"Temporize" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Jewell's expression relaxed. She stole an amused glance at the cook and, reading her instructions in his eye, began to temporize. Ten minutes later the crew of the Elizabeth Barstow in various attitudes of astonishment beheld their commander going ashore with his cook. The mate so far forgot himself as to whistle, but with great presence of mind cuffed the boy's ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... flee each other, each being as much upset as the other at its captivity. I have kept them together for twenty-four hours, without aggressive display on either side. Thinking more of their prison than of attacking each other, they temporize, as though indifferent. The experiment has always been fruitless. I have succeeded with Bees and Wasps, but the murder has been committed at night and has taught me nothing. I would find both insects, next ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... heard him inform us, that the King of Kings demanded our immediate presence. The mollah looked at me, and I at him; and, perhaps, two bearded men never looked more like raw fools than we did at that moment. He endeavoured to temporize, and requested our conductor to accompany him to his house, in order that he might put on his red ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... sweet sanctity I bloom, With surplus of beatitude I bless, I'm the confidant of Destiny and Doom, I'm the apogee of knowledge more or less. If I lie, it is to temporize with lying Lest obliquity should suffer in the light. If I prey upon the widow and the dying, They withheld; and I compel them to do right. I am justified in all that I endeavor, If I fail it is because the rest are fools. I'm serene ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... compromise for the good of the many. He will tell himself that if the best cannot be done, he must content himself with the next best. He must shake hands with the imperfect, as the best way of lifting himself up from a bad way toward a better. In obedience to his very conscience he will temporize, and, finding no other way of achieving good, will do even evil that good may come of it. "Rem si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo rem." In judging of such a character as this, a hard and fast line will certainly lead us astray. In judging of Cicero, such a hard ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... productions. He could talk well, but he was incapable of expressing himself in a literary way. She compared Tennyson, and Browning, and her favorite prose masters with him, and to his hopeless discredit. Yet she did not tell him her whole mind. Her strange interest in him led her to temporize. His desire to write was, after all, a little weakness which he would grow out of in time. Then he would devote himself to the more serious affairs of life. And he would succeed, too. She knew that. He was so strong that he could not fail—if only ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... satisfy a very tired people. There seem to be comparatively few out of work now. We are not out of the woods yet. But the Lord will take care of them. He may even keep Johnson from bolting Harding. They will temporize through; ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... who fain would win their own! the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? O, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind! That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity's burning flood of words is ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... have a secret, Joe?" Thus Blake tried to temporize, so that he might think what was best ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... had the advantage of him in being armed; that any decided opposition on his part would result in his being killed or wounded. It was not prudent for him to do anything, and at the present stage of the proceedings he could do nothing but temporize ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... it proceed, will produce domestic distraction. We shall be in a perpetual dilemma. But it is easy to see which side of the dilemma will be taken. The same temper which brings us to solicit a Jacobin peace will induce us to temporize with all the evils of it. By degrees our minds will be made to our circumstances. The novelty of such things, which produces half the horror and all the disgust, will be worn off. Our ruin will be disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a degenerate people ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be, he is at once taken to a physician, who institutes the necessary treatment. When a little girl complains of itching around the genitals or of some discharge, the mother will hesitate long before taking her to a doctor. She will be afraid he will do something to the hymen. And so she will temporize, using salves and washes, and the disease will in the meantime be making progress, that is, getting worse. When she does take her to a physician, and he says that in order to treat the case thoroughly the hymen has to be stretched or opened, the mother will withhold her consent, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... hand, to propose McBane would arouse suspicion of his own motives; it might reach his grandfather's ears, and lead to a demand for an explanation, which it would be difficult to make. Clearly, the better plan would be to temporize with McBane, with the hope that something might intervene to ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... interfere with the thorough execution of the grand scheme on which he was resolved, and of which the new bishoprics formed an important part. Opposition irritated him more and more, till his hatred of the opponents became deadly; but it, at the same time, confirmed him in his purpose. "'Tis no time to temporize," he wrote to Granvelle; "we must inflict chastisement with full rigor and severity. These rascals can only be made to do right through fear, and not always even by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bourgeoisie is mere moonshine, for common sense can readily find a number of escapes. She may cleave to her father and send her lover packing, after proper explanations; or she may cleave to her lover in the face of her father's displeasure; or she may temporize in the hope of changing her father's mind. What she actually does is to goad her lover into a frenzy by her singular conduct and then come to her senses when it is too late. The effect is to cast doubt upon the intensity of her supposed passion for Ferdinand. One gets the impression that her ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... were plunging into the naked and primordial conflict of man against woman, without reservations and without indirections—and it left her with a vague fear of some impending helplessness and isolation. She had a sudden prompting to delay or evade that final step, to temporize and wait for ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... written proposals that I have found were made," etc. Czartoryski's "Memoirs" (vol. ii., chs. ii.-iii.), to which I referred my readers for details, show clearly that Alexander and his advisers looked on a rupture with France as inevitable, but wished to temporize for some three months or so, until certain matters were cleared up; they therefore cautiously sounded the position at Vienna and London. This passage from Czartoryski (vol. ii., ch. iii.) proves that Russia ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... point the federal government decided it could no longer temporize with the clamor for using atomic power against the grass. All the arguments so weighty at first became insignificant against the insolent facts. It was announced in a Washington pressconference that as soon as arrangements could be made the most fearful ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... of the Athenians at the presence of Philip within the gates was not allayed. The king, however, anxious to temporize with them until he could receive his army supplies by sea, suborned Aeschines, who assured his countrymen of Philip's peaceful intentions. On another occasion, by an inflammatory speech at Delphi, he so played upon the susceptibilities of the rude Amphictyones that they rushed forth, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... themselves stricken nigh unto death, paused in the generous impulse to pay quickly and in full and let the new steel city arise at once in all its glory. They began to consider, then to temporize, and finally, with notable exceptions, to evade by every means in their power the payment of their obligations. The loss and the annoyance thus inflicted upon the insured were increased by the uncertainty as to what they should ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... the same sense of well-being and power. The old chest in which his mother used to keep her money stood where it had always stood; but it was no longer devoted to savings hoarded slowly at the cost of untold sacrifice and privation to raise mortgages and temporize with creditors. Never again had he tip-toed up in the dark to rifle it. Now it was his own. And at harvest time it became literally crammed with the huge rolls of banknotes his father-in-law paid over in exchange for the oranges of the Brull orchards. And Rafael had ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... he might say that. "I know nothing about it;" he might act that. Or he might temporize for a little while. This was what ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... not see his way out. He must temporize for a little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by was his daughter, the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... clinching her white jeweled hands together. "Why does he follow me here? What shall I do? I must buy him off at any cost. I dare not defy him. Better temporize with him." She muttered the words aloud, and she was shocked to see how changed and hoarse her own voice sounded. "Women have faced more deadly peril than this," she muttered, "and cleverly outwitted ingenious foes. I ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... sufficient money saved to justify him in leaving the Pactolus—still there were always possibilities, and Fortune was fond of playing wild pranks. At the same time there was nothing tangible in view likely to make him rich, so, as these thoughts rapidly passed through his mind, he resolved to temporize. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... the temptation came—came and grew and shut about her and gripped her close. She began to temporize, to advance excuses. Was not her story the better one? Granted that the idea was the same, was not the treatment, the presentation, more effective? Should not the fittest survive? Was it not right that the public should have the better ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... Pitt from the finance make as much of the regrets of anticipation, as the fears of losing the King from the throne. Should the change of Ministry (too much apprehended) take place, it is thought that Fox's party—to temporize with the public opinion, too strong directly to meet in the teeth—will propose a coalescence of some sort; but so narrowed, and in regard to Mr. Pitt, moreover, placing him in such jar of official situation, that it cannot be in any manner listened to. The refusal of the insidious offer ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... the child's face was, it had a glimmer of wildness and a hunted look, that baffled Aunt Jane a little, and compelled her to temporize. She consented that Emilia should go to her own house, on condition that she would not see Philip,—which was readily and even eagerly promised,—and that Hope should spend the night with Emilia, which proposal ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... trusted him, and he would do his best. The thing to do at that time, it appeared to him, was to await the action of the newcomers. They might be officers of Paraguay, with authority to make arrests in Peru, and they might be only four-flushers. He must temporize until he found out what they proposed to do in ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... issue, at arms, had been boldly made at Lexington and Concord. Bunker Hill had practically emancipated the American yeomanry from the dread of British arms, and foreshadowed the finality of National Independence. However the American Congress might temporize, there was not alternative with Washington, but a steady purpose to achieve complete freedom. From his arrival at Cambridge, until his departure for New York, he worked with a clear and serene confidence in the final result of the struggle. A mass of earnest ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... the national capital would blame the whites, and try to temporize and make new treaties, or even threaten to drive back the settlers with a strong hand; but when the ravages of the Indians had become serious, when the bloody details were sent to homes in every part of the Union by letter after ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... that the starvation and misery of the Paris episode would have to be faced again. We can readily picture him coming in raging after a conflict at the theatre with official imbecility, and Minna, instead of sympathizing, counselling him to be wise and temporize. His exasperation grew, and only the events of 1849 prevented a rupture—so much seems certain—and he vented his spleen by making Elsa a stupid, shallow, faithless creature who feels no gratitude towards the hero who saved her from ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... version of what had taken place, in which case the danger was great, both to himself and to Agnes. Lambert had spoken bravely enough to the marplot, knowing that he had done no wrong, but now he was by no means sure that he had acted rightly. Perhaps it would have been better to temporize but that would have meant a surrender young to Chaldea's unmaidenly wooing. And, as the man had not a spark of love for her in a heart given entirely to another woman, he was unwilling even to feign playing the part of ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... was now saying what he really believed, and at the sound of his own voice telling him he realized that all he had to do was to temporize and time would bring its own solution. If Max were King he could no more do this thing than he could fly. Why, then, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... your army; and what is worse, he has lowered you in the estimation of your subjects, and of the world. If you are willing to be rid of so dangerous a man, my life is at your disposal: but if you must temporize with him, I do nothing to further measures which are to be carried ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... though passion distorted the mental images as they arose in his brain. To Axelson it was evidently incomprehensible that there would be any objection to his taking Madge. Nat saw that he must temporize for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... second. He was inclined to temporize. "Those are very hard terms," he said. Then impulse proved too much for him. He bent forward, and pressed his lips just once on that olive-brown cheek. "But I may come back again very soon," he murmured, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... altogether to change his intentions in that respect. Indeed, from the dry and caustic manner of the old man towards him of late, he began to entertain apprehensions upon the subject. Taking therefore all these circumstances into consideration, he resolved in any event to temporize a little, and allow the father to suppose that he might be prevailed upon to marry ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... writhed and her eyes shot fire. Should she breathe the scorn she felt, and brave the worst? Or should she temporize? Time might bring about a change, when she could safely send the mercenary suitor back to his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... an impulsive hand. "Oh, but you must make up your mind! You mustn't temporize like ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... moment previously thought of what he now said; but the truth of it struck all. Lars, seeing the danger of his position, thought best to be careful, and so apparently acquiesced in Canute's proposition to reconsider; for such emotions, thought he, are always strongest in the beginning; one must temporize with them. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... in Germany, and will never join hands in a common undertaking. Austria can never forgive Prussia for taking Silesia from her, and Prussia will always secretly suspect that Austria is intent upon weakening her rising power and humbling her ambition. Hence, Prussia will hesitate and temporize even at this juncture, although it is all-important now for Germany to take a bold stand against her common enemy, rapacious and insatiable France; she will hesitate because she secretly wishes that Austria should ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... take, perplexed him. Those big, soft brown eyes of hers would see through any lie he tried to invent, and he was but a poor liar anyway. What could he tell Pearl? He would temporize—he would stall for time. She was too young—she had seen so little of the world—it would be hard to wait—he believed he could take that line with her—he would ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... and presidents, in my day, and I know the breed from cover to cover. Following a preliminary conference, I'll let you know whether you're going to get that franchise without difficulty or whether somebody's itchy palm will have to be crossed with silver first. Honest men never temporize. You know where they stand, but a grafter temporizes and plays a waiting game, hoping to wear your patience down to the point where you'll ask him bluntly to name his figure. By the way, what do you know about your blighted ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... this decision, to shrink from the great resolve, to temporize, to waver, have at such moments ever presented themselves to men and to nations. Even now they present themselves, manifold, subtly disguised, insidiously persuasive, as exhortations to humility, for ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... the marks of enemies, but we do not hate you in any wise, or your party. Warn the admiral to be very careful not to fight, for our army is marvellously strong by reason of re-enforcements that have come in to it, and it is very determined withal. Let the admiral temporize for a month only, for all the nobles have sworn and said to Monseigneur that they will not wait any longer, that he must employ them within that time, and they will then do their duty. Let the admiral remember ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... free. Seeing the matter thus seriously taken up, Mr. Wood became at length alarmed,—not relishing, it appears, the idea of having the case publicly discussed in the House of Commons; and to avert this result he submitted to temporize—assumed a demeanour of unwonted civility, and even hinted to Mr. Manning (as I was given to understand) that if he was not driven to utter hostility by the threatened exposure, he would probably ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... surgeon on his arrival. He stood by him while he examined the wound, described the manner in which the ball had penetrated, and seemed surprised that it should be lodged within the body. When he demanded the surgeon's opinion of the wound, the operator thought proper to temporize for his own safety, as well as for the sake of the public, lest the earl should take some other desperate step, or endeavour to escape. He therefore amused him with hopes of Johnson's recovery, about which he now seemed extremely anxious. He supported his spirits by immoderate drinking, after ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Was Mrs. Warrington preparing to strike a blow that would be the last impulse necessary to send the plunger down for the last time? She decided to take a chance, to temporize until some one ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... they, like Agrippa, joined the Romans. Half-hearted at best in their support of the struggle, yet by their wealth and position able at first to obtain a commanding part in the conduct of the war, they used it to temporize with the foe and to dull the edge of the popular feeling. Josephus unfortunately does not enlighten us as to the inner movements in Judea at this crisis. He merely relates that the Sanhedrin became a council of war, and Palestine was divided into seven military districts, over ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... a short while. Then he said, "A moment, Elizabeth. Your pardon, Miss Williams," and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to her in a low tone: "We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode ahead, in my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon, and ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... necessary part of living? Shall he continue in it, although he recognizes its evil results, and draw others with him into greater and larger violations of the laws of God and man? These are practical questions. Some temporize with sin and say, "Let us lead outwardly correct lives, but within certain bounds we will do as we please"; hence arises the practice of ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... have carried conviction, achieved immediate and honorable success, and commanded the respect of the civilized world. But fettered, tantalized, and weakened, by the ambiguities and inconsistencies of this co-partnership treaty, the United States government was compelled to temporize, argue, and explain, and finally compromise with her co-partner, and graciously allow the disgraceful ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... the finger and gradually disjointing it up to the mark; and plucking out the offending eye is not to bandage it so that it temporarily does not see the evil to which it is attracted. No, the Gospel is not a system of repairs. It is not here to temporize, but to make all things new, and it strikes at the heart of evil and not ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various
... to its camp. It, too, elected ten tribunes, and waited to hear what the senate had to propose. They waited in vain. No word came to them. The senate, distracted by the sudden occurrence, sought to temporize, but the people were in too deadly earnest to be thus dealt with. In the end the armies left the Aventine, marched through the city, and made their way to the Sacred Hill, where the seceding commoners ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... thinks the moment come for pleading his and her cause with their sovereign. But Constance entreats him to temporize: either to defer the proposal for her hand, or to make it in so indirect a manner, that the Queen may only see in it a tribute to herself. He has allowed her to think that he served her for her own ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... period quite long enough for a trusted friend of the Mormon leaders to ascertain the extremities to which the people were reduced. To secure the safety of those leaders who were under indictment for treason, there was no choice except between flight and inducing the Federal authorities to temporize. Both he and they were conscious that the advance of the army could not be successfully resisted, when the snow should cease to bar its way. In case of the flight of the leaders, or of a general exodus of the population, only two courses lay open to them,—northward toward the British Possessions, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... up, had he been acting by himself, he would temporize and erect barriers to prevent Bolshevism from spreading. But he was not alone, and in the presence of his colleagues he felt compelled to make some concession, as it was essential that there should not be even the appearance of disagreement ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... light gleamed in the cannibal's eye. But he thought it best to temporize. Powerful as he was on his island, there was one thing yet more powerful by far than he; and that was Taboo—the custom and superstition handed down from his ancestors, These strangers were Korong; he dare not touch ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... was to temporize. Perhaps he would be better after eating some wholesome food. "I'll fetch them directly after dinner," said she. "But it will be spoiled if I leave it for long; and I do so want it to be nice for ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... attraction; but had not this fascinating Englishman come between him and the girl of his choice? With set lips he recalled each slight received at Northfield, and meditated sure revenge. "The time is short," he mutters, "and I must not long temporize upon methods, but there must be cautious anticipation of all ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... all, the Countess Hermenstein was in her own house,—she had the right to command his exit if she chose. Small and slight as she was, she had a dignity and power as great as his own, and if anything was to be gained from her it was necessary to temporize. Among many other qualifications for the part he had to play in life, he was an admirable actor, and would have made his fortune on the legitimate stage,—and this "quick change" ability served him in good stead ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... for a week or two, or a month, or two—to see if something wouldn't turn up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn't come in the natural way, and explain his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who are labouring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of any thing like action, and like nothing in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to retire to his estates in Lancashire. In the summer Richard, suspicious of his continued absence, required him to send his eldest son, Lord Strange, to court as a hostage. After Henry of Richmond had landed, Stanley made excuses for not joining the king; for his son's sake he was obliged to temporize, even when his brother William had been publicly proclaimed a traitor. Both the Stanleys took the field; but whilst William was in treaty with Richmond, Thomas professedly supported Richard. On the morning of Bosworth (August 22), Richard summoned Stanley ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various |
