"Retrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... We can't afford it. Taxes are much too high as it is. We ought to retrench, and not let the city council spend another cent. Uh——Don't you think that was a grand paper Mrs. Westlake read about Tolstoy? I was so glad she pointed out how all his silly ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... affairs, condemned his conduct with an air of candour and concern. He represented to him the folly and dangerous consequences of the profligate life in which he had plunged himself, counselled him with great warmth to sell off his race-horses, which would otherwise insensibly eat him up; to retrench all superfluous expense, which would only serve to expose him to the ridicule and ingratitude of those who were benefited by it; to lay out his money upon secure mortgages, at good interest; and carry into execution his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... without concessions upon both sides. We agree to this readily in the abstract, but we seldom do so when any given concession is in question. We are all for concession in the general, but for none in the particular, as people who say that they will retrench when they are living beyond their income, but will not consent to any proposed retrenchment. Thus many shake their heads and say that it is impossible to live in the present age and not be aware of many difficulties in connection ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... a professional lender, and preserve the account at your bankers intact. The truth is, I have, in my interview with the squire, drawn in advance upon the, material success I have a perfect justification to anticipate, and I cannot allow the old gentleman to suppose that I retrench for the purpose of giving a large array of figures to your bankers' book. It would be sheer madness. I cannot do it. I cannot afford to do it. When you are on a runaway horse, I prefer to say a racehorse,—Richie, you must ride him. You dare not throw up the reins. Only last night Wedderburn, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conversation and intercourse which holds a middle space between the French licence and Spanish restraint, she was now so much exposed to the addresses of promiscuous gallantry, that we found it necessary to retrench the liberty of our house, and behave to our male visitants with great reserve and circumspection, that our honour and peace might run no risk from the youth and inexperience of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... proof-sheets, saw the revises, and returned each sheet duly marked with his signature for the press. At this point the nefarious operation of Le Breton began. He and his foreman took possession of the sheets, and proceeded to retrench, cut out, and suppress every passage, line, or phrase, that appeared to them to be likely to provoke clamour or the anger of the government. They thus, of their own brute authority, reduced most of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... throughout without any disadvantage, it would all be done. But for greater justification I shall make this effort; and if your Majesty shall yet order, notwithstanding what seems best here, that it is more advisable to retrench everything, that will accordingly be done. Security will at least be given for the salaries that are not reduced, by the persons who should enjoy them, so that they would be returned if your Majesty did not consider ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... forms of the courts of judicature could not be dispensed with, and the continual demands made upon him had laid him under such inconveniencies as obliged him even to lessen the number of his servants, and retrench his table:—she added, that he spoke of his dear Natura with the utmost tenderness, and was under a very great concern that the necessity of his affairs would not permit to send him any more such supplies as were requisite for the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Hereford cathedral from his attacks. O'Neill little guessed that he had been arrested merely to keep him from blowing up the cathedral this night. The arrest had an excellent effect upon his mind, for he was a young man of good sense: it made him resolve to retrench his expenses in time, to live more like a glover and less like a gentleman; and to aim more at establishing credit, and less at gaining popularity. He found, from experience, that good friends will not pay ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... impudence confounds me. (To them.) Gentlemen, you are my guests, make what alterations you please. Is there anything else you wish to retrench or ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... retrench his household expenditure, and shortly his handsome tapestries and costly goods were all sold off, and he was reduced to the necessity of economizing most rigidly. But deeply as he felt the loss of those comforts ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... Douglas S. Freeman, George Washington, vol. 1, p. 140, New York, 1949. Washington had written his brother John on June 14 and given his opinion that they should "retrench the wagons and increase the number ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile |
