"Politic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... space, and better food than any shipowner across the water. They give me any mortal thing for my engines except time to overhaul them. The newspapers tell me they're a blood-sucking trust battening on the body-politic, and so on. Personally ..." and Mr. Carville drew the stopper from a square bottle, "personally, I find them very decent people ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... beginnings of a New France in the West. Incessant dynastic wars with near neighbors, the final throes of the long struggle between the crown and the great vassals, and finally the religious wars that culminated in the awful slaughter of St. Bartholomew's, and ended at the close of the century with the politic conversion and the coronation of Henry IV.—these were among the causes that had held back the great nation from distant undertakings. But thoughts of great things to be achieved in the New World had never for long at a time been absent from the minds of Frenchmen. The annual visits of the Breton ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the remittances must be made to several, on which I will give you my opinion in my next. A number of gentlemen of rank and fortune, who have seen service, and have good characters, are desirous of serving the United Colonies, and have applied; pray let me have orders on this subject; if it be politic to interest this kingdom in the present contest, what way so effectual as to get into their debt for supplies, and employ persons of good family and connexions in it, in our service? I have given encouragement, on which some are prepared to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... his prey; the spoiler swallows up his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. Thus has great Britain swallowed up the Parliament, the constitution, the independence of Ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered body politic. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... he received from Queen Blanche, his mother. That is overstepping the limits of that education and of her influence. Queen Blanche, though a firm believer and steadfastly pious, was a stranger to enthusiasm, and too discreet and too politic to make it the dominating principle of her son's life any more than of her own. The truth of the matter is that, by her watchfulness and her exactitude in morals, she helped to impress upon her son the great Christian ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Asinius Pollio [d] for the heirs of Urbinia. But those speeches were delivered about the middle of the reign of Augustus, when, after a long peace with foreign nations, and a profound tranquillity at home, that wise and politic prince had conquered all opposition, and not only triumphed over party and faction, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... this morning. As he was to play the part of improvisator that night, he thought it politic to make favor with all those who would be present. He hoped that all the world would thunder out their enraptured applause, and that Maupertius, D'Argens, Algarotti, La Mettrie, and all other friends of the king, would be filled with envy and rage. He smiled, therefore, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... large means and little courage or perspicacity, was then freely made by both divisions of the Union. Had we been of French or Spanish descent, there would have been barricades, coup-d'etats, pronunciamentos; but the English race know better how to treat the body-politic. They never apply the knife except for the most desperate operations. But where hard words were so plenty, blows could not fail. Duels were frequent, cudgellings not uncommon,—although as yet the Senate-Chamber ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... calm, and it would have been politic to have done so. But there are some insults which a man of heart cannot endure. I do not regret what ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... pictured by Brewer. But Francis, by overdoing this gorgeous reception, gave offence to Henry, whom he seemed to eclipse in magnificence. Meanwhile Charles, anticipating the interview, had visited Henry in England, and by his more politic address he secured the favor both of the English monarch and his great minister, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... very large force. The emperor and his court were very much alarmed, expecting an immediate assault. Still Genghis Khan hesitated. Some of his generals urged him to scale the walls, and so force his way into the city. But he thought it more politic to adopt a ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... and soon after dying hath had its course, be quite extinct. But suppose that both they that shall remember thee, and thy memory with them should be immortal, what is that to thee? I will not say to thee after thou art dead; but even to thee living, what is thy praise? But only for a secret and politic consideration, which we call oikonomian or dispensation. For as for that, that it is the gift of nature, whatsoever is commended in thee, what might be objected from thence, let that now that we are upon another consideration be omitted as unseasonable. That which ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Alton, Ill. The legislature had passed pro-slavery resolutions. There were many in the legislature who did not approve of these, but in the condition of public feeling, it was looked on as political suicide to express opposition openly. There was no politic reason why Lincoln should protest. His protest could do no practical good. To him it was solely a matter of conscience. Slavery was wrong, the resolutions were wrong, and to him it became necessary to enter the protest. He succeeded ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... politic, we can assist the development of science in two ways. Firstly, by doing each our individual part towards ensuring that endowment for the university must provide not only for "teaching adolescents the rudiments ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... the advantages which her charms gave her over almost all who came within the sphere of their influence. She cast on Roland a glance which might have melted a heart of stone. "My poor boy," she said, with a feeling partly real, partly politic, "thou art a stranger to us—sent to this doleful captivity from the society of some tender mother, or sister, or maiden, with whom you had freedom to tread a gay measure round the Maypole. I grieve for you; but you are the only male in my limited ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... but Longfellow confessed that he had given away a large number of them. And so it continued to the end. "Why should I not do it," he would say, "if it gives them pleasure?" Emerson looked on such matters from the stoical point of view as an encouragement to vanity; but he would have been more politic to have gratified his curious, or sentimental admirers; for every autograph he gave would have made a purchaser for ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... vagrant list. The only possible explanation of this state of things is that vagrancy is, to a very large extent, entirely unconnected with economic conditions; the position of trade either for good or evil is a very secondary factor in producing this disease in the body politic; its extirpation would not he effected by the advent of an economic millennium; its roots are, as a rule, in the disposition of the individual, and not to any serious degree in the industrial constitution of society; hence, the only way to stamp it out is by adopting vigorous ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... make progress. Very well, then. I go to my Wall Street friends—I would give you their names, only for the present, till something definite has been done, that would hardly be politic—I go to my Wall Street friends, and tell them about the scheme, and say 'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to work. But use your own judgment my boy, you know. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... by a few exaggerated compliments adroitly inserted here and there: these merely furnish the foil needed to give greater potency and efficiency to the personal insinuations, and, like Mark Antony's compliments to Caesar's assassins, subserved quite too many politic purposes to be accepted as sincere. Only a native of Boeotia could be imposed upon by them, when the actual character of the book in question was carefully misrepresented, and when the self-evident trend, ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... Mont Barbet, this last standing on higher ground than the city and the royal tower. But of the royal tower itself, and of the fortress into which it grew in later times, a few fragments only have escaped the politic destruction of the days of Richelieu. Of Mont Barbet nothing is left but the motte or agger, dating doubtless from far earlier days, but which, as so often happens, has outlived the buildings which were placed upon and around it. One would have been well pleased to see the whole line of defence, ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... said a vapour, if I were asked again what is a vapour, I could not tell, it is so insensible a thing; so near nothing is that that reduces us to nothing. But extend this vapour, rarefy it; from so narrow a room as our natural bodies, to any politic body, to a state. That which is fume in us is, in a state rumour; and these vapours in us, which we consider here pestilent and infectious fumes, are, in a state, infecitious rumours, detracting and dishonourable calumnies, libels, The heart ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... representation and expression of articulate sounds; and by the combination of these letters to transmit and perpetuate human ideas. There is scarce a race of savages in our day where the mass of the body politic are as profoundly ignorant as were the great body of the Greek people a thousand years ...
— Prehistoric Structures of Central America - Who Erected Them? • Martin Ingham Townsend
... produce the result that the politic chief had intended they should. Better feeling was springing up. The spirit of discontent that had been rife was disappearing. Every day good-fellowship grew more and more between the Willamettes and their allies. ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... young Juba's dress? Does he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared with yet. Well, though this is a mighty politic invention, yet, methinks, they might have done without it: for, since the advice that Syphax gave to ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... me, my dear Count?" His voice was pleasant, and his manner charming; but there was something cold and politic in his whole appearance which absolutely stupefied Varhely. If he had seen him pass in the street, he would never have recognized, in this elegant personage, the young man, with yellow hair and long moustaches, who sang war songs as he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... justice, sobriety, magnanimity, and the fair amenities of Art,—that it is only by the soul that any people has achieved greatness and made lasting conquests over the future. We believe there is virtue enough left in the North and West to infuse health into our body politic; we believe that America will reassume that moral influence among the nations which she has allowed to fall into abeyance; and that our eagle, whose morning-flight the world watched with hope and expectation, shall no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... V died ten months after his election, and the cardinals chose as his successor Cardinal Cossa, who took the name of John XXIII. The Church remained as much divided as before. In 1412 Pope John, who was a shrewd and politic man, opened at Rome a council for the reformation of the Church, but there seems to have been little serious purpose either on the part of John himself or of the ecclesiastics who assembled; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... putrifying sores." It proves, too, the folly of all plasters and palliatives. Some men are still talking of preventing the spread of the cancer, but leaving it just where it is. They admit that, constitutionally, it has now a right to ravage two-thirds of the body politic—but they protest against its extension. This in moral quackery. Even some, whose zeal in the Anti-Slavery cause is fervent, are so infatuated as to propose no other remedy for Slavery but its non-extension. Give it no ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... Juillet, ou toutes les Nations remisent entre les mains d'Achiendase qui est nostre Pere Superieur le diffrend Centre les Sonnontoueeronnons et les Agnieronnons, qui fait bien et termine.—Relation of 1657, p. 16.] It was not necessary for the politic senators to inform their gratified visitors that the performance in which they thus took part was merely a formality which ratified, or rather proclaimed, a foregone conclusion. The reconciliation which was prescribed by their constitution had undoubtedly been arranged by previous conferences, ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... and spiritual meanings, still the divine ever mingles with the human; with the earthly the spiritual intermixes; and there is something spiritual in the commonest duties of life. The nations are not bodies-politic alone, but also souls-politic; and woe to that people which, seeking the material only, forgets that it has a soul. Then we have a race, petrified in dogma, which presupposes the absence of a soul and the presence only of memory and instinct, or demoralized by lucre. Such a nature ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... land wherein each one receives the well-merited reward of toil. Justice was not in the body politic. Tyranny, extravagance and bankruptcy on the part of the ruling class had wiped out the margin of plenty. Black ruin seemed to impend for all. It was a case of starve—or unite against the rulers and oppressors of society. Danton, the thunderer of mighty speech, dominated these gatherings, ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... Lord's anointed on the field of Rullion Green, and breathed his last (tradition said) in the arms of the detestable Dalyell. Nor could she blind herself to this, that had they lived in those old days, Hermiston himself would have been numbered alongside of Bloody MacKenzie and the politic Lauderdale and Rothes, in the band of God's immediate enemies. The sense of this moved her to the more fervour; she had a voice for that name of PERSECUTOR that thrilled in the child's marrow; and when one day ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Rousillon, and cherishes a deep affection for the Countess's son Bertram, though he neither suspects it nor returns it. She saves the life of the French king, and he in gratitude allows her {175} to choose her husband from among the noblest young lords of France. Her choice falls on Bertram. Being too politic to offend the king, he reluctantly marries her, but forsakes her on their wedding day to go to the wars. At parting he tells her that he will never accept her as a wife until she can show him his ring on her finger and has a child by ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... INDIES.[75] By which stile, or legal denomination, George Earl of Cumberland, Sir John Hart, Sir John Spencer, and Sir Edward Mitchelburne, knights, with 212 others, whose names are all inserted in the patent, were erected into a body corporate and politic, for trading to and from all parts of the East Indies, with all Asia, Africa, and America, and all the islands, ports, havens, cities, creeks, towns, and places of the same, or any of them, beyond the Cape of Good ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... politic to enlarge on her desire for honest toil and honest bread; she merely nodded. Holcroft smiled as he asked, "Why are you so ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... been one of the most powerful sources of inspiration that musical art has experienced. But upon the technical side the action of the Church has been purely conservative and, not to say it disrespectfully, politic. The end sought in every modification of the existing music has been that of affording the congregation a musical setting for certain hymns—a setting not inconsistent with the spirit of the hymns themselves, but in melody ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... building, Mr. Mann had gone to the old Chief of the Cascades and had invited him to send his Indian boy to the school. He had shown him what an advantage it would be to the young chief to understand more thoroughly Chinook and English. He was wise and politic in the matter as well as large-hearted, for he felt that the school might need the friendliness of the old chief, and in no way ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... to be fairly successful, even at that," retorted Lafelle. Then, too politic to draw his host into an acrimonious argument that might end in straining their now cordial and mutually helpful friendship, he observed, looking at his cigar: "May I ask what you pay for these?—for only an inexhaustible bank ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the finest instincts of his people. He had tried to arrange a marriage between Elizabeth of England and Henry of Anjou, the brother of the French King, but had not been successful, owing to Elizabeth's politic vacillation. He was detested by Catherine de Medici because he had great power over her son, the reigning monarch, whom she tried to dominate completely. A dark design had inspired the Guise faction of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... dispensed with those things which are more particularly within his province, with those things which faction might be supposed to take up for the sake of making visible and external divisions and raising a standard of revolt, but has also from sound politic considerations relaxed on those points which are confessedly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Macedonia's madman to the Swede; 220 The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make an enemy of all mankind! Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes: Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat; 'Tis phrase absurd to ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... local, or whether it springs from the general state of the whole body, and whether it is the herald of an organic disease or merely the result of repressed energies or wrongly-trained organs. So we, in our treatment of the body politic, will do well to examine most carefully the actual nature of the diseases which we seek to cure, and discern, if we can, the causes which have brought them on and tend to perpetuate them. If we can ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... for weeks afterward nothing would more surely throw him into a rage than any allusion to his cousin the tin-pedler. One good effect, however, followed. He did not venture to allude to the social position of his family in presence of his school-mates, and found it politic to lay aside some of his ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and Chance, elucidated and discussed between Doctor Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. There is a later edition, of the year 1684, in a work entitled Hobbes's Tripos, where are to be found his book on human nature, his treatise on the body politic and his treatise on freedom and necessity; but the latter does not contain the bishop's reply, nor the author's rejoinder. Mr. Hobbes argues on this subject with his usual wit and subtlety; but it is a pity that ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... daimonia], neither in heaven, nor in hell; partially fallen, capricious, wayward; noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be. These beings gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, which is often so different from that of the individuals who compose them. Hence the character and the instinct of states and governments, of religious communities and communions. I thought these assemblages ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Associates, which Richelieu founded in 1624, was no improvement on the previous administrations of New France, in spite of its elaborate charter and the fact that Richelieu himself was at the head of it. The fur companies were doubly politic in discouraging agriculture, for the purchase of peltries thus became practically the sole industry of the colony, while at the same time the people were left dependent upon the stores of the company for food. The colonisation of New England was intensive, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the winter of 1608, they suffered dire extremities of famine; several came over from the southern shores of the river, miserably reduced by starvation, and scarcely able to drag along their feeble limbs, to seek aid from the strangers. Champlain relieved their necessities and treated them with politic kindness. The French suffered severely from the scurvy during the first ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... dangerous, radical, subtle and evil had been let loose—the girl would have to be watched. She was a fire-brand, an incendiary—she would put notions in peoples' heads. It was well he had heard her and could sound the warning. But he must be politic—he would not show his hand. The children were singing, and every one had risen. Never before had he heard the Chicken Hill people sing ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... go," said the leader, who had been made uneasy by Frank's threat, and saw that it was politic to postpone his further designs upon his intended victim. "If he chooses to obey a small telegraph boy, ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... some time; and it would have been longer concealed, even from its object, had not his jealousy been excited by her attachment to Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland. The king at last made known his passion; but the daughter of the Howards was too proud, or too politic, or too high principled, to listen to his overtures. It was only as queen of England, that she would return the passion of her royal lover. Moreover, she resolved to be revenged on the all-powerful cardinal, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... either of himself think it politic to keep me out of office so long, or he may be satisfied with such slight reasons, or so many accidents may make him think my re-admission at that time improper, that I may ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... sinning, at last died of a broken heart,[48] and the Earl of Arran, who claimed the regency, looked about for trusty supporters to defend his claims against the machinations of the cardinal and the queen dowager, he deemed it politic to show not a little countenance to the friends of the Reformation and of the English alliance. We are not warranted to assert that he meant to declare himself a Protestant; but he chose as his chaplains preachers who showed themselves favourably inclined to the new ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... of the globe. It has been matched in portions of India, but nowhere else in this Empire save in little Prince Edward Island, where we shall meet with it again. In Ireland, where it assumed its worst form, violent conquest by a neighbouring power not only made it politic to outlaw the old owners, but precluded the introduction of the traditional English tenures, even into the relations between the British superior landlord and the British occupying colonist. The bulk of the confiscated Irish land, as I have ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... CUSTARD, "quaking—," "—politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... to be devoted to deer only. Be this as it may, there is a green knoll, not far from the drawing-room window, where the ewes and lambs are accustomed to assemble towards evening, for the benefit of the setting sun. No sooner were they gathered here, at the time when these politic birds were building, than a stately old rook, who Master Simon assured me was the chief magistrate of this community, would settle down upon the head of one of the ewes, who, seeming conscious of this condescension, would desist from grazing, and stand ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the maladministration of public affairs, and to cleanse the city of the corruption which existed—as it has existed and always will exist in populous communities, agreeably to the sentiment of Jefferson, that "cities are scabs upon the body politic." And with the best of motives they believed that the organization of the Vigilance committee was the better and surer remedial agent to these wholesome and commendable purposes. But their action was akin to that of the thousands of citizens ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... the boy, or prepare for instant death. The warrior refused, and the chief waved his club in the air towards the warrior. 'Strike!' said Petalesharoo, who stood near to support his father; 'I will meet the vengeance of his friends.' But the more prudent and politic chief added a few more articles to the mass of merchandize, in order to give the warrior another opportunity of acquiescing ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... maintain the calmness necessary for an impartial appreciation of the causes which have been sufficiently powerful to turn the destructive energies of so great a nation upon itself, causing it to rend and destroy its own body politic, so recently rejoicing in unexampled prosperity and happiness. Some gigantic power, wielding strength enough to produce the tremendous results already visible, must be somewhere hidden at the source of these grand phenomena. In the physical world, a small quantity of water or a few ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... heart no feeling of bitterness, for she, too, had learned the lessons He taught, who, "when He was reviled, reviled not again, but committed himself to Him who judgeth righteously." A very few of her friends still visited her, but nearly all felt it would not be politic to be found in sympathy with one on whom the wealthy and influential Griffin Taylor frowned with displeasure. She always believed her father would relent, and sometimes, when she saw him approaching her on the street, her heart ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... that the courts sometimes err in their interpretation of the constitution and the laws, since judges, however carefully selected, are but men; but there must be somewhere in the body politic of a free state some body of men with the power of authoritative interpretation of the fundamental law as well as other laws. Does earlier history or later experience point to any better equipped, more stable, more safe tribunal? Should not the people endeavor to raise rather than ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... kindred constituting a distinct body politic is divided into groups, the males into groups of brothers and the females into groups of sisters, on distinctions of generations, regardless of degrees of consanguinity; and the kinship terms used express relative age. In civilized society kinships are classified on distinctions ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... connecting the Sarvastivadins with the council is not likely to be wrong, for they are recognized in the inscription on Kanishka's casket, and Gandhara and Kashmir were their headquarters. The decisions of councils are often politic rather than logical and it may be that the doctors summoned by Kanishka, while compiling Sarvastivadin treatises, admitted the principle that there is more than one vehicle which can take mankind to salvation. Perhaps some compromise based on geography ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... up to bed, somewhere in the roof, where another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This was not a very politic step, as it turned out; for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted round it so hideously, that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering, till morning. Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... vain and ambitious. But he was gifted with powers of political insight. He possessed a febrile energy and an earnest desire to serve the common weal. Such was the physician chosen by the British government to cure the cankers of misrule and disaffection in the body politic of Canada. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... Sutter received me. I then joined in the conversation being carried on with Colonel Mason, who was giving his opinion as to what the Government would do with respect to the gold placer. The Colonel was very guarded in his statements. He, however, hinted that he thought it would be politic for Congress to send over proper officers and workmen, and at once to establish a mint at some convenient point on the coast. He fully admitted the difficulties of keeping men to their engagements under circumstances like ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... Poodles had told his own story after changing his drabbled garments. It was unfortunate that there were no witnesses of the affray, for the principal would sooner have doubted the evidence of his own senses than the word of Bill Poodles, simply because it was not politic for him to do so. My accuser declared that he had spoken civilly and properly to me, and that I had insulted him. He had walked up to me, and placed his hand upon my shoulder, simply to attract my attention, when I had struck him a severe blow in the face, which had knocked ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... nerved their hearts. Motley says, "His influence on his auditors was unexampled in the annals of his country or age." His memory lost nothing; his ability to read men ranks him with Richelieu; he was cautious, politic, but not slow, though his uniform habit of caution robbed his acts of the fine flavor of spontaneity; he was painstaking, and as laborious as Philip, which is the last effort of comparison, seeing ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... haggard-ey'd and faint, But holding Katie ever towards the sun, Unhurt, and waking in the fervent heat. And now it came that Alfred being sick Of his sharp hurts and tended by them both, With what was like to love, being born of thanks, Had choice of hours most politic to woo, And used his deed as one might use the sun, To ripen unmellow'd fruit; and from the core Of Katie's gratitude hop'd yet to nurse A flow'r all to his liking—Katie's love. But Katie's mind was like the plain, broad shield Of a table di'mond, nor had a score of sides; And ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... managed, is too often subject to breed distraction; and while we would please too many ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none[2]. But we have given you more already than was necessary for a preface; and, for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions, than that politic nation is like to do, who have taught their enemies to fight so long, that at last they are in a condition to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... individuality in the body politic. I could not do without my vote," said the judge, with ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... basin of the upper river, just above Quebec itself, right away to Cap Rouge, where the French had their headquarters, and were always ready for an assault. This action on the part of the ships was a very politic one, for it kept the French troops ceaselessly upon the march and the watch, wearing them out with fatigue; whilst the English soldiers on board their vessels were at their ease, save that they ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... inflamed him; it never daunted him. He had not the slightest particle of that prudence which teaches a man to keep out of contests in which he can gain no advantage, or in which success will be only a little less disastrous than defeat. It hardly needs to be said that a politic line of conduct is usually the very last which a person of such a temperament follows. But when to all these characteristics is added a peculiar sensitiveness to criticism, it is evident that if proper opportunities are offered, personal unpopularity ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... approve of the rebellion and desired to issue a manifesto to those of his countrymen who had been deceived into believing that he was their leader. But the proclamation was not politic, for it contained none of those fulsomely flattering phrases which passed for patriotism in the feverish days of 1896. The address was not allowed to be made public but it was passed on to the prosecutor to ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... here by Henry Clay in 1772, and being politic enough to present Queen Caroline with a Sedan chair made of this material, he was patronised by the wealthy and titled of the day, the demand for his ware being so extensive that at one time he employed over 300 hands, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Christophe himself. He lost his head. Love makes a man irrational, and Olivier was no exception to the rule.—However, he was cleverer than Christophe. Though he was uncompromising and clumsy in handling his own affairs, when it came to promoting Christophe's success he was politic and even tricky: he displayed an energy and ingenuity well calculated to win support: he succeeded in interesting various musical critics and Maecenases in Christophe, though he would have been utterly ashamed to approach them ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... polished Romans might have learned a lesson of civilization from the Fijians, they will not reject our suggestion, when they reflect, that, only a short time ago, they were, probably, as much surprised at finding the government of so great a country as France adopting imperial Rome as a model body-politic. Familiarize your mind with the idea, and all difficulties vanish. It is only the last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... 'It isn't the boys so much who are vermin; it's the people themselves, the whole body politic, as ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... society was to him a thing 'stale, flat, and unprofitable.' Of course you know I only endured his visits because among the girls it was considered a compliment to receive them, and they were all dying of envy. Besides and principally, it is neither politic nor pleasant to offend any one, and I could not have denied myself to him, without doing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... her favorite as he seemed. In her old age she was beginning to long for kindred and closer ties, and she felt that she could in effect adopt Grace, and could even endure the invalid major for the sake of one who was so congenial. She thought it politic however to let matters take their own course, for her strong good sense led her to believe that meddling rarely accomplishes anything except mischief. She was not averse to a little indirect diplomacy, however, and did all in ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... this scene, but it caused a sudden change among the servants and a few of the hunters; the shouts of encouragement ceased at once; several of the participants prudently tried to efface themselves; as to Rousselet, more politic than the others, he boldly darted into the melee and picked up the fainting puppy in his arms, carrying her as tenderly as a mother would an infant, without troubling himself whether or not he was leaving part of his coat-tails ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... started for home. All the generals and a yoke of oxen couldn't 'a' kept him in camp, he was so homesick—lovesick too, I guess. Powerful compliment to you, Miss Susie," added the politic cobbler, feeling his way, "that you could draw a man straight from his duty like ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... will present an alternative. Did the States create the Federal government, or did the people of the whole United States, acting as a body-politic, create it?" ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... flock. The institution of convents abroad seems in one point a strain of great wisdom, there being few irregularities in human passions which may not have recourse to vent themselves in some of those orders, which are so many retreats for the speculative, the melancholy, the proud, the silent, the politic, and the morose, to spend themselves, and evaporate the noxious particles; for each of whom we in this island are forced to provide a several sect of religion to keep them quiet; and whenever Christianity shall be abolished, the Legislature must ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... freely their consciences without check and controlment, doing the same with due reverence to the sovereign court of parliament, that is, to your Majesty and both the Houses, who all in this case make but one politic body, whereof your Highness is the head."[24] The shrewdness of the political philosophy with which this passage opens is matched only by the terseness with which the fundamental rights of the Commons as a body are enumerated. To the enumeration should ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... took under serious Consideration the Practise of our Ancestors, and how in all Ages both Church and State came frequently into Non-Hereditary Measures, where I run over the String of Disappointments King James had met withal by the Politic Management of France. When I reflected what Misery had befallen, and was like to befall these Kings by adhering to the besoted Notion of Hereditary Right, I put the whole Controversy upon the Issue of Religion, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... which every man was willing to believe, as his Majesty's honour was in a manner engaged not to deny unto his people the adventure and hope of so great riches, to be sought and achieved at the charge of volunteers; especially, for that it stood with his Majesty's politic and magnanimous courses, in these his flourishing times of peace, to nourish and encourage noble and generous enterprises for plantations, discoveries, and opening ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... these preliminary instructions there is a rather diplomatic—to say the least—bit of advice that might perhaps to a puritanic conscience seem more politic than truthful. Since the old professor insists so much on not disturbing the patient's mind by a bad prognosis or any hint of it, and since even some exaggeration of what he might think to be the serious outlook ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... extremely politic and reasonable. Realizing that, with the advance of artillery, the great rock-fortress no longer had the military value of earlier days, they not only raised no objections to the evacuation of Luxemburg by their troops, but in the Congress ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... our hero, with some hesitation, not feeling sure whether it was politic to mention ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... to be the feudal monarchy—the ramification of contributory courts and camps—of the crude days of William the Conqueror and his successors. The Norman lords and their English dependants no longer formed two separate elements in the body politic. In the great French wars of Edward III, the English armies had no longer mainly consisted of the baronial levies. The nobles had indeed, as of old, ridden into battle at the head of their vassals and retainers; ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Gazette, in the order in which they occur. Many of them I have not the honour of knowing: but judging of those whom I do not know by those whom I do, I should say that their presence at the inauguration was a solid proof that the foundation of the new College was a just and politic measure, opening, as the Gazette well says, a great future to the youth of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... have him in this case constantly near you without anybody having the right of finding fault with it, and to be useful to you he should be near you. Stockmar would have the immense advantage, for so young a Queen, to be a living dictionary of all matters scientific and politic that happened these thirty years, which to you is of the greatest importance, because you must study the political history of at least the last thirty-seven years more particularly. I had begun something of the sort with you, even so far back as George II.; you will do well ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... deeper down into his brain. Until this he had never known what it was to suffer; until this his languid creeds had held that no wise man feels strongly, and that to glide through life untroubled and unmoved is as possible as it is politic. Now he suffered, he suffered dumbly as a dog, passionately as a barbarian; now he was met by that which, in the moment of its dealing, pierced his panoplies of indifference, and escaped his ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... monarchy, the royal authority is the mainspring which controls all movements and all actions in every part of the State. Let this source of energy grow weak, and decline at once shows itself throughout the entire body politic. It is as when a fatal malady seizes on the seat of life in an individual—instantly every member, every tissue, falls away, suffers, shrinks, decays, perishes. Egyptian architecture is simply non-existent from the death ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... grief and pain; but it is the vengeance of heaven which they represent, and not any passion born in the human heart; the moral being was of so sound an organization among the ancients, the air circulated so freely in their deep bosoms, and the order politic was so much in harmony with their faculties, that troubled minds hardly ever existed then, as at the present day. This state causes the discovery of many fine ideas, but does not furnish the arts, particularly sculpture, with those simple affections, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the corporate existence of man became the prevalent conception of the Church and of legislators; and nations sought rather to isolate themselves from one another, than to coalesce and correspond. Moreover, the life of antiquity was eminently municipal. The city was the germ of each body politic, and the connection of roads with cities is obvious. But our Teutonic ancestors abhorred civic life. They generally shunned the towns, even when accident had placed them in the very centre of their shires or marks, and when the proximity ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... that night in Miss Tresilyan's apartments. Mr. Fullarton represented the male element there, and was in great force. The late accession to his flock had decidedly raised his spirits: he knew how materially it would strengthen his hands; but, independently of all politic consideration, Cecil's grace and beauty exercised a powerful influence over him. Do not misconstrue this. I believe a thought had never crossed his mind relating to any living woman that his own wife might not have known and approved; nevertheless was it true, that Mr. Fullarton liked ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... time than the present, before proceeding with the relation of the events that transpired in the house on West 3— Street after the arrival of Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford,—it might be both proper and politic to indulge in a disquisition on the meanness of peeping and the general iniquity of the spy system. At any other time—not now, when the country is deep in the horrors of a war that principally seems to have been a failure on our side because ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... amid the license of the most dissolute court in Europe, and who, in spite of her lack of money, erected noble public buildings, as if to repair the loss caused by the iconoclasms of the Calvinists, who did as much harm to art as to the body politic. Hemmed in between the Guises who claimed to be the heirs of Charlemagne and the factious younger branch who sought to screen the treachery of the Connetable de Bourbon behind the throne, Catherine, forced to combat heresy which was seeking to ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... necessary to be very politic with a man who was so surly, and too powerful to make an enemy of. What if he made up his mind to imitate the redoubtable Mirambo, King of Uyoweh! The effect of my munificent liberality was soon seen in the abundance of provender which came to my camp. Before an hour went ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... gestures and attitudes, that sometimes, when he was conducting the orchestra, he hardly had the strength to raise his baton. He wanted to go and hide in the prompter's box. He was too frank and too little politic to conceal what he thought. Every one noticed it: his friends, the actors, and the author. Hellmuth said to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... ought rather to be trusted to the wise. These laws, I say, might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate; they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another, and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others, while the strengthening one part ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... rich are for the most part entirely harmless is to dare much, for the contrary opinion is greatly in favor. Such wholesale condemnation of the rich assumes a more general and a more specific form. They are said to be harmful to the body politic simply because they have more money than the average: their property has been wrongly taken from persons who have a better right to it, or is withheld from people who need it more. But aside from being constructively a moral detriment from the mere possession of wealth, the rich man may ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession proper, but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim, because you have your ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... frenzy it was that drove thee to thy heels, and that made thee leave so much good behind thee, as other men find in the lusts of the flesh and the good of the world. As for the law, and death, and an imagination of the day of judgment, they are but mere scarecrows, set up by politic heads, to keep the ignorant in subjection. Well, says the backslider, I will go back again and see; so, fool as he is, he goes back, and has all things ready to entertain him; his conscience sleeps, the world ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... back at him, and seeing by his starved look how he was racking his jaded brain for some excuse to go with me, I honestly believe I was sorry for him. The chaplain was a thick-set, clean-shaven, politic little fellow whose "Good-mawning, brothah?" had the heavy sweetness of perfumed lard. We conversed fluently on spiritual matters and also on Ned Ferry. He asked me if ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... end of that gambling match hath now come! Alas, these heartrending sorrows, due to Duryodhana's acts, many in number and like unto terrible darts, are now being borne by, me, O Sanjaya! O sire, Subala's son used to be then regarded as a politic person. Karna also is always exceedingly attached to king Duryodhana. Alas, when such is the case, O Sanjaya, why have I then to hear of the frequent defeats and deaths of my sons? There is no one that can resist the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Andros, and the armings of the Iroquois, now let loose on many parts of Canada, gave rise to a project as politic, perhaps, as it was daring, and such as communities when in extremity have adopted with good effect; namely, to divert invasion by directly attacking the enemies' neighboring territories. The Chevalier de Callieres, with whom the idea originated, after having suggested ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... easy on this score. Those who took me from my father, and who always intended, sooner or later, to sell me again to my original proprietor, as they have now done, calculated that, in order to make the most of their bargain, it would be politic to leave me in possession of all my personal and hereditary worth, and even to increase the value, if possible. I have, therefore, received a very good education, and have been treated by these kidnappers very much as the slaves were ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his own interests by granting these franchises; that the cities paid him taxes, and that his design was to use them as instruments of weakening the power of great nobles; but what does that prove, but that this measure was at once useful, politic, and humane?" From Kings in general the conversation turned upon Louis XV., and M. Turgot remarked that his reign would be always celebrated for the advancement of the sciences, the progress of knowledge, and of philosophy. He added that ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... grave, surrounded by a picket fence marked by the figure of a kneeling child carved in rough sand stone. As the guest of the Mission School, I made the mistake of asking the mother, herself, whose grave that was. Women, who are neither politicians nor politic, have a plain way of uttering harsh facts. She did not speak about the author of her boy's death in soft words, that little white haired mother. She used a term oftener heard in the purlieus of criminal ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... say, as I have often given tongue In praise of what another's said or sung, 'Twere politic to do the like by these; But have you known a ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... of English law were to be regarded, and the course of justice to be enforced or mitigated according to the circumstances of the country. In the resumption of lands or rights which clearly belonged to the Crown "sober ways, politic shifts, and amiable persuasions" were to be preferred to rigorous dealing. It was this system of conciliation which was in the main carried out by the English Government under Henry and his two successors. Chieftain after chieftain was ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... lingering on his way, not without suspicion of secret treaties with the English in support of the party of York, though all the prepossessions of Scotland and King James were on the other side: but hurried home on hearing the news, and was politic enough to make immediate submission as soon as he became aware of the seriousness of the crisis, promising everything that could be demanded of him in the way of obedience and respect of "the King's peace." Once more he was ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... States was not a mere creditor, loaning a sum of money upon a mortgage. The railroad corporation was not a mere contractor, bound to furnish a specified structure and nothing more. The law created a body politic and corporate, bound, as a trustee, so to manage this great public franchise and endowment that not only the security for the great debts due the United States should not be impaired, but so that there should be ample resources to perform its great public duties in time of commercial ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... to devouring ipecac, to the confusion of all free-born stomachs. In fact this species of ballot flagellatism, this diverting pastime of hitting itself on the head with a stuffed club has gradually elevated the body politic to the enviable position occupied by the all-powerful king of Fernando Po. This mysterious being lives in the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba. His power is in direct ratio to the taboos which hem him in. Convinced that bathing is a crime against his dignity, that ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... Montenegrin campaigns I held those who were there as warm friends. The official Russians were not, however, popular in Montenegro, the people possessing an unusual degree of independence, and the Russians attaching more importance to their aid and coperation than the circumstances made it politic to show; and Jonine, who became minister-resident at Cettinje, was, perhaps, the most unpopular foreigner there, while Monson, who became English agent there, was, both with prince and public, the most popular. The entry into the alliance with Russia ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... like to impute the lowest motives may say if they will, that Daniel and the later Isaiah found it politic to worship the rising sun, and flatter the Persian conquerors: and that Cyrus and Darius in turn were glad to see Jerusalem rebuilt, as an impregnable frontier fortress between them and Egypt. Be it so; I, who wish to talk of things noble, pure, lovely and of ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... politic ecclesiastic, mostly anxious not to commit himself, ready to let whoever would risk a struggle with Rome, so that he kept out of the fray and survived to profit by it, cuts beside the disciples, who had chosen their side, had done with 'ifs,' and went away from the Council rejoicing 'that they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... all vital sense of God in the world; and because of this, they had taken up a fatally wrong attitude to life. They looked at it wholly from the mechanical point of view, and judged it by merely utilitarian standards. The "body-politic" was no longer inspired by any "soul-politic." Men, individually and in the mass, cared only for material prosperity, sought only outward success, made the pursuit of happiness the end and aim of their being. The divine meaning of virtue, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... nearly everything that critics were destined to urge against the play during the next hundred years. Having left his post of duty and being a military officer, Schiller was technically a deserter and had reason to fear pursuit and arrest. At Mannheim his affairs went badly. The politic Dalberg was not eager to befriend a youth who had offended the powerful Duke of Wuerttemberg; so Fiesco was rejected and its author came into dire straits. Toward the close of the year he found a welcome refuge at Bauerbach, where a house was put at his disposal by his friend Frau von ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... he would have wished very much in order to discover much more land, and says that it is all full of very beautiful islands, much populated, and very high lands and valleys and plains, and all are very large. The people are much more politic than those of Espanola and warlike, and there are handsome houses. If the Admiral had seen the kingdom of Xaragua as did his brother the Adelantado and the court of the King Behechio[345-1] he would not have made so absolute ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various |
