"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obvious that in the interest of mankind the war ought not to cease until Germany is convinced that her ambition for empire in Europe and the world cannot be gratified. Deutschland ueber alles can survive as a shout of patriotic enthusiasm; but as a maxim of international policy it is dead already, and should be buried out of the sight ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and distribution of articles, his interest lay in the causes necessary to produce healthy, happy workmen. It seemed to him that the manufacture "of souls" ought to be "exceedingly lucrative." This statement and his maxim, "There is no wealth but life," were called "unscientific." In his fine book of essays, entitled Sesame and Lilies (1864), he actually had printed in red those pathetic pages describing how an old cobbler and his son worked night and day to try to keep a little home ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... sensible boy. Cut your coat according to your cloth. That is a good maxim. When you get older, you can live better. Now, about your salary. I can't give much at first, or my other clerks might complain. I will give you five dollars, the same that I pay to ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... journal of 1639, is disposed to draw an evil augury for the mission from the fact that as yet no priest had been put to death, inasmuch as it is a received maxim that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. [ 1 ] He consoles himself with the hope that the daily life of the missionaries may be accepted as a living martyrdom; since abuse and threats without end, the smoke, fleas, filth, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... it be pointed out to us. It is useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who most need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is presented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to believe in its existence. 'No simplicity of mind,' says Professor Clifford, 'no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... Friendship and Favour. These indeed, as well from the Homage that is accepted from them, as the hopes which are given to them, are become a Sort of Creditors; and these Debts, being Debts of Honour, ought, according to the accustomed Maxim, to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... of a triclinium was three couches, placed on three sides of a square table, each containing three persons, in accordance with the favorite maxim, that a party should not consist of more than the Muses nor of fewer than the Graces, not more than nine nor less than three. Where such numbers were entertained, couches must have been placed along the sides ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... middle life—might greatly and suddenly increase the maritime empire of Germany, using means which are by no means unprecedented, historically, but which would certainly arouse vehement wrath in the United States, and subject to a severe test our maxim of a navy for defence only. There is a large and growing German colony in southern Brazil, and I am credibly informed that there is a distinct effort to divert thither, by means direct and indirect, a considerable part of the emigration which now comes to the United States, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... God and nature have bestowed upon you a sound mind, and an active body; and if you properly apply these inestimable blessings, there is no doubt of your becoming a useful member of society, and of your making a respectable figure in the world. But never forget the maxim that I now lay down for your future guidance; recollect that 'a man can never dirt his hands about his own business;' and always bear in mind these three old Italian proverbs—first, 'Never do that by proxy, which ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... posterity, as a capital which can never receive fresh accessions. For metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as determined by these principles. To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may justly ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... an easy shot. Yet the bullet went several inches above the obligingly waiting dog's back. Nine men out of ten, shooting by moonlight or by flashlight, aim too high. The thief had heard this old marksman-maxim fifty times. But, like most hearers of maxims, he had forgotten it at the one time in his speckled career when it might have been of ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... that the 'status belli' is the natural relation between the people and the government, and that it is prudent to secure the result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first instance? Alas! the policy of the maxim is on a level with its honesty. The Philistines had put out the eyes of Samson, and thus, as they thought, fitted him to drudge ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... is best known for his contribution to the abolition of human slavery in the United States. Yet his service to mankind is not fully appraised by the average American, because many of the younger generation are unaware of his aid to agriculture. His maxim about farmers' failing to till the most valuable part of their farms underneath, opening the eyes of agriculturists to the efficacy of sub-soil plowing, was the preamble to freeing American husbandry from the slavery ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... between Church and State, in which kings and (p. 003) emperors had bitten the dust. With every epithet of contumely and scorn he trampled under foot the jurisdiction of him who was believed to hold the keys of heaven and hell. Borrowing in practice the old maxim of Roman law, cujus regio, ejus religio,[19] he placed himself in the seat of authority in religion and presumed to define the faith of which Leo had styled him defender. Others have made themselves despots by their mastery of many legions, through the agency of a secret police, or by ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... season for courtship, is also borrowed from the Roman pagans, which, had these fanatics been aware of it, would have been an additional reason for their anathema against the practice. The ancients have given us as a maxim, that it is only bad women who marry ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... asserts that the execution is not fine enough to be the master's own, and would rank it—with the "Judith" at St. Petersburg—in the category of contemporary copies after lost originals. This view is apparently based on the dangerous maxim that where the execution of a picture is inferior to the conception, the work is presumably a copy. But two points must be borne in mind, the actual condition of the picture, and the character of the ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... income varied very greatly. Mr. Gubbins, in his paper, puts the number at about 2,000. It was the custom to employ the members of this minor class of aristocracy very largely in filling the official positions in the shogun's government. Indeed, it was held as a common maxim, that the offices should be filled by poor men rather than by rich.(234) The gokenin, numbering about 5,000, were still another class who were inferior to the hatamoto. They had small incomes, and were mostly employed in subordinate positions. Beneath these again stood the ordinary ...
— Japan • David Murray
... Second, though he passed his youth in the school of adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the following one—take care of yourself, and never do an action, either good or bad, which is likely to bring you into any great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up to as soon as he came to the throne. He was a Papist, but took especial care not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed, till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Wherever a citizen stands guard, the country stands guard with him: to-day it is the turn of the one, to-morrow of the other. When danger and devotion are common, flight is parricide. No one has the right to flee from danger; no one can serve as a scapegoat. The maxim of Caiaphas—IT IS RIGHT THAT A MAN SHOULD DIE FOR HIS NATION—is that of the populace and of tyrants; the two extremes of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... ernstes Fuehren—the strenuous conduct of life—was in reality, as he himself claimed, an imperative instinct of his nature. Certainly he did not regulate his life in Strassburg in accordance with the maxim of his self-chosen counsellor, yet we may conjecture that but for Salzmann's restraining influence he would have gone further and faster than he actually did. In the extremity of what was to be his most passionate experience in Strassburg, it was to Salzmann that he poured ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Robert found the hawk-like glance concentrated on himself. 'But I like to give his remark a much wider extension. One may make it a maxim of general experience, and take it as fitting all the fools with a mission who have teased our generation—all your Kingsleys, and Maurices, and Ruskins—every one bent upon making any sort of aimless commotion, which may serve him both as an investment ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... about that," said Mr. Ringgan; "that depends upon the way you take things. 'Tain't always the men that make the most noise that are the most good in the world. Humdrum affairs needn't be humdrum in the doing of 'em. It is my maxim," said the old gentleman, looking at his companion with a singularly open, pleasant smile, "that a man may be great about a'most anything chopping wood, if he happens to be in that line. I used to go upon that plan, Sir. Whatever I have set my hand to do, I have done it as well as ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness. General rules will bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty. After he had said that, he commonly drew up his feet on the sofa, like a man that has disposed of a business, and betook himself to a nap, or the newspaper, as ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... heard an English maxim," wrote Colonel De Grapion to his kinsman, "which I would recommend you to put into practice—'Fight ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... who accepted them. The place where we should draw the line between independence and deference, between essentials and non-essentials, between great ideas and little courtesies, will probably never be determined—except by actual examples. Yet it is safe to fall back on Miss Edgeworth's maxim in "Helen," that "Every one who makes goodness disagreeable commits high treason against virtue." And it is not a pleasant result of our good deeds, that others should be immediately driven into bad deeds by the burning ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... subject matter. This is the maxim of a book, "ber die Dummheit''[1] (1886), one of the wisest ever written. The same axiomatic proposition must dominate every legal task, but especially every task of criminal law. It is possible to read thousands upon thousands of testimonies and to make again this identical, fatiguing, contrary ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... upon by government as the very man to command a vessel fitted out to cruise against the pirates, since he knew all their haunts and lurking-places: acting upon the shrewd old maxim of "setting a rogue to catch a rogue." Kidd accordingly sailed from New York in the Adventure galley, gallantly armed and duly commissioned, and steered his course to the Madeiras, to Bonavista, to Madagascar, and cruised at the entrance of the Red Sea. Instead, however, of making ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... no play don't agree with nobody. That's my maxim. Well, good night, ladies!" As he shuffled off, accompanied to the door by Fanny, he said in an undertone: "It's O.K., Fan—I put it to her good and hard—it's you for mine, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. So cherish no alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun—"Be thou, old ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the harbours of Brest and Baltimore; and I might add that the Irish Wool being transported would soon ruin the English Clothing Manufacture. Hence it is that all Your Majesty's Predecessors have kept close to this fundamental maxim of retaining Ireland inseparably united to ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... it was indeed improper, upon others where it was only irregular. It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed in the cure of evils which are closely connected with the cause of our prosperity. Perhaps this great person turned his eyes somewhat less than was just towards the incredible increase of the fair trade, and looked with something of too ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... captain had caught this word from a recent treatise against agrarianism, and having an acquired taste for orders in one sense, at least, he flattered himself with being what is called a Conservative, in other words, he had a strong relish for that maxim of the Scotch freebooter, which is rendered into English by the comely aphorism of "keep what you've got, and get what ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... himself with a mere bow at our introduction. Much to my wonder how he came by the information he displayed, he made me a little speech after the manner of Louis XIV. to a provincial noble, studiously modelled upon that royal maxim of urbane policy which instructs a king that he should know something of the birth, parentage, and family of his meanest gentleman. It was a little speech in which my father's learning and my uncle's services and the amiable qualities ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with exactions which never came to an end, and with wars which had not now even the merit of being successful. It is estimated that although the Italian troops amply proved the truth of Alfieri's maxim, that 'the plant man is more vigorous in Italy than elsewhere,' by bearing the hardships and resisting the cold in Russia better than the soldiers of any other nationality, nevertheless 26,000 Italians were ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... great deal of philosophy in that maxim: a preacher couldn't say as much in a sermon an hour long, as there is in that little story with that little moral reflection at the eend ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was, I'd have you know, Something of a boxing pro., So he knew the golden maxim: "He who eyes his man best whacks him." Shorty, when he saw the grim Optic that was turned on him, Thinking Jimmy's fist looked hard Prudently remained on guard. Canny Hun! And who can blame Longshanks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... removed to a house situated nearer his command, General Sullivan, attracted, no doubt, by the superior comfort of the old country-seat, laid himself open to similar correction by his chief. In these two cases it will be seen Washington enforced his own maxim that a general should ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... at a disadvantage and destroying it. The big-game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive genius can produce. It is said that in Wyoming the Maxim silencer is now being used. England has produced a weapon of a new type, called "the scatter rifle," which is intended for use on ducks. The best binoculars are used in searching out the game, and horses carry the hunters and guides as near as possible to the game. For bears, baits are freely ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... question of liberty as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that 'all men are created equal' a self-evident truth; but now, when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the maxim 'a self-evident lie.' ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... assumed as if they emerged full-blown in the consciousness of man. In training to godliness, again, Christian dogma was ready to his hand. In the department of knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of the outer world, Comenius rested his method on the scholastic maxim, "Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu." This maxim he enriched with the Baconian induction, comprehended by him, however, only in a general way. It was chiefly, however, the imagined ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... one of their good traits. People who never leave their homes cannot know much. A person may become well-informed by reading, but his practical knowledge cannot be compared with that of a person who has travelled. We Chinese are great sinners in this regard. A Chinese maxim says, "It is dangerous to ride on horseback or to go on a voyage": hence until very recently we had a horror of going abroad. A person who remains all his life in his own town is generally narrow-minded, self-opinioned, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... sorry to see a parody or parallel to this French manual introduced into our schools. At the same time we think there is something to be learnt from studying it. Our neighbours seem to have in some respect learnt better than ourselves the maxim of Horace:— ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... knew two maxims of British law applicable to his race, and these he had learned by experience. One maxim was "Shoot 'em" and the other ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... those who do wrong, and uphold those who do right. He must lay aside the old adage that you must never do anything against your own color. If a man is my color, and he is wrong, I am against him. If a man is my color and he is right, I am for him. Let the Negro adopt this as a maxim, and justice in the courts of the South is his, now ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... statesman, Talleyrand, is supposed to have said: words are merely to conceal thoughts. It may be that it was true respecting the diplomacy of his century, but I cannot imagine a maxim less suited to the present day. The millions who are fighting, whether in the trenches or behind the lines, wish to know why and wherefore they are fighting. They have a right to know why peace, which all the world is longing for, ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... brought his children up to be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those duties. He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid of them, forgot about them completely. The old man's maxim was Apres moi le deluge. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism. 'The world may burn for aught I care, so long as I am all right,' and he was all right; he was content, he was eager to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Mr. Fox questions the abstract truth of this position, and adds,—"General positions of all kinds ought to be very cautiously admitted; indeed, on subjects so infinitely complex and mutable as politics and commerce, a wise man hesitates at giving too implicit a credit to any general maxim of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... Annonay, and beyond the fact that machines have been invented which can lift themselves into the sky, very little progress has been really made. Perhaps the most important of these inventions are those of Professor Langley and Sir Hiram Maxim. After many years of labour, Professor Langley of Washington succeeded, on May 6th, 1896, in launching his flying machine from the shores of the Potomac. The broad sails, or 'aeroplanes,' as they are called, cleaved the air like the wings of a bird, and kept up a steady ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... To understand this maxim aright, we must go back to the oppressive regime of ancient society. Quesnay's formula was, first of all, a protest against the restraints which hampered the free development of labor. But it did not tend to abrogate the office of legislator, nor to deprive ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Henrietta carried about by Beatrice, grandmamma, or Fred, and willing to oblige them all, had little idea how applicable to her case was his general maxim, nor indeed did she at the moment take it to herself, although it was one day to return upon her. It brought them to the neat cottage of the carpenter, with the thatched workshop behind, and the garden in front, which would ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the equivalent of Maxim's of Paris. The great place for luxurious entertainments, it opens its doors at twilight, and does not close them till the small hours are well advanced. When evening falls, the scene grows animated: business men and women of pleasure crowd the rooms. Gradually the crowd assumes a cosmopolitan ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... "I will sew this feather in your hunting-cap, and then trust you, my own dear husband, to God's keeping; but though I know he could take care of you without it, yet I remember my dear father used to say that we were never to neglect the use of all lawful means for our safety. His maxim was, 'Trust like a child, but work like a man'; for we must help ourselves if we hope to succeed, and not expect miracles to be wrought on our behalf, while we quietly fold our arms and do nothing." "Dear ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... but appears to have no idea of retribution beyond this life; and although in his works the existence of a superior power is admitted, and he even says, in one instance, "Imperial Heaven has no kindred to serve, and will only assist Virtue," yet a favorite maxim of his, "Respect the gods, but keep them at a distance," proves that he considered the superior influences as having but ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... for a little quiet home, are very pathetic. But she never allowed her anxieties to affect her intercourse in the household; on the contrary, no one was more full of life and good humor than she. Her favorite maxim was: "Bravely to meet our trials is true heroism; to bear them cheerfully, an exhibition of strength and fortitude infinitely beyond trying to get rid ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... counsel, thought I, and worth bearing in mind. It was true, my very journey itself was, as to its foolhardy purpose, a violation of the first maxim. But that could not be helped now, and I could at least heed that piece of advice, as well as the others, in the details of my mission. When I thought of that mission, I felt both foolish and heavy-hearted. I had not the faintest idea yet ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... bird-dealer's esteem. The birds all seemed to recognize a friend in him; and even those which were but partially tamed, and were gentle only with Andreas himself, would perch willingly upon his hand. With Andreas it long had been a maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of human character, and the testimonial thus given to Lud-wig's worth counted with him for a great deal—as did also the quite converse opinion of the birds in regard to the young Herr Strauss: from whom, notwithstanding his training in the ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... had simply remained adjusted to a stable environment. There had been no call upon the adaptability which was his. But whensoever the call came, being so constituted, it was manifest that he should adapt, should adjust himself to the unwonted pressure of new conditions. The maxim of the rolling stone may be all true; but notwithstanding, in the scheme of life, the inability to become fixed is an excellence par excellence. Though he did not know it, this inability was Vance Corliss's most ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Scuddy—wind, and wave, and the power of man. It had been the 16th of April when he was rescued from the devouring sea; some days had been spent by the leisurely Dutchman in providing fresh supplies, and the stout bark's favourite maxim seemed to be, "the more haste the less speed." Baffling winds and a dead calm helped to second this philosophy, and the first week of June was past before they swung to their moorings in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of "training" her children. From "Dodd's" earliest infancy he had been used to this sort of thing. His mother believed in the maxim, "spare the rod and spoil the child," and this was her method of endeavoring to fulfill both the spirit and the letter of the precept. There was always a small, brittle switch behind the clock, and ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Halifax from his own elaborate study of Charles II. It is a prolonged analysis by a man of clear vision, and perfect balance of judgement, and no prepossessions; who was, moreover, master of the easy pellucid style that tends to maxim and epigram. A more impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected. In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so much a character in the accepted sense of the word as a scientific investigation of a personality. Others try to make us see ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... The leg. He will take away—what? The neck. What then will he not chain and not take away? The will. This is why the ancients taught the maxim, Know thyself. Therefore we ought to exercise ourselves in small things, and beginning with them to proceed to the greater. I have pain in the head. Do not say, Alas! I have pain in the ear. Do not say alas! And I do not say that you are not allowed to groan, but do ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... prisoners to be quartered and hung upon trees, which was much disapproved of by his officers, who, either from humanity or a motive of self-interest, urged him not to give the enemy a pretence for retaliating by similar cruelties. But Quinones obstinately adhered to an old maxim of endeavouring to conquer by means of terror, and was deaf to all their remonstrances. We are ignorant of the loss sustained by the Spaniards in this battle, but it must have been considerable, as Arauco and Canete were both immediately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... with this. He has a typically homely way of expressing it by one of his favorite maxims, one that he loves to repeat encouragingly to friends who are in difficulties themselves or who know of the difficulties that are his; and this heartening maxim is, "Trust in God and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... of platinum are the electricians, particularly the incandescent light companies. I supply the platinum wire for both the Edison and the Maxim companies, and the quantity they require so constantly increases that the demand threatens to exceed the supply of the metal. Sheets of platinum are bought by chemists, who have them converted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... Denmark, the Hanseatic cities, Prussia, in Europe, and with the Republics of Colombia and of Central America, in this hemisphere. The mutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges upon the navigation and commercial intercourse between the parties is the general maxim which characterizes them all. There is reason to expect that it will at no distant period be adopted by other nations, both of Europe and America, and to hope that by its universal prevalence ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... difficulty about concluding a perpetual treaty of peace, and indeed of alliance, between the high contracting powers, whose history has hitherto been little more than a record of continual warfare. But if the great Chancellor's maxim, "Do ut des," is to form the basis of negotiation, I am afraid that secular science will be ruined; for it seems to me that theology, under the generous impulse of a sudden conversion, has given all that she hath; ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of Zebedee aspired to this rank. Preoccupied with such a thought, they prompted their mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside, and asked him for the two places of honor for her sons.[2] Jesus evaded the request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall be humbled, and that the kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the lowly. This created some disturbance in the community; there was great discontent against James and John.[3] The same rivalry appears to show itself in the Gospel of John, where ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... "particulam universitatis" and "infinitatis," a parcel of that which is the universality and the infinity inself; and Plato, but a shadow of God. But the other to prove the world's eternity, urgeth this maxim, "that, a sufficient and effectual cause being granted, an answerable effect thereof is also granted": inferring that God being forever a sufficient and effectual cause of the world, the effect of the cause should also have been forever; ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... a maxim—'Revenge is sweet.' In rural, as well as in other life, there are things said and done which are more or less ungenerous. These, if at any time they came my way, I repelled as best I might. But I did not stop here; whether such ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... peculiar trace of trust and innocence. Send your boys to sea and the sailors will educate them, is a safe maxim. But Nelson was an exception, for even in his boyhood he had held little converse with his mates, and in the frolics on shore he took no part. Physically he was too weak to meet them on a level, and so he pitted his brain against their brawn. He studied and grubbed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... as he spoke, he remembered that it had long been a professional maxim of his that nothing was incredible, ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... the ordinary personal conduct of individuals are to be entrenched in this way, one of the first conditions of respect for law necessarily falls to the ground. That practical maxim which is always appealed to, and rightly appealed to, in behalf of an unpopular law—the maxim that if the law is bad the way to get it repealed is to obey it and enforce it—loses its validity. If a majority cannot repeal the law—if it is perfectly conceivable, and even probable, that ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... answered Paul. "I maintain that the old maxim of 'early to bed' says something on that score, as well as on that ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... include all persons in authority who oppose the work of the papal church or order. The question has been much discussed, Jesuits always taking the negative side, whether the Jesuits have taught that 'the end justifies the means.' It may not be possible to find this maxim in these precise words in Jesuit writings; but that they have always taught that for the 'greater glory of God,' identified by them with the extension of Roman Catholic (Jesuit) influence, the principles of ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... or coats that do not come very far below the hip-line, can be worn becomingly by elderly ladies, neither emphasizing their years nor making them appear too frivolously attired. There is a smack of truth in the maxim, As a woman grows old the dress material should increase in richness and decrease in brightness. Handsome brocades, soft, elegant silks, woollen textures, and velvets are eminently suitable and becoming to women who are ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... Africa. Six crowded weeks were behind us since the disastrous one of Colenso, and with it the news of the formation of the C.I.V., and the incorporation in that regiment of a battery to be supplied by the Honourable Artillery Company, with four quick-firing Vickers-Maxim guns. Then came the hurried run over from Ireland, the application for service, as a driver, the week of suspense, the joy of success, the brilliant scene of enlistment before the Lord Mayor, and the abrupt change one raw January ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... necessary? Solomon, who, from his great knowledge of herbs, must have been no mean practitioner for his day, tells us that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine;" and universal experience has confirmed the truth of his maxim. Hence it is, doubtless, that we have so many anecdotes of facetious doctors, distributing their pills and jokes together, shaking at the same time the contents of their vials and the sides of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... those about him. Right well he knows how to reward the expectations of his soldiers, when by the extra toil which makes the difference they have achieved success; so that in his school all have laid to heart that maxim, 'Pain first and pleasure after.' (10) And in regard to pleasure of the senses, of all men I know, he is the most continent; so that these also are powerless to make him idle at the expense of duty. You must consider the ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... and his teaching led to the foundation of the Medical School of the Methodists. His most important maxim was that a cure should be effected "tuto, celeriter, ac jucunde," and he believed that what the physician could do was of primary importance, and vis medicatrix naturae only secondary. He was thus directly opposed to the teaching of Hippocrates. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... enters Faust's famulus, or assistant, Wagner. He has heard Faust's voice and from its excited tones has concluded that he is practising declamation—reciting perhaps a Greek play. The poor amiable dryasdust literary and scientific worm-grubber, whose maxim of life is Zwar weiss ich viel, doch moecht' ich Alles wissen (I know indeed a good deal, but I want to know Everything), wishes to profit from a lesson in elocution. A scene follows in which the contrast is graphically ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... obstinately and wilfully wrong—have occasionally interfered with the success of negotiations. But this is one of the evils inseparable from a free government. The French court, from the death of Louis XIV., was anxious to pursue a pacific policy, to improve their marine, and to pursue Colbert's maxim, that a long war was not for the benefit of France. But the democratic party, which had been formed before the death of Louis XV., employed diplomatic agents at every court to upset and overturn the pacific policy of that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Chinese battalions, recruited from Chinese labourers employed behind the military lines while Russia was in the war, may be responsible for some of the "executions" which have taken place. The Bolshevist emissary, Maxim Litvinoff, pooh-poohs all stories of massacres. It is generally the dregs of the Chinese population who are recruited for labour gangs abroad; and if "removals" of "counter-revolutionaries" can be accomplished by Chinese battalions, the Bolsheviks ...
— Bolshevism: A Curse & Danger to the Workers • Henry William Lee
... maxim of sound policy, that actions only are a proper subject of punishment,—that to treat men as offenders for their words, their intentions, or their opinions, is not justice, but tyranny. But there ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... deserving of punishment. But then, this line of argument would equally tell against the publication of unsettling opinions after his death, as against publishing them during his life-time. Apres moi le deluge, is not an elevated maxim; yet the only other principle upon which his mode of proceeding admits of explanation is, that he wrote his last works in the spirit of a soured and disappointed man, who had been in turn the betrayer and betrayed of every party with which ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... of equal importance, that our colleges should be furnished with the materials of study. It was a significant maxim, I think of Juvenal, that it is a great part of learning to know where learning may be found. For, after ascertaining the place of treasure, it is usual to feel the kindling desire of acquisition, and the mind at once receives a corresponding ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... phenomena. In point of fact, to G.K.C. everybody is either a contemporary or a Victorian, and "I also was born a Victorian." Little Dorrit sets him talking about Gissing, Hard Times suggests Herbert Spencer, American Notes leads to the mention of Maxim Gorky, and elsewhere Mr. George Moore and Mr. William Le Queux are brought in. If Chesterton happened to be writing about Dickens at a time when there was a certain amount of feeling about on the subject of rich Jews on the Rand, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... "Why really," says he, "it is of the same nature, and I will proceed (asking your leave) with the same plainness as before; it is about your poor savages yonder, who are, as I may say, your conquered subjects. It is a maxim, Sir, that is, or ought to be received among all Christians, of what church, or pretended church soever, viz. that Christian knowledge ought to be propagated by all possible means, and on all possible occasions. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... precise idea of the words "heirs of her body;" which in a legal sense comprize only certain of her lineal descendants. Lastly, where words are clearly repugnant in two laws, the later law takes place of the elder: leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant is a maxim of universal law, as well as of our own constitutions. And accordingly it was laid down by a law of the twelve tables at Rome, quod populus postremum ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... is the concern of all,' is a maxim that would be put into practise. 'All for one and one for all' would be acted out in all the business of life, for all are Divine. All persons in office would see how best they can serve the public, instead of seeing, as is done now, how best they ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... the little things that direct the currents of activity, the little things that alone really reveal the intimate depths of personality. De minimis non curat lex. But against that dictum of human law one may place the Elder Pliny's maxim concerning natural law: Nusquam magis quam in minimis tota est Natura. For in the sphere of Nature's Laws it is only the minimal things that are worth caring about, the least things in the world, mere specks on the Walls of Life, as it seems to you. ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... theory of eloquence. We have seen that many of the orators received lessons from Greek rhetoricians. We have seen also the deep attraction which rhetoric possessed over the Roman mind. It was, so to speak, the form of thought in which their intellectual creations were almost all cast. Such a maxim as that attributed to Scaevola, Fiat iustitia: ruat caelum, is not legal but rhetorical. The plays of Attius owed much of their success to the ability with which statement was pitted against counter-statement, plea against plea. The philosophic ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... knows his teaching, this is not surprising. Some of his aphorisms are very practical. While the expressions just quoted with regard to Galen and Aristotle might seem to indicate that Rhazes was absolutely wedded to authority, there is another well-known maxim of his which shows how much he thought of the value of experience and observation. "Truth in medicine," he said, "is a goal which cannot be absolutely reached, and the art of healing, as it is described in books, is far beneath the practical experience ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... spread throughout Anatolia and Syria, and the sultan was preparing to take the field in person, when treachery succeeded in accomplishing what force had failed to effect. It has been an uniform maxim of the Ottoman domestic policy, which singularly contrasts with their scrupulous observance of the treaties entered into with foreign powers, that no faith is to be kept with fermanlis, or traitors to the Padishah; and in the assured belief, confirmed by hostages and solemn oaths, that the sultan ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... owes himself to man in a thousand differing ways. To my mind, the duke and peer owe far more to the workman and the pauper than the pauper and the workman owe to the duke. The obligations of duty enlarge in proportion to the benefits which society bestows on men; in accordance with the maxim, as true in social politics as in business, that the burden of care and vigilance is everywhere in proportion to profits. Each man pays his debt in his own way. When our poor toiler at the Rhetoriere comes home weary with his day's work has he not done ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Dhritarashtra infers that vice versa, it is the Supreme Soul that becomes the ordinary soul, for (as Nilakantha puts it in the phraseology of the Nyaya school) things different cannot become what they are not and unless things are similar, they cannot become of the same nature. Applying this maxim of the Nyaya it is seen that when the ordinary soul becomes the Supreme Soul, these are not different, and, therefore, it is the Supreme Soul that becomes the ordinary soul. Under this impression Dhritarashtra asks,—Well, if it is the Supreme Soul that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... "Whereas, Maxim Gorky, recognized in the world of letters as a man of genius, and in the world at large as a man of great soul, high purpose and pure nature, having come to this country accompanied by a lady whom he considers and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... point out flaws in this story, which is casuistically vulnerable. Let it be: all the same it shows that Tenderness, Pity and Love, were traits which adorned the most sanguinary exploits of the samurai. It was an old maxim among them that "It becometh not the fowler to slay the bird which takes refuge in his bosom." This in a large measure explains why the Red Cross movement, considered peculiarly Christian, so readily found a firm footing among us. For decades before we heard of ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... the man. In the first place, the Roman law insisted that it was unfair for a husband to demand chastity on the part of his wife if he himself was guilty of infidelity or did not set her an example of good conduct,[84]—a maxim which present day lawyers may reflect upon with profit. A father was permitted to put to death his daughter and her paramour if she was still in his power and if he caught her in the act at his own house or that of his son-in-law; otherwise he could not.[85] He ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... had shrunk from his youthful companion during this altercation, according to the established maxim of courtiers of all ranks, and in all ages, now transgressed their prudential line of conduct so far as to come up to him once more. "Thou art a hopeful young springald," said he, "and I see right well old Yorkshire had reason in his caution. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... 600 men of the 11th Soudanese under Major Jackson, 600 men of the 13th Soudanese under Major Smith Dorrian, 100 men of the Cameron Highlanders under Captain the Hon. A. D. Murray, and Captain Peake's battery of 12 1/2-pounder Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns. At the same time the force that was to be sent across to reoccupy and assist in rebuilding the ruined Government buildings in Khartoum also turned out for inspection. Nothing was left to chance. Care was taken that only those fit and well should proceed ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... good pickings to be had out of every one of them," answered Marshall. "But 'one thing at a time' is a good maxim in such a business as ours, my lad; and we will see what Cartagena yields before we begin to think seriously about any of the other towns. And now, here comes the dawn at last, for which thanks be; for I am as hungry as if I had spent all night to the top ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood |
