"Imprudence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with all the energy and imprudence of youth (what a blessing that youth has a little imprudence and disregard of consequences in pursuing a high ideal!), as soon as he perceived that his instructors were wrong on the subject of falling bodies, instantly informed ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... would now be in a position to speak to Sylvia's father without fear of a repulse. His commission on L60,000 would be L3,000, and that on the decorations and other work at least as much again—probably more. In a year he could marry without imprudence; in two or three years he might be making a handsome income, for he felt confident that, with such a start, he would soon have as much work ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... was twenty times on the point of looking for and joining his mother; but he knew that he must resist the longing he felt to take her in his arms, and once more press the hand of his young companion. The least imprudence might be fatal. He had besides sworn not to see his mother. Once at Tomsk, since he could not escape this very night, he would set off without having even embraced the two beings in whom all the happiness of his life was centered, and whom he should ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... prevent occasional heart-burnings, nor any foresight or piety anticipate all the vicissitudes of fortune, or avert every stroke of calamity, yet the unity of their affection and fellowship remains unbroken, and their distress is neither embittered by division, prolonged by imprudence, nor darkened by dishonor. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... mind, I found at times an altitude—a starry altitude—in the station of contempt for me assumed by my brother that nettled me. Sometimes, indeed, the mere necessities of dispute carried me, before I was aware of my own imprudence, so far up the staircase of Babel, that my brother was shaken for a moment in the infinity of his contempt; and before long, when my superiority in some bookish accomplishments displayed itself, by results that could not be entirely dissembled, mere foolish human ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... vow of celibacy, and have nobody to controul my actions':—'then,' said she again, 'what foolish imaginations comes into my head; perhaps he has not the least thought of me in the way I am dreaming of;—no, no, he has suffered too much by the imprudence of one woman, to put it in the power of another to treat him in the same manner;—be trembles at marriage;—I have heard him declare it, and I am deviating into a vanity I ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... had essayed to exert his authority over the invalid, and was protesting volubly against the latter's imprudence. Sergius was in excellent humour, despite the escape of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... Persians and Grecians; because these show their genius and character, which we may call, in some measure, the soul of history. For to take notice only of facts and dates, and confine our curiosity and researches to them, would be imitating the imprudence of a traveller, who, in visiting many countries, should content himself with knowing their exact distance from each other, and consider only the situation of the several places, their buildings, and the dresses of the people; without giving himself the least trouble to converse with the inhabitants, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... frightened by her vehemence. "Indeed, their quarrel did not concern me. 'Twas about two lads that had a wrestling-match upon the galley. And although they were both angered at the time, there may be no ill feeling between them now. I was foolish to speak of it. Forget my imprudence, I ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... Rhone. He stopped to sleep at Tournon, and, by way of pastime, practised some violent physical exercises,—which were nearly all the education his brother and he, in consequence of their detention as hostages, had ever received. The prince had the imprudence—it being the month of August, and the weather very hot—to ask for a glass of water, which Montecuculi, as his cup-bearer, gave to him, with ice in it. The dauphin died almost immediately. Francois I. adored his son. ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... dissemble nothing. What I was, if any one asked, I concealed from no one; if any one in the very city of the Pope attacked the orthodox religion, I defended it most freely." Beyond the statement that the English Jesuits were indignant, we hear of no evil consequences of this imprudence. Perhaps the Jesuits saw that Milton was of the stuff that would welcome martyrdom, and were sick of the affair of Galileo, which had terribly damaged the pretensions ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... who entered the room at this juncture. If the Captain had prolonged his first airing, after six weeks' confinement to the house, until this late period of the afternoon, he would have committed an imprudence which might have cost him dearly. Happily, he had done nothing of the kind, but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave his fly at the end of the street, rather than to ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Warren has decidedly said, that he is satisfied this is entirely out of the question; this he told Pitt in express terms. The cause to which they all agree to ascribe it, is the force of a humour which was beginning to show itself in the legs, when the King's imprudence drove it from thence into the bowels; and the medicines which they were then obliged to use for the preservation of his life, have repelled it upon the brain. The consequence of this opinion is so plain, that there certainly requires no professional skill to ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... had great powers of a legal nature throughout the city, and still greater influence with a Roman Catholic populace at this particular period, when their prince had laid himself open to suspicions of favoring Protestant allies; and Paulina bitterly bewailed the imprudence which, in removing her from the Convent of St. Agnes, had removed her from her ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... not satisfy him. He ventured a few days afterwards having a proper opportunity, on the house and shop of one Mrs. Higgs, from whence he took an hundred pair of stockings, and other things to a large value. But as is common with such persons, his imprudence betrayed him in the disposing of them, and by the diligence of a constable employed for that purpose, he was caught and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he was convicted for these facts, and as he had ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... to the apartment where he had spent the evening. The wine was still upon the table; and, in the desperate hope of stupefying his faculties, he unwisely swallowed huge successive draughts. The effect of his imprudence was not long in manifesting itself; though insensibility, which at another time would have been the result, did not now follow. Acting upon his previous agitation, the wine seemed to set his blood in a flame; and, for the time being, ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that I have led you into trouble," said he. "I wish that I could suffer alone for my self-will and imprudence. But since no regrets can recall the past, let us not make our miseries greater by reproaches and dissension between those who may soon die, as ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... states and nations, as it does with individuals. If a state by its laws discourages the exercise to its full extent of the efficiency of the few and renders less severe the penalties for the inefficiency and imprudence of the many, it cannot long maintain any advantageous position among other nations. Whatever the precepts of religion, of philanthropy, or of other virtues may require, the precepts of justice do not ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... strong tide of national feeling in his favor, with victorious generals and soldiers round him, and a dispirited and divided enemy before him, he could not fail to conquer, though his own imprudence and misconduct, and the stubborn valor which the English still from time to time displayed, prolonged the war in France until the civil Wars of the Roses broke out in England, and left France to peace ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... had taught her the imprudence, the short-sighted policy of working until very late at night; and in order to take due care of her health, she wisely resorted to a different system of study, which gave her more sleep, and allowed her some hours of daylight for her ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... after higher knowledge, may probably have become rather indifferent to his family, as so often happens in the case of such experimentalists. So also it is equally probable that your father brought about his death by his own imprudence, and that Coppelius is not to blame for it. I must tell you that yesterday I asked our experienced neighbour, the chemist, whether in experiments of this kind an explosion could take place which would have a momentarily fatal ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... man was worth; and that, with all its pretensions,—it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it,—viz. 'A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind;'—which definition of gravity, Yorick, with great imprudence, would say, deserved to be ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... intercept Ormond, in his retreat from the unsuccessful siege of the town of Ross. Lord Castlehaven, who was Preston's second in command, attributes both these reverses to the impetuosity of the general, whose imprudence seems to have been almost as great as his activity was conspicuous. In April and May, Preston and Castlehaven took several strongholds in Carlow, Kildare, and West-Meath, and the General Assembly, which met for ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... going to separate us, and that we now saw each other for the last time. We, therefore, took leave of each other like dying men, our eyes filled with tears. The farewell of the sailors, which they sobbed aloud, cut me to the heart, for I felt that my imprudence was the cause of all their misery. I was carried to the shore, and laid on a mat in a large boat, and to my joy and surprise they brought down my comrades, one after the other, and laid them near to me. This was so unexpected, and so gratifying, that for a moment I almost forgot my ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... the afternoon when the Afghans opened fire. Had they waited for a few hours, brought up another gun or two, and made a night attack immediately after opening fire, it is morally certain that the imprudence of camping in such a position would have been punished by a disaster, which might have vied with that of Isandula. Huddled together in a small village surrounded by scrub; and impeded, as the troops ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... up in bed tingling with excitement at the developments which already I saw arising from his last night's imprudence. ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... such was the usage of the Court, and that before being admitted to the presence of the sovereign, the guests were introduced to one another. Juve was on his guard against committing the slightest imprudence, but his new friends were quickly at ease with him and very amiable in their attentions. He was soon surrounded by a number of young women begging for details of his explorations. Among these people Juve picked ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... world, and from the age of eighteen he had in one way or another supported himself, chiefly by work on illustrated papers. His father, who belonged to what is called a good family, began life in easy circumstances, and gained some reputation as a connoisseur of art; imprudence and misfortune having obliged him to sell his collection, Mr. Franks took to buying pictures and bric-a-brac for profit, and during the last ten years of his life was associated in that capacity with a London firm. Norbert, motherless from infancy and an only child, received his early education ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... must be left behind in a convent, where soon afterwards an epidemic complaint attacks the sisterhood, and Josepha, abandoned to the care of strangers, sinks into an untimely grave, the victim of her mother's neglect and imprudence. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... turning to Mr. Park, he said, the boy and every thing but your horse go back to Bubaker, but you may take the old fool (meaning Johnson, the interpreter) with you to Jarra. Mr. Park, shocked at the idea of losing the boy, represented to Ali, that whatever imprudence he had himself been guilty of, in coming into Ludamar, he thought he had been sufficiently punished by being so long detained, and then plundered of his property. This, however, gave him no uneasiness, compared to the present injury. The boy seized on was not ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... example, in an unguarded moment I fell a victim. I had been guilty of the imprudence—I forget in what connection—of speaking of lions. I realized at once that I had done wrong—lions, giraffes, elephants, rickshaws and natives of all brands, are topics to avoid in talking ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... of fearless policy throughout his long public career, a defensive position, suddenly thrust upon him by circumstances which he had not foreseen, betrayed him into anger, and thence naturally into imprudence. All his expectations had been based upon a contest with Mr. Van Buren. The issues he anticipated were those of national bank, of protective tariff, of internal improvements, and the distribution of the proceeds from the sale of the public lands,— on all ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... mingled characters, not merely ridiculous, but dangerous and hateful. The unprincipled gamester, the heartless fortune-hunter, all those who eke out their means of subsistence by pandering to the vices and follies of the rich and gay, who drive, by their various arts, foibles into crimes, and imprudence into acts of ruinous madness, are to be found where their victims naturally resort, with the same certainty that eagles are gathered together at the place of slaughter. By this the author takes a great advantage for the management of his story, particularly in its darker and ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... passed the Euphrates, encountered the Persian monarch near the walls of Edessa, was vanquished, and taken prisoner by Sapor. The particulars of this great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence in Macrianus, his Praetorian praefect. [135] That worthless minister rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects, and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. [136] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... inconvenience and scandal of the self-expatriation of the first Prince of the Blood, would be to cause him to be immediately followed by a captain of the bodyguard, instructed to expostulate with him on his disloyalty and imprudence, and to threaten instant war against any state by whom he should be harboured; while when Sully at length spoke it was only to deprecate each and all of these measures, by which he insisted that ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... leave us in the fields, and went sometimes a good way off to a village to solicit the permission without which it would have been dangerous to continue our route. He remained entire hours without returning to us, and we then had occasion to reflect sadly on the imprudence of our enterprise. We generally slept amongst habitations. Once, we found the streets of a village barricaded, because they were fearing an attack from a neighbouring village. The foremost man of our caravan removed the obstacles; but a woman came out of her house like a fury, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... little by slow, exhausting toil. For these reasons I cannot but look on it as a good omen that the press is circulating among us cheap works, in which much useful knowledge is given of the structure, and functions, and laws of the human body. It is in no small measure through our own imprudence that disease and debility are incurred, and one remedy is to be found in knowledge. Once let the mass of the people be instructed in their own frames; let them understand clearly that disease is not an accident, but has fixed causes, many of which ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of her lawyer seemed to obscure all other issues for the moment. Morton Bassett was annoyed to be kept waiting for an explanation that was clearly due him as her co-defendant; he controlled his irritation with difficulty. Her imprudence in having approached his enemy filled him with forebodings; there was no telling what compromises she might have negotiated with ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... been the Secretary of the Navy in Tyler's Cabinet, was retained by Polk as his Attorney-General, having made earnest appeals that he might not be disturbed. He wrote to an influential friend at Washington that he desired to remain in office on account of his financial wants. "Imprudence amounting to infatuation," he went on to say, "while in Congress, embarrassed me, and I am barely recovering from it. The place is congenial to my feelings, and the salary will assist Virginia land and negroes in educating six daughters. Although I still own a large estate, and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... between his doubts, his convictions, his sympathy for the man and his recoil from the passions he would be only too ready to pardon if he could feel quite sure of their real root and motive. Cumberland may have felt the other's silence, or he may have realised the imprudence of his own fury; for he dropped his hands with an impatient sigh, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Malplaquet was speaking. Her remarks were effective and very much to the point. She upbraided Mortimer with his long and mysterious absences which she attributed to his infatuation for Nur-el-Din and complained bitterly of the dancer's imprudence in consorting openly with notorious folk ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... College debts were about one hundred pounds! Under one hundred pounds I believe to have been the amount of his sinnings; but report exceeded this to something which might have taxed his character beyond imprudence, or mere want of thought. Had he, in addition to his father's simplicity, possessed the worldly circumspection of his mother, he might have avoided these and many other vexations; but he went to the University wholly unprepared for a College ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... to me. This move of yours in coming to see me was an act of great imprudence; however, it is not necessary to assume that you have come here to see me; accept a commission that I will give you for a friend of my family. If you find that it is a little far, let it be the occasion of an absence which shall last as long as you choose, but which ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... sometimes will do,—then his condition may be unfavourable for work; but so will be the condition of a shoemaker who has been similarly imprudent. I have sometimes thought that the inspiration wanted has been the remedy which time will give to the evil results of such imprudence.—Mens sana in corpore sano. The author wants that as does every other workman,—that and a habit of industry. I was once told that the surest aid to the writing of a book was a piece of cobbler's wax on my chair. I ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... in relief. He had been imagining the unimaginable. He had pictured her down in that hell out of which he had just come. He had conceived that she might have followed her uncle into Bridgetown, or committed some other imprudence, and he turned cold from head to foot at the mere thought of what ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... of Scodra's power was a great feather in the cap of the Grand Vizier, who now lost no time in undermining the authority of Hussein. In this he was assisted by the imprudence of the latter, who committed the error of admitting Ali Aga of Stolatz into his confidence, a man who had always adhered to the Sultan, and was distrusted accordingly by his compatriots. Universal as was the partisan warfare in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... detail of the leading events in the battle of Kulm; a victory of which the Austrians, with great justice, make much; which they, the Russians, and Prussians, have equally commemorated by monuments erected on the spot, but for which the imprudence of the French commander is at least as much to be thanked as the sagacity of Colloredo, or the daring of Kleist. It was, with one exception,—the noble resistance of the Russian Guard under Ostermann,—a gross blunder on both sides; it might in its results ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... destiny. In tragedy, the moral law, either as obeyed or violated, above all consequences—its own maintenance or violation constituting the most important of all consequences—forms the ground; the new comedy, and our modern comedy in general, (Shakspeare excepted as before) lies in prudence or imprudence, enlightened or misled self-love. The whole moral system of the entertainment exactly like that of fable, consists in rules of prudence, with an exquisite conciseness, and at the same time an exhaustive fulness of sense. An old critic said that tragedy was the flight or ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the imprudence of saying, "Why should you want it to be different from what was always ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of the troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to support the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed attempts to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... they were double this estimate; and it was suspected at headquarters that their landing might only be a feint to draw off our troops to that side, while the real attack should be made on New York. But the imprudence of running any risks on the Brooklyn side was obvious, and Washington sent over a further reinforcement of four regiments, which appear to have been Wyllys's, Huntington's, and Tyler's of Parsons' brigade (his entire command was there on the next day) together with the Pennsylvania detachments ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... laid on to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of himself, and that through Sancho's imprudence he might miss his own object, said to him, "As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be well to have patience; Rome was not built ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the greatest. There must be men and women now living on the Kentish coast, in whose memory the disastrous wreck of the Melville Castle, with all its attendant horrors, is yet fresh. It is a sorrowful tale, doubly so, inasmuch as acts of imprudence, and still worse, of obstinacy, may be said to have occasioned the loss of four hundred ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... and steadily anticipate the worst. It is not expedient to calculate too far ahead. Of course, the right way in this, as in other things, is the middle way: we are not to run either into the extreme of over-carefulness and anxiety on the one hand, or of recklessness and imprudence on the other. But as mention has been made of faith, it may safely be said that we are forgetful of that rational trust in God which is at once our duty and our inestimable privilege, if we are always looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as to how things ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... the prince. He had remarked the prince and the chevalier together, and full of anxious attention he seemed to try and guess the nature of the remarks which they had just exchanged. The chevalier, whether he had some treacherous object in view, or from imprudence, did not take the trouble to dissimulate. "Count," he said, "you're a man ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her folly and imprudence, until, agonized by the torture of her own reflections, she would sink down in a chair quite exhausted, and burst ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... circumstances, against them, so armed and manned, I fear it will be impossible.—He has already effected more than could have been expected, or perhaps than any commander besides himself could have done. He attributes much to the imprudence, or imbecility of the enemy, whose plan of saving an army he likens to Sterne's marble sheet. However, others are just enough to him, to feel that no faults of the enemy's commander lessen his merit, or obscure ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... his earlier encounter with Berenice—that is, in describing it he had failed to minutely record his behaviour. But in the cool evening air his conscience became alive and he guiltily wondered whether he dare tell his misconduct—no, imprudence? Why not? She regarded him as a possible husband for Berenice—but how embarrassing! He made up his mind to say nothing; when the morrow came he would write Elaine the truth and bid her good-by. He could not in honour continue ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... reader to some remarks of considerable importance with regard to foreign events, before continuing the regular course of history. The predilections of the late King for his German connexions, had led him into war both with France and Spain; the imprudence of ministers, if not the unwise and unjust policy of colonial government, involved the country soon after in a conflict with the American dependencies. In each of these cases expatriated Irishmen turned the scale against the country from which they had been so rashly and cruelly ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... of the scaffold, this was very imprudent of him. It was characteristic of the man—of that impulsiveness which existed in him side by side with his sagacity, with his coolness in intrigue, with his unmerciful and revengeful temper. By my own feelings I understood what an imprudence it was. But he was turning his back on me, and how could I?... His imprudence was so complete that it made for security. He did not, I am sure, remember my existence. I would just as soon have jumped with a dagger upon a man ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... entered the society in all good faith with the idea of studying occult science, raised an energetic protest and a schism took place. Thus, just as in the case of Co-Masonry, the more clear-sighted recognized the imprudence of placing themselves under foreign control. That this was no imaginary danger is shown by a correspondence which had taken place some years earlier and has recently been brought to light. It will be remembered that the great aim of Weishaupt and the Illuminati of the ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... is rather doubtful. Duryodhana seems to say that 'the hostile appearance of Arjuna has been an act of imprudence on his part. The Pandavas, after the expiry of the thirteenth year, would claim their kingdom. I, Duryodhana, may or may not accede to their demand. When, therefore, it was not certain that Arjuna would be refused by me, his hostile appearance is unwise. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... conflagration by turns took place. Parley was the very first whom they attacked. He was overpowered with wounds. As he fell, he cried out, "O my master, I die a victim to my unbelief in thee, and to my own vanity and imprudence. O that the guardians of all other castles would hear me with my dying breath repeat my master's admonition, that all attacks from without will not destroy, unless there is some confederate within. O that the keepers of all other castles would learn from my ruin, that he who parleys with ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... commodiously arranged than this, which was planned and built with utmost precipitation, and in the very heyday of a most tempestuous youth. In one thing only, upon a retrospect at this day of the whole case, there may appear to have been some imprudence, viz. that timber being then at a most unprecedented high price, it is probable that the building cost seven or eight hundred pounds more than it would have done a few years later. Allowing for this one oversight, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... enemy. At the decisive Battle of Naseby we find him performing feats of extraordinary valour; but, as before, his headlong and precipitate fury led him into the usual error; and though the loss of the battle was not to be attributed entirely to his imprudence, yet a little more caution would have altered materially the results of that memorable conflict. Harassed and dispirited, he threw himself with the remainder of his troops into Bristol, intending to defend it to the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... men of men But who was that just man, whom had not Heaven Rescued, had in his righteousness been lost? To whom thus Michael. These are the product Of those ill-mated marriages thou sawest; Where good with bad were matched, who of themselves Abhor to join; and, by imprudence mixed, Produce prodigious births of body or mind. Such were these giants, men of high renown; For in those days might only shall be admired, And valour and heroick virtue called; To overcome in battle, and subdue Nations, and bring home ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... let it always be subordinate to a higher principle. Affection should prompt and impel; discretion ought only to act as a guide, a light, and counsellor, never as an originator and master, in matrimonial concerns. There is a wide chasm between imprudence and rashness in this transaction, and a Stoical sale of the hand, while the heart is ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... sentiments of nearly all the newspapers in the country, of whatsoever shade of politics: "But for that letter the people of this Province might long remain in ignorance of the real motives by which your conduct has been actuated. They might long regard you as a persecuted patriot.... But your imprudence or your vanity has been the means of completely unmasking and placing you before the people of this country in all the naked deformity of an acknowledged traitor. Henceforth you must be content to be regarded as the secret abettor of a heartless conspiracy.... Do not think, Sir, that these ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... accordingly sold his books and clothes, and sallied forth from the college walls the very next day, intending to embark at Cork for—he scarce knew where—America, or any other part beyond sea. With his usual heedless imprudence, however, he loitered about Dublin until his finances were reduced to a shilling; with this amount of specie he set ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... been sacrificed in order to facilitate the return of the workers in stucco whom he had superseded on the Sacro Monte. He may have been goaded into some imprudence which was seized upon as a pretext for shutting him up; at any rate, the fact that when in 1587 he inherited his father's property at Dinant, his trustee (he being expressly stated to be "expatrie") was "datif," "dativus," appointed not by himself ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... shouted too soon; and soon rued the imprudence of raising his arm to strike, when at sword's point ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... proceed as the tension increased—from what did this slightly baffled ingenuity spring but from her consciousness of not presenting, as night closed in, with not so much as a shawl to wrap her round, an appearance that matched her story? She admitted that she was cold, but only to blame her imprudence which Chad suffered her to give such account of as she might. Her shawl and Chad's overcoat and her other garments, and his, those they had each worn the day before, were at the place, best known to themselves—a quiet retreat enough, no doubt—at ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... blessed him a thousand times for the kindness he had done him, and did not fail to express his obligations when the ass had returned. The ass made no reply, so vexed was he at the ill treatment he had received; but he said within himself, "It is by my own imprudence I have brought this misfortune upon myself. I lived happily, every thing smiled upon me; I had all that I could wish; it is my own fault that I am brought to this miserable condition; and if I cannot contrive some way to get out of it, I am certainly undone." As he spoke, his strength was so much ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... are like those unpleasant persons who are resolved to torture themselves. In the first place, you have looked into medical books, which is the very height of imprudence. I defy you to read a description of any sort of disease without fancying that either you or some friends of yours have the symptoms of it. In the next place, you are mixing up things; the effects of fear and of a ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... true, and such an act of imprudence can only be explained, by the confidence on which he relied that the identification could never have been thought of. At twenty-one conscience speaks louder than experience. But if we can justify the accusation ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was paralysed. The dunce became suddenly important—a symbol of the decorum he had been outraging. His soul, torn so abruptly from history to romance, could not get up the right emotion. Why this imprudence of Winifred's? She had been so ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Zuleika suffered but slightly for the imprudence and headlong devotion of her lover. Fearing gossip, the Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart suppressed the matter, and the Count of Monte-Cristo never heard of it. Zuleika expected ridicule from her companions, but the warm-blooded, romantic Italian girls, instead of ridiculing ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... If there is a burning feeling in the stomach as well as the heavy load, without eructations and rising of fluid, Arsenicum should be alternated with the Nux. Vom., at intervals of two hours. There are persons who, from imprudence in eating or drinking or both, or which is more frequent, from harsh drug medication, have so enfeebled their stomachs, that, though by care in selecting their food, and prudence in taking it, they may suffer but little, are, nevertheless, when ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... de Listomere rose, about half-past two in the afternoon of that day, her waiting-maid, Caroline, gave her a letter which she read while Caroline was doing her hair (an imprudence which many young women are ...
— Study of a Woman • Honore de Balzac
... had suffered death was traced by the Governor to the imprudence and guilty connivance of the masters, or to the irregular methods of payment long interdicted by the crown; such as cattle, allotments, or a portion of time. The executive council professed to follow up these evils through every stage of ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... that Clemence, seeing and understanding the doctor's imprudence, had sallied out with the resolve to set some person on his track. We have said that she went in search of her master. Him she met, and though she could not really count him one of the doctor's friends, yet, rightly believing in his humanity, she told him the matter. He set off ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... conciliatory as it was firm and sincere, evincing that he knew his duty and was resolved to perform it, and yet his principal object and purpose was peace. He was perfectly successful, when the least imprudence might have resulted in ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... been many Englishmen brought by commanders of their own country, to serve the Venetians for pay, against the Turks; and those English, by irregularities, and imprudence, committed such offences as brought them into prisons, and exposed them to work in gallies. Wotton could not be an unconcerned spectator of the miseries of his countrymen: their offences he knew proceeded rather from wantonness, and intemperance, than any real principles of dishonour; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... at Kunz's door; for in spite of his friendship for Schulz it did not go so far as to make him commit the imprudence of accompanying Schulz outside the village, and even to the end of the road by which he would have had to come back alone in the dark. It was arranged that Kunz should dine on the morrow with Schulz. Schulz looked anxiously ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... considered a calamitous indiscretion that he was to be pardoned for the ebullition of relief and joy that followed. Had she drawn a revolver and fired angrily at him he could not have been more astounded. But, to actually throw a kiss to him—to meet his imprudence in the same spirit that had inspired it! Too much to believe! In the midst of his elation, however, there came a reminder that she did not expect to see him again, that she was playing with him, that it was a merry jest and not a heartache ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... defend himself at home. This indeed he did so well, by insisting on the figure and outward appearance of the count and his equipage, that Wild at length grew a little more gentle, and with a sigh said, "I confess I have the least reason of all mankind to censure another for an imprudence of this nature, as I am myself the most easy to be imposed upon, and indeed have been so by this count, who, if he be insolvent, hath cheated me of five hundred pounds. But, for my own part," said he, "I will not yet despair, nor would I have you. Many ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... increased by our having a crazy ship, and being short of provisions and every other necessary; yet the distinction of a first discoverer made us cheerfully encounter every danger, and submit to every inconvenience; and we chose rather to incur the censure of imprudence and temerity, which the idle and voluptuous so liberally bestow upon unsuccessful fortitude and perseverance, than leave a country which we had discovered unexplored, and give colour to a charge of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the persons you speak of, 'Who have rent churches in pieces, by making preaching by method, doctrine, reason and use, to be anti-christian': Or, because they could not have other ministrations performed after their fancies 'the imprudence of such with yourselves, hath been heart-breaking to many a gracious soul; an high occasion of stumbling to the weak, and a reproach to the ways of the Lord.' That it may be prudently shunned, I referred you then for proof, to what should be offered after: but at this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... independent man lives for years on the bounty of an erring woman, whom at last he exposes and deserts. This high-minded idealizer of friendship quarrels with every man who seeks to extricate him from the consequences of his own imprudence. This affectionate lover refuses a seat at his table to the woman with whom he lives and who is the mother of his children. This proud republican accepts a pension from King George III., and lives in the houses of aristocratic admirers without ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... contumely, and calumny, have been heaped upon me in profuse measure; and domestic conspiracy and legal oppression have violated in my person the most sacred rights of nature and humanity. The bigot will say it was the recompense of my errors—the man of the world will call it the result of my imprudence: but never upon ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... the faint light, which, issuing from the window, fell upon him. Of all things he hated treachery, and La Riviere was his first physician. At this very time, as I well knew, he was treating his Majesty for a slight derangement, which the King had brought upon himself by his imprudence. This doctor had formerly been in the employment of the Bouillon family, who had surrendered his services to the King. Neither I nor his Majesty had trusted the Duke of Bouillon for the last year past, so that we were not surprised ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... your infinite credit in all men's eyes. But mark, if with all your energy and zeal you fail, or if you pass into a leaderette in some Freemason journal, and your zeal is held up as fanaticism and your energy as imprudence, the whole world will regard you as a hot-headed young fool, and will ask with rage and white lips, What is the Bishop doing in allowing these young men to take the reins into their own hands and drive the chariot of the sun? It is as ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... well,' as we are told, was written on the 17th of March, and accidentally found its way into the newspapers at this time 'through the imprudence of a friend whom he allowed to take a copy.' These 'imprudent friends' have all along been such a ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it had been made so cheerfully that the consciousness of it never clouded his life with his mother; but her self-effacement made him the more alive to his own obligations, and having placed her in a difficult situation he had always been careful not to increase its difficulties by any imprudence in his conduct toward his employers. Yet, grave as these considerations were, they were really less potent than his personal desire to remain at Westmore. Lightly as he had just resolved to risk the chance of dismissal, all his future was bound up in ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... high-minded, Henry stood in strong contrast to his more famous brother. But the tragedy of Pontefract and his unsatisfied claim on the Lancaster earldom stood between Henry and the government, and the imprudence of the Despensers soon utterly estranged him from the king, though he was the last man to indulge in indiscriminate opposition, and Edward dared not push his powerful cousin to extremities. In these circumstances, the king had no wise or strong advisers ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... drunkenness, but not prohibit all use of wine to all; for, if the cura drinks wine, why should not the Indian drink it in moderation? Let him not pour out the wine or break the wine-jars; for who has given him any authority for that? Because of some of these acts of imprudence, certain foolish laymen say that the ministers who come from Europa to become martyrs, become more than ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... that your respected parent has yet to be made acquainted with sundry lively doings of your own, which you would rather, I believe, keep from his ears at present; you likewise are aware that if any thing happens to the serious injury of the bank through your imprudence—your inheritance from that respected parent would be dearly purchased for a shilling. I shall be sorry to hurt your feelings, or your pocket. I have no wish to do it; but depend upon me, sir, your father shall be a wiser man to-night, if you are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... I had to pass through Bettina's closet, and seeing her dress handy on the bed I took it into my head to search her pockets. I found a small note, and recognizing Cordiani's handwriting, I took possession of it to read it in my room. I marvelled at the girl's imprudence, for her mother might have discovered it, and being unable to read would very likely have given it to the doctor, her son. I thought she must have taken leave of her senses, but my feelings may be appreciated when I read the following words: ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... opposite corner of the vehicle, a young man of good, if somewhat peculiar appearance, and extremely well dressed. Madame Mildau instantly took in all the disadvantages of her situation, and, overwhelmed by the imprudence of her conduct, exclaimed in a tone in which dignity and terror struggled ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... his bones into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, 'Minoret is a thief!' Yes, I'll burst him like a gun—There! we're allies now by the imprudence of that outbreak! If you choose I'll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet's pardon and tell her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand must promise on his honor not ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... cried to him in her distress, he did her bidding and bore her away to Rome. He tells the story of their flight, and tells it with extraordinary beauty and vehemence in her defence. So noble is the tale that he convinces the judges who at first had disbelieved him; and the Pope confesses that his imprudence was a higher good than priestly prudence would have been. When he makes his defence he has heard that Pompilia has been murdered. Then we understand that in his conversion to goodness he has not lost but gained ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... confidence in my cause, which led me to the imprudence or wantonness which I have been instancing, also laid me open, not unfairly, to the opposite charge of fierceness in certain steps which I took, or words which I published. In the Lyra Apostolica, I have said that, before learning to love, we must "learn ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... defend the freedom of the press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and want of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile, the race he hated sat again upon ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... the river for Detroit, knowing that, twenty miles before reaching there, she must pass near the British Fort Malden, on the Detroit River covering Amherstburg; and this while the British had local naval superiority. In taking this risk, the very imprudence of which testifies the importance of water transportation to Detroit, Hull directed his aids to forward his baggage by the same conveyance; and with it, contrary to his intention, were despatched also his official ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... he was somewhat piqued at the manner in which his efforts towards a more friendly understanding were received, and hastened to close the correspondence by a short note, saying that his Lordship had made him feel the imprudence he was guilty of in wandering from the point immediately in discussion between them. This drew immediately from Lord Byron the ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Ridsdale had known it, his anger would have been without bounds; if Miss Carleton had guessed it, she would have been too shocked ever to have admitted Miss Arleigh in her doors again. How came she there? It was the old story of girlish imprudence, of girlish romance and folly, of a vivid imagination and bright, warm poetical fancy wrongly influenced and led astray. Much may be forgiven her, for lovely Marion Arleigh, one of the richest heiresses in England, was an orphan. No mother's love had taught her wisdom. She had no memory of a ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... our sympathy for them? The longing for admiration is but one side of love. No, no; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for! That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which prove a generous self-sacrifice, but those which our vices or our imprudence have called forth. Ah! if I could speak aloud to those who, when passing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man whose excesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, 'What have you done with your eyes?' ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... necessarily involved the idea of conferring honor upon the subject, that bust had all the prestige of a statue overlooking a public square. Hemerlingue, even yellower than usual, inwardly accused himself of bungling and imprudence. But how could he have suspected such a thing? He had been assured that the bust was not finished. And, indeed, it had arrived that very morning, and seemed overjoyed to be there, quivering with gratified pride, expressing contempt for its enemies with the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... is that when injustice and evil are rampant, let us have no palliation, no weakness disguising itself as a virtue. What we cannot at once resist, we can always repudiate. To ignore these things is the worst form of imprudence—an imprudence which we, for our part at least, take the occasion ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney |
