"Improvidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hope it is no disrespect to his memory to say that he had his foibles. It was no secret among our contemporaries at Cambridge that he was like too many other men of genius, a little deficient in economy—shall I say it? a little extravagant. The difficulties into which he brought himself by his improvidence were, however, always to him matters of jest and raillery; and often, indeed, proved subjects of triumph, for he was sure to extricate himself, by some of his many talents, or by some of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... sustain the credit of the Government by taxation, the process of supply is too facile. The funds so easily procured are in danger of being too profusely spent. Individual responsibility in money-matters, aided by direct self-interest, is usually more efficient in imposing limits to improvidence than a general sense of duty on the part of official personages. But if funds could be obtained ad libitum by the speculator, without the necessity of giving security for the payment of principal or interest, bankruptcy would soon become the rule and solvency the exception. Still more urgently, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... aid arose originally from their being evicted therefrom. The charge should fall exclusively upon the rent receivers, and in no case should the tiller of the soil have to pay this charge either directly or indirectly. It is continued by the inadequacy of wages, and the improvidence engendered by a social system which arose out of injustice, ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... subject of conversation between parties, one or both of which were looking out for a man, of thorough business qualifications, against which capital would be placed; nor the fact, that either his first failure, his improvidence, or something else personal to himself, had caused him to be set aside for some other one not near ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... brought prosperity in place of waste and improvidence. Profits were devoted to the purchase of additional lines, thus enlarging their domain and strengthening their position. Prosperity increased with rapid strides; and the beneficial effects of extirpating wasteful rivalry and building up a substantial system with superior facilities ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... improve their station and perhaps buy more land; they are temperate, because intemperance is incompatible with industry and prudence; they are independent, because secure of the necessaries of life, and from having property to fall back upon; and they avoid improvidence in marriage, because the extent and fertility of their fields is always plainly before them, and therefore how many children they can maintain is easily calculated. The worst of them is that they work too hard and deny themselves too much: but, over the greater part of the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... considerable extent. He was also the author of the story of "Rasselas,"—that notable satire on discontent and the search after happiness. Next stands Johnson's friend, Oliver Goldsmith, famous for his genius, his wit, and his improvidence,—which was always getting him into trouble,—but still more famous for his poems, and his novel, "The Vicar ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... first Theatrical Fund Dinner, an entertainment of which we hear so much latterly in England, with the defence of actors against the charges of extravagance and improvidence so often brought against them, will possess interest ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Apollo's charge, affirming him to be free from those mental defects which chiefly betray men into sin, folly, improvidence, and perverseness.]—TR. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... conditions. Each free economic subject must form a judgment and make his choice as best he can and in the light of experience. There is no absolute and infallible standard of judgment that can be applied by outsiders to each case. Yet there is occasion to deplore the improvidence that is fostered and that prevails, especially among those receiving their incomes in the form of wage or salary. Considered with reference to the possible maximum of welfare of the individuals themselves, the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... injurious, without ruining the people. The condition of my loss would be scarcely worse. As to the rest, you there lose all; and even your friends will be more ready to accuse your want of vigilance and your improvidence, and your ignorance of and indifference to your own business, than to pity you. That so many garrisoned houses have been undone whereas this of mine remains, makes me apt to believe that they were only lost by being guarded; this ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... and dress provoked ridicule; their poverty often threw them upon the community; the large percentage of illiteracy among them evoked little sympathy; their inclinations towards intemperance and improvidence were not neutralized by their great good nature and open-handedness; their religion reawoke historical bitterness; their genius for politics aroused jealousy; their proclivity to unite in clubs, ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... ferocious, but really men; nice as to their honour, to the extent of poniarding any one who is wanting in respect to them. They are fully as ignorant as the people of the Monti; they have learnt the same lessons, and witnessed the same examples; they have the same improvidence, the same love of pleasure, the same brutality in their passions; but they are incapable of stooping, even ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... the Mississippi bubble did not change the principles of administration in Louisiana. The settlers, always looking to France to supply their needs and protect them against their own improvidence, were in the habit of butchering for food the livestock sent them for propagation. The remedy came in the shape of a royal edict forbidding any colonist to kill, without permission of the authorities, any cow, sheep, or lamb belonging to himself, on pain of a fine of three hundred livres; ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... This propensity is as subservient to the advancement of private interests in the one as in the other, and those who direct them both, being principally guided by the same views and influenced by the same motives, will be equally ready to stimulate extravagance of enterprise by improvidence of credit. How strikingly is this conclusion sustained by experience! The Bank of the United States, with the vast powers conferred on it by Congress, did not or could not prevent former and similar embarrassments, nor has the still ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... were protected by them. Error, accident, and luck seem to be the only sense there is in primitive life. Knowledge alone limits their sway, and at least changes the range and form of their dominion. Primitive folkways are marked by improvidence, waste, and carelessness, out of which prudence, foresight, patience, and perseverance are developed slowly, by pain and loss, as experience is accumulated, and knowledge increases also, as better methods seem worth while. The consequences of error and the effects of luck were always mixed. As ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... one side, and one on the other. The water of the Mayenne is so harsh, that it cannot be drunk or used for cookery, and were it not for the proximity of the Loire, and some aqueducts, Angers, though built on a river, must necessarily become desolate for want of water. The same improvidence is visible in many towns in France, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... eclipse the interested bribes to public favour with which Cimon and others had sought to corrupt the populace. Nor was Pericles without the means or the spirit to devote his private fortune to proper objects of generosity. "It was his wealth and his prudence," says Plutarch, when, blaming the improvidence of Anaxagoras, "that enabled him to relieve the distressed." What he spent in charity he might perhaps have spent more profitably in display, had he not conceived that charity was the province of the citizen, magnificence the privilege ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... relations to his mother, Mr. F. Lawton (Balzac) states: "Madame Balzac was sacrificed to his improvidence and stupendous egotism; nor can the tenderness of the language—more frequently than not called forth by some fresh immolation of her comfort to his interests—disguise this unpleasing side of his character and action. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd |
