"Prudential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Richie; "mickle better not. We are a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases. And for me—even myself—I have always observed myself to be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own interest—whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... his pocket his own well-filled flask, with which from prudential motives he had provided himself before undertaking his journey, he handed it to Mr. Gardner of Wellsville and made ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... friends. On Henri's return to La Vendee, he had imbued himself with a high tone of loyalty, without any difficulty or constraint on his feelings; indeed, he was probably unaware that he had changed his party: he had an appetite for strong politics, was devotedly attached to his master, and had no prudential misgivings whatsoever. He had already been present at one or two affairs in which his party had been victorious, and war seemed to him twice more exciting, twice more delightful than the French Opera, or even the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... matter, rarely fell except on the hopelessly bad. A most significant feature of his rule as a disciplinarian was his peculiar care of health, by instructed sanitary measures, by provision of suitable diet, and by well-ordered hospital service. This was not merely a prudential consideration for the efficiency of the fleet; he regarded also the welfare of the sufferers. He made it a rule to inspect the hospitals himself, and he directed a daily visit by a captain and by the surgeons ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... and care of children; and when that is so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water flows,—and love makes very light of all prudential considerations. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... control of Offitt. That worthy had not come under the notice of the law for the part he took in the attack on the Belding house; he had not been recognized by Farnham's men, nor denounced by his associates; and so, after a day or two of prudential hiding, he came to the surface again. He met Sam at the very door of the House of Correction, sympathized with him, flattered him, gained his full confidence at last, and held him ready for some purpose which was vague ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... to speak, in such a way that her name became a solecism. They exploded 95 lb. of gun cotton 20 ft. below the water, and in contact with her double bottom. This amount of explosive represents the full charge of the old pattern 16 in. Whiteheads; but as the hulk was, for prudential reasons, moored close to a mud bank, and as the water was consequently much too shallow to allow of a locomotive torpedo being set to run at the required depth, a fixed charge was lashed fore and aft against the bottom plating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... talked so stoutly to Cassy, still sallied forth from the house with a degree of misgiving which was not common with him. His dreams of the past night, mingled with Cassy's prudential suggestions, considerably affected his mind. He resolved that nobody should be witness of his encounter with Tom; and determined, if he could not subdue him by bullying, to defer his vengeance, to be wreaked ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions. He was ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... of a standard of living based on conspicuous waste. The conspicuous consumption, and the consequent increased expense, required in the reputable maintenance of a child is very considerable and acts as a powerful deterrent. It is probably the most effectual of the Malthusian prudential checks. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... it has been accounted a virtue to keep your mouth shut—chiefly, of course, upon moral or prudential grounds, for fear of what might issue from it if opened. Then came physiology to back up the maxim, on the ground that the open mouth was also dangerous on account of what might be inhaled into it. Oddly enough, in this instance, both morality and science have been beside the mark to ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... of his chair, and prevent the distance between them being increased. Perhaps he might have carried his point even at that moment, had not Miss Wodehouse, who had heard enough to alarm her, come forward hastily in a fright on the prudential side. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... of insurance practised by level-premium companies that demands brief notice here. It would seem that to mention it would be to call down upon it public reprobation: we refer to what is called prudential or industrial insurance. The peculiarity of this form is that its patrons are found among the poorest and the lowest classes of our population, and, in the judgment of others than the writer, it appeals to the very worst instincts of those unfortunate people. The insurance is effected upon ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... bestowed by our Creator, and it is reasonable that all His gifts should be used to His glory, that all our faculties should co-operate in His worship; but they are to co-operate according to the will of Him that gave them, according to the order which His wisdom has established. As ceremonies prudential or convenient are less obligatory than positive ordinances, as bodily worship is only the token to others or ourselves of mental adoration, so Fancy is always to act in subordination to Reason. We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide. We may allow ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Lord Bolingbroke, Dr Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... sympathy and urged by his nearest intimates, formally recognized the son of James as king of England; and the English people, enraged at what they looked on as a threat and an insult, threw aside all merely prudential considerations. The House of Lords declared that "there could be no security till the usurper of the Spanish monarchy was brought to reason;" and the House of Commons voted fifty thousand soldiers and thirty-five thousand ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... of the day, diligently sought to decoy, on successive occasions, Richard Mivane out to the comparative solitudes of the hunting, the fishing, the cropping. In vain. Richard Mivane displayed sudden extreme prudential care against surprise and capture by Indians, when this was possible, and when impossible he developed unexpected and unexampled resources of protective rheumatism. The young lover was equally precluded from setting forth the state of his affections and the prospects of his ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... my daughter! Her virtues supply the want of ancestry, her beauty the want of fortune. My prudential maxims yield to the force of your attachment. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Jack threw himself upon me, and squeezed out of breath the prudential demur that was rising to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... father asking forgiveness. Before Captain Bloomer received the letter, the last spark of anger in his breast had given place to paternal anxiety. Left alone without wife or child, gladly would he have welcomed her home, had not prudential reasons rendered it necessary to keep father and daughter separate. Her letter gave great satisfaction; and he resolved to assist her and her husband. Through an English friend, a sufficient amount was remitted to America, to ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... most, the command laid upon us by science to believe nothing not yet verified by the senses is a prudential rule intended to maximize our right thinking and minimize our errors in the long run. In the particular instance we must frequently lose truth by obeying it; but on the whole we are safer if we follow it consistently, for we are sure ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... women who have not succeeded in loving, she wanted something, without herself knowing what. Strictly speaking, she wanted nothing; but it seemed to her that she wanted everything. She could hardly endure the late Odintsov (she had married him from prudential motives, though probably she would not have consented to become his wife if she had not considered him a good sort of man), and had conceived a secret repugnance for all men, whom she could only figure to herself as slovenly, heavy, drowsy, and feebly importunate creatures. Once, somewhere abroad, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... representatives from South Carolina called upon me and requested an interview. We had an earnest conversation on the subject of these forts, and the best means of preventing a collision between the parties, for the purpose of sparing the effusion of blood. I suggested, for prudential reasons, that it would be best to put in writing what they said to me verbally. They did so accordingly, and on Monday morning, the 10th instant, three of them presented to me a paper signed by all the representatives from ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... principal street, while they were supposed to be in the shop, or the show-room. He then went on to say that he had only this morning heard that the intimacy between Mrs. Woffington and a Colonel Murthwaite, although publicly broken off for prudential reasons, was still clandestinely carried on. She had, doubtless, slipped away ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... bad, have taken this particular law into their own hands before now, and committed themselves to conduct of which 'magnanimity owes no account to prudence.' But if they had sense and knew what they were about, they have braced themselves to endure the disapproval of a majority fortunately more prudential than themselves. The world is busy, and its instruments are clumsy. It cannot know all the facts; it has neither time nor material for unravelling all the complexities of motive, or for distinguishing mere libertinage from grave and deliberate moral misjudgment; it is protecting itself ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... is maintained by the force of a certain mixture of prudential and of beneficent considerations, on the part of the majority, and by prudence (as fear of punishment) on the part of the minority. But there does not appear to be anything in our professedly Benevolent ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... duty, and give leisure for discord to arise among his enemies, who, being united by no common bond of interest or motive of alliance, could not long persevere in their animosity against him. All these prudential considerations were overborne by a vain point of honor, not to turn their backs to the enemy; and they resolved to await the arrival ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... rather embarrassed. He has sent for the most prudential persons on change to ask their advice concerning this addition, which he considers arrant folly. Another person, very much displeased with this addition, says, that if Amsterdam persists firmly in demanding the strict observance of ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... and worshipped by his soldiers, became more and more convinced that the old Olympian gods were protecting him and advancing his cause, and only for prudential reasons did he continue to attend Christian churches. In his heart he abhorred the crucified Galilean God of the Christians, and longed for the restoration of the old worship of Apollo and the gods ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... opportunity of setting our prisoners on shore, who were now very numerous, and made a greater consumption of our food than our remaining stock was capable of furnishing much longer. In all these lights, the attempt was most eligible, and to which our situation, our necessities, and every prudential consideration, strongly prompted. How it succeeded, and how far it answered our expectations, shall be the subject, of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... one Saturday afternoon (his half-holiday) at a shabby office up a court in Fleet Street, with a few saved-up shillings of pocket-money in his hand. His object was secretly to bribe a balloon agent to give him a seat in the basket on the next flight from Vauxhall: however as, either from prudential humanity or commercial greed, the clerk stated that five pounds was the fixed price for a place, and as the aforesaid little gentleman could only produce ten shillings, the negotiation came to nothing,—and I, who had coveted from ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... lightened the siege and shortened our labors; and, besides, we would have had the credit of driving the enemy from Yorktown by force of arms; whereas, as it was, we only induced him to evacuate for prudential considerations." And General Barry says, in his report of the artillery operations at the siege,—"It will always be a source of great professional disappointment to me, that the enemy, by his premature and hasty abandonment of his defensive line, deprived the artillery of the Army of the Potomac ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... mischievousness, of such systems of morality is almost self-evident. As a type of morality founded on hope and fear, we shall take an instance from the Christian Bible: "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." The duty of supporting the poor is here made to depend upon prudential motives of laying by for a time when the "giver to the poor" will be incapable of taking care of himself. But the Mahabharata says that "He that desireth a return for his good deeds loseth all merit; he is like a merchant bartering ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... nurtur'd in my breast, To Love a stranger, Friendship made me blest,— Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth, When every artless bosom throbs with truth; Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign, And check each impulse with prudential rein; 60 When, all we feel, our honest souls disclose, In love to friends, in open hate to foes; No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat, No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit; Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years, Matured by age, the garb of Prudence ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... to do what would please herself, and him, would be just right to-day; but the pleading of the affirmative side of the question was too strong. She gave up considering the prudential side of the measure, thinking that perhaps Mr. Linden knew his own feelings best; and once decided, let pleasure have its full flow. With hardly a shade upon the glad readiness of her movements, she placed the chair ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... skirmishing, so to speak, along the borders of a territory which it is possible we may ask the readers at some future time to explore along with us more at large. A few of the many proverbs, wisdom words, and moral and prudential sentences in daily use shall, in clerical phrase, meantime form "the subject-matter of our discourse." Nor must the reader think that the subject is in any wise infra dignitate, unworthy, that is, or undignified. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... little more conversational skirmishing, the confidential physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the insurance were briefly ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Lord. Who can say that there is not need in these days of a return to primitive methods and of a resumption of the Church's primitive endowments? The Holy Spirit is not straitened in himself, but only in us. If the Church had faith to lean less on human wisdom, to trust less in prudential methods, to administer less by mechanical {162} rules, and to recognize once more the great fact that, having committed to her a supernatural work, she has appointed for her a supernatural power, who can doubt that the grinding and groaning of our cumbrous missionary machinery would be vastly ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... of letters who happen to be blessed or cursed with a prudential conscience, Mr. Greg was haunted by the uncertainty of his vocation. He dreaded, as he expressed it, 'to depend on so precarious a thing as a brain always in thinking order.' In every other profession there ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... exhortation, like the address of a general on the eve of a battle, that inspired courage in every heart. Then followed a few hours of deliberation and mutual council on the course to be adopted in the critical circumstances of the time. Certain prudential arrangements were made for maintaining the connexional unity of the Church under the stress of disorganizing influences, and certain provisions effected for the unforeseen contingencies of the war. Then, after commending one another to God in fervent prayer, and ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... concern the moment only; they merely suggest that man should secure the advantage offered or avoid the pain which may befall him here and now, or some time subsequently to his contemplated action. Hence there is no obligatory force in this ethic. Prudential motives, suggestions of expediency, abundance of counsel, if you will; but we miss the note of authority, the commanding voice, the categorical imperative, the solemn injunction, "Thou canst, therefore thou ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... The people of the Netherlands, sickened with slaughter in the name of the faith, took a longer step in the direction of toleration in the Union of Utrecht. [Sidenote: 1579] The government of Elizabeth, acting from prudential motives only, created and maintained an extra-legal tolerance of Catholics, again and again refusing to molest those who were peaceable and quiet. The papists even hoped to obtain legal recognition when Francis Bacon proposed to tolerate all Christians except those who refused to fight a foreign ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... a native of the South of France, had become a Councilor General in his own neighborhood. Frank in his manners, he spoke briskly and without any circumspection telling all his thoughts with sheer indifference to prudential considerations. He was a Republican, of that race of good-natured Republicans who make their own ease the law of their existence, and who carry freedom of speech to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... or the direction we may give to our hearts, it would be less objectionable. For doubtless love, though more essential to woman than to man, can be more easily controlled by her than by him. A person of a strong will may bring herself, for prudential considerations, to prefer in marriage one who will be "a good match" with her, as the phrase is, to another whom she sincerely loves. And she may succeed in subduing, to no ordinary degree, her affection for the rejected one. But to eradicate ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... home and abroad the administration was charged with sharp practice for its Panama coup, and the case made out by critics was prima facie strong—less, indeed, on its legal than on its ethical and prudential side. We had allowed ourselves to profit by Colombia's distress, encouraged secession in federal republics like our own, and rendered ourselves and our Monroe doctrine objects of dread throughout Central and South America. Still, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... thumb and third finger, and debated the expediency of changing its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the first suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to "love-scrapes" finally strengthened her prudential inclination to crush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore the paper into shreds, which she tossed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... The vivid intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical intercourse with the world than falls to the lot of men of other professions. Hence it follows that the stage presents the most ample field for the biographer; and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... and a consequently greater activity of mind;—no sophistry of self-delusion,—except only that previously to the dreadful act, Macbeth mistranslates the recoilings and ominous whispers of conscience into prudential and selfish reasonings, and, after the deed done, the terrors of remorse into fear from external dangers,—like delirious men who run away from the phantoms of their own brains, or, raised by terror to rage, stab the real object that is within their ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... between what? We understand the consequent of the sequence, but we have yet to analyze the antecedent. Prudence is an attribute; and, in connection with it, two things besides itself are to be considered; prudent persons, who are the subjects of the attribute, and prudential conduct, which may be called the foundation of it. Now is either of these the antecedent? and, first, is it meant, that the approval of God, or benefit to society, is attendant upon all prudent persons? No; except in so far as they are prudent; for prudent persons who are scoundrels can seldom, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... at the school, and was, from prudential motives, a fast friend of Martin. But he bore him a secret grudge, for he could not forget ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... air belonging to one who is discharging a duty, and to the youngest even among the principal personages concerned gave an apparent anxiety and jealousy of manner—jealousy, I mean, not of others, but a prudential jealousy of his own possible oversights or trespasses. In fact, a great personage bearing a state character cannot be regarded, nor regard himself, with the perfect freedom which belongs to social intercourse; no, nor ought to be. It is not rank alone which is here concerned; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... sitting on the stool of repentance. From a prudential penitence he had arrived at a genuine one. Something must be done. There was something to be conquered. There was a harder battle before him than any he had yet fought. He was master of the boats, of the horses, of the servants, and even of his companions at Whitestone; but ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... himself increases in a quick geometrical ratio, unless want and vice stop him." In his second edition (1803), besides the positive check of vice and want, he gave more importance to the negative check of "self-restraint, moral and prudential." The whole theory was crudely stated at first; and it raised the cry that such a doctrine was inconsistent with the belief in a benevolent Creator. In its essence, the law of population is simply that a tendency and ability exist in ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... there is a little of your soul in his. What grievances can he have against me? I can imagine but two. Sunday last, near three o'clock, we were both at the window. He commenced a very animated speech by signs, and prolonged it far beyond the prudential limits which I have prescribed to him. He spoke, I believe, about Soliman, and of a walk which he had refused to take with Ivan. I did not pay close attention, for I was occupied in looking round to see that no one was watching us. Suddenly I saw on the slope of the hill big Fritz ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... with significant emphasis, that he feared they made two days work of one," since, by sparing Macdonald, who was also a prisoner, and his apparent heir, they preserved the lives of those who might yet give them trouble. But Kenneth, though a lion in the field, could not, from any such prudential consideration, be induced to commit such a cowardly and inhuman act as was here inferred. He, however, had no great faith in the forbearance of his followers if an opportunity occurred to them, and he accordingly ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... Fraught with these prudential suggestions, she drew near the unfortunate stranger, and, in a softened accent of pity and condolence, questioned him concerning his name, condition, and the nature of his mischance, at the same time making a gentle tender of her service. Agreeably surprised to hear himself accosted ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... very prudential affair, especially among the peasants who have the largest share of property. Politic marriages are as common among them as among princes; and when a peasant-heiress in Westphalia marries, her husband adopts her name, and places his own after it with the prefix geborner (nee). ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... how Cock-eye Flinks chanced to be at Selwoode were a task of magnitude. That gentleman travelled very quietly; and for the most part, he journeyed incognito under a variety of aliases suggested partly by a fertile imagination and in part by prudential motives. For his notions of proprietary rights were deplorably vague, and his acquaintance with the police, in consequence, extensive. And finally, that he was now at Selwoode was not in the least his fault, but all the doing of an N. & O. brakesman, who ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... capital, a man walks with a lighter step—his heart beats more cheerily. When interruption of work or adversity happens, he can meet them; he can recline on his capital, which will either break his fall, or prevent it altogether. By prudential economy, we can realize the dignity of man; life will be a blessing, and old age an honour. We can ultimately, under a kind Providence, surrender life, conscious that we have been no burden upon society, but ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... These men, Barry, Barney, Decatur, Bainbridge, Perry, Somers, and the rest—the list is a long one—were volunteers in the cause, fighting more for glory than for pay. Such spirits were not to be hired—theirs was no mercenary service. It was limited by no prudential considerations. They went forth singly or united, the commissioned champions of the nation, with their lives in their hands, ready to sacrifice themselves in that cause. Punctilious on all points of honor, they sought but one reward—victory. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... feeling too much pride to recant, he prefers standing by the position he had hastily assumed; consequently, he is then compelled to marshal all his powers of argument to sustain that which in his own mind he may feel convinced is erroneous. Yet although many from prudential motives did not approve his policy, which had nearly involved France in hostility with England, they rather admired the spirit and susceptibility which he displayed in resenting the slight with ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... word that would have made them both happy had not yet been spoken; there was no engagement, or in fact, any advance towards one, yet both, in their heart of hearts, realized the great love they felt for each other. But prudential motives had kept Arthur silent. Edith knew this and was content to wait for the developments of the future. In the meantime she did not hesitate to participate in the amusements and enjoyments which ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... Chancellor and a Government with which they were not familiar. When their eyes fell upon those objects, there was a light in them which meant one thing—murder; murder tempered, no doubt, by those prudential considerations which always restrain persons from acts which are contrary to the general feeling of the society in which they live. But their attitude towards the present Government has from the beginning ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... then engaged in making surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers, of which they had been forewarned by ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... abstain from marriage for prudential reasons are as a rule good citizens. They are workers who realise their responsibilities in life, and shrink from undertaking duties which they feel they cannot adequately perform. By far the largest class who practice prevention, consists ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... been long enough in the wilderness, to know that even a "dwelling in the desert" cannot be maintained without expense; and that however pure the desert air, the fairest "spirit" would require something more substantial to live upon. Under this prudential view of the case, marriage was altogether out of the question. We, the debandes, were dismissed without pension: the only reward for our warlike achievements being a piece of "land scrip," good for the number of acres upon the face of it—to be selected from "government ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... himself of a very sweet disposition, was most unhappy. His parents looked upon him as moonstruck, while he himself, whatever his aspirations, was conscious that he had done nothing to justify the eccentricity of his course, or the violation of all prudential considerations in which he daily indulged. In these perplexities, the usual alternative was again had recourse to—absence; he was sent abroad, to travel in France, which the peace then permitted, visit some ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... remaining Asiatic dependencies accompanied this alteration in the footing upon which she stood with the Hittites. "The bonds of their subjection became much less strict than they had been under Thothmes III.; prudential motives constrained the Egyptians to be content with very much less—with such acknowledgments, in fact, as satisfied their vanity, rather than with the exercise of any real power." From and after the conclusion of peace and ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... stone at a man for snatching a little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... in cases of election, the limits which the law imposes as to their powers and subordination. Nothing of all this finds its way into their rude, untrained brains; instead of a peasant who has just left his oxen, there is needed here a legal adept aided by a trained clerk.—Prudential considerations must be added to their ignorance. They do not wish to make enemies for themselves in their commune, and they abstain from any positive action, especially in all tax matters. Nine months after the decree on the patriotic ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... portion which both narrate at approximately the same length, the older redaction will be found fuller of incident, the characters drawn with a bolder, more realistic touch, the presentment more vigorous and dramatic. Ferdiad is unwilling to go against Cuchulain not, apparently, solely for prudential reasons, and he has to be goaded and taunted into action by Medb, who displays to the full her wonted magnificently resourceful unscrupulousness, regardless of any and every consideration, so long as she can achieve her purpose. The ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... meantime, was the master of the house himself? Reader, he was one of those anomalous practitioners in lower departments of the law who—what shall I say?—who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of too delicate a conscience, (a periphrasis which might be abridged considerably, but that I leave to the reader's taste): in ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... influence of those passions; and the very worst men are so only occasionally. As their gratification, too, how agreeable soever it may be to certain characters, is not attended with any real or permanent advantage, it is, in the greater part of men, commonly restrained by prudential considerations. Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... by profession, it was necessary to conform to the habits and manners of those about him, unless he desired to see his license taken away, and himself a suspected person, as well as without employment. These prudential considerations contending with Eleazar's nature, had sobered the otherwise mirthful features of his face, and made him present the appearance of a merry and a sad man rolled into one, each striving for the mastery, and each alternately ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... could not afterwards be suspended or checked. It is by no means improbable that this may have been the theory of Judas. Nor is it at all necessary to seek for the justification of such a theory, considered as a matter of prudential policy, in Jewish fanaticism. The Jews of thai day were distracted by internal schisms. Else, and with any benefit from national unity, the headlong rapture of Jewish zeal, when combined in vindication ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... all agricultural operations ceased.[1024] A portent may demand a long period of restriction, as in the case of the Roman nine-day ceremony (novendiales feriae).[1025] As has been remarked above, economic taboos are often dictated by convenience—they are prudential rules to which a supernatural sanction ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... L500 a year. This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as precarious—I mean to the full extent; and indeed, when you know her, you will not be surprised that I regard this circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential considerations which would otherwise render our union impossible for the present. Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which my family and situation ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the foregoing resolutions were also transmitted to the Provincial Congress, at Hillsboro, and laid before that body on the 25th of August, 1775, but for the same prudential reasons as just stated, they ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... me out and stigmatize me as the proper object of disgrace, or how the merit of so many of my friends who are acting in their support, and whom they might think it possible would feel hurt, did not, in their prudential light, tend to soften the rigour of their aversion towards me, does, I confess, puzzle me. I don't exactly know from what particular quarter the blow comes; but I must think Lord Bute has, at least, a share in it, as, since his ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... This particular enthusiasm lasted as long as I remained at the boarding-school. When later I grew old enough to marry, and when with the approval of my parents a gentleman who appeared to love me (though, in fact, I think he was influenced rather by prudential motives) began to pay me his addresses, my fondness for the actress soon began to fade away. Even at the present day, however, I esteem this artiste very highly indeed, and the impression which she made on my imagination will never be entirely expunged from my memory. If I ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... injuriously to be their fellow-slaves." When he wrote this, he must have known well enough that he was writing in vain. He confesses as much in his peroration. He confesses it there even by that single modification of the language which might seem at first sight the only sign of prudential concession and anticipation of personal consequences throughout the whole pamphlet. In citing the prophecy of Jeremiah he omits the passage exulting in God's decree of exile against Coniah and his ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... smirking and curtseyings of those Blacks to persons whom they had no reason to suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white face they may in the white man's country have greeted with a civility perhaps only prudential, we fail to discover the necessity of the dreadful agency we have adverted to, for securing the results on manners which are so warmly commended. African explorers, from Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all borne ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... explain things, and clapped his hand to his breast, exclaiming that he was a liberal, a democrat, ready to demand all really progressive measures. He willingly recognized that children were necessary, that the army required soldiers, and the factories workmen. Only he also invoked the prudential duties of the higher classes, and reasoned after the fashion of a man of wealth, a conservative clinging to the fortune he ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the most brilliant success in pleasing the world and making truce with the devil? He would try to hope that the scheme might not fail, but what each one had to consider was the question, "Shall it fail through my cowardice, my greed, my supineness, my prudential cautiousness, my petty ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... Shakespeare seems to have brooded on the fact that the common prudential virtues are sometimes due, not to virtue, but to some starvation of the nature. Chastity may proceed from a meanness in the mind, from coldness of the emotions, or from cowardice, at least as often as from manly and cleanly thinking. Two kinds ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... activity and its results, is philosophy. Hence he who lives is, ipso facto, a philosopher. He is not only a potential philosopher, but a partial philosopher. He has already begun to be a philosopher. Between the fitful or prudential thinking of some little man of affairs, and the sustained thought of the devoted lover of truth, there is indeed a long journey, but it is a straight journey along the same road. Philosophy is neither accidental nor supernatural, but inevitable and normal. Philosophy ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of this alteration, he, as well as Virginia, was beginning faintly to be aware. Comfort was almost imperceptibly taking the place of conviction, and the passionate altruism of youth would yield before many years to the prudential philosophy of middle-age. Life had defeated him. His best had been thrown back at him, and his nature, embittered by failure, was adjusting itself gradually to a different and a lower standard of values. Though he could not be successful, it was still possible, even within the narrow ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... during a negro insurrection in Jamaica, and so disgusted his brother that when he came home to die, Scott would neither see him, nor, when he died, go to his funeral. The other concerned his brother Thomas, who, after his failure as a writer, had gone from prudential motives to the Isle of Man, where he for a time was an officer in the local Fencibles. But before leaving Edinburgh, and while he was still a practising lawyer, his brother had appointed him to a small post in his own gift as Clerk. Not only was there nothing discreditable in this according ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... have been a prudential reason for his declining at this time to be a pensioner of France, namely, lest his connexion with that crown should hurt his projects of a settlement which were then on the carpet. This conjecture is strengthened by what he writes himself to the First President of the Court of Moneys, that the ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... I might add many other religious, as well as many prudential Considerations; but if the last mentioned Motive does not prevail, I despair of succeeding by any other, and shall therefore conclude my Paper with a very remarkable Story, which is recorded in an old Chronicle ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed, and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... O'Connell, Stanley, and Palmerston spoke for it; Goulburn, Inglis, and Peel against it. Old Cobbett made as mischievous a speech as he could to blow the coals between the parties. Peel spoke last, and as usual very well; but several people expected he would have supported it, and have abstained (from prudential motives) from saying anything likely to offend the Dissenters. I expected no such thing; he was not violent, and addressed his argument to the weak parts of his adversaries' speeches rather than against the general principles of toleration; ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... growing desperate for some time, had now actually become so to poor Somers. He placed his hand upon his revolver, in the breast-pocket of his coat; but some prudential considerations interposed to prevent him from using it. The house was on a line of rebel sentinels. Whole divisions of Confederate infantry, artillery and cavalry, were encamped around him, and any violent movement on his part would have been sure to ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... prosecuting schemes of settlement (together with the sums I have been under the necessity of advancing to the Society, and still must advance to discharge a protested will of Glaziers, in this extreme scarcity of current specie) makes such an order prudential. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... turn attention to a pacific policy, looking toward the establishment of amicable relations between the Ashantees and themselves. There had never been any unpleasant relations between the two governments, except in the instance named. The Ashantees rather felt very kindly toward England, and for prudential and commercial reasons desired to treat the authorities at the coast with great consideration. They knew that the English gave them a market for their gold, and an opportunity to purchase manufactured articles that they needed. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... despotism of Cromwell's Major-Generals. Secondly, the people were fickle as usual, and the return of the King had novelty in it, and was therefore popular. The side of the Puritans was also deserted at this period by a numerous class of more thinking and prudential persons, who never forsook them till they became unfortunate. These sagacious personages were called in that age the Waiters upon Providence, and deemed it a high delinquency towards Heaven if they afforded countenance to any cause longer than ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... General Synod, we called particular attention to the subject. Here is a part of one sentence: "It seems to us a duty, and we take this opportunity to bear testimony, that neither Dr. Anderson, nor the Prudential Committee have ever, in any communication which we have received from them, in any way, either by dictation, or by the expression of opinions, interfered in the least with our ecclesiastical relations." We failed to get that letter published, and I find the erroneous impression still prevalent, ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... in sufficient quantity. He absolutely fell in love with Fanny Wyndham, though her twenty thousand pounds was felt by him to be hardly enough to excuse him in doing so,—certainly not enough to make his doing so an accomplishment of his prudential resolutions. What would twenty thousand pounds do towards clearing the O'Kelly property, and establishing himself in a manner and style fitting for a Lord Ballindine! However, he did propose to her, was ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... if the grandeur of the king and his horse-graith thegither had casten the glaiks in my een, and mair jackanape tricks I suld hae played, instead of offering the Sifflication, he said, as if I had been bringing guts to a bear. [Footnote: I am certain this prudential advice is not original on Mr. Linklater's part, but I am not at present able to produce my authority. I think it amounted to this, that James flung down a petition presented by some supplicant who paid no compliments to his ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the singing would have made it impossible. A man's voice alone; the same rich, full, sweet bass; in the ballad of the "Three Fishers." Whether Mr. Nightingale had divined that somebody was near who knew Wych Hazel, or merely acted on general prudential motives, he left his seat and stood a little apart while the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... but did not open his eyes. He endeavored to imitate the dashing style of these economically wasteful young men, without pretending to conform to their prudential rules. He learned how to spend, but not how to settle his accounts ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... she finished a man up at one mouthful. First she had Foucarmont, who did not last a fortnight. He was thinking of leaving the navy, having saved about thirty thousand francs in his ten years of service, which he wished to invest in the United States. His instincts, which were prudential, even miserly, were conquered; he gave her everything, even his signature to notes of hand, which pledged his future. When Nana had done with him he was penniless. But then she proved very kind; she advised him to return to his ship. What was the good of getting angry? Since ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his captain's leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville |
