"Rashness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... endure, if in her right temper, to be subject unto either. And this indeed most justly. For by nature she was ordained to command all in the body. The third thing proper to man by his constitution, is, to avoid all rashness and precipitancy; and not to be subject to error. To these things then, let the mind apply herself and go straight on, without any distraction about other things, and she hath her end, and by consequent ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Then there was her midnight expedition with Gouache, a far more serious matter. After all, he had only Corona's own assurance that Faustina Montevarchi had been in any way concerned in that extraordinary piece of rashness. He must indeed have had faith in his wife to pass over such conduct without a word of explanation. Next came the events of that very afternoon. Corona had been rude to Gouache, had then suddenly left the room, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the rashness to attempt to answer the question myself.—Some say the Broad Church means the collective mass of good people of all denominations. Others say that such a definition is nonsense; that a church is an organization, and the scattered good folks are no organization at all. They ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Queen's American regiment from New York) under Col. Innis. This was unexpected news. Fatigued as were their horses, retreat was impracticable; and to attack an enemy of such superior force, would have been an act of rashness and the certain defeat of his own ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... Napoleon received the news of Bennigsen's march. In a general way he had been aware for some days that the enemy was moving, but he believed they had no other intention than to derive what immediate advantage could be had from Ney's rashness. In the absence of fuller information he had not changed his opinion, but the army was nevertheless put in readiness, the trains were equipped, and orders were issued for abandoning temporarily the siege of Dantzic and for the complete occupation of Thorn. This step was taken, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... readiest way, Least entring on the Canaanite allarmd Warr terrifie them inexpert, and feare Return them back to Egypt, choosing rather Inglorious life with servitude; for life To noble and ignoble is more sweet 220 Untraind in Armes, where rashness leads not on. This also shall they gain by thir delay In the wide Wilderness, there they shall found Thir government, and thir great Senate choose Through the twelve Tribes, to rule by Laws ordaind: God from ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... bold enthusiasm of loftier natures by the perpetual reduction of whatever is generous and trustful to all that is trite and coarse. A great German poet has well defined the distinction between discretion and the larger wisdom. In the last there is a certain rashness which the first disdains,— ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Harrington, "Dr. Dickkopf's learned etymological disquisitions on the names Wilde and Philpotts, which, aided by the imputed 'rashness' of the one, and the 'intoxicated zeal' of the other, he ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of the South: sons of planters, lawyers about towns, good billiard-players and sportsmen, men who never did work and never will. War suits them, and the rascals are brave, fine riders, bold to rashness, and dangerous subjects in every sense. They care not a sou for niggers, land, or any thing. They hate Yankees per se, and don't bother their brains about the past, present, or future. As long as they have good horses, plenty of forage, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Herakleia, landed at Kalpe; an untenanted promontory of the Bithynian or Asiatic Thrace, midway between Herakleia and Byzantium. From thence they marched at once into the interior of Bithynia, with the view of surprising the villages and acquiring plunder. But through rashness and bad management, they first sustained several partial losses, and ultimately became surrounded upon an eminence, by a large muster of the native Bithynians from all the territory around. They were only ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... rashness of the general proposition here can only be appreciated when we remember Knox's view that it was the duty of the Magistrate not only to suppress idolatry, but to punish it ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... must have been a very horrid sight to them on their entrance into the room; for to all appearance, I seemed to have suffered a violent death, either by my own rashness, or the cruelty of some murderer, as the pistols had ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... for my boldness," said Agelastes; "but has your Imperial Highness reflected, that you were wagering, with the wildest rashness, an empire, including thine own life, mine, and all who are joined with us, in a hardy scheme? And against what were they waged? Against the very precarious favour of a woman, who is altogether divided betwixt fiend and female, and in either capacity is most ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Captain Brialmont says that French generals admit that the passage of the Douro was bold even to rashness. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... circumstance occurred, strongly marking the rashness of Genet, and his disrespect to the executive of ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... present service for that of Pizarro. Their own leader, too, satisfied that Quito held out no recompense worth the sacrifices he had made, and was like to make, by insisting on his claim, became now more sensible of the rashness of a course which must doubtless incur the censure of his sovereign. In this temper, it was not difficult for them to effect an adjustment of difficulties; and it was agreed, as the basis of it, that the governor should pay one hundred thousand pesos de oro to Alvarado, in consideration of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... long continued intercourse with the best models of composition. This is mentioned, not with so ridiculous a purpose as to prevent the most inexperienced Reader from judging for himself (I have already said that I wish him to judge for himself), but merely to temper the rashness of decision, and to suggest, that, if Poetry be a subject on which much time has not been bestowed, the judgement may be erroneous; and that, in many cases, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... be remembered afterward. And your heart will have already told you why it is not for you and me now to look forward to the happiness that once seemed to lie before us. You know what a terrible result has followed from my rashness; but then you are free—that is something; for the rest, perhaps it is less misery to die, than to live and know that you have caused another's death. You remember, the night they played Fidelio, I told you I should always try to remain worthy of your ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... thus taken, I lost no time in repairing to Commercy. The very first conversations with the Chevalier answered in no degree my expectations; and I assure you, with great truth, that I began even then, if not to repent of my own rashness, yet to be fully convinced ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... of a man of forty is a much more serious thing than the inexperience of a youth of twenty, for it is not helped out by the rashness of hot blood. The girl was mysterious, as all young girls are, by the mere effect of their guarded ingenuity; and to him the mysteriousness of that young girl appeared exceptional and fascinating. But there was nothing mysterious about the arrangements ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Powell, will set out for Europe early next week. My dear, it is growing fashionable to 'marry for spite.' I have seen two instances recently, and know of a third which will take place ere long. Poor Gordon will rue his rashness, and, before the year expires, he will arrive at the conclusion that he is an unmitigated fool, and has simply performed, with great success, an operation familiarly known as cutting off one's nose to spite one's face! ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... was calmed, and the frightened company came slowly streaming back. Everything was explained and Brant became a greater hero than ever before. Yet it is hardly likely that the pompous follower of Islam ever forgot the lively scene which his rashness had produced. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... of the Christmas holidays on the banks of the Shannon, intended to show, by the conduct of a party of young people, that rashness and disobedience are no proofs of courage. It should be widely spread, for the spirit of the little book is excellent. The engravings are appropriate ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... will have the last word; and that with such eagerness, impudence, abominable lying, falsifying, and bitterness in their questions they proceed, that as he [159]said, furorne caecus, an rapit vis acrior, an culpa, responsum date? Blind fury, or error, or rashness, or what it is that eggs them, I know not, I am sure many times, which [160]Austin perceived long since, tempestate contentionis, serenitas charitatis obnubilatur, with this tempest of contention, the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... has turned all our war and peace topsy-turvy ! If Mr. Pitt Will conquer Germany too, he must go and do it himself. Fourteen thousand soldiers and nine generals taken, as it were, in a partridge net! and what is worse, I have not heard yet that the monarch owns his rashness.(9) As often as he does, indeed, he is apt to repair it. You know I have always dreaded Daun—one cannot make a blunder but he profits of it-and this ' just at the moment that we heard of nothing but new bankruptcy in France. I want ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and destroy him they overreached themselves. Had they been content to accuse him of lending his countenance, with a rashness unbecoming his high place, to an illconcerted scheme, that large part of mankind which judges of a plan simply by the event would probably have thought the accusation well founded. But the malice which they bore ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, perhaps, shown a sovereign contempt for "the bungling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... movements of the bowels, and his only care being to tie the neck of the tumour firmly with strong string, sew up the wound, and trust to nature, was an operation very easy to perform, and requiring free cutting rather than dexterity, and rashness more than ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... assist in securing the prisoners. There was another Witherspoon with Marion, John, a brother of Gavin, and like him distinguished for great coolness, strength, and courage. Both of the brothers delighted in such adventures, and were always ready to engage in them,—the rashness of the attempt giving a sort of relish to the danger, which always sweetened it to the taste ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... duke, whose heart was a stranger to the softer affections, indignation usurped the place of parental feeling. His pride was the only passion affected by the discovery; and he had the rashness to express the indignation, which the conduct of his son had excited, in terms of unrestrained invective. The banditti, inflamed by the opprobium with which he loaded their order, threatened instant punishment to his temerity; and the authority of Riccardo could hardly restrain them within the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... much as that exactly, but I can imagine her being afraid of Miss Gage's taking it out of her somehow. Now she will take it out of us. I hope you realise that you've done it now, my dear. To be sure, you will have all your life to repent of your rashness." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often, indeed, he who falls in it meets with but little pity. They who are not pitied, Raoul, have died uselessly. Still further, the conqueror laughs, and we Frenchmen ought not to allow stupid infidels to triumph over our faults. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... was unbelievable that this slip of a woman should be possessed of the determination, the courage, and the administrative ability to conduct so desperate an enterprise. He could understand the feminine rashness that might have led her to embark upon it in the first place, but to continue in the face of such opposition—why, that was a man's work and required a man's powers, and yet she was utterly unmasculine. Indeed, it seemed to him that he had never met a more womanly ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... and to my shame I must own that I was conquered, and could no longer resist so many prayers; especially when I saw myself accused of want of affection. I have now only to crave my readers' pardon; and if they find rashness and presumption in my attempt, to blame my advisers rather than me, since my own judgment agrees with that of my ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... small house at St. Cyr, about a mile from Tours, where they hope for a tolerable climate, easy access to Paris, and the use of the fine library of the cathedral. He entered eagerly on the Eastern question, and agreed on all points with Faucher; admitted the folly and rashness of the French, but deplored the over-caution which had led us to refuse interference, at least effectual interference, and to allow Turkey to sink ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... be willing, sir, to think it was a young man's rashness, or perhaps the rage of a successless rival; yet he ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... then sent out on horseback for news of the other vessels, that bore the remnant of the invading force. These had, fortunately, effected a landing in various places; and, before daybreak, Anthony Woodville, and the rest of the troops, had joined the leader of an enterprise that seemed but the rashness of despair, for its utmost force, including the few sailors allured to the adventurer's standard, was about two thousand men. [Fifteen hundred, according to the Croyland historian.] Close and anxious was the consultation then held. Each ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must inevitably go to the bottom as soon as it should be exposed to the pressure of the ice, he goes on to refer to the impossibility of drifting in the ice with boats. And he concludes his article with the remark that "Arctic exploration is sufficiently credited with rashness and danger in its legitimate and sanctioned methods, without bearing the burden of Dr. Nansen's illogical ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... evident fright and alarm there was upon the face of each a look of incredulity at rashness of the cadet. Had his adventures and narrow escapes turned his brain, and were they now at the mercy of a maniac? was in ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... rough backwoodsman." And Jefferson is represented as saying of Jackson to Webster at Monticello in 1824: "His passions are terrible. When I was president of the Senate he was Senator, and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... might came straight upon Sir Palamedes, and broke his spear upon him. Then he drew his sword and struck at Sir Palamedes six great strokes, upon his helm. Sir Palamedes saw that Sir Tristram had not his armor on, and he marvelled at his rashness and his great folly; and said to himself, "If I meet and slay him, I am shamed wheresoever I go." Then Sir Tristram cried out and said, "Thou coward knight, why wilt thou not do battle with me? for have thou no doubt I shall endure all thy malice." "Ah, Sir Tristram!" ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... suit upon her. God knows, that I only did so, because I saw no other outlet from this most unpleasant dilemma. But, since you are willing to interfere, sir, and aid me to disentangle these complicated matters, which have, I own, been made worse by my own rashness, I am ready to throw the matter completely into your hands, just as if you were my father arisen from the dead. Nevertheless, I must needs express my surprise at the extent of your intelligence ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... fact that he would never take life plain when he could get it coloured, he was a perfectly sane person. As I have said, the more you knew him the more you felt that, though you might be shocked by the first rashness of his thought, it would very likely turn out to be a perfectly sane judgment—proper discount being allowed for his brilliance of vision. I used sometimes to put some of his most wonderful and hair-raising ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus—sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written "Rashness in Speculation"—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"—and ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... was empty. Quickly he resumed his place at the table and threw again, meanwhile talking steadily. He had not made his point nor had he thrown a seven. Sweat prickled on his forehead. Little Jim had seen his father's horses and knew that the men were in the cabin. With the rashness of boyhood he had sneaked up to the corral, dropped the bars, and had then flung pine cones at the horses, starting them to milling and finally to a dash through the gateway and out ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Athanasius, was placed in command. Gratian hurried Thraceward with the Gaulish legions, and at last Valens thought it time to leave his pleasant home at Antioch for the field of war. Evil omens beset his march, but no omen could be worse than his own impulsive rashness. With a little prudence, such a force as he had gathered round the walls of Hadrianople was an overmatch for any hordes of barbarians. But Valens determined to storm the Gothic camp without waiting for his Western colleague. Rugged ground and tracts of burning ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... bound upon planks and thrown into the sea. The man whom you threaten with death alone escaped from perishing in the waves, and must I this day be the witness of his death? Behold the reward of my guilty rashness! My heart is filled with bitterness, and tears will flow from mine eyes till they are closed ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... plain truth we think our foes. No quick reply to dubious questions make, Suspense and caution still prevent mistake. When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end: All great concernments must delays endure; Rashness and haste make all things unsecure; And if uncertain thy pretensions be, Stay till fit time wear out uncertainty; 190 But if to unjust things thou dost pretend, Ere they begin let thy pretensions end. Let thy discourse be such that thou may'st give Profit to ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... he said at last, and the gladiators drew back, and the opponents faced each other. Lupus had learned that Beric was not, as he had supposed, entirely untaught; but although he attributed the blow he had received solely to his own rashness, he renewed the conflict with the same care and prudence he would have shown had he been fighting with edged weapons in the arena. He soon found, however, that he had met with an opponent differing widely ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... they alone were not allowed to learn from experience and to plan better for the future, and they might not go homeward and tell of their discomfiture and the valor of our ancestors; for they died here and paid the penalty for their rashness, and made the memory of this city immortal through valor, and rendered their own country nameless through their defeat here. These women then, through their unjust desire for a country not their own, justly ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... {17a}) For many foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect; especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted, lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be marked by new persons and men ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... eyes with a threatening look, not knowing but that Edestone was still poking fun at him, or else, fearing the consequences of his rashness, was trying to ingratiate himself with his jailer. But after that glance at Edestone's face he felt confident that his apology was sincere. The Prussian's pride was too deeply wounded, however, for him to ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... great hand at such gymnastic exercises; and he was all out of breath, and a little bit frightened at his rashness, before he had placed ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... if I dared!" exclaimed Amasis loudly. And then, as if frightened at his own rashness, he continued in a low voice, "I believe that even here I am being watched. To-morrow I will have that grove of fig-trees yonder uprooted. The young priest there, who seems so fond of gardening, has other fruit in his mind besides the half-ripe figs that he is so slowly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the city with the same curiosity as himself, he was struck with this strange coincidence, and spoke of it to several persons. They related to him the stories which were afloat concerning the veiled woman, and advised him to beware of her. But, as he was brave even to rashness, these warnings, instead of frightening him, excited his curiosity, and inspired him with a mad desire to make the acquaintance of the mysterious personage who so terrified the vulgar. Wishing to keep ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... series of pictures, whose clear-cut outlines, so long as memory endures, will never fade. Certainly no professional burglar, nor, indeed, any creature in his senses, would have ventured to emulate my surprising rashness. The process of smashing the pane of glass—it was plate glass—was anything but a noiseless one. There was, first, the blow itself, then the shivering of the glass, then the clattering of fragments ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... depended upon opinion, and not merely upon the power of the crown), in their finding colour to represent the Whigs as republicans. From this observation we may draw a further inference, that, in proportion to the rashness of the crown in avowing and pressing forward the cause of popery, and to the moderation and steadiness of the Whigs in adhering to the form of monarchy, would be the chance of the people of England for changing an ignominious despotism for glory, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... officious courtesy of the Frenchman. He is known to be exceedingly averse to public exhibitions, even in his own country. He had gone through all the hardships and privations of the campaigns, had exposed himself with a gallantry bordering on rashness in every engagement, his son and nephew always by his side; his coolness in action was the subject of universal admiration; and it was not without reason that he had acquired the name of the first soldier in his army. His brothers, who are fine looking men, took the command of brigades in the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Colonel, with a curious little smile. "For rashness, I fancied, when they showed the first blade above the clod, but I am less sure of it now. Well, the wheat is ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... dispute—so little had I thought of it afterwards—entirely failed to recur to my memory. All that I could now recall, and all that I could tell Ezra Jennings was, that I had attacked the art of medicine at the dinner-table with sufficient rashness and sufficient pertinacity to put even Mr. Candy out of temper for the moment. I also remembered that Lady Verinder had interfered to stop the dispute, and that the little doctor and I had "made it up again," as the children say, and had become ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... he had long foreseen. For we often lamented, between ourselves, the misfortunes which hung over the State, when we discovered the seeds of a civil war in the insatiable ambition of a few private Citizens, and saw every hope of an accommodation excluded by the rashness and precipitancy of our public counsels. But the felicity which always marked his life, seems to have exempted him, by a seasonable death, from the calamities that followed. But, as after the decease of Hortensius, we seem to have been left, my ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... overwhelming. Burnside's army became all but mutinous; his corps commanders, especially General Hooker, were loud in complaint. He was tempted to persist, in spite of all protests, in some further effort of rashness. Lincoln endeavoured to restrain him. Halleck, whom Lincoln begged to give a definite military opinion, upholding or overriding Burnside's, had nothing more useful to offer than his own resignation. After discussions and ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... just and good man is not capable of being dishonored. His only vexation arose from his fear lest this ill counsel, by supplying opportunities to the diseased military ambition of his subordinate, should damage the public cause. Lest the rashness of Minucius should now at once run headlong into some disaster, he returned back with all privacy and speed to the army; where he found Minucius so elevated with his new dignity, that, a joint-authority ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... be these ghostly [fabulous, figurative] Scots? I will go bail they be wrapped of their foldings [plaids] fast asleep on some moor an hundred miles hence. 'Tis but Robin, the clown! that is so clumst [stupid] with his rashness, that he seeth a Scot full armed under every bush, and heareth a trumpeter in every corncrake: and as if that were not enough, he has a sister as ill as himself, that must take all for gospel as if Friar Robert preached it. Mary ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... of courage, of rashness if you will, to take this draught. He was acutely introspective, ready for anything, for the most disagreeable or the most bizarre sensations. He was asking himself, Were his feet steady? Was ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... to see the path up these awful rocks, and to follow in imagination this bold youth as he thus saved his life. His name stands far above all the rest, a monument of hardihood, of rashness, and of folly. ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... motives of health and reputation and success, is a thing that has often to be deliberately unlearnt at a later stage. The strange catastrophes which one sees so often in human life, where a man by one act of rashness, or moral folly, upsets the tranquil tenor of his life—a desperate love-affair, a passion of unreasonable anger, a piece of quixotic generosity—are often a symptom of a great effort of the soul to free itself from prudential ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the oldest; "he will spoil it all with his rashness!" The Phoenix now recovered himself, and having finished his two broken sentences together, "degenerate—are a goose," for he never left anything undone, told Rosedrop to fly faster and carry the news before the other. Rosedrop sped swiftly, and overtaking her brother, went with him in company ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... Raleigh was writing the second of his Marriage Discourses, that dealing with the prospects of his best and youngest friend. A month later that friend fell a victim to his extreme rashness in the neglect of his health. The illness of the Prince of Wales filled the whole of England with dismay, and when, on November 6, he sank under the attack of typhoid fever, it was felt to be a national misfortune. On the very morning of his death ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... wait upon himself in the court of Mardonale? But to return to the issue. Were I an honored guest this would never have happened. Know, Nalboon, that when you attempt to treat a visiting Domak of MY race as a low-born captive, you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of your rashness!" ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... again," growled the soldiers who were lined up in the trench, gorgonized by the extraordinary sight of a living man standing, for no reason, on a front line parapet in broad daylight, stupefied by the rashness they admired ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... siege with obstinacy equal to the rashness with which he had undertaken it. During three months everything known to the engineers of that age, or that could be effected by the valor of his troops, was attempted, in order to reduce the place; while Lannoy and Pescara, unable to obstruct his operations, were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... maintain such a position without a certain number of British troops. If the British troops had been there treachery would have been impossible; but sending Gordon by himself to rely on the fidelity of Africans and Egyptians was an act of extreme rashness, and if the government succeed in proving, which I do not think they can, that treachery was inevitable, they only pile up an additional reason for their condemnation. I confess it is very difficult ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... with the utmost expedition pursued their enemies, in hopes of cutting them entirely off. This expectation was too sanguine: they found them encamped in a place naturally almost inaccessible, and so well fortified, that it would be no less than extreme rashness to attack them. They therefore entrenched themselves on a hill over against the enemy's camp, and though victorious, were under great disadvantages. They saw new troops arrive every day at the enemy's camp, and their small number grew less ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... incredulously at him while he talked this high patriotism: and well she might, for he did not speak as one moved by such feelings. The consciousness of deceit, of concealment, and of childish rashness, rendered his manner hesitating and embarrassed. Margaret observed all this, for her jealousy was aroused and her suspicions sharpened; she made no reply, however, but turned away, with a toss of the head, and busied herself, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... Stuarts against William of Orange. England and France were face to face in Europe, and in the New World the veiled conflict between the rival colonies now gave place to open war. The King by this time realised that Frontenac, for all his seventy years and his reputation for rashness, was the only man qualified to fill the difficult post of Governor, and accordingly sent him again to New France. He reached Quebec about the middle of October. It was evening, and the citizens had gathered at the quay with torches of welcome, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... from man to man Mingled with praise, assenting murmurs ran Unequal—So in night's tempestuous roar The waves successive lash the stony shore. The bold advice, by inexperience moved, All seem'd applauding, yet not all approved; And old Adalfi thus: "Tho' hopes remain; } Tho' dauntless rashness may oft-times attain } What wisdom's wiliest arts had sought in vain; } He, whose wild counsels risk a nation's fate, For public fame, may meet with public hate. Perhaps, ev'n now, to the victorious Dane Dalarne has yielded half her rich domain: Shall we ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... was himself! Noble, fascinating and a model of grace, he fastened his bark to every bank; but he allowed himself to be carried only where he wished to go. The more he saw the more skeptical he became. Probing human nature he soon guessed that courage was rashness; prudence, cowardice; generosity, shrewd calculation; justice, a crime; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, policy; and by a singular fatality he perceived that the persons who were really honest, delicate, just, generous, prudent and ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... above all, temperance of feelings. And even if these should effect no change, yet the delay will at least prevent the final approval of the decision from being alloyed by the inward censure of the rashness and vanity, by which it had been precipitated. It would be a sort of irreligion, and scarcely less than a libel on human nature to believe, that there is any established and reputable profession or employment, in which a man may not continue to act with honesty ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... be hurried away by his bolder companion on the path that led to liberty. Rita led the way out into the upper hall, and Russell followed, not without great trepidation, and bitter regret at his rashness, expecting at every step to see "His Majesty," and of course to be arrested and flung into some deep, dark dungeon. One or two men were there, who, however, took no notice ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... be afterwards revived and separated,—if they are not convinced that the scheme of parochial and club governments takes up the state at the wrong end, and is a low and senseless contrivance, (as making the sole constitution of a supreme power,)—I should then allow that their early rashness ought to be remembered to the last ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and she was keenly alive to the distress which still prevailed in many parts of the kingdom, and to the embarrassments of the revenue, which the ingenuity of Calonne did not relieve half so rapidly as his rashness encumbered it. Accordingly, her reply to Boehmer's application that she would purchase his necklace was that her jewel-case was sufficiently full, and that she had almost given up wearing diamonds; and that if such a sum as he asked, which was nearly seventy thousand ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... which is not a question of the phenomenon, but of that which is asserted of the phenomenon. Should we, however, argue directly against the phenomena, it is not with the intention of denying their existence, but to show the rashness of the Dogmatics. For if reasoning is such a deceiver that it well nigh snatches away the phenomena from before your eyes, how should we not distrust it in regard to things that are unknown, so as not to rashly ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... which are persistently confused with it, namely—was Mr. Gordon a Jamaica Hampden or was he a psalm-singing fire-brand? and was Mr. Eyre actuated by the highest and noblest motives, or was he under the influence of panic-stricken rashness ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... how to protect himself against infection, and the rashness of your devotion proves to me that you would probably be ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with technical inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred and fear. These are precisely the two emotions, particularly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... lowered her eyelids again and surveyed him with the satisfied tolerance a pretty woman can so easily extend when unconquerable ardor has prompted to rashness. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... everyone guilty of dietetic sins goes through such sad experiences, for the naturally strong frequently escape the consequences of their rashness, particularly where they live in the rural districts and take plenty of out-door exercise. Let not such, however, flatter themselves that their disregard of hygienic laws will go unpunished. After indiscretions in eating they will all, at one time or another, have acute indigestion ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... also and made jests, saying that I should soon practice astrology in the palace. But, as soon as we might, I and my uncle escaped, and made our way back to the house. All the while he rated me for my rashness; but when we came to the chamber of the house he embraced me and rejoiced greatly, because I had overthrown the giant with so little hurt ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... to her feet at the note of agony in Lucy's voice and had stepped to her side as if to protect her. The doctor stood listening in amazement to Lucy's outbreak. He knew her reasons, and was appalled at her rashness. ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Lady," he answered, "but I had not thought to do the work which now lies before me. Why didst thou not keep a still tongue in thy head and let his patron saint look after the welfare of this princeling? Your rashness has brought you to a pretty pass, for it must be either you or I, My Lady, and it cannot be I. Say thy prayers and ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... these matters, as you should remember that you dress to please others, and not yourself. We have heard of some eccentric individuals connected with noble families, who have departed from this rule; but they invariably paid the penalty of their rashness, being frequently mistaken for men of intellect; and it should not be forgotten, that any exercise of the mind is a species of labour utterly incompatible with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... turned her face resolutely away, and refused to recognize him. After these repulses he would slowly leave the room, and going to his own chamber, sit brooding for hours over the melancholy consequences of his rashness. Owing to the previous enfeebled health of EMMA, the fever made rapid progress, and it soon became apparent that she must die. WILLIAM, in consequence of the violent aversion of his sister, had latterly been denied admittance to the chamber, though he lingered all day about the door, eagerly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... And then, besides these performances of his depending on his own strength of mind and body, fortune was also very favorable to him; for he seldom failed of success in his wars; and when he failed, he was not himself the occasion of such failings, but he either was betrayed by some, or the rashness of his own soldiers ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... hesitate. Their astonishing activity and strength, and wonderful tenacity of life, render them antagonists not to be despised. Besides, Frank was but a boy, and although strong and active for his age, and possessing a good share of determined courage that sometimes amounted almost to rashness, it must be confessed that his feelings were not of the most enviable nature. He had not yet discovered the animal, but he knew that he could not be a great distance off, for the weight of the trap and clog would retard him exceedingly; and he judged, from the appearance ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... Western States, which are already so greatly and unjustly deprived of an important part of the representation, a still greater share; to endeavor to establish the first precedent, which extreme rashness and temerity have ever presumed, that Congress has a right to touch the question and legislate on slavery; thereby shaking the property in them, in the Southern and Western States, to its very foundation, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... pope, not less {103} tyrannous than he of Rome. Reuchlin the Hebrew scholar and Mutian the philosopher had little sympathy with any dogmatic subtlety. Zasius the jurist was repelled by the haste and rashness of Luther. The so-called "godless painters" of Nuremberg, George Penz and the brothers Hans and Bartholomew Beham, having rejected in large part Christian doctrine, were naturally not inclined to join a new church, even ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... itself at the death of Polonius,[64] and perhaps at Hamlet's farewell to the King,[65] but the idea seems now to be constantly present in his mind. 