"Prudential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could secure by going from house ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... difficult to accede to the opinion which the first of these seems to entertain, that though particular injustices had been committed, the misgovernment had not been of such a nature as to justify resistance by arms. But the prudential reasons against resistance at that time were exceedingly strong; and there is no point in human concerns wherein the dictates of virtue and worldly prudence are so identified as in this great question of ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... his. What grievances can he have against me? I can imagine but two. Sunday last, near three o'clock, we were both at the window. He commenced a very animated speech by signs, and prolonged it far beyond the prudential limits which I have prescribed to him. He spoke, I believe, about Soliman, and of a walk which he had refused to take with Ivan. I did not pay close attention, for I was occupied in looking round to see that no one was watching us. Suddenly I saw on the slope of the hill big Fritz and the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... actions which people in general were accustomed to see, or were therefore accustomed to praise, should be such as were, or at least might without contradicting obvious facts be supposed to be, the result of a prudential regard to self-interest; so that the words really connoted no more, in common acceptation, than was set down ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... his breast, the strongest next to his love, was a desire to be revenged. He cared little now for his father, little for that personal dignity which he had intended to return by his silence, little for pecuniary advantages and prudential motives, in comparison with his strong desire to punish Marie for her perfidy. He would go over to Granpere, and fall among them like a thunderbolt. Like a thunderbolt, at any rate, he would fall upon the ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... strength to strength, for it struggled vigorously, and with some difficulty succeeded in freeing itself from Anna's hold. No sooner was it at liberty, than it made for the door with as much speed as its various encumbrances would allow; and Anna, now completely roused, and forgetting all prudential considerations in the excitement of the moment, hastily put on a few articles of clothing, and, throwing her cloak around her, seized her lantern and followed. The ghost had, however, gained so much in advance of her, that it was with some difficulty she could decide which way to turn, but, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... clew to the mystery of Hilda's disappearance; although, as long as she remained in Italy, there was a remarkable reserve in her communications upon this subject, even to her most intimate friends. Either a pledge of secrecy had been exacted, or a prudential motive warned her not to reveal the stratagems of a religious body, or the secret acts of a despotic government—whichever might be responsible in the present instance—while still within the scope of their ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... insufficient for so large a population, but a single house accommodates three generations. This density of the population is the result of the early ages at which marriages are contracted. These hasty unions are often brought about from prudential motives by the Chinese, the children, and especially the sons, being responsible for the care ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... my story can only be understood by a delicate tenderness, and through a sympathy with the beliefs that dwell in simple hearts; beliefs which would seem absurd to the sophisticated people who make use in their own lives of the prudential maxims of worldly wisdom that only apply to the government of states. To you I shall speak openly and without reserve, as a man who does not seek to apologize for his life with the good and evil done ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... prudential, and I was convinced now many ways that I was perfectly out of my duty, when I was laying all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent creatures, I mean innocent as to me; as to the crimes they were guilty of towards one another, I had nothing to do with them; they were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... ourselves with a little scouting and skirmishing, so to speak, along the borders of a territory which it is possible we may ask the readers at some future time to explore along with us more at large. A few of the many proverbs, wisdom words, and moral and prudential sentences in daily use shall, in clerical phrase, meantime form "the subject-matter of our discourse." Nor must the reader think that the subject is in any wise infra dignitate, unworthy, that is, or undignified. Of the world-renowned Seven ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... charges, did he seize upon this man, confine him in this manner, and every person who derived any place or authority from him, high or low, was turned out. Mr. Hastings had in the Company's orders something to justify him in rigor, but he had likewise a prudential power over that rigor; and he not only treated this man in the manner described, but every human creature connected with him, as if they had been all guilty, without any charge whatever against them. These are his reasons for taking this ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... under their own standard, behaving in the fight with conspicuous gallantry, and greatly increasing the wrath of the king; who, however, on the place being subdued, was restrained from pur-suing them to extremities, from prudential motives. As the kingdom became more settled, the disturbances were less frequent, and within the last century assumed the character of sportive rows rather than malicious feuds. On a recent lamentable occasion (now happily forgotten) ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... been a prudential reason for his declining at this time to be a pensioner of France, namely, lest his connexion with that crown should hurt his projects of a settlement which were then on the carpet. This conjecture is strengthened by what he writes ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions. He was perhaps six feet and an inch in height, cast in ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the authenticity of his assertions, I thought it prudential to decline the proof of the pudding, and so took a precipitate leave of him with profuse thanks for his unparagoned kindness, and many promises to put on the gloves with him at ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... faint patter of a horse's hoofs. Nearer it drew; quicker beat her pulses. Moreover, it was the rat-a-tat of galloping. Some one was pursuing the coach on horseback. Impatient to glance behind, she only refrained for prudential reasons. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... steps he could not but see that what would be feasible in case of his death must be equally feasible now; but he had two reasons for not attempting it. The first was definite and prudential. He was unwilling to risk anything that could connect him ever so indirectly with the life of Norrie Ford. Secondly, he was conscious of a vague shrinking from the payment of this debt otherwise than face to face. Apart from considerations of safety, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... politely, but with a fine, needle-like disdain in her voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none too sensitive consciousness. His face reddened and he twitched his reins angrily; but the next second prudential considerations checked him. He looked uneasily at Anne, as she walked steadily on, glancing neither to the right nor to the left. Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable offer and his own too plain acceptance of it? Confound Corcoran! If he couldn't put his meaning into less dangerous ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the aged; nay, it may advance to some economical form of teeth-brushes, and still demand no more sacrifice from its people than is constantly demanded of us to maintain our poor in a humbler way. Then there are certain prudential considerations—certain, I might almost say, moral considerations—which are to be taken into account. It will never do, in a town like ours, to make pauperism attractive—to make our pauper establishments comfortable asylums for idleness. It must, in some way, be made to seem a hardship ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... there was published, under the auspices of the American Economic Association, a work entitled "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," by Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the Prudential Insurance Company of America. This work presents by far the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of the Negro problem, from a statistical standpoint, which has yet appeared. In fact, it may be regarded as the most important utterance ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... Aristippus of Cyrene advised men to grasp the pleasure of the moment rather than to await the more uncertain pleasure of the future; but he also counselled, for prudential reasons, the avoidance of a conflict with the laws. Such advice takes cognizance of the self-love of the individual, and is not self-love reasonable? Nevertheless, such advice might be given by a discouraged criminal ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... mission of art is a mission of sentiment and love, that the novel of to-day should take the place of the parable and the fable of early times, and that the artist has a larger and more poetic task than that of suggesting certain prudential and conciliatory measures for the purpose of diminishing the fright caused by his pictures. His aim should be to render attractive the objects he has at heart, and, if necessary, I have no objection to his embellishing them a little. Art is not the study of positive reality, but the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... priests—we were about to write ex-Jesuit priests, but that would not be quite correct, for once a member of this order one is bound to it for all time. The priest or acknowledged member of the organization may be forced for prudential reasons to temporarily change his occupation, but he cannot sever himself from the responsibilities which he has once voluntarily assumed. There was a time when much of the landed and fertile property of the island was controlled by the Church,—in fact owned by it, though ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... answered Richie; "mickle better not. We are a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases. And for me—even myself—I have always observed myself to be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own interest—whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, as ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... coarse, though decidedly clever, and had married Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu in defiance of her father's will, though even in this, her most romantic proceeding, there are curious indications of a respect for prudential considerations. Her husband was a friend of Addison's, and a Whig; and she accompanied him on an embassy to Constantinople in 1716-17, where she wrote the excellent letters published after her death, and whence she imported the practice ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... not fashion the words, "Cerritus fuit," though he thought the thing in both tenses: Edward's wits had always been too clearly in order: and of what avail was it to repeat great and honoured prudential maxims to a hard-headed fellow, whose choice was to steer upon the rocks? He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... assailed and murdered on their way to protect the capital of the nation. In Maryland, where the secession party was strong, there was also great excitement, and the Governor of the State and the Mayor of Baltimore united in urging, for prudential reasons, that no more troops should be brought through that city." In answer to the remonstrances of Governor Hicks and a committee from Maryland, who presented their petition in person, Lincoln, intent on avoiding every cause of offense, and with a forbearance ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... These men, warriors and politicians at one and the same time, in a high social position and in the flower of their age, could not reconcile themselves to the Constable de Montmorency's system, defensive solely and prudential to the verge of inertness; they thought that, in order to repair the reverses of France and for the sake of their own fame, there was something else to be done, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... railroad, to the south of Atlanta, might have been more decisive. But we were already so far from home, and would be compelled to accept battle whenever offered, with the Chattahoochee to our rear, that it became imperative for me to take all prudential measures the case admitted of, and I therefore determined to pass the river above the railroad-bridge-McPherson on the left, Schofield in the centre, and Thomas on the right. On the 13th I reported to General ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... serious hue which a story must wear that is dated in those times, when the church militant was called to the house of mourning, deter the gay and young from a patient perusal. Whatever mere prudential instructors may affirm, worldly prosperity should not be held out as the criterion, or the reward of right conduct. Let us remember St. Augustine's answer to those Pagans, who reproached him with the evils that Christians, in common ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... play with it—he will amuse himself with it. If he have none, he will amuse himself without it. His work is like a school-boy's task; he knows it must be done, but never comprehends that the doing of it is the very end and essence of his life. He is a child in all things, and the extent of prudential wisdom to which he ever attains is to disdain emancipation and cling to the security of his bondage. It is true enough that slavery has been a curse. Whatever may have been its effect on the negroes, it has been a deadly ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... afterwards be suspended or checked. It is by no means improbable that this may have been the theory of Judas. Nor is it at all necessary to seek for the justification of such a theory, considered as a matter of prudential policy, in Jewish fanaticism. The Jews of thai day were distracted by internal schisms. Else, and with any benefit from national unity, the headlong rapture of Jewish zeal, when combined in vindication of their ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... nature has made us; that is how every man worthy of the name of man has always felt, and thought, and acted. The worst of all possible and conceivable checks upon population is the vile one which Malthus glossed over as "the prudential," and which consists in substituting prostitution for marriage through the spring-tide ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... situation, my conduct, or my character, to single me out and stigmatize me as the proper object of disgrace, or how the merit of so many of my friends who are acting in their support, and whom they might think it possible would feel hurt, did not, in their prudential light, tend to soften the rigour of their aversion towards me, does, I confess, puzzle me. I don't exactly know from what particular quarter the blow comes; but I must think Lord Bute has, at least, a share in it, as, since his return, the countenance ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... to the enfranchisement and transfiguration of the human race. At the lowest it was open to him to become the center of a countless multitude, the heart of their hearts, the incarnation of their noblest thought, on condition that he scorned the prudential motives of politicians, burst through the barriers of the old order, and deployed all his energies and his full will-power in the struggle against sordid interests and dense prejudice. But he was cowed by obstacles which his will lacked the strength ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astromony; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... and abroad the administration was charged with sharp practice for its Panama coup, and the case made out by critics was prima facie strong—less, indeed, on its legal than on its ethical and prudential side. We had allowed ourselves to profit by Colombia's distress, encouraged secession in federal republics like our own, and rendered ourselves and our Monroe doctrine objects of dread throughout Central and South America. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... turf; but that is rather unusual, for somehow birds have come to feel that they must get away from the ground when the lyrical mood is upon them. This may be a thing of sentiment (for is not language full of uncomplimentary allusions to earth and earthliness?), but more likely it is prudential. The gift of song is no doubt a dangerous blessing to creatures who have so many enemies, and we can readily believe that they have found it safer to be up where they can look about them while ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... direct and indirect, has Christendom been raised up out of the accursed slough into which Europe and, indeed, the whole known world, had fallen during the early Roman Empire; and that to this influence, and therefore to the Holy Spirit of God alone, and not to any prudential calculations, combined experiences, or so-called philosophies of men, is owing all which keeps Europe from being a hell on earth. And we say, moreover, that those who deny this, and dream of a morality and a civilization without The Spirit of God, are unconsciously throwing down the ladder by ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... is high in office at Madras, is very considerable—at present L500 a year. This, however, we must, in some degree, regard as precarious—I mean to the full extent; and indeed, when you know her, you will not be surprised that I regard this circumstance chiefly because it removes those prudential considerations which would otherwise render our union impossible for the present. Betwixt her income and my own professional exertions, I have little doubt we will be enabled to hold the rank in society which my family and situation entitle me ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... religious liberty to the nobles. The people of the Netherlands, sickened with slaughter in the name of the faith, took a longer step in the direction of toleration in the Union of Utrecht. [Sidenote: 1579] The government of Elizabeth, acting from prudential motives only, created and maintained an extra-legal tolerance of Catholics, again and again refusing to molest those who were peaceable and quiet. The papists even hoped to obtain legal recognition when Francis Bacon proposed to tolerate all Christians except those who refused to fight ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of youth against uniformity and the necessity of following careful directions laid down by some one else, many times results in such nervous irritability that the youth, in spite of all sorts of prudential reasons, "throws up his job," if only to get outside the factory walls into the freer street, just as the narrowness of the school inclosure induces many a boy to ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... this part of France suffered more during the German invasion. The municipal authorities had at first decided upon making a bold stand, thus endeavouring to check the enemy's advance on Paris. Differences of opinion arose, prudential counsels prevailed, and it was through a mistaken order that a Prussian detachment was attacked near the town. The consequences were appalling. The station was burned to the ground, enormous contributions in money and material were exacted ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... they show that prudential or party motives led some at least of the Girondins, formerly friends of England, to desire an extension ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the angelic choristers. And for ever round the marble shoulders, in and out of the folded fingers, go the thin high sounds of voice and organ. For ever requiem—repose. Tired with scrubbing the steps of the Prudential Society's office, which she did year in year out, Mrs. Lidgett took her seat beneath the great Duke's tomb, folded her hands, and half closed her eyes. A magnificent place for an old woman to rest in, by the very side of the great Duke's ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... supposed to be in the shop, or the show-room. He then went on to say that he had only this morning heard that the intimacy between Mrs. Woffington and a Colonel Murthwaite, although publicly broken off for prudential reasons, was still clandestinely carried on. She had, doubtless, slipped away to ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... have addressed these closing letters to one of themselves than to you, for it is with their own faults and needs that each class is primarily concerned. As, however, unless I kept the letters private, this change of their address would be but a matter of courtesy and form, not of any true prudential use; and as besides I am now no more inclined to reticence—prudent or otherwise; but desire only to state the facts of our national economy as clearly and completely as may be, I pursue the ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... no sooner became aware of this gathering storm, than he sought to avert its outbreak; and repaired to King Sweno, with whom he remonstrated against the projected war, not only on religious, but prudential grounds; depicting to him the many serious obstacles by sea and land which must be surmounted before any advantage could be won; and reminding him, "that if the spider, by disembowelling herself, as ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... hand, the sunny happiness his brother had basked in,—and it was very great,—had sprung from the natural out-pourings of an affection, which,—unfettered as it had been by prudential considerations,—had yet the power to make earth a heaven while Acme shared it with him, and the dark grave an object of bright promise, when hailed as the portal, through which he must pass, ere he gazed once more on the load-star ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... across State lines constituted interstate commerce, thereby logically establishing their immunity from discriminatory State taxation, Congress passed the McCarran Act[765] authorizing State regulation and taxation of the insurance business; and in Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin,[766] a statute of South Carolina which imposed on foreign insurance companies, as a condition of their doing business in the State, an annual tax of three per cent of premiums ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... most, the command laid upon us by science to believe nothing not yet verified by the senses is a prudential rule intended to maximize our right thinking and minimize our errors in the long run. In the particular instance we must frequently lose truth by obeying it; but on the whole we are safer if we follow it consistently, for we are sure to ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... quoth Hereward (who had remounted his horse from prudential motives, and set him athwart the gateway, so that there was no chance of the doors being slammed behind him), "if either of you will lend me sixteen pence, I will pay it back to you and St. Peter before I die, with interest enough to satisfy ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... he, "you were right from a purely prudential point of view in testing the negro well; but in your place I should have trusted him the instant I learned that he ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... they were meted out almost daily, such as fourteen days in a cell, seven days IOA or IOB. To be confined in a cell is the penalty for returning on board ship intoxicated, or for breaking several days' leave. For prudential reasons the knife and lanyard of a seaman is taken away when the sentence of cell confinement is passed. In his cell he has to pick a pound of oakum daily, which is weighed every night by the ship's corporal, and his food consists of bread ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... hundred spahis rushed upon us with unequalled fury, and shouted "Allah! Allah!" I know not why one of their officers broke through a squadron which was in front, to find me at the head of the second, where I placed myself from prudential motives, having many orders to give. He missed me, and I was going to obtain satisfaction with my pistol when a dragoon at my side knocked him under his horse. On the same day we had a naval combat, which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... however, with significant emphasis, that he feared they made two days work of one," since, by sparing Macdonald, who was also a prisoner, and his apparent heir, they preserved the lives of those who might yet give them trouble. But Kenneth, though a lion in the field, could not, from any such prudential consideration, be induced to commit such a cowardly and inhuman act as was here inferred. He, however, had no great faith in the forbearance of his followers if an opportunity occurred to them, and he accordingly sent Macdonald, under a strong guard, to Lord ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... the coast, Wilson and I recognized, or thought we did, in the clear moonlight, the rude white Mission of San Juan Capistrano, and its cliff, from which I had swung down by a pair of halyards to save a few hides,— a boy who could not be prudential, and who caught at every chance ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... feminine Philistine whose silks and satins and purple and fine raiment fit like Dolly's do?" So it went on, and the two adored each other with mutual simplicity, and, having their little quarrels, always made them up again with much affectionate remorse, and, scorning the prudential advice of outsiders, believed in each other and the better day which was to come, when one or the other gained worldly goods enough to admit of a marriage in which they were to be happy in their own way,—which, I may add, was a way simple and ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... suppressed only when the fury of the mob had ceased, by the Knights of the Golden Fleece, of which the Prince of Orange was a member. The career of this remarkable man is closely identified with the history of the Netherlands during this period. He was opposed to the violence of the mob, not only from prudential motives, but because his own religious views were not yet in sympathy with the Protestant reformers, though he afterwards fully embraced ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... what ever to distress her; no cloud of grief crosses the area of her vision, as she gazes upwards.' He even intimates that, from the stress laid upon immortality by 'modern divines,' they might seem to be 'incarnations of selfishness.' He says it tends to 'degrade religion into a prudential regard for our interests after death'; that 'conscience, the love of virtue, for its own sake, and much more the love of God, are ignored.' Many of the 'spiritual' school agree with him in this; and some even affirm that the hope of immortal felicity is but ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... adopted parents, Mr. King was always privately informed of it, and rode in the same direction; at a sufficient distance, however, not to be visible to her, or to excite gossiping remarks by appearing to others to be her follower. Sometimes he asked himself: "What would my dear prudential mother say, to see me leaving my business to agents and clerks, while I devote my life to the service of an opera-singer?—an opera-singer, too, who has twice been on the verge of being sold as a slave, and who has been the victim ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... for the present that the slave possessed no rights at all. He was the chattel of his master, who possessed over him the full power of life and death, limited only by public opinion and prudential considerations. A Roman might have at his disposal one slave or ten thousand slaves. He could use them as he liked, kill them if he chose, and, subject to certain limitations, set them free if he willed, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... escaping the fate, that otherwise awaited him, of becoming the mere thrall of his more fortunate cousin, the king. In the palace it was whispered that he and the late queen consort had been tenderly attached to each other, but that the lady's parents, for prudential considerations, discountenanced the match; "and so," on the eve of her betrothal to his Majesty, her lover had sought seclusion and consolation in a Buddhist monastery. However that may be, it is ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... England who believed in our cause been possessed of the same spirit of devotion that animated these wild Highlanders we had unseated the Hanoverians out of doubt, but their loyalty was not strong enough to outweigh the prudential considerations that held them back. Their doubts held ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... re-perused this letter, until its contents were fixed in his mind. He had many doubts and scruples, both prudential and conscientious, in regard to the step he was about to take: but the chimera of fortune prompted him to risk all in the great project he had matured. Taking from his pocket a small screw-driver, ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... settle her affairs. In three months they met in Switzerland. Madame was in deep mourning, and Balzac, not to be outdone, had an absurdly large and very black band on his hat. With Madame was her daughter, a fine young woman of twenty, whom the mother always now kept close to her, for prudential reasons. The daughter must have been pretty good quality, for she called Balzac, "My Fat Papa," and Balzac threatens Madame that he will run away with the daughter if the marriage is not arranged, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Apollo Smintheus and the place-names derived from mice with a possible prehistoric mouse-totem gave me, I confess, considerable satisfaction. But in Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough (ii. 129- 132) is published a group of cases in which mice and other vermin are worshipped for prudential reasons—to get them to go away. In the Classical Review (vol. vi. 1892) Mr. Ward Fowler quotes Aristotle and AElian on plagues of mice, like the recent invasion of voles on the Border sheep-farms. He adopts ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... of organization, 87. Moderation and thrift, 87. Honesty, veracity, and tact of the prudential form, 88. The inherent value of the prudential economy. Individual and social health, 88. Temperance and reason, 90. Prudential formalism, or asceticism, 92. Asceticism illustrated by the Cynics, 92. Prudential ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... individual whom he subsequently discovered to be the captain of a band of Walachian Gypsies, the latter, whose name was Caroun, wished Vidocq to assist in scattering certain powders in the mangers of the peasants' cattle; Vidocq, from prudential motives, refused the employment. There can be no doubt that these powders were, in substance, the drao ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Fraught with these prudential suggestions, she drew near the unfortunate stranger, and, in a softened accent of pity and condolence, questioned him concerning his name, condition, and the nature of his mischance, at the same time making a gentle tender of her service. Agreeably surprised to hear ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... this time, attending to his brush-making and other business; this alone rendered the visit to Smedley tolerable: he frequently invited me to visit, with him, the surrounding neighbourhood, from the inhabitants of which places I had received pressing invitations; but all these I declined from prudential motives, and it was fortunate I did so, or my prosecutors would have found some pretence for the charge of conspiracy, of which, as it was, they could never bring ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... exhibition on our part taught the enemy their strength—confirmed against us those who, however disposed to join in the rebellion, had hitherto kept aloof from prudential motives, and ultimately encouraged the nation to unite as one man for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... not allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward securing it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her uncle's judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not merely prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been seen under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with her second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and cordially identified ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... was always disinclined for speech; and it was only after things had arranged themselves in my mind, or I had mastered my indignation, that I would begin to feel communicative. But something prudential inside warned me that I could not afford to lose any friend I had; and although I was not prepared to confide my wrongs to Mr Coningham, I felt I might some day be ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for the ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... at the school, and was, from prudential motives, a fast friend of Martin. But he bore him a secret grudge, for he could not ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... faileth. It is life-like and never dies out. It is an evergreen in the bosom of home. It has moral stamina, is regulated by moral law, has a moral end, contains moral principle, and rises superior to mere prudential considerations. It is more than mere feeling or emotion; it is not blind, but rational, and above deception, having its ground in our moral and religious nature. It extends to the whole person, to body, mind, and spirit, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... daylight. I have gone to a town with a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen myself everywhere announced as the most desperate of buffos,—one who was obliged to restrain himself in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential considerations. I have been through as many hardships as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... glorified Lord. Who can say that there is not need in these days of a return to primitive methods and of a resumption of the Church's primitive endowments? The Holy Spirit is not straitened in himself, but only in us. If the Church had faith to lean less on human wisdom, to trust less in prudential methods, to administer less by mechanical {162} rules, and to recognize once more the great fact that, having committed to her a supernatural work, she has appointed for her a supernatural power, who can doubt ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... to nineteen. Why could he not form a private class, to meet in the evening, to be instructed in advanced arithmetic, or, if desired, in Latin and Greek? He broached the idea to Stephen Bates, the prudential committeeman. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... required a more leisurely state and a consequently greater activity of mind;—no sophistry of self-delusion,—except only that previously to the dreadful act, Macbeth mistranslates the recoilings and ominous whispers of conscience into prudential and selfish reasonings, and, after the deed done, the terrors of remorse into fear from external dangers,—like delirious men who run away from the phantoms of their own brains, or, raised by terror to rage, stab ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... word, and declare the contrary errors, heresies, corruptions. Hence the Church is styled, the pillar and ground of truth, 1 Tim. iii. 15. Thus to the Jewish Church were committed of trust the oracles of God, Rom. iii. 2. 2. Regulating, in reference to external order and polity, in matters prudential and circumstantial, which are determinate according to the true light of nature, and the general rules of Scripture, such as are in 1 Cor. x. 31, 32; Rom. xiv.; 1 Cor. xiv. 26, 40, &c.; not according to any arbitrary power of men. 3. Censuring power, in reference to error, heresy, schism, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... right of the Government to exact tribute from the earnings of labor or the property of the citizen, and because public extravagance begets extravagance among the people. We should never be ashamed of the simplicity and prudential economies which are best suited to the operation of a republican form of government and most compatible with the mission of the American people. Those who are selected for a limited time to manage public affairs are ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... hostile to Napoleon, could not as yet count on being supported in a war against him by the hearty goodwill of an undivided people. Austria, on the other hand, had been grievously weakened by the campaign of Marengo, and hesitated, on prudential grounds, to commit herself once more ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... post the entire apparatus controlling the movements of the vessel could be reached—and, with von Schalckenberg at his elbow to correct him in the event of a possible mistake, the ascent was begun. This, from prudential motives, was slowly accomplished, and at a distance of five fathoms from the surface a pause was made for the purpose of taking a good look round and thus avoiding all possibility of inflicting damage on passing ships in the act of breaking water. It was ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... struck in the Baroness. "Charlotte was not altogether without fault—not altogether free from what we must call prudential considerations; and although she had a real, hearty love for Edward, and did in her secret soul intend to marry him, I can bear witness how sorely she often tried him; and it was through this that he was at last unluckily prevailed upon to leave her and go ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... since vaccination has been introduced, other pestilences mitigated, and war sternly repressed. This increase, however, would not have been possible had not these rude people spread into the adjoining districts, and worked for hire. Savages almost always marry; yet there is some prudential restraint, for they do not commonly marry at the earliest possible age. The young men are often required to shew that they can support a wife; and they generally have first to earn the price with which to purchase her from her parents. With savages the difficulty of obtaining subsistence occasionally ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... of instinctive action, rather than reflection—of poetry and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the educational course," to ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... called Directors Extraordinary—an extraordinary director I should prove had they elected me an ordinary one. There were there moneyers and great oneyers[72], men of metal—discounters and counters—sharp, grave, prudential faces—eyes weak with ciphering by lamplight—men who say to gold, Be thou paper, and to paper, Be thou turned into fine gold. Many a bustling, sharp-faced, keen-eyed writer too—some perhaps speculating with their clients' property. My reverend seigniors ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the human mind; and when external violence is offered to a man himself, or those to whom he bears a near connexion, makes it lawful in him to do himself that immediate justice, to which he is prompted by nature, and which no prudential motives ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... called for Tip till the woods rang again, but all in vain. At last I saw a single kangaroo, a fresh one of immense size, break cover, with Tip about forty yards in his rear. In the ardour of the chase, all prudential considerations were given to the winds; and cheering on the gallant hound, I followed the game more determinedly than ever. And what a race that villain kangaroo led us! — through thickets where my hunting-shirt was torn into strips, my ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... a very prudential affair, especially among the peasants who have the largest share of property. Politic marriages are as common among them as among princes; and when a peasant-heiress in Westphalia marries, her husband adopts her name, and places his own after it with the prefix geborner ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers, of which they had been forewarned by ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... cast a stone at a man for snatching a little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... exhortation, like the address of a general on the eve of a battle, that inspired courage in every heart. Then followed a few hours of deliberation and mutual council on the course to be adopted in the critical circumstances of the time. Certain prudential arrangements were made for maintaining the connexional unity of the Church under the stress of disorganizing influences, and certain provisions effected for the unforeseen contingencies of the war. Then, after commending one another to God in fervent prayer, and invoking His guidance of their lives ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... speaking;—but above and beyond all things, let him ascertain it, and stand valiantly to it when ascertained! In the latter essential part of the operation Edward Sterling was honorably successful to a really marked degree; in the former, or prudential part, very much the reverse, as his history in the Journalistic department at least, was continually ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... a conscience—that sort of prudential conscience which must be considered as a most valuable acquisition. He certainly was not so unreasonable as to expect a spirited nobleman to lead the life of a sequestered monk, nor could he object ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... own well-filled flask, with which from prudential motives he had provided himself before undertaking his journey, he handed it to Mr. Gardner of Wellsville and made him ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Whoever is familiar with the history of the period, finds in this remarkable work a memorable illustration of that rectitude and wisdom which presided over the early counsels of the nation, and an evidence of the rare union of sagacity and comprehensiveness, of liberal aspiration and prudential foresight, of conscientiousness and intelligence, which has won for the founders of the republic the admiration of the world. In these pages, how much knowledge of the past is combined with insight as to the future, what common sense ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... land force, doubtless from prudential reasons, omitted to state in his report that the men fought their way through the town while being fired upon from house-tops and windows by boys and women. That the gunboat opened fire directly on them when they were engaged in a hand ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... doubtful,—doubtful, whether to do what would please herself, and him, would be just right to-day; but the pleading of the affirmative side of the question was too strong. She gave up considering the prudential side of the measure, thinking that perhaps Mr. Linden knew his own feelings best; and once decided, let pleasure have its full flow. With hardly a shade upon the glad readiness of her movements, she placed the chair and brought the book, and sat docile down, though keeping a jealous watch for any ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... reasons (apparently prudential at the time) this reply was never published in the Christian Guardian, as were other replies of ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... circumstances—wrote to her father asking forgiveness. Before Captain Bloomer received the letter, the last spark of anger in his breast had given place to paternal anxiety. Left alone without wife or child, gladly would he have welcomed her home, had not prudential reasons rendered it necessary to keep father and daughter separate. Her letter gave great satisfaction; and he resolved to assist her and her husband. Through an English friend, a sufficient amount was remitted to America, to enable Mr. Campbell to purchase an estate. The young ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant |
