"Politic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nor in hell; partially fallen, capricious, wayward; noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be. These beings gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, which is often so different from that of the individuals who compose them. Hence the character and the instinct of states and governments, of religious communities and communions. I thought ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the other hand, looked grave. He was a far wiser and more politic king than Richard; and although he had consented to the sudden proposal, yet he felt in his heart that the contest was a foolish one, and that it might create bad feeling among the men of the two nationalities whichever way it went. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... might have thought this; she did not and of course would not on any account have uttered such a sentiment aloud. But it would be unjust to her taste and sensibility to suppose that, apart from worldly and politic considerations, she should have really preferred a sharp-featured, thin-haired, close-fisted gentleman of forty to a conceivable hero of half that age, dowered with every grace and beauty, not to mention Miss Tremount's seventy thousand pounds. Is she to be blamed if ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... theatre passes, season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? (historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant's Compendium of the Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... advent the Monarchy was so anxiously awaiting. In recent years, then, despite many hopeful signs, and despite increasing activity in almost every sphere of life, a kind of progressive paralysis has taken hold upon the body-politic. Three main causes may be noted—the lack of any great men capable of counteracting the Emperor's lack of initiative, which was always very marked, but has been accentuated by advancing old age; the superficial and malicious outlook of the capital and the classes which control it; the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... hearty respect for Dick as a lad of parts. Dick had a respect for his father as the best of men, tempered by the politic revolt of a youth who has to see to his own independence. Whenever the pair argued, they came to an open rupture; and arguments were frequent, for they were both positive, and both loved the work of the intelligence. It was a treat ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of them; but when she had reached the screen, turned, and observing, "I had almost forgotten my promise," proceeded to knight from the lower end. On one of her Privy Council saying "Your Majesty was too politic for my Lord Burleigh," she replied, "I have but followed the scripture—'the first shall be last and the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... speak more than fifteen minutes, and I was heard patiently to the end, but my remarks were received with no such "thunders of applause" as had been accorded to the more politic efforts of the colored gentlemen. There was in fact repeatedly evinced a prevalent apprehension that I would say something which it would be incumbent on the audience to resent; but I did not. And I have a faint hope that some of the remarks ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... claustral libraries were soon formed. The monks then had plenty of books; wealthy clergy also had small collections. An ecclesiastic or a layman who had done a monastery some service, or whose favour it was politic to cultivate, could borrow books from the monastic library, under certain strict conditions. Some people availed themselves of this privilege; but not at any time during the manuscript period to a ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... were anxious about their properties, and in fear for their friends, while the few Athenian residents were alarmed for their own safety, having little hope of prompt succour. Taking advantage of this state of public feeling, the politic Spartan issued a proclamation, pledging him to respect the rights and property of all who chose to remain; while those who preferred to withdraw were allowed five days to take away their goods. This tempting offer ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... that she had no children of her own in the house, Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. Also it had developed that David was fond of the child, so fond of her that to oppose that affection would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was politic when she chose to be. She chose to be politic now, for sometime during the season she was going to ask a very great favor of David, and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily complaisant and kind and then by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, he would finally do what ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... it in that light," returned the earl, "nor shall I turn philosopher now. I revere your principle, Sir William Wallace; but it is too sublime to be mine. Nay, nor would it be politic for one who holds his possessions in England by the right of conquest to question the virtue of the deed. By the sword my ancestors gained their estates; and with the sword I have no ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... publish in La Capitale an article in which I shall explain exactly what spies are, the real part they play in the body politic, their terrible power; that it is a mistake to consider them only cowards; that owing to the exigencies of their sinister profession, they very often give proof of an exceptional courage—bravery—and in which ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... proper, and the Church-Clothes specially recognized as Church-Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that without such Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and will not exist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body Politic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and all your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying under such SKIN), whereby Society stands and works;—then is Religion the inmost Pericardial ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... completed this work of emancipation by recognizing the communes as free cities, and bestowing franchises clearly defining their rights. By this act the body of the manufacturing class, or burgesses, was recognized as a part of the body politic, ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... asked William who was going to take care of his duchy while he was running off after a kingdom. William replied, at first, that that was a subject which he did not think his neighbors need concern themselves about. Then thinking, on reflection, that a more respectful answer would be more politic, under the circumstances of the case, he added, that he was providentially blessed with a prudent wife and loving subjects, and that he thought he might safely leave his domestic affairs in their hands until ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... caution.[366] The King was already an adept in statecraft, and there was at least an element of truth in the praise which Wolsey bestowed on his pupil. "No man," he wrote, "can more groundly consider the politic governance of your said realm, nor more assuredly look to the preservation thereof, than ye yourself." And again, "surely, if all your whole council had been assembled together, they could not (p. 132) have more deeply perceived ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... riders, came at intervals, and one after the other, the now trimly-dressed slaves of this or that plantation—all devoutly bent on the place of meeting. Some of the whites carried their double-barrelled guns, some their rifles—it being deemed politic, at that time, to prepare for all contingencies, for the Indian or for the buck, as well as for the more direct ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... after a few minutes' reflection. "No captain has yet been appointed to command the Carolina. You might appoint Morales to it. He belongs to a powerful family here, and they would be pleased at his promotion. So it might be a politic step, as well as serving our purpose by making a ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... interest, though that, of course, is the chief object of the Church—that the clergy are always distressed by a failure on such occasions. In July, 1829, such a failure was aggravated by the spirit of party which envenomed every detail in the life of the body politic. The liberal party rejoiced in the expectation that the priest-party (a term invented by Montlosier, a royalist who went over to the constitutionals, and was dragged by them far beyond his wishes),—that the priests would fail on so public an occasion ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... dangerous, radical, subtle and evil had been let loose—the girl would have to be watched. She was a fire-brand, an incendiary—she would put notions in peoples' heads. It was well he had heard her and could sound the warning. But he must be politic—he would not show his hand. The children were singing, and every one had risen. Never before had he heard the Chicken Hill people sing ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... hand; dramatis personae [Lat.]; quidam [Lat.]. people, persons, folk, public, society, world; community, community at large; general public; nation, nationality; state, realm; commonweal, commonwealth; republic, body politic; million &c (commonalty) 876; population &c (inhabitant) 188. tribe, clan (paternity) 166; family (consanguinity) 11. cosmopolite; lords of the creation; ourselves. Adj. human, mortal, personal, individual, national, civic, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Sociological error, committed today, will cause malformation of an important member of the American body politic. It will cause the ship of state to ride an uneven keel. This ship of state must be brought to her ancient moorings, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address of Lincoln, and the Farewell of Old John ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... were instrumental in holding the untrained passions of the common herd in check, by a wholesome fear of summary vengeance from the gods, so that this pageantry of magic, the outward priestly show, was more of a politic development than a spiritual necessity, an astute but, philosophical method of enabling the educated few to govern the uneducated many. And it was only when the educational and initiatory rites of the temple became corrupt, and the priest became the persecuting ally of the king—when, ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... Britishly bumptious, or as bumptiously British as Dickens was in his younger days when he first came to pay us a visit—taking also into consideration the fact that a certain explanatory softening of earlier criticisms was politic, that the novelist found a city far more to his taste in 1868 than he had found in 1842 is not for a moment to be questioned. Also, at the time he came to New York from Boston, he was naturally in a rather placid and contented mood. For in letters home, even ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... or decrease must be carefully observed by any government that designs to thrive; that is, their increase must be promoted by good conduct and wholesome laws, and if they have been decreased by war, or any other accident, the breach is to be made up as soon as possible, for it is a maim in the body politic affecting ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... there could be in natural bodies no motion of any thing, unless there were some first which moved all things, and continued unmoveable; even so in politic societies there must be some unpunishable, or else no man shall suffer punishment: for sith punishments proceed always from superiors, to whom the administration of justice belongeth; which administration must have necessarily a fountain, that deriveth ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... sufficiently indicated, has, in particular, established out of the common fund public education as a means of diffusing intellectual gain, which is the great element of growth even in efficient toil, and also of extending into all parts of the body politic a comprehension of the governmental scheme and the organized life of the community, fusing its separate interests in a mutual understanding and regard. It has established, too, protection in the law, for the weak as against the strong, the poor as against the rich, ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... said Mr. Dwyer, who was too excited to be polite or politic. "You know our being here isn't a matter of choice. We came here on business, as you did, and you've no ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... a smile and a stick will carry you through any difficulty; the stick was obviously not politic on this occasion; I therefore put on a double extra smile and showed them my sketch book, explaining that the one ambition of my life was to make a drawing of the ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... individual person of each contracting party, this deed of association produces a moral and collective body, consisting of as many members as there are votes in the Assembly. This public personality is usually called the body politic, which is called by its members the State when it is passive, and the Sovereign when it is active, and a Power when compared with its equals. With regard to the members themselves, collectively they are known as the nation, and individually as citizens as members of the ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can reenter there,— No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to introduce Broughton into some of his plays. In his Volpone, when the "Fox" delivers a medical lecture, to the great amusement of Politic ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... she used to be, you mean, dear, but she is more like other people now," said kindly Josephine, more just than politic. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... I believe that our admirable Constitution, on principles more exalted and under sanctions more holy than those which Owenism or Socialism can boast, proclaims between men of all classes and degrees in the body politic a sacred bond of brotherhood in the recognition of a common warfare here, and a common hope hereafter. I am a Conservative, not because I am adverse to improvement, not because I am unwilling to repair what is wasted, or to supply what is defective in the political fabric, but because I am satisfied ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... previous to their creation. The date of their birth is to be reckoned, not from any year previous to the Rebellion, but from the year which followed its suppression. It may, in old times, have been a politic trick of shrewd politicians, to involve the foundations of States in the mists of a mythical antiquity; but we happily live in an historical period, and there is something peculiarly stupid or peculiarly impudent in the attempt of the publicists ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... which stile, or legal denomination, George Earl of Cumberland, Sir John Hart, Sir John Spencer, and Sir Edward Mitchelburne, knights, with 212 others, whose names are all inserted in the patent, were erected into a body corporate and politic, for trading to and from all parts of the East Indies, with all Asia, Africa, and America, and all the islands, ports, havens, cities, creeks, towns, and places of the same, or any of them, beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... fly off into space. This, and his gentle, attractive manner, sometimes touched with melancholy, gave him a sort of angelic, spiritual air. It was difficult to imagine him either a soldier or a conspirator, yet he had been one and was still the other. More than once, only a politic indulgence not often extended by Napoleon's administrators, and the distinguished merits of his younger brother, had saved Monsieur Joseph from sharing the fate of some of his friends ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be denounced against them for violations ...
— The Federalist Papers
... justice, that he served his own interests by granting these franchises; that the cities paid him taxes, and that his design was to use them as instruments of weakening the power of great nobles; but what does that prove, but that this measure was at once useful, politic, and humane?" From Kings in general the conversation turned upon Louis XV., and M. Turgot remarked that his reign would be always celebrated for the advancement of the sciences, the progress of knowledge, and of philosophy. He ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was or not, Ernest deemed it politic to say as little as possible of his experiences, and of what he knew about ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... persecution. Of this no person was better aware than Defoe himself, and it is a curious circumstance that, in his first pamphlet on the bill for putting down occasional conformity, he ridiculed the idea of its being persecution to suppress politic or state Dissenters, and maintained that the bill did not concern true Dissenters at all. To this, however, we must refer again in connexion with his celebrated tract, The ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... Joe, pouring out the wine; you 'aven't got the brass in times like these. I dare say you've noticed, sir, that the times is favourable for bringing out the spots on the body politic. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is what renders the pursuit of reason so perplexing and prolonged a problem. Half-formed adjustments in the brain and in the body politic are represented in consciousness by what are called passions, prejudices, motives, animosities. None of these felt ebullitions in the least understands its own causes, effects, or relations, but is hatched, so to speak, on the wing and flutters along ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... eloquent old gitano closed his discourse, and the novice replied, that he congratulated himself much on having been made acquainted with such laudable statutes; that he desired to make profession of an order so based on reason and politic principles; that his only regret was that he had not sooner come to the knowledge of so pleasant a life; and that from that moment he renounced his knighthood, and the vain glory of his illustrious lineage, and placed them beneath the yoke, or beneath the laws ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... on. It was never in the character and traditions of England to treat with an enemy in the hour of disaster. In its history treaties had, from time immemorial, followed upon victory, never upon defeat. It was therefore necessary as well as politic to grasp the full fruits of the brilliant success at Yorktown, and Washington, with the vigor which was one of the most striking traits of his well balanced nature, wished to carry its consequences to their utmost limit. But the French fleet under ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... however, I decided to be politic. I could not very well work with a pick and shovel, and this was about all that was left outside of that. I therefore explained as best I could the sad plight of the chief clerk, who stood in danger of losing his job unless these things ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... terrify him with the threat of irresistible power, and torture him in mind and body through the exercise of that power, you drive him to the support and society of men similarly circumstanced, and thus create the precise analogue in the body politic of a cancer in the individual body. Prison attempts to segregate this cancer, but only promotes its increase. Its poison is in the blood ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... services. Pompey had subdued the East, and Caesar the West. Pompey had more prestige, Caesar more genius. Pompey was a greater tactician, Caesar a greater strategist. Pompey was proud, pompous, jealous, patronizing, self-sufficient, disdainful. Caesar was politic, intriguing, patient, lavish, unenvious, easily approached, forgiving, with great urbanity and most genial manners. Both were ambitious, unscrupulous, and selfish. Cicero distrusted both, flattered each by turns, but inclined to the side of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... of that time who were supposed hardly to know their own hearts indulged the habit of politic indirection quite as much as young people in the same condition indulge it in this time; so when Ben-Hur inquired for the good Balthasar, and with grave courtesy desired to know if he would be pleased to see him, he really addressed the daughter a notice ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... proof—the damnatory evidence that they are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hysterical passion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of the modern leaders, save Mr. Parnell, shows the faintest trace of politic self-control or the just estimate of proportions. To spite their opponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they have done scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds up its hands in horror at the French Terror—was that worse than the system of ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... and time of battle—for the Teuton thought it mean to use surprises and stratagems, or to conquer save in fair and open fight—is the type of the Teuton hero; and one which had no chance in a struggle with the cool, false, politic Roman, grown grey in the experience of the forum and of the camp, and still as physically brave as his young enemy. Because, too, there was no unity among them; no feeling that they were brethren of one blood. Had the Teuton tribes, at any one of the great crises I have ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... that prosecutions for political writings were in any respect politic, useful, or wise, will they prevent their publication? No more than your strong and violent revenue laws have been able to suppress the rise of illicit stills in Ireland and Scotland. Even if by dint of the terror of prosecutions the press in this city could be reduced ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... run off with him. Now, I mean nothing invidious toward small men, for some of the greatest men the world has known have been physically inferior, for example, Lord Nelson, Napoleon, our own Grant and Sheridan, and ex-Secretary Seward. All I mean to say is, that it is not politic or in good taste for a small man to come before an audience and claim physical superiority; that branch of the argument should be left for the great, burly fellows six feet high and well-proportioned, who illustrate the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Whenever it may be necessary to refer to some of the unfortunate relations that have existed between the Indians and the white race, it will be done in that unbiased manner becoming the student of history. As a body politic recognizing no individual ownership of lands, each Indian tribe naturally resented encroachment by another race, and found it impossible to relinquish without a struggle that which belonged to their people from time immemorial. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... out the former, and the king refused to be a mean to engage in a covenant with himself and others, and so has drawn us, against our wills, and beyond our desires, to perform our duty, and to give a testimony to his truth, that much of God and divine wisdom and design, and little of man and his politic projects, might be seen in the beginning, progress and continuance of the whole work, by this good hand of God: And for this end I hope these queries are brought to your hand at ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... effect upon the animal section of the actors in this scene, but it caused a sudden change among the servants and a few of the hunters; the shouts of encouragement ceased at once; several of the participants prudently tried to efface themselves; as to Rousselet, more politic than the others, he boldly darted into the melee and picked up the fainting puppy in his arms, carrying her as tenderly as a mother would an infant, without troubling himself whether or not he was leaving part of his ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... from the sea-air, Diana Parker was at Sanditon with her sister. She had flattered herself that by her own indefatigable exertions, and by setting at work the agency of many friends, she had induced two large families to take houses at Sanditon. It was to expedite these politic views that she came; and though she met with some disappointment of her expectation, yet she ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... singular inconsistency almost their first act, while it secured to one-half the people of the body politic the right to tax and govern themselves, subjected the other half to the very oppression which had culminated in the rebellion of the colonies, "taxation without representation," and the inflictions of an authority to which they had not given their consent. The constitutional ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... should be given up on account of its own intrinsic wrong? We would that we could answer these questions in the affirmative. But there are acts too patent to be denied, which show that the virus of this great iniquity still rankles in the body politic; that the system of slavery has been given up by the people of the South simply as a matter of necessity; that if they had the power they would re-instate it again though they should rend and ruin the Republic ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... out," said Chaffery, crossing his legs; "let us thresh the matter out. Now"—he drew at his pipe—"I don't think you fully appreciate the importance of Illusion in life, the Essential Nature of Lies and Deception of the body politic. You are inclined to discredit one particular form of Imposture, because it is not generally admitted—carries a certain discredit, and—witness the heel edges of my trouser ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... in order to add materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I am told that not less than L5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this state of things ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurant cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this politic course was demonstrated by the speedy arrive of a small pewter pyramid, curiously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled-beef-plates formed the base, and a foaming quart-pot the apex; the structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... international gallery of portraits. The greater number of the portraits are Italian, and they range over all classes of society from the Pope to the peasant. Even Bishop Blougram has the Italian subtlety, and, like the Monsignore in Pippa Passes, something of the politic morality of Machiavelli. But Israel, Greece, France, Spain, Germany, and the days before the world was brought together, furnish him with men drawn as alive. He has painted their souls, but others have done this kind of painting as well, if not so minutely. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Opposition only inflamed him; it never daunted him. He had not the slightest particle of that prudence which teaches a man to keep out of contests in which he can gain no advantage, or in which success will be only a little less disastrous than defeat. It hardly needs to be said that a politic line of conduct is usually the very last which a person of such a temperament follows. But when to all these characteristics is added a peculiar sensitiveness to criticism, it is evident that if proper opportunities ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... union, a firm adherence to the law which requires us to respect the holy tie of family union, which requires brother to assist brother, and sister, sister. By means of a lively and pleasing narrative, he shows that this principle is not only right, but politic, and that the law of family unions is really the true way to prosper. We commend the volume to our readers as one of the best and most profitable of the many useful works which have been produced by the ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... his party, from which honour and pride would have deterred him, had his sole object been the direct advancement of his own personal interest. With this insight into a bold, ambitious, and ardent, yet artful and politic character, we resume the broken thread of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... West Africa than the grossest abuse yet written. Its tactic is to set black against white, to pander for the public love of scandal, and systematically to abuse all the employes of Government. And the sole object of this vile politic, loudly proclaimed to be philanthropic and negrophile, has been low lucre—in fact, an attempt to butter ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... tumult left the state, in every case, as an organic whole, the same. The consequences of unsuccessful rebellion fell only upon the persons engaged in it. So, in the successive changes that befell France after the Revolution, the state, as the body politic, remained unchanged. In dealing with the question of rebellion in our country the same principle applies, only another element enters into the calculation. That element results from the peculiar character of our Government in its twofold relation to the people of State and Nation. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... if he had seen his cousin going there. Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians, tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names, people looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its rents up when those of other quarters go down. For long years Soames' acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Bread Streete"; had John Donne and Ben Jonson among his convives, and may well have seen Shakespeare and heard him talk, if he did talk. How he appeared himself we can only guess, but I conceive his position in the society to have been that of Polonius in the convocation of politic worms, as one, namely, where he was eaten rather than eating. That, if it was so, may have determined him to make a name for himself by what was his ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... puzzled skein In which obscurity has wrapped them up, The threads of politic and shrewd design That ran through all his purposes, and charge His mind with meanings that he never had, Or, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... commend me to the county burying. The body politic is busy and has no time to waste on an inert human body. It does its duty to its own interest and to the pauper dead when the body is dropped with all celerity into the ground. The county is philosophical: it says, "Poor devil, ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... world, he had not much to do with us, the more so as you could trust no one, because he has people everywhere to spy and listen to everything, and carry what they hear to him; so every one endeavors to stand well with him. In a word he is very politic; being governor and, changeably, a trader, he appears friendly because he is both; severe because he is avaricious; and well in neither capacity because they are commingled. The Lord be praised who has delivered us safely, and the more, because we were in every one's eye ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... of the German body-politic will reveal symptoms unlike those to be found in any other nation. German nationalism is over-developed in one direction because it is under-developed and imperfect in other directions. Apply our three tests ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... and applying force to those who come behindhand in their duties. There, then, you have the principle at once: The gracious and agreeable devolves on him who rules, the archon; the repellent counterpart (12) on others. What is there to prevent the application of the principle to matters politic in general? (13) ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... his fellow-accomplices of the law were plotting to get the wretched woman placed in some private asylum. Bloomingdale and Flushing asylums were full, and as she continued to follow her whilom lover and importune him to visit her, he found it politic and convenient to renew his attentions and to feign a revival of his passion. In a certain sense, he was to be pitied. Love of this kind begins as a gift; but a woman of this temperament does not leave it so. She promptly turned ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... wrote to the Minister of War: "I have full confidence in him, and he may be entirely trusted. Everybody here likes him."[683] While thus extolling the friends of his rival, the Governor took care to provide against the effects of his politic commendations, and wrote thus to his patron, the Colonial Minister: "In order to condescend to the wishes of M. de Montcalm, and leave no means untried to keep in harmony with him, I have given letters to MM. Doreil and Bougainville; but I have the honor to inform you, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... upon the first creature with a pretty face he encountered?" Deliberating thus, he lost the tenderness he should have had for his experiment—the living, burning youth at his elbow, and his excessive love for him took a rigorous tone. It appeared to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle of this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent scheme of marrying her to his son, should not only not be thwarted in his object but encouraged and even assisted. At ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for not remaining behind," Wulf said, "though it were certainly more politic for him to have stayed in London. As he could not do so, I think it would have been well had he bidden Gurth remain behind to gather another army with which to meet the Normans should we be defeated; or if he could not spare Gurth he might have left ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... will save them from their sins by the only possible way—namely, by taking their sins away, and making those of them who will take his lesson good and righteous men instead. It may be a very terrible lesson of vengeance and fury, as Isaiah says. It may unmask many a hypocrite, confound many a politic, and frustrate many a knavish trick, till the Lord's salvation may look at first sight much more like destruction and misery; for his fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into his garner: but the ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... showing how fortunes could be securely made by remitting specified sums to the houses in question. Some of the bogus firms simply pocketed the cash of correspondents without pretending to render any equivalent whatever; while others, no more honest, but a little more politic, sent forth worthless jewelry and other ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... single intention in the parts and members of that body that science sought to frame, what word of creative art could she pronounce, what bonds of life could she find, what breath of God could she boast, that she should think to frame of such material the body politic, the organic whole, the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... him with politic honours. He took his guest by his foible for pageantry, all the easier as it was a foible of his own; and Charles walked right out of prison into much the same atmosphere of trumpeting and bell-ringing as he had left behind when he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... white cockade. Most of them had those marks of loyalty ready sewn in their flannel-waistcoats, where they swore they had worn them ever since 1830. This we may believe, and we will; but the Prince Henri was too politic or too good-humored in the moment of victory, to doubt the sincerity of his new subjects' protestations, and received the Colonels and Generals ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alert at perceiving and using the advantages which her charms gave her over almost all who came within the sphere of their influence. She cast on Roland a glance which might have melted a heart of stone. "My poor boy," she said, with a feeling partly real, partly politic, "thou art a stranger to us—sent to this doleful captivity from the society of some tender mother, or sister, or maiden, with whom you had freedom to tread a gay measure round the Maypole. I grieve for you; but you are the only male in ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... of Argyle; her husband obtained a pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the liaison, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... of the Soviets will telegraph to Berlin recalling the Bavarian ambassador; there is one, you know—a figurehead. And the good Franz will announce to the world that Bavaria has declared its independence of Prussia. This will be a politic move for the Soviets as well as England. For the bourgeoisie in Bavaria dislike Prussia as much as the communists dislike her. But I bore you with intrigue. We have had our little revolution for which you must ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... South Carolina in an official message declared that slavery was the very corner-stone of the republic, adding that the laboring population of any country, "bleached or unbleached," was a dangerous element in the body politic, and predicting that within twenty-five years the laboring people of the North would be virtually reduced to slavery. Referring to abolitionists, he said: "The laws of every community should punish this species of interference with death without benefit of clergy." Pursuant to the Governor's ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... had no thought of abandoning the crater and the Peak. Nor did he desire to people them at random, creating a population by any means, incorporating moral diseases in his body politic by the measures taken to bring it into existence. On the contrary, it was his wish, rather, to procure just as much force as might be necessary to security, so divided in pursuits and qualities as to conduce to comfort and civilization, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... took years of discussion and action to rectify. He did not abolish from the courts the use of Persian, the language of the old Mussulman invaders, now foreign to all parties; and he excluded from all offices above L30 a year the natives of the country, contrary to their fair and politic practice. Bengal and its millions, in truth, were nominally governed in detail by three hundred white and upright civilians, with the inevitable result in abuses which they could not prevent, and oppression of native by native which they ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... hearth. But in the sovereign commune all will be centralised and sensitive. When jealousy springs up, when (let us say) the commune of Poole has overreached the commune of Dorchester, irritation will run like quicksilver throughout the body politic; each man in Dorchester will have to suffer directly in his diet and his dress; even the secretary, who drafts the official correspondence, will sit down to his task embittered, as a man who has dined ill and may expect to dine worse; and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... distraction; and while we would please too many ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none[2]. But we have given you more already than was necessary for a preface; and, for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions, than that politic nation is like to do, who have taught their enemies to fight so long, that at last they are in a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... consequence are the sentiments of the people while we have their rulers on our side! Absolution is the sorcery that binds these libertines of Rome to our will. We know what converted Constantine—politic flattery and ready absolution; the people will tell you it was the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... The Visiter was the signal for an outbreak, for which I was wholly unprepared, and one which proved the existence of an eating cancer of discontent in the body politic. Under the smooth surface of society lay a mass of moral disease, which suddenly broke out into an eruption of complaints, from those who felt themselves oppressed by the old Saxon and ecclesiastical laws under which one-half the people of ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... population, and the law of diminishing returns, led to a scramble for unappropriated lands producing the raw materials of industry. It was, in a sense, a war of capital; but capitalism is no accretion upon the body politic; it is the creator of the modern world and an essential part of a living organism. The Germans unquestionably made a deep-laid plot to capture all markets and cripple or ruin all competitors. Their aims and methods were very like those of the Standard Oil Trust on a still larger ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... literature, science, and art. In one of the schools he found them debating "whether Congress was right in ordering Major Andre to be executed." Lest some might think Carleton lacking in love to "Our Old Home," we quote, "It is neither politic, wise, nor honest to instill into the youthful mind animosity towards England or any other nation, especially for acts committed nearly ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... is agreed to have a cheerful and joyous import. A toast in a cold morning, heightened by nutmeg, and sweetened with sugar, has for many ages been given to our rural dispensers of justice before they entered upon causes, and has been of great politic use to take off the severity of their sentences; but has indeed been remarkable for one ill effect, that it inclines those who use it immoderately to speak Latin; to the admiration rather than information of an audience. This application of a toast makes it very obvious that the word ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... play becomes a modern English melodrama. In several of the islands, however, the impress of Spanish occupancy is slight, and customs are still in force that have existed for hundreds of years. On Mindanao are still to be found the politic devil-worshippers, who, instead of seeking to ingratiate themselves with benevolent deities, whose favor is already assured, try to gain the goodwill of the fiends. Their rites are practised in caves in which will ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... the United States guarantees to him every right vouchsafed to any individual by the most liberal democracy on the face of the earth, but despite the unusual powers of the Federal Government this agent of the body politic has studiously evaded the duty of safeguarding the rights of the Negro. The Constitution confers upon Congress the power to declare war and make peace, to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to coin money, to regulate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... months after his election, and the cardinals chose as his successor Cardinal Cossa, who took the name of John XXIII. The Church remained as much divided as before. In 1412 Pope John, who was a shrewd and politic man, opened at Rome a council for the reformation of the Church, but there seems to have been little serious purpose either on the part of John himself or of the ecclesiastics who assembled; and practically nothing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and, therefore, as we did sincerely swear this covenant with God, with all our heart, and with all our soul, much rejoicing at the oath with a true intention to perform it, and not for promoting any politic design; so we do believe and profess to the world that we still stand as firmly engaged to the real performance of it, and that it is not in the power of any person or persons on earth to dispense with it or absolve ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... Joe was too glad to agree to this proposal, but he now deemed it politic to display ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... assured, to fix his choice upon some crabbed philosopher of frowning mien, with a flood of gray-and-white beard rolling down over a mantle in proud tatters; nor a warrior who could talk of nothing save ballista, catapults, and scythed chariots; nor a sententious Eupatrid full of councils and politic maxims; but Gyges, whose reputation for gallantry caused him to be regarded as a ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... really curious part of this whole matter is yet to be told. And that is, that McFarland's most intimate friends believe that the very next time that it ever occurred to him that the insanity plea was not a mere politic pretense, was when the verdict came in. They think that the startling thought burst upon him then, that if twelve good and true men, able to comprehend all the baseness of perjury, proclaimed under oath that he was a lunatic, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... administration of that Department. Abuses have been reformed, increased expedition in the transportation of the mail secured, and its revenue much improved. In a political point of view this Department is chiefly important as affording the means of diffusing knowledge. It is to the body politic what the veins and arteries are to the natural—conveying rapidly and regularly to the remotest parts of the system correct information of the operations of the Government, and bringing back to it the wishes and feelings of the people. Through its agency we have ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson |