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends,' he declares to Horatio in speaking of the fighting in his heart that would not let him sleep, and of his rashness in groping his way to the courtiers to find their commission. How was he able, Horatio asks, to ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the subject. And probably her daughter had been enough influenced by the stranger's manner and appearance, even in the short period of the interview we have just described, to get rid of a feeling she had of self-reproach for her own rashness. We don't understand girls, but we ask this question of those who do: Is it possible that Miss Sally was impressed by the splendid arm with the name tattooed on it—an arm in which every muscle told as in a Greek statue, without infringing on its roundness—the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... yer affairs, sonny, it seems to be the understood thing by the kempany that I'm to keep fiery young squirts like you, and chuckle-headed passengers like them"—jerking his thumb towards the other room—"from gettin' themselves killed by their rashness. So ontil the kempany fill the top o' that coach with men who ain't got any business to do BUT fightin' other men who ain't got any other business to do BUT to fight them—the odds are agin us! Harry has always acted square ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... without her I live. Speed to my father,—beg him to forgive His hapless son, who staked his life on one Whose face is fair, whose heart is cold as stone. Shew him this portrait: (takes a miniature from his breast) when its charms he views, My frenzied love, my rashness he'll excuse." This said, he clasped the portrait to his breast, Fond kisses on its icy beauty pressed; Then bent his head, and closed his eyes, The death blow fell, and ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... visitation- book. I defy any minister to keep those records always open before him and yet remain a proud man, a self-respecting, self-satisfied, self-righteous man. For, what secret histories of his own folly, neglect, rashness, offensiveness, hot-headedness, self-seeking, self-pleasing vanity, now puffed up over one man, now cast down and full of gloom over another, what self-flattery here, and what resentment and retaliation there; and so on, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... past I cannot forbear giving you from my heart a word of warning, begging you not with rashness to risk your so valuable life. Do not laugh and imagine that I am pulling your leg (dass ich Dir das Bein ziehe). Nothing is further from my thoughts; I am quite serious. You must remember that you ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... of fire enraged at the curse of Bhrigu, thus addressed the Rishi, 'What meaneth this rashness, O Brahmana, that thou hast displayed towards me? What transgression can be imputed to me who was labouring to do justice and speak the truth impartially? Being asked I gave the true answer. A witness who when interrogated about a fact of which he hath knowledge, representeth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... From veriest rashness recks not for weapons; I this do scorn then, so be Higelac gracious, My liegelord beloved, lenient of spirit, 65 To bear a blade or a broad-fashioned target, A shield to the onset; ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... goes to certain death in battle. These men are no fools, no strangers to savage warfare and Indian deceit,—yet in spite of their warning, Captain Heald persists in driving us forth into the very fangs of the wolves. Brave! ay, he is indeed brave to the point of rashness; but this bids fair to be a fatal bravery to all of us who must ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... old, general, mankind has made true and proper distinctions in the names they give to things; and one of these distinctions is this—rashness is different from bravery. For rashness, when it takes possession of a man, brings him into danger with discredit, but bravery bestows upon him an adequate prize in reputation for valour. Now one of ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... want of success at Callao. The enterprise was a desperate one; nevertheless, I was not about to do anything desperate, having resolved that, unless I was fully satisfied as to its practicability, I would not attempt it. Rashness, though often imputed to me, forms no part of my composition. There is a rashness without calculation of consequences; but with that calculation well-founded, it is no longer rashness. And thus, now that I was unfettered by ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... guard me is mine enemy! Constrains me to abide the fatal die, My rashness, not my reason cast! He comes, That will exact the forfeit!—Must I pay it?— E'en at the cost of utter bankruptcy! What's to be done? Pronounce the vow that parts My body from my soul! To what it loathes Links that, while this is linked to what it ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... we turn to military affairs, we are informed that the great feature of the year is Sherman's expedition into Georgia. We are not yet able to say whether Sherman will succeed in escaping the fate of Burgoyne; but we know that his apparent rashness is excused by the fact that Sherman was unable to return on the way by which he came; so that the most remarkable feature of the war, according to the President, is the wild and desperate effort of an out-manoeuvred General to extricate himself from a position which, whatever effect it may ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... has overcome all his enemies" had been marked by their tutor, in the margin of the book, "Successful Bravery." In this way he had tried to extract a moral from every anecdote about Balbus—sometimes one of warning, as in "Balbus had borrowed a healthy dragon," against which he had written, "Rashness in Speculation "—sometimes of encouragement, as in the words, "Influence of Sympathy in United Action," which stood opposite to the anecdote "Balbus was assisting his mother-in-law to convince the dragon"—and sometimes it dwindled down to a single word, such as "Prudence," which was all he ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... not according to her plan, but she went perforce. I knew that she felt extremely dubious, and, trembling at my rashness, I set at work to make a Dutch flower garden, with the mirror for a canal down the centre. Perkins and his understudies, Potts and Parker, stood watching me with grim faces, exchanging glances that seemed to question ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... doctor, he thought of my misery if I was separated from Laura, of my responsibility if I was called on to answer for effecting her escape, and he risked the worst that you could do to him, the second time, for my sake. All he asked was that I would remember the sacrifice, and restrain your rashness, in my own interests—interests which he might never be able to consult again. I made no such bargain with him—I would have died first. But believe him or not, whether it is true or false that he sent the doctor away with an excuse, one thing is certain, I saw the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... made by Christ for the sins of men. The ground of offence lay in his great dislike for anything which seemed to savour less of Scripture than of scholastic refinements in theology. He thought it great rashness to prescribe limits, as it were, to infinite wisdom, and to affirm that man's salvation could not possibly have been wrought in any other way than by the incarnation and satisfaction of the Son of God.[246] A Christian ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... unhappy; what we rashly do Is both unlucky, aye, and foolish, too. Where war with rashness is attempted, there The soldiers leave the field with ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... is, on the condition that the endowment should remain intact, and that each successive beneficiary should merely serve as the administrator of it. Should any of the beneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through rashness or one-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they wrong all their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all their successors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before undertaking to frame a constitution, let ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the publication of the Life of Jesus was quite different from the one presented subsequently. Formerly the Rationalists said what they chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their rashness. But immediately after Strauss had issued his book, the attention of the church was profoundly attracted toward the consideration of the themes therein treated. The church seemed to say, "Strange, that I have given so little attention to this great pillar of Christian faith; now I see ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... cases, while they destroy the culprits under sentence, who might have been made better, are of no avail in correcting the rest. Human nature refuses to leave its regular course for any threats. Some pressing fear or violence of audacity together with courage born of inexperience and rashness sprung from opportunity, or some other combination of circumstances such as often occurs unexpectedly in the careers of many persons leads men to do wrong. And these men are of two classes,—such as do not even think of the punishments but heedless of them rush into the business before them, and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... have been a folly, a futile act that would have earned me unbelief, contempt and anger. And yet there was a moment when jealousy urged me almost headlong to that rashness. For in Madonna Paola's eyes there was a new expression as they rested on the face of Giovanni Sforza—an expression that told me she had come to love this man whom a little ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... war in a remote country merely to serve his own ambition and rapacity. However, he gained nothing by this speech, for the Athenians thought that he would be the best man to command the expedition because of his experience in war, and that his caution would serve as a salutary check upon the rashness of Alkibiades and the easy temper of Lamachus; so that, instead of dissuading them his words rather confirmed them in their intention. For Demostratus, who of all the popular orators was the most eager promoter of the expedition, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... his captive with a look of conscious pride, and said with some complacence, "You see, and perhaps repent, your rashness in the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... raised, and dedicated to the Lord of Vision, his God the Unconquered Sun;—of his contests with frivolity and corruption at Antioch, and his friendship with the philosophers;—and then, of his Persian expedition, with its rashness,—its brilliant victories,—its over-rashness and head-strong advance;—of the burning of the fleet, and march into the desert; and retreat; and that sudden attack,—the Persian squadrons rising up like afreets out of the sands, from nowhere; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... chiefly for the sake of Christ's words and acts. The anonymous swordsman was Peter, and the anonymous victim was Malchus, as John tells us. No doubt he had brought one of the two swords from the upper room, and, in a sudden burst of anger and rashness, struck at the man nearest him, not considering the fatal consequences for them all that might follow. Peter could manage nets better than swords, and missed the head, in his flurry and in the darkness, only managing to shear off a poor ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... impulse and promptings of wrath. That you may indeed be moved, the apostle would say, I well know, and you may fancy to have the best of reasons for exhibiting anger and vengeance; but beware of doing what your wrath would have you do: and if overcome by wrath and led to rashness, do not continue in it, do not harbor it, but subdue and restrain it, the sooner the better; do not suffer it to take root or to ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... People ought to set was personal courage. The spark must not be allowed to die out. To march the first, to march at the head, such was their duty. The semblance of any hesitation would have been in truth more disastrous than any degree of rashness. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... who feels alarm at the mere sight of breakers: without a time keeper I scarcely dare recommend a ship to go through Torres' Strait; and from timidity in the commander, perhaps more danger is to be anticipated than from rashness. The best season for sailing is June or July; and it must not be earlier than March, nor later than the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... paddle around in my stream and stir up all the mud!" he shouted fiercely. "You deserve to be punished severely for your rashness!" ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... to tell you, something that I want someone else beside me to know. It's going to be an ugly storm and the Kittlewake is no trans-Atlantic liner. We may all get back to shore. We may not. If one of you do and I don't, I want you to tell this. It—it will sort of justify my apparent rashness in dragging you ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... ceased to impress them. Again, there had been one or two coroner's inquests, which had spread the impression that he had been rash in the use of powerful drugs. If the coroner could have seen the hundreds of cures which Cullingworth had effected by that same rashness he would have been less confident with his censures. But, as you can understand, C.'s rival medical men were not disposed to cover him in any way. He had never had much consideration ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... unwitting stranger who honored me by so daring a scrutiny this morning! Verily, thou hast a singularly venturesome spirit of thine own, fair sir! Still, we must honor courage, even though it border on rashness, and I rejoice to see that the wrathful mob of Al-Kyris hath yet left thee man enough to deserve my welcome! Nevertheless thou were guilty of most heinous presumption!" Here she extended her jewelled hand. "Art thou repentant? and wilt ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... gannets were very restless, and it was only by strong admonitions I could prevail on Nero to retain his recumbent attitude at my feet; their instinct warned them of approaching danger, and I felt the comfortable assurance that my own rashness had brought me into my present critical position, and that if the menaced destruction did arrive, there was no sort of assistance at hand on which I ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... excellency, and every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness; and if carried beyond certain bounds, sinks into one or the other. Generosity often runs into profusion, economy into avarice, courage into rashness, caution into timidity, and so on:—insomuch that, I believe, there is more judgment required, for the proper conduct of our virtues, than for avoiding their opposite vices. Vice, in its true light, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... body to a host Said that the hands were scouts discovering harms, The feet were horsemen thundering on the coast, The breast and stomach foemen, huge in swarms, But for the head in sovereignty did boast, It captain was, director of alarms, Whose rashness if it hazarded any ill, Not he alone, but all the host ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... must let what I wrote in Italy of the Italians stand unmodified. I shall be most happy indeed to confess my mistake whenever it shall have been proved such, but I cannot as yet perceive it. And to those who, not unreasonably, dilate on the rashness of such judgment on the part of one who was only some few weeks in Italy, and did not even understand its people's language, I beg leave to commend a perusal of "Casa Guidi Windows," by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... evident that thou hast angered them, O son of rashness. We shall do well to wait before approaching them ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... belonging to the trooper who had perished in the river. The noise up-stairs continued, and he had become somewhat impatient for the appearance of the rest of the party. He was inclined to "open the ball;" but he concluded that it would be a piece of rashness for him to do so, and he refrained from doing anything. Between the door and the safe he obtained a full view of ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... captain's intention, however, was not to approach too near till daylight, for should she prove an enemy's man-of-war of much superior force, the Thisbe would have to trust to her heels to keep out of her way, though should she be of a size which he might without undue rashness attack, the captain's intention was to bring her to action, well knowing that he would be ably supported ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Agesilaus and Lysander. But Agis answered, he had not been constrained by any man, nor had any other intent in what he did, but only to follow the example of Lycurgus, and to govern conformably to his laws. The same ephor asked him, whether now at least he did not repent his rashness. To which the young man answered, that though he were to suffer the extremest penalty for it, yet he could never repent of so just and so glorious a design. Upon this they passed sentence of death on him, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... genius, and they hope mankind Will to its efforts be no longer blind. There are, beside, whom powerful friends advance, Whom fashion favours, person, patrons, chance: And merit sighs to see a fortune made By daring rashness or by dull parade. But these are trifling evils; there is one Which walks uncheck'd, and triumphs in the sun: There was a time, when we beheld the Quack, On public stage, the licensed trade attack; He made his laboured speech ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... rashness is not in my line at all, and I don't suppose we shall ever get within five hundred yards of a Prussian soldier. You need not be in the least uneasy, even supposing that you were ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... opposition to each of the extremes, and each of these to the other extreme, though in some cases the virtue may be more antagonistic to one extreme than to the other, as courage to cowardice more than to rashness. In individual cases, it is difficult to avoid being deflected towards one or other of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Fitzgerald startled all those who saw him by the mad way in which he rode. Early in the day there was no excuse for any such rashness. The hounds went from wood to wood, and men went in troops along the forest sides as they do on such occasions. But Burgo was seen to cram his horse at impracticable places, and to ride at gates and rails as though resolved to do himself and his uncle's ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... we should be at all times welcome, if the unaccountable pride of parents did not shut us out by refusing to have us so taught that we could enter them. The prejudice against female labor begins with parents; and the unreflecting vanity and rashness of youth give it a fatal hold on us. My parents have never entertained it. They have taught us that there is more to be proud of in being dependent solely on our own exertions than in living idle lives on either their means or those of any husband who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... should call little children courageous, which fear no dangers because they know none? There is a difference, to my way of thinking, between fearlessness and courage. I am of opinion that thoughtful courage is a quality possessed by very few, but that rashness and boldness, and fearlessness, which has no forethought, are very common qualities possessed by many men, many women, many children, many animals. And you, and men in general, call by the term 'courageous' actions which I call rash;—my ...
— Laches • Plato
... "Rashness and rebellion!" muttered Myndert: "but this foolhardiness will one day bring as pretty a brigantine as ever sailed in the narrow seas, to condemnation; and then will there be rumors abroad, and characters cracked, till every lover of gossip in the Americas shall be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... told the truth when he promised to haunt me. Beyond the shock of mortal terror, I was but little amazed. It seemed but natural that he should come as he had threatened. Only I was filled with awful expectation of his vengeance, and stood aghast at the consequences of my rashness. By instinct I turned ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Houses on this subject. But, on the other hand, to trust such a King, at such a crisis, with the very weapon which, in hands less dangerous, had destroyed so many free constitutions, would have been the extreme of rashness. The jealousy with which the oligarchy of Venice and the States of Holland regarded their generals and armies induced them perpetually to interfere in matters of which they were incompetent to judge. This ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... There was nothing in known science outside of optics, that could in any way be blended with the Blind Spot. There were but two solutions; either the professor had been a victim of a clever rogue, or he had been overcome by the rashness of his own wisdom. At any rate, it was known from that minute on as "THE ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... between the two parties, between the thin line of sentinels about the jail and the dense mob in front, Steele Weir's action seemed the height of rashness. A rush of the Mexicans and he would be overwhelmed, a cowardly shot from somewhere in the rear and he might be killed. It was like ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... chamber, where she found me rising in order to awaken her. We went out into a small court belonging to the house, which separated the sea from the buildings. As I was at that time but eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behavior, in this dangerous juncture, courage or rashness; but I took up Livy, and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts from him, as if all about me had been in full security. While we were in this posture, a friend of my uncle's, who was just come from Spain to pay him a visit, joined us; and observing me sitting ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... changed into humility. Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined into quiet self-control. Presumption had to be awed and softened into reverence. Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness. Rashness had to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into calm strength. All this moral history was folded up in the words, "Thou ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... elapsed, been sometimes objected, that General Brock's courage was greater than his prudence—that his attack of Fort Detroit, though it succeeded, was most likely to have, failed, and was therefore injudicious—and that a similar rashness and want of cool calculation were displayed in ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... it to her in one of our talks. I showed her that her rashness had made it very difficult ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... fire was long under the emmers; now it's broken out, we trust, in a good time. It's like, for the interest of our nation, we must crave reason of that darling of the Sectaries [i.e. bring Cromwell to a reckoning], and, in obtaining his removal from the army—which himself by his over-rashness has procured—to break the power of that potent faction. This is our present difficile enterprise: we had need of your prayers." [Footnote: Baillie, II. 243-245.] In this account Baillie mixes up the proceedings in the Commons on the 25th of November when Cromwell exhibited ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... led to the death of sixty people, many of them Immortals. Its effect on public imagination was profound. All dangerous enterprises became invested with a terrible radiance. Men asked themselves if, in face of a future of health, it was worth risking life in rashness of any description, and gradually traffic came to a standstill. Long before the germ had infected the whole populace all activities fraught with danger had ceased. The coal mines were abandoned. The railways were silent. The streets of London ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... who robs me of my property and labour may take my life too, and welcome." While I was carrying on this debate in my own mind, a crowd of Spaniards arrived, led by their major-domo, who, with the headstrong rashness of his race, bade them go in and take the vase and give me a good beating. Hearing these words, I showed them the muzzle of my gun, and prepared to fire, and cried in a loud voice: "Renegade Jews, traitors, is it thus that one breaks into houses ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... of reason and langage, plainly tauld the King and Council that they presumed ower bauldlie ... to tak upon them to judge the doctrine and controll the ambassadors and messengers of a King and Counsall graiter nor they, and far above tham! "And that," sayes he, "ye may see weakness, owersight, and rashness in taking upon you that quhilk yie nather aught nor can do" (lowsing a litle Hebrew Byble fra his belt and clanking it down on the burd before King and Chancelar), "thair is," says he, "my instructiones and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison |
