "Pah! whichever of 'em gits it won't no more'n draw his salary. It's the banks. If Singleton wins out, the Washington National gits the use of the county's money fer the term; if Maxim's elected, Florenheim's ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... appears to have no idea of retribution beyond this life; and although in his works the existence of a superior power is admitted, and he even says, in one instance, "Imperial Heaven has no kindred to serve, and will only assist Virtue," yet a favorite maxim of his, "Respect the gods, but keep them at a distance," proves that he considered the superior influences as having but little affinity ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... de Grammont: 'As for that, we women, we are happy to be counted for nothing in these revolutions: when I say for nothing, it is not that we do not always mix ourselves up with them a little; but it is a received maxim that they take no notice of us, and of our sex.' 'Your sex, ladies' said Cazotte, 'your sex will not protect you this time; and you had far better meddle with nothing, for you will be treated entirely as men, without any difference whatever.' 'But what, then, are you really telling us of Monsieur ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... the wide sea, from having ourselves, about a month before, been pretty much in the same predicament. It always adds, as any one knows, greatly to our consideration for the difficulties and dangers of others, to have recently felt some touch of similar distress in our own persons. This maxim, though it is familiar enough, makes so little impression on our ordinary thoughts, that when circumstances occur to fix our attention closely upon it we are apt to arrive as suddenly at the perception of its truth as if ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the case of C, and I think that we shall find that he deserves our attention, for the worth of his character and the magnitude of his unmerited burdens. Here it may suffice to observe that, on the theories of the social philosophers to whom I have referred, we should get a new maxim of judicious living: Poverty is the best policy. If you get wealth, you will have to support other people; if you do not get wealth, it will be the duty of other people ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... greatly exalted him in the little bird-dealer's esteem. The birds all seemed to recognize a friend in him; and even those which were but partially tamed, and were gentle only with Andreas himself, would perch willingly upon his hand. With Andreas it long had been a maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of human character, and the testimonial thus given to Lud-wig's worth counted with him for a great deal—as did also the quite converse opinion of the birds in regard ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... 27: As it were a censure)—Ver. 43. Among the Greeks (whose manners and sentiments are supposed to be depicted in this Play) it was a maxim that he who did a kindness should forget it, while he who received it should keep it in memory. Sosia consequently feels uneasy, and considers the remark of his master in the light ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... tends to create division and to perpetuate division. Caesar's maxim illustrates their history: "Soldiers will raise money, and money will make soldiers." So creeds will make sects, and sects will make creeds. "A creed or confession of faith is an ecclesiastical document—the mind and will of some synod or council ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... nil nisi bonum is an excellent maxim; but in concluding this sketch, there can be no harm in at least regretting the imperfection of human nature. If its eminent subject, instead of spending abroad upon the world her great capacity, had been able ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... the night, the Gloucestershire Regiment advanced from their position near Chivy, filled in the enemy's trenches, and captured two Maxim guns. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... seasons, and dull though our skies, There 's a might in our arms and a fire in our eyes; Dauntless and patient, to dare and to do— Our watchword is "Duty," our maxim is "Through!" Winter and storm only nerve us the more, And chill not the heart, if they creep through the door: Strong shall we be In our isle of the sea, The home of the brave and the boast of the free! Firm as the rocks when the storm flashes forth, We ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... far as its data are ascertainable, as a most steady and regular one. Very few men awake to find themselves either famous or great of a sudden, and perhaps as few poets as other men, though it may be heresy against a venerable maxim to say so. Chaucer's works form a clearly recognisable series of steps towards the highest achievement of which, under the circumstances in which he lived and wrote, he can be held to have been capable; and ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... are certainly fulsome, but probably no worse than those of Boileau in praise of Louis XIV., who grovelled without the excuse of the imperfectly educated Scythian. The reign of Catherine II. (1762-96), saw the rise of a whole generation of court poets. The great maxim, "Un Auguste peut aisement faire un Virgile," was seen in all its absurdity in semi-barbarous Russia. These wits were supported by the Empress and her immediate entourage, to whom their florid productions ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... in conceiving that they can be disobeyed as to become ready subjects for hoodwinking; I recollect old Hammerfeldt saying to me, "In public affairs, sire, always expect disobedience, but be chary of rewarding obedience." My mother adopted the second half of the maxim but disregarded the first. She always expected obedience; Victoria knew it and built on her knowledge a confident hope ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... thoroughly instructed in the doctrines of Christianity, but it was clearly my duty to return as soon as I possibly could to my ship. "Find out what is right and do it, independent of all other considerations," was a maxim in which I had been instructed. Mr Bent, although more anxious to remain for some time longer even than I was, saw things in the same light I set to work, therefore, with my crew to prepare our boat for sea, so as to commence our return voyage ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... "It's the maxim of the world, that when a man is down, down with him; but when a man goes down through his own fault, he finds very little mercy from any one. Larry might go to fifty fairs before he'd meet any one now to thrate him; instead of that, when he'd make up to them, they'd turn away, or give ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... shows a laudable anxiety that they should possess all that he can get for them, provided it is quite impossible that he should get it for himself. The powers of the world have been to a great extent built up on this principle, and it is a maxim in many a great family that there is no economy like enriching one's relatives to the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... who, in writing with reference to his pedigree, observed, in his usual frank and straightforward language—"They were all highly respectable; but, et genus et proavos, nearly all the Latin I now recollect, always struck my ear as the sound maxim for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... imitating the recent policy of the French Government, which Government, whenever it disavows its agents, decorates them as a matter of course,—so that to be, or get decorated, is to do something contrary to international law and justice,—following such a good and honest maxim, such a discovery in the science of diplomacy, I repeat, the Porte, in its sympathy, immediately conferred on the tyrant a new Pashalic. Thence, after a short time, Asker Ali continuing his horrible trade of official ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... words. Progress tempted me; commerce promised me happiness. I obeyed commandments and moral precepts, and eagerly swallowed rules of life. I prostrated myself before the great high public idols, I bowed to the little household gods, and cherished dearly your little proverb-idols and maxim-idols. The advice of Polonius to his son and such literature was to me the ancient wisdom. I became an idolater, and my ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... occurred to him that he may be himself to blame. He is so virtuous, so laborious, so just, so entirely free from faults of every kind, that he cannot possibly have even the grim satisfaction of self-censure. He has instinctively obeyed every copy-book maxim that was ever written; he is one of the very few men who cannot sincerely join in the Confession, because it is impossible for him to say that he has done those things that he ought not to have done; and yet, with all his powers and virtues, he is simply a tragic failure. No one ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... own maxim, your own teaching—share and share alike. I won't recognize any other doctrine. It shall go to the ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... never made any particular objection to it. The refusing to allow appeals, and other similar acts, prove clearly that in our opinion no other proof is needed. The present Director does the same, and in the denial of appeal, he is also at home. He likes to assert the maxim "the Prince is above the law," and applies it so boldly to his own person that it confutes itself. These directors, having then the power in their hands, could do and have done what they chose according to their good ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... called on Thomas Bradly, and saw this maxim for the first time, were rather puzzled to know what it meant. "What is 'the next thing'?" they would ask. "Why, it's just this," he would reply: "the next thing is the thing nearest to your hand. Just do the thing as comes ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... curiosities, shall we also relegate to museums the moral principles which they contain? This has sometimes been done, and we have seen people declare that as they no longer believed in the various religions so they despised morality and boldly proclaimed the maxim of bourgeois selfishness, "Everyone for himself." But a Society, human or animal, cannot exist without certain rules and moral habits springing up within it; religion may go, morality remains. If we were to come to consider that a man did well in lying, deceiving his neighbours, or plundering ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... Mrs. Adams replied, "and we think them very nutritious and palatable, notwithstanding the maxim, 'Abstincto a fabis.' Possibly you may be a disciple of Pythagoras, and believe that the souls of the dead are encased in beans, and so think it almost sacrilegious for us to use them ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... about moving some of his supports to cover this flank, and soon made all secure. Meanwhile Lieut. Rosher, machine gun officer of the visiting Durham Light Infantry, hearing the 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 ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... assuming a tone of gayety, upon finding that the candor of his explanations had depressed his fair companion, "the saying of an old Swedish [Footnote: It was the Swedish General Kniphausen, a favorite of Gustavus, to whom this maxim is ascribed.] enemy of mine is worth remembering in such cases,—that, nine times out of ten, a drachm of good luck is worth an ounce of good contrivance,—and were it not, dearest Paulina, that you are with us, I would think the risk not heavy. Perhaps, by ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... that 'spiritualism' can lose nothing by your advocacy. As to your independence of mind, you act, I am sure, upon the maxim in verba nullius jurare. Your system seems to me quite a spices of eclecticism. There is no fear of my confounding you with the good old lady who, after having heard the sermon of some favorite divine, was asked if she understood him. 'Understand him!' said she; ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... wind?" he began, firing in the questions with the speed of a Maxim. "Something worth while, judging from that mysterious letter of yours. What is the scheme? Why this secret meeting in the forest instead of in town? Why"—but the man he called captain interrupted him ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... my experience, from my first entrance into life to the present hour, is in favour of the warning maxim, that the man who opposes in toto 'the political or religious zealots of his age, is safer from their obloquy than he who differs from them but in one or two points only' ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... am going to Paris, where good people go when they die. I am going to drink vintage wines, eat truffles and mushrooms and caviar, and kiss the pretty girls in Maxim's. I've been in prison for ten years. I am free, free!" Warrington flung out his arms. "Good-by, jungles, deserts, hell-heat and thirsty winds! Good-by, crusts and rags and hunger! I am ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... think for a moment on the permanent value of all that is read. The mind holds things in abeyance, brings them out to the light now and then, and each time finds them more and more intelligible and influential. Many a maxim learned in youth when an understanding of it was impossible becomes a power for good for the person in later years when ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... said the handsome Italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been Maxim guns I should have ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... poet, like the clown in the proverb, must strike twice on the same place. An ancient rhetorician delivered a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation of pity; for nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears; and Shakespeare acted conformably to this ingenious maxim, without knowing it. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... trade, but no more. In a single transaction in either domestic or foreign trade one party may be cheated, but the continuance of trade relations is dependent upon continued benefits. The once generally accepted maxim that the gain of one in trade is the loss of another is now generally rejected, but often still it is assumed to be true of international trade. The starting point for the consideration of this subject is ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... there are numbers of places in Soho where you may dine more lavishly and expensively, and where you will find a band and a careful wine-list, such as Maxim's, The Coventry, The Florence, and Kettner's. Here you do not escape for a shilling, or anything like it. Maxim's does an excellent half-crown dinner, and so, too, does The Rendezvous. The others range from three shillings to five shillings; and as the price of the meal increases ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... illustrated the practical operation of one of the rules which guided Rhodes' business life. He once said, "Never fight with a man if you can deal with him." He lived up to this maxim even with the savage Matabeles from whom he ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... Hebraism. The same principle appears in mediaeval Christianity, and is thus embodied in the prologue of the Salic Law, "Long live the Christ, who loves the Franks." In more recent times one might point to the Christianity of the Puritan revolution, not wholly misrepresented by the maxim popularly attributed to Cromwell, "Put your trust in God and keep your powder dry," or in Poor Richard's observation that "God helps ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... the crucial controversy of a science that is not identical with ours, but in order to make my drift clear by the defining aid of express contradiction. No political dogma is as serviceable to my purpose here as the historian's maxim to do the best he can for the other side, and to avoid pertinacity or emphasis on his own. Like the economic precept laissez faire 38, which the eighteenth century derived from Colbert, it has been an important, if not a final step in the making of method. The strongest and ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue are madmen. Everyone who governs himself by these rules is allowed the title of wise, and reputed to be in his senses: and everyone, in proportion ...
— English Satires • Various
... were only less unpopular in the country than the name of tory. It was pointed out that many people would on no account join the whigs, who yet would join a government of which Russells, Greys, Howards, Cavendishes, Villierses, were members. On the other hand Graham declared that Paley's maxim about religion was just as true in politics—that men often change their creed, but not so often the name of their sect. And as to the suggestion, constantly made at all times in our politics for the benefit of waverers, of the name of liberal-conservative, Lord John caustically observed that whig ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... military life, [35] whilst, on the other hand, it was impossible for cowardice or disobedience to escape the severest punishment. The centurions were authorized to chastise with blows, the generals had a right to punish with death; and it was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier should dread his officers far more than the enemy. From such laudable arts did the valor of the Imperial troops receive a degree of firmness and docility unattainable by the impetuous and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... trait in the character of the genuine American, is the desire "to better his condition"—a peculiarity which sometimes embodies itself in the disposition to forget the good old maxim, "Let well-enough alone," and not unfrequently leads to disaster and suffering. A thorough Yankee—using that word as the English do, to indicate national, not sectional, character—is never satisfied with doing well; he always underrates his gains and his successes; and, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... is neither more nor less than a play on the term evil. When it is said, that "we may do evil that good may come;" the meaning of the maxim is, that the means in such a case and under such circumstances ceases to be evil. The maxim teaches that "we may do evil," that it is lawful to do evil, with a view to the grand and glorious end to be attained by it. ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... Massachusetts. There is nothing said here against slavery that will not be recorded in the United States. I am here, also, because the slaveholders do not want me to be here; they would rather that I were not here. I have adopted a maxim laid down by Napoleon, never to occupy ground which the enemy would like me to occupy. The slaveholders would much rather have me, if I will denounce slavery, denounce it in the northern states, where their friends ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... sallied out from thence to renew the war. And then it was, for the first time, that they overthrew their enemies, who had for so many years been living in their country; for their trust was not in man, but in God; according to the maxim of Philo, "We must have divine assistance, when that of man fails." The boldness of the enemy was for a while checked, but not the wickedness of our countrymen; the enemy left our people, but the people did not ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... counsel, thought I, and worth bearing in mind. It was true, my very journey itself was, as to its foolhardy purpose, a violation of the first maxim. But that could not be helped now, and I could at least heed that piece of advice, as well as the others, in the details of my mission. When I thought of that mission, I felt both foolish and heavy-hearted. I had not the faintest idea yet of ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Smokeless Gunpowder.—By Hudson Maxim.—A comprehensive article on the manufacture and use of smokeless gunpowder, giving a sketch of its history, and describing the methods of manufacture and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... envy and disappointed ambition. All administrations are declared to be alike. The same necessity justifies all their measures. It is no longer a matter of discussion, who or what administration is; but that administration is to be supported, is a general maxim. Flattering themselves that their power is become necessary to the support of all order and government, everything which tends to the support of that power is sanctified, and becomes a ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... transcending the limitation, and presently we come to live in the new mode as easily as in the old. Thought, conscious of its own limitations, leads to the New Freedom. "Become what thou art!" is the maxim engraved upon the lintel of this ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... of the latter half of the sixteenth century. His most celebrated work is a series of frescoes on mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace at Rome. Along with his cousin Lodovico and his brother Agostino he founded the so-called Eclectic School of Painting; their maxim was that "accurate observation of Nature should be combined with judicious imitation of the best masters." The Caracci enjoyed the highest reputation amongst their contemporaries as teachers of their art. Annibale died in 1609; Masaniello's revolt occurred, as already mentioned, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... of extending our cognition, connect them with transcendental ideas, by means of which we really know only that we know nothing)—if, I say, the empiricist rested satisfied with this benefit, the principle advanced by him would be a maxim recommending moderation in the pretensions of reason and modesty in its affirmations, and at the same time would direct us to the right mode of extending the province of the understanding, by the help of the only true teacher, experience. In obedience to this advice, intellectual hypotheses ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... inhabit the body as a tenant a house, and have no relation to it other than that of a casual occupant. But that opinion is antiquated. More than three-fourths of a century ago the far-seeing thinker, Wilhelm von Humboldt, laid down the maxim that the phenomena of mind and matter obey laws identical in kind;[6-1] and a recent historian of science sums up the result of the latest ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... "It is an old maxim that delay in affairs of law is a candle that burns in the daytime; when the night comes it is ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... 9. The old maxim recorded by Bacon, "Loquendum ut vulgus, sentiendum ut sapientes,"—"We should speak as the vulgar, but think as the wise," is not to be taken without some limitation. For whoever literally speaks as the vulgar, shall offend ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... fool, too late you look! I know it; but let me here record This maxim: Lend no girl a book Unless ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... is fit subject of art; to the end that thereby the soul may learn to understand itself, and come to complete self-consciousness. The entire movement of the romantic writers had for its moving principle the maxim, Nihil humanum alienum a me puto ("I will consider nothing human to be foreign to me"). Yet other writers make the romantic element to consist of the striking, the strongly contrasted, the exciting, and so at length the sensational. Whichever construction we may put ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... conquer a Coronilla. (715/2. In a former letter to Lord Farrer, Darwin wrote: "Here is a maxim for you, 'It is disgraceful to be beaten by a Coronilla.'") I have been looking at the half-dried flowers, and am prepared to swear that you have solved the mystery. The difference in the size of the cells on the calyx under ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... recompense for his labors. If others dared to praise him, however, he treated their eulogies as insults, and, impatient of flattery, he was in dread even of its semblance. Such was the delicacy, or rather the solidity of character, of this prince. Moreover his maxim was (listen, for it is a maxim which makes great men), that, in the performance of great deeds, one's sole thought should be to perform them well, and leave glory to follow in the train of virtue. It is this which he has endeavored to instil into others, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... moreover, possessed many attributes which are denied to other small steamers. She had, for example, a Maxim gun on her tiny forecastle. She had a siren of unusual power and diabolical tone, she was also fitted with a big motor-horn, both of which appendages were Bones's gift to his flagship. The motor-horn may seem superfluous, but when the matter ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... Hopkins, coolly, "I guess you're not going to do it long. You know the maxim about fooling the people. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... by Chopin and Liszt, with accuracy and fluency. Almost every selection was played from memory. The tone was always musical and often of much power, and the pupils seemed thoroughly to understand what they were doing and the meaning of the music. They certainly exemplified the professor's maxim: ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. It was evident that the fever of independence was at its crisis in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... advocate of the legitimate drama refuse to acknowledge that the Twelve Temptations has its redeeming legs? How runs the ancient proverb, "Singed milk is better than it looks;" or that equally ancient philosophical maxim, "There is no use in crying over spilt cats"? The stupid story of ULRIC'S folly is made more attractive than one would suppose that it could be, and we need not weep over the fact that it is a spectacle, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... believe—indeed we have reason to know—a favorite military maxim with Colonel Harvey, and invariably acted up to whenever opportunity was afforded for its application, that defensive warfare, when the invading foe is greatly superior in number, is best carried on by a succession of bold and active offensive operations. ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... to my boyhood days," said he, "and relate an incident in my early life, and its sequel when I attained man's estate. I suppose all of us have had experiences which have more than once brought home the weight of that bewhiskered old maxim—'Truth ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... invention. The novel has the prime merit of brevity; it is much shorter than "Clarissa Harlowe," but long enough, in all conscience, Harriet being blessed with the gift of gab, like all Richardson's heroines. "She follows the maxim of Clarissa," says Lady Mary with telling humor, "of declaring all she thinks to all the people she sees without reflecting that in this mortal state of imperfection, fig-leaves are as necessary for our minds as our bodies." It is significant ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... first maxim hath assuredly saved my life: in a good hour was it purchased. My friend," said he to the barber, "on condition that you be ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... are her wealth and worth," he said sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for its particular lustre. But common commercial people—like myself—even if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all others in the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... conferences, wherein the conditions of peace were discussed, they never once urged the pushing of the war to the utter ruin of the Macedonian: and, as to the Romans, besides that they had, from the earliest periods, observed the maxim of sparing the vanquished, they had lately given a signal proof of their clemency in the peace granted to Hannibal and the Carthaginians. But, not to insist on the case of the Carthaginians, how often had the confederates ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius |
