"Unwisdom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were strengthened to meet the peril of a possible insurrection. Soon a new element of danger appeared in the threatened war between England and the United States, offering to the aggrieved party a tempting occasion for redress. Fortunately, however, neither the unwisdom of the English Government nor the neighbourhood of a hostile power availed to drive or lure the Canadians into the crooked path of rebellion. As the past had already proved, their country's peril was sufficient to unite in hearty concord all parties, French and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... is no hero of to-day no study of to-morrow, no dim recollection when the future shall have come—but an active exemplar, an honored memory, a potent spur and stay combined—a spur to urge to all a man should do; a stay to curb unwisdom's flying feet. That father has toiled in weariness that his son might follow an easier path of life. Perhaps you now tread that path. How carefully should your steps be taken; how earnestly you should climb to reach the round which meets your self-denying ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... of the Crown colony has undergone some slight modifications. In 1866 it was made, with very little forethought, a kind of government-general, the centre of rule for all the West African settlements. The unwisdom of this step was presently recognised, and Sa Leone is now under a charter dated December 17, 1874, the governor-in-chief having command over the administration of Bathurst, Gambia. Similarly farther south, Lagos, now the Liverpool of West Africa, has been bracketed, foolishly enough, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... who do not wish Italian rule. Italy has no stancher friend than I, but neither my profound admiration for what she achieved during the war nor my deep sympathy for the staggering losses she suffered can blind me to the unwisdom, let us call it, of certain of her demands. I am convinced that, when the passions aroused by the controversy have had time to cool, the Italians will themselves question the wisdom of accumulating for themselves ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... the reason is surely not that they love rich men more than we do or that they are all less democratic than we are. The reason is that these nations, including the financially wisest and most experienced, recognize the unwisdom and economic ill effect under existing conditions of going ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... effective help toward it if he could have conquered his appetite for drink; but he could not do it, so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him. He had often taken the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of unwisdom can do for a man—for a man with anything short of an iron will. The system is wrong in two ways: it does not strike at the root of the trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he became President, Roosevelt liked to box, until an accident, of which for many years only his intimate friends were aware, convinced him of the unwisdom of the game for a man of his age and optical disabilities. A young artillery captain, with whom he was boxing in the White House, cross-countered him on the left eye, and the blow broke the little blood-vessels. Ever afterward, the sight of that eye was ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... degeneration, is yet far in the future. The chief troubles of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... say "Will you let me come?" but "When." She thought if she did not answer soon he would come all the same. It seemed wonderful, unbelievable, that now there was no wrong, no cruelty, no terrible unwisdom in having him near her. But there was none. Even she could see none. So she telegraphed, not the immediate summons he hoped for and she was tempted to send him, but the message of her second thought. "Come; not yet, but on the day I have a home of my own to welcome ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... property, or to be able to read and write, or to understand the Constitution when read to him. That the white man is practically exempt from these tests, by the "soldier" or "grandfather" clause, whatever be its theoretic injustice or unwisdom, would be no great practical grievance to the negro if only he were fairly allowed to cast his own vote when he can meet the statutory tests. At present, throughout the greater part of the South, the practical attitude of the election officials, and the social ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... seem that folly is not contrary to wisdom. For seemingly unwisdom is directly opposed to wisdom. But folly does not seem to be the same as unwisdom, for the latter is apparently about Divine things alone, whereas folly is about both Divine and human things. Therefore folly is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... should you see me alone?' she asked as if still in amazement. 'Surely you can say anything you have to say before my aunt.' With an unwisdom for which an instant later he ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... recurrent is the resemblance between him and Polonius. Tradition bids us regard Polonius as an intentionally humorous creation. Jeronimo's humour is of the same family. We feel sure that this newly appointed Marshal of Spain pottered about the Court, wagging his beard sagaciously over the unwisdom of youth, his mind full of responsibility, his heart of courage, but his tongue letting fall, every now and then, simple half-foolish sayings which betrayed the approach of dotage. He is very short, and ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... of this country two men for whom I have greater sympathy or more respect; but I have to complain of them. I do not know why it is that they both go down to Newcastle—a town in which I feel a great interest—and there give forth words of offence and unwisdom. I know that what the noble Lord said was all very smart, but really it was not true, and I have not much respect for a thing that is merely smart and is not true. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a statement too. The papers made it appear that ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... knows that the symptoms the plant presents did not bring about the unsuitableness of the soil; that, on the contrary, the condition of the soil is responsible for the plant's present state. Would it not be unwisdom, therefore, to treat directly the symptoms of decay, instead of treating the soil, or changing it? Just so misguided is the judgment of the physician who prescribes physic or tonics in the case of a person ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... a new President. Seeing that the building was surrounded by troops in the pay of Lopez, the great majority took the hint. Two only of their number did not acclaim Francisco Solano as the new autocrat of Paraguay, and as these two disappeared on the following night, and were never seen again, the unwisdom of opposition was strongly inculcated from the start. The Dictator's full title was "Jefe Supremo y General de los Exercitos de la Republica del Paraguay"; his familiar title, and the one he most encouraged, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... "new diplomacy" would have exercised its sway in riotous triumph. The Military, it was conceded, knew everything. Unanimity obtained on that point. But it stopped there. On the question of the Colonel's reticence, its cause, effect, wisdom, or unwisdom, discord was rife. Acute ones had hit the nail on the head, but they could not drive it home. Every man, or set of men, had his or their own peculiar theory to expound. The army, some said, was marching on Bloemfontein with a view to expediting our relief ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... believe any prejudice exists. Drag in the religious difficulty, however, and you immediately array against it a host of prejudices, whether reasonable ones or the reverse is not now the question. I am only concerned with the unwisdom of having called them into existence. I own I thought that Christianity had been the means of raising woman from her state of Oriental degradation to the position she occupies in civilized countries. But I was only there to listen, not to speak; and I confess I came away in a divided ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... speech showeth thine unwisdom. Why, a king can have his purveyor to pick of the finest in the market ere any other be serven; he can lay tax on his people whenas it shall please him [this was true at that time]; he can have a whole pig or goose to his table every morrow; and as for the ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... unto love he letteth to turn The mood-thought of a man that Is mighty of kindred, And in his land giveth him joyance of earth, 1730 And to have and to hold the high ward-burg of men, And sets so 'neath his wielding the deals of the world, Dominion wide reaching, that he himself may not In all his unwisdom of the ending bethink him. He wonneth well-faring, nothing him wasteth Sickness nor eld, nor the foe-sorrow to him Dark in mind waxeth, nor strife any where, The edge-hate, appeareth; but all the world for him Wends as he willeth, and ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... mysteries of the Cabinet; it glimmers out, clear as the light of day, from the concatenation of so many circumstances that I lift the veil of no arcanum in speaking of it; and even if I did, it would be my duty to lift it and warn all concerned of the unwisdom and impropriety of those aspirations." Deny it who would, he continued, unity was what was aimed at—what was laboured for with indefatigable activity. Italian unity! How could it sound to the other Italian ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... years of the civil war, when the country was flooded with an irredeemable currency, I was so much disturbed by what seemed to me the unwisdom of our financial policy, that I positively envied the people who thought it all right, and therefore were free from mental perturbation on the subject. I at length felt that I could keep silent no longer, and as the civil war was closing, I devoted much ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... might be granted by the courts. The existing practice, he argued, was contrary to those provisions of the constitution which expressly separated the three departments of government. Moreover, everyone recognized the injustice and unwisdom of dissolving marriage contracts by act of legislature, upon ex parte evidence.[66] Without expressing an opinion on the constitutional questions involved, the assembly accepted the main recommendation of the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... flushed out with wicked, scorching malignity; lashing and upbraiding the man who was the victim of his own unwisdom and extravagance. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... is a reprint of two 'Edinburgh Review' articles on Bacon and Raleigh. The first, a learned statement of facts in answer to some unwisdom of a 'Quarterly' reviewer (possibly an Oxford Aristotelian; for 'we think we do know that sweet Roman hand'). It is clear, accurate, convincing, complete. There is no more to be said about the matter, save ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... husbands could place in them, he reiterated that women were universally bad. He did not believe that women ever would be good; and the English allowing their wives to gad about with faces uncovered, only showed their weakness, ignorance, and unwisdom. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... field to fly when some unheralded danger threatens. She has put into the small, unwise head of the chipmunk the untutored fear of poisons. "He keepeth His creatures whole," was not written of beasts alone. Carrie was unwise, and, therefore, like the sheep in its unwisdom, strong in feeling. The instinct of self-protection, strong in all such natures, was roused but feebly, if at all, by the overtures ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... enough with ourselves to catch a glimpse of our own unwisdom, the question of our text will press heavily upon us, and may help to make us wiser by teaching us how foolish we are. An infinite source of wisdom is open to us, and all the rich variety of our lives' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... unwisdom showed itself; for among the boys who were not playing were Joe and Fuz Hart and all their "crowd," and this was the first time they had seen Dick on ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... imbecility, fatuity, silliness, irrationality, insagacity; imprudence, indiscretion, unwisdom, folly, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... exposes himself to a cross fire. The Martin Marprelate controversy, looked at without prejudice but with sufficient information, shows itself as a very early example of the reckless violence of private crotcheteers on the one hand, and of the rather considerable unwisdom of the official defenders of order on the other. "Martin's" method was to a certain extent an anticipation of the famous move by which Pascal, fifty years later, "took theology out of the schools into drawing-rooms," except ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... addressing the Gaul in his own tongue, "back to your gate! and you," turning to the Capuan officer and changing his language with ready ease, "it would be wise for you to consider the unwisdom of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... from this fundamental point. Now then, if this represents a fundamental trait in the character of our species and we are acting in response to a natural law, then must we be doubly careful about having our good intentions, our good methods, halted by unwisdom. That brings to mind the point made about our present Secretary of Agriculture. I am very glad this has been made a matter of record here, for I am sorry to say that in connection with another subject—(health matters)—wherever there has ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... architectural—our architects and boards of education should realize that the seating and the lighting of school houses should receive most careful consideration; the reform is economic—we should come to appreciate the unwisdom of being "penny wise and pound foolish," and recall the old saw, "a stitch in time saves nine"; the reform is medical—we should get our people to see that thoro and regular medical inspection of all our school children is the only sensible method of ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... the situation so clearly pointed to the unwisdom of the President's personal participation in the peace negotiations that a very probable explanation for his determination to be present at the Conference is the assumption that the idea had become so firmly embedded in his mind that nothing could dislodge it or divert him from his purpose. How ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... Illinois burdened with an enormous debt. There was a special session of the legislature in the summer, occasioned by the depression and hard times which had followed so hard upon the flush times of the winter, but Douglas was not there to tax his associates with their unwisdom. He had taken another step in his unexampled career of office-holding by accepting from President Van Buren the office of register of public lands at Springfield, the growing town in Sangamon County which the legislature had just made ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... of the district; he was even suspected of taking counsel with the managers of neighbouring establishments; "in short, he endeavoured to convince himself generally that the grant of the license would satisfy a legitimate want"—or what the Chamberlain in his wisdom, or his unwisdom, held ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... right to read {210} long passages of Scripture in his defence. Happily for him, his defence was managed by abler hands than his own. The genius of Erskine, the gifts of Kenyon, were expended in his behalf. The unwisdom of the Government in prosecuting him for high treason was soon apparent. He was acquitted, to the general satisfaction of his supporters, and of many who were not his supporters. If public thanksgiving were returned in several churches for his acquittal, one grave manly ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... languidly to their demands for a tonga to bear them to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day—at three in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point of returning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to the unwisdom of his ways. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... having told so much of the unwisdom of our ancestors, having exposed the sterility of the convulsion that burned what they adored, and made the sins of the Republic mount up as high as those of the monarchy, having shown that Legitimacy, which repudiated the Revolution, and Imperialism, which crowned it, were but disguises of the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... another and more costly kind of fan from up-stairs, but was content to act upon the impression that her mother desired the Japanese kind—content to accomplish the desire and stop with that, without troubling about the wisdom or unwisdom ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... course, disconnects man from rightful association with the Divine. A man must, therefore, think right. Yet, because of centuries of erroneous conception of God and of the world, man has been a negative instead of a positive being, and his unwisdom has reacted upon the ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush
... the Westminster Palace Hotel Hall this afternoon, and tomorrow at 10:25 A. M. I start for Edinburgh with Mrs. Moore. I am bound to suck all the honey possible out of everybody and everything as they come to me or I go to them. It is such unwisdom, such unhappiness, not to look for and think and talk of the best in all things and all people; so you see at threescore and three I am still trying always to keep the bright and right side up. I am expecting ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... "Wake up, ye seething caldron of fossilized superstitions! Wake up, ye bogy-haunted man of scientific unwisdom!" ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent, darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... less often, according to the development of their bumps of conscientiousness and obstinacy. To keep to the diet at all strictly involved a very respectable amount of physical endurance. Our successors have found out the unwisdom of this, as of other old superstitions; and that in order to get a man into training for a boat-race now-a-days, it is not of the first importance to keep him in a constant state of consuming thirst, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of an earlier idea when President Jefferson, officially through Robert R. Livingston, Minister to France, and unofficially through a French gentleman, Dupont de Nemours, sought to impress upon the First Consul the unwisdom of his taking possession of Louisiana, without ceding to the United States at least New Orleans and the Floridas as a "palliation." Even so, France would become an object of suspicion, a neighbor with whom ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... that I must not only be as resolute as Abraham Lincoln in seeking to achieve decent ends, but as patient, as uncomplaining, and as even-tempered in dealing, not only with knaves, but with the well-meaning foolish people, educated and uneducated, who by their unwisdom give the ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... week was confided to me in whispers at the Concert Flamm. I think—but at this distance of time I am not quite sure—that the post offered to me was that of Captain of Marines. I don't mind confessing, in justice to my own unwisdom at that time of day, that if there had been a boat and a marine I might have thought twice before refusing the offer. As it was, of course it was simply ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the unwisdom of the children yet unborn, who though they know so much, yet do not know as much as they ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... I thank you all for listening to me!" she said simply, her rich voice trembling a little; "I speak only with a woman's impulse and unwisdom—just as I think and feel—and always out of my great love for you! As you all know, I have no interests to serve;—I am only Lotys, your own poor friend,—one who works with you, and dwells among you, seeing and sharing your hard lives, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... they want," Prefer to rule themselves in custom's groove. I, loyal to the ethics of our craft Tried to becloud the query, and declared That Moros loved the Filipinos well. But this persistent boor did pin me down Until imprudently I answered, "No!" And this unwisdom ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... you know the utter desolation that was in my heart; and, truly, I can perceive both the wiseness and the unwisdom of my reasonings; for, indeed, I did have no sure knowing that the dark Pyramid did be truly the Lesser Refuge. But yet, in verity, my spirit did know with a certain sureness, and there was no doubt concerning this thing, in ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... has exhibited concern in relation to certain features of our tariff laws, which are supposed by them to be aimed at a class of tobacco produced in the Dutch East Indies. Comment would seem unnecessary upon the unwisdom of legislation appearing to have a special national discrimination for its object, which, although unintentional, may give rise ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and Chamberlain that Hartington had come very well, and was very well at dinner, but bored at having to speak. "Walker told him what I told him as to the unwisdom of speaking in favour of coercion in Belfast immediately after the anti-coercion speeches of the Liberals at the Antrim election; and to-day he is ill. I do not know how far the two things are connected; but the papers ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... who love women too dearly to accord them justice; women who are deceived by such affection; the self-supporting woman, who crowds all places where there is any money to be made without encountering the masculine frown and declares she has all the rights she wants. Georgia's motto should read: Unwisdom, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Grandon is made one of the circle,—a part of them, not merely an outside propriety. Every moment she grudges that fascinating woman for her son; she is almost jealous when the professor listens with such rapt deference and admiration. That Floyd's own unwisdom should have placed the bar between himself and this magnificent woman is almost more than ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... bleeding, as it seemed, to death. Scarcely recovered from the stunning blow of the famine, she was undergoing in a fresh dose of clearances and evictions the result of that masterpiece of legislative unwisdom, the Encumbered Estates Act. Her people were leaving her by hundreds of thousands, cursing the name of England as bitterly as the evicted Ulster farmers and the ruined weavers of the eighteenth century had cursed ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... its scorn of intrigue, is unique in royal history. Yet she, this blameless princess, this woman of imperial beauty, this noblest of all empresses, was marked to be stricken down by the red hand of anarchy, to whose crime, and poison, and danger we open our national ports with an unwisdom which is criminal stupidity, and of which we shall inevitably reap the benefit. America cannot warm the asp of anarchy in her bosom without expecting it ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... well know the value of thorough anatomical knowledge, but from the singer's standpoint I cannot too strongly emphasize the unwisdom of directing the attention of sensitively organized pupils to their vocal mechanism by means of the laryngoscope. This instrument belongs to the physician, not to ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... Accordingly, the Republicans sought for somebody who would please everybody, and yet would have enough personal strength to be a leader. They pitched on Charles E. Hughes, former Governor of New York State, and then a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The unwisdom of going to the Supreme Bench for a standard-bearer was immediately apparent; because all the proprieties prevented justice Hughes from expressing any opinion on political subjects until he resigned from the Court. Hence, it followed that no great enthusiasm could be aroused over his candidacy ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... heating stove, and lighted a match and set them burning, and watched them until they withered down to gray ash, and then broke up the ashes and scattered them amongst the cinders. Marie, you must know, had learned a good many things, one of which was the unwisdom of whetting the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... prayed—"Forgive my weakness and unwisdom! How can the world be saved or comforted by ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... proof of the Cardinal's unwisdom," said the Pope severely, "And we shall not follow his example in this or in any other matter!" And turning to Moretti he enquired, "Does this boy understand he is here as a witness to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... he not command his tongue? Why have suggested this to her imagination? He did not wholly mean to say it, even to the last moment; but unwisdom, as so often, overcame him. It was a way of defending himself; he wished to imply that Mallard had a powerful reason for assailing his character. He had been convinced since last night that Mallard was embittered by jealousy, and he half credited the fear lest ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... his manner gave corroboration. Possibly she had misjudged the man and lost his underlying qualities in her careless view of externals. Tollman seemed to expect no answer and went on slowly, "I tried to point out to your father the unwisdom of an insistence which must stir a spirit like yours to natural opposition. I suggested that under the circumstances ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Philosopher, "leaving the government of the country to its ablest men. France under its Pompadours, the Byzantine Empire under its Theodoras, are truer examples of my argument. I am speaking of the unwisdom of assuming all women to be perfect. Belisarius ruined himself and his people by believing his own wife to be ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... will produce no more delicate problem than that of Dalmatia, which, as I have already shown, can never be settled on purely racial lines. Those who have studied the subject agree that to completely shut off Austria-Hungary from the sea would be a proceeding of grave unwisdom and one which would be certain to sow the seed for future wars. This is, I believe, the view taken by most deep-thinking Italians. The Italianization of the Adriatic's eastern seaboard would result, moreover, in raising a barrier against the legitimate expansion ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... Great-aunt Alison. The mother died when Jock was a baby, and after some years the father married again, suddenly and unpremeditatedly, a beautiful and almost friendless girl whom he met in London when home on leave. Jean offered no comment on the wisdom or the unwisdom of the match, but she told me the young Mrs. Jardine had sent for her (Jean was then a schoolgirl of fourteen) and had given her a good time in London before she sailed with her husband for India. Rather unusual when you come to think of ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... I, "it has been borne in upon me that I am the most witless fool that the unwisdom of generations of English country squires has ever ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... error was soon rectified and Cartier was made a baronet. A number of persons, including Charles Tupper and Edward Watkin, a member of the Imperial parliament, interested themselves in the matter, pointing out to the London authorities the unwisdom of bestowing titles without due regard to the Imperial services of the recipients. The reputations of Galt and Cartier as serious statesmen were not enhanced. Explain it as we may, there is a flavour of absurdity about their proceedings. Galt was offered ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... among the gathering with more than youth's unwisdom marring mouth and brow; eyes tired with seeing over-much looked out here and there from the face of Youth. Yet amid the wholesome, virile cheerfulness of that assembly they were but transient impressions, lingering on the mind of an observer with no more permanency ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... understanding may be elevated into the light of heaven, but not the capacity for loving, except so far as he acts according to his understanding. Any apparent wisdom, therefore, which does not make one with the love of wisdom, sinks back into the love which does make one with it; and this may be a love of unwisdom, yea, of insanity. Thus a man may know from wisdom that he ought to do this or that, and yet he does not do it, because he does not love it. But so far as a man does from love what wisdom teaches, he ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... listen to no one, and at the end of act three, now a weeping drudge, she trailed off the stage, with the maudlin owner of the catsup bottles staggering ahead. Then Rosie and Teenie, holding the hands of their two virtuous youths, recited in unison a little verse bearing upon the unwisdom of being a haughty belle and marrying the victim ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... an adequate Collective! That too is a case which may befall: a ruined man staggers down to ruin because there was not wisdom enough in him; so, clearly also, may Twenty-seven Million collective men!—But indeed one of the infalliblest fruits of Unwisdom in a Nation is that it cannot get the use of what Wisdom is actually in it: that it is not governed by the wisest it has, who alone have a divine right to govern in all Nations; but by the sham-wisest, or ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the keeping of its past; and I was glad to have him to agree with me that the Tudor period was that in which English domestic comfort had been most effectually studied. But my satisfaction in this was much heightened by my approval of what he was simultaneously saying about the prevalent newspaper unwisdom of not publishing serial fiction: in his own newspaper, he said, he had a story ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... afraid of, nor are we in the habit of forming our opinions on any such imaginary grounds; but we confess that we are afraid of committing an act of national injustice, of national dishonor, of national breach of faith, and therefore of national unwisdom and weakness. Moderation is an excellent thing; but taking things for granted is not moderation, and there may be such a thing as being immoderate in concession and confidence. Aristotle taught us long ago that true moderation was ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... common-sense; and from the passionate folly of those—and there are many—who desire that Beauty shall be confined no longer to the bric- a-brac of the collector and the dust of the museum, but shall be, as it should be, the natural and national inheritance of all,—from this noble unwisdom, I say, who knows what new loveliness shall be given to life, and, under these more exquisite conditions, what perfect artist born? Le milieu se ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... cause needed the influence of Jewish leaders. Why risk this potent influence for the sake of one miserable Samaritan woman, or, for that matter, for a whole race of Samaritans? It seemed very poor management of a cause, new in that country. "Far be such unwisdom from thee, Lord," we can hear the impassioned and worldly-wise Peter exclaim. But our Lord chose to sacrifice the temporary success of his kingdom that he might be true to the eternal principles of that kingdom; and so he talked with this sinful woman of this ...
— American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 11. November 1888 • Various
... Constitution. Legally and constitutionally his position appeared to be impregnable. In the minds of the southern white, however, the amendments vied with military reconstruction in their injustice and unwisdom. To his mind they constituted an attempt to abolish the belief of the white man in the essential inferiority of the black, to make the pyramid of government stand on its apex, and to place the very issues of existence within ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... he will pose in an attitude which he may have seen in a picture of Washington. There is nothing mysterious and his utterances are completely dependent upon his own ideas, which may be very different from the real wisdom of a Washington and the real unwisdom of a child. I may suggest to him to be the Czar, by that he will not become able to speak Russian. In the same way I may suggest changes of the surroundings; he may take my room for the river upon which he paddles his canoe, or for the orchard ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... reasonableness in this point of view; and strategy declares the unwisdom of engaging in battles that are sure to be lost. It must be remembered, however, that the coming fleet will operate at a considerable strategic disadvantage, owing to the necessity for guarding the "train" of auxiliary ships that will come with it, holding fuel ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... her own words helplessly, as if in a dream, and, if the unwisdom of this kind of conversation had impressed the mistress of Heartholm before, now she could have bitten off her tongue with that needless speech on it. Young Berber, however, seemed hardly to have heard her; he stood ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... unwisdom. Unwise work, if it but persist, is everywhere struggling towards correction, and restoration to health; for it is still in contact with Nature, and all Nature incessantly contradicts it, and will heal it or annihilate it: not so with unwise talk, which addresses ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... encourage this amorous preoccupation was probably the height of unwisdom. The lover is ready at deluding himself, but Peak never lost sight of the extreme unlikelihood that he should ever become Martin Warricombe's son-in-law, of the thousand respects which forbade his hoping that Sidwell would ever ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... latent in the heart of every man, making him a protector of every woman, however lonely or friendless she may be, recognizing her potential value to the race; protecting her against his own selfish desires, against the open and covert assaults of other men, against her own unwisdom, if need be. ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... contemptible and unheroic, but which we think necessary and manlike. As on the other hand, therefore, we have ceased to be commercial in our love- matters, so also we have ceased to be artificially foolish. The folly which comes by nature, the unwisdom of the immature man, or the older man caught in a trap, we must put up with that, nor are we much ashamed of it; but to be conventionally sensitive or sentimental—my friend, I am old and perhaps disappointed, but ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... conduct of the Prussian king with the unwisdom of the French emperor. Both Napoleon III. and the Emperor William governed as autocrats; but with what different men they surrounded themselves, and how differently they were served in their hour of need! Yet Napoleon III. was lavish of rewards to his adherents, while the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... have had the nomination for Governor, but he declined it; having given up his ambition to become the "DeWitt Clinton of Illinois." It will be remembered that the internal improvement theories had not worked so well in practice. The panic of 1837 had convinced both him and his supporters of the unwisdom of attempting such improvements on too large a scale at one time. Though he had been mistaken he seems not to have lost the support of his followers, for they were mistaken with him; and the experience shows that "it ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... dreams. "Let us go a little way along the cliff," he said. "I want to speak to you. I want to explain." He spoke excitedly, with a sort of jaded eagerness in his tone; and though she knew her own unwisdom, ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... more be predicated than of folly, or of honesty, or of muscular strength; and that it is not knowledge, or at all like knowledge; which, indeed, is often acquired in a very remarkable degree by persons eminent for unwisdom. Lord Campbell might as well have said that Henry V. astonished the world with his universal prowess ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... good deal of unparliamentary language, expressed in tones both loud and deep. It was an act of unwisdom, however, to stop there in a heap on the grassy slope of a precipice, swearing in chorus at the poor devil of a Wallack. I turned my horse up the incline, resolved to try back, hoping to regain the lost track. It was next to impossible to halt, for we had not even got our plaids ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the introduction of a borrowed pony, almost at the last moment, into a team trained for months to play in perfect accord was unwise, to say the least of it; knew also that he would be called upon to justify his own unwisdom at so critical a juncture, when all hearts were set on winning ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... everything but that we two were parted. I still believe that with better chances we might have escaped the consequences of the emotional storm that presently seized us both. But we had no foresight of that, and no preparation for it, and our circumstances betrayed us. It was partly Shoesmith's unwisdom in delaying his marriage until after the end of the session—partly my own amazing folly in returning within four days to Westminster. But we were all of us intent upon the defeat of scandal and the complete restoration of appearances. It seemed ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Aquila marked our churls going to their work in the fields, and talked of holy things, and how we should govern our Manors in time to come, and of hunting and of horse-breeding, and of the King's wisdom and unwisdom; for he spoke to us as though we were in all sorts now his brothers. Anon a churl stole up to me—he was one of the three I had not hanged a year ago—and he bellowed—which is the Saxon for whispering—that the Lady AElueva would ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... lightly decide that they must remain unrelieved. But neither Milton nor any of his successors must look at the problem from his own point of view alone. Laws are made, and ought to be, as he himself says, for the "lump of men"; and the wisdom or {53} unwisdom of facilities for divorce must be judged, not merely by the relief they afford in unhappy marriages, but also by the danger of disturbance they produce in the far more numerous marriages which, though experiencing their days of doubt or difficulty, ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... beguilement, the society of a returned exile from the Philippines, who told me the story of his life, showed me the necklace he was taking home to his daughter's wedding, and asked my advice as to the wisdom or unwisdom of marrying again, the lady of his wavering choice having been at school with him in New England and being now a widow in Nebraska with property of her own. Besides being thus garrulous and open, he was the most helpful man I ever ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... little excitement among the other girls when this bit of news was communicated to them. But they had had good experience-training along the lines of self-control, and just a hint of the unwisdom of loud and extravagant remarks put them on ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... thought she had thought—that the impossible youth took it all no more seriously than she. Not till her return home last month had he revealed his complete untrustworthiness: presuming, as she termed it, making claims and advances, putting her to trouble to keep her vernal unwisdom from her mother. Still, she had thought she had ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... balance, to tip the scales in favor of a comparatively pacific settlement of international complications. Under such conditions a policy of neutrality would be a policy of irresponsibility and unwisdom. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... he had a sharp prescience of the unwisdom of his rejection. A cold calculator of chance and probabilities would have reckoned that a half hour of assuagement here would have been a wiser investment of his mortal moments than any virtuous plunge ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... up, how was this disease brought to your child? Dr. Perrin suggested that possibly he—you understand his fear; and possibly he is correct. But it seems to me an illustration of the unwisdom of a physician's departing from his proper duty, which is to cure people. If you wish to find out who brought a disease, what you need is a detective. I know, of course, that there are people who can combine the duties of physician and detective—and that without any previous ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... inclined to curse this same railroad. We had thought, in our innocence, that we should be alone, that no one else would think of enduring the long four hours' ride from Naples just to spend two hours in the ruins of these temples; but the event proved our unwisdom. We were not alone. It was a compact little party of conventional sight-seers that accompanied us. The inevitable English family with the three daughters, prominent of teeth, flowing of hair, aggressive of scarlet Murrays and Baedekers; the two blond and untidy Germans; a French couple ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... even to become a second La Place after thirty years' study, if in five and thirty years the Lord descended from heaven, snatched up all his saints to meet him, and burned to ashes all the works of the earth? Then all the mathematician's work would have perished, and he would grieve over his unwisdom, in laying up store which could not stand the fire of the Lord. Clearly; if we are bound to act as though the end of all earthly concerns may come, "at cockcrowing or at midday," then to work for distant earthly objects is the part of a ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman |
