"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that healthy relaxation should grow into harmful lethargy, Sunday into "Blue Monday." Examples of that result are abundant enough to warn us when we need warning. They have chromoed in brilliantly illuminated text, in all the languages and alphabets, the maxim about eternal vigilance, and hung it up over our council-fires and our domestic hearths. We can only venture, perhaps, to half close our eyes and view it sleepily as through cigar-smoke, or turn our backs upon it for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... abandoned altogether during the government of Captain King and his successor; and it is said this step was taken in compliance with the advice of the former gentleman. It was a saying attributed to him, that "he could not make farmers of pickpockets;"[112] and whatever truth there might be in this maxim, certainly it appears that the progress of agriculture was unfavourable, and that the colony continued still subject to seasons of scarcity, approaching to famine, and obliged to put up with coarse loaves, which were feelingly called scrubbing brushes;[113] and ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... When I was in the open, I saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was better than crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... are met in their own strain, they are generally worsted. It is interesting to see the snares of the wicked defeated by the discreet management of the innocent. "Answer a fool according to his folly," is an old maxim. ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... prevailed in French courts, where one charged with a crime, if the crime were unproved did not obtain complete acquittal. He wrote in the cause of humanity against the abuses of tyranny and ignorance. "Where there is not complete proof of guilt," said he, "there let there be no condemnation," a maxim observed in England, but not in France. "What is not full truth," is a saying of his, "is full falsehood." It was his hope, his prayer, that he might live to see the injustice of the French laws swept away. That he was not destined to see. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... this popular pastime is possibly embraced in the general maxim of "the extending of ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... speaking. Between going about with a head of glass, with all one's thoughts displayed as in a show-case to every comer, and the settled purpose to deceive by the direct verbal falsification, there is a long series of intermediate positions. The commercial maxim that one is not bound to teach the man with whom one is dealing how to conduct his business, and the lawyer's dictum that the advocate is under no obligation to put himself in the position of the judge, obviously, will bear ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... ever made, and those who had been left out of it were not the least of those in the masquerade; they were by no means the worst dressed, or when they unmasked, the plainest, and Charmian's favorite maxim that art was all one, was verified in the costumes of several girls who could not draw any better than she could. If they were not on the walls in one way neither were they in another. After they ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... he divides their heads, that he may divide their hands; when Jacob had prophesied of the cruelty of Simeon and Levi, who were brethren, he threatens them with the consequent of it (Gen 49:7): 'I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.' The devil is not to learn that maxim he hath taught the Machiavellians of the world, divide et impera—divide and rule; it is a united force that is formidable: hence the spouse, in the Canticles, is said to be 'but one,' 'and the only ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the vanquished was a sentiment but little comprehended, and he had certainly not learned it among the Romans, who frequently massacred their prisoners wholesale. Woe to the vanquished! was almost a maxim with them. But Beric shrank from witnessing the scene, now that the tables were turned upon the oppressors. Nationally he hated the Romans, but individually he had no feeling against them, and had he had the power he would at once have arrested the effusion of blood. He wished to drive them ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... it becomes necessary to adopt new methods, or to make some new application of old and well-tried principles, it is always best that change should be discriminating, gradual, and slow; and perhaps nowhere does this maxim demand recognition and respect more imperatively than in educational reform. We are not disposed to find fault with those who contend for the authority and sway of the progressive spirit of the present as against the spirit of ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... theory of rebellion, warfare, and blood. If any such thing exists, let them produce it' * * * 'But if you push me, and still urge the argument of insurrection and bloodshed, for which you are far more indebted to fancy than to fact, as I have shown you, then I say, be it so. I repeat that maxim, taken from a heathen book, but pervading the whole Book of God, Fiat justitia—ruat caelum. Righteousness, Sir, is the pillar of the universe. Break down that pillar, and the universe falls into ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Barrow Haematite Steel Company (1866) absorbed this company, and a great output of steel produced by the Bessemer process was begun. Other industries followed. Of these the shipbuilding works have surpassed the steel works in importance, the celebrated firm of Vickers, Sons & Maxim having a yard where they construct numerous vessels of war as well as others. There are also a petroleum storage establishment, a paper-pulp factory, jute works, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... that came under their observation. Long after Napoleon's time gale continued to hold this proud distinction. For example, the imaginative Dr. Hahnemann did not hesitate to affirm, as a positive maxim, that three-fourths of all the ills that flesh is heir to were in reality nothing but various forms ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... was a peculiar trace of trust and innocence. Send your boys to sea and the sailors will educate them, is a safe maxim. But Nelson was an exception, for even in his boyhood he had held little converse with his mates, and in the frolics on shore he took no part. Physically he was too weak to meet them on a level, and so he pitted his brain against their brawn. He studied and grubbed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... position and title of their husbands they are a constant stimulus to his ignoble ambitions. And further, it is because they are philistines that modern society, to which they give the tone and where they have sway, has become corrupted. As regards their position, one should be guided by Napoleon's maxim, Les femmes n'ont pas de rang; and regarding them in other things, Chamfort says very truly: Elles sont faites pour commercer avec nos faiblesses avec notre folie, mais non avec notre raison. Il existe entre elles et les hommes des sympathies ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... days great commanders have rubbed in the maxim, "If you attack, attack with all your force." Our people know better; we are to go on attacking with half our force. First we attack with the naval half and are held up—next we attack with the army half and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... Liberty, I rejoice to see so many people able to follow the free and spontaneous impulses of their inmost beings. For, while we must remember that our every hour is at the disposal of our country, we must not forget the maxim of our fathers: 'Britons never will be slaves.' Only by preserving the freedom of individual conscience, and at the same time surrendering it whole-heartedly to every which the State makes on us, can we hope defeat the machinations of the arch ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... returned. And the trials which followed, though they showed the strength, the nobleness, the rare balance and solidity of his character, did not create these virtues, which had been formed and established by habit long before. Respice finem is not here a wise, at least a sufficient, maxim: we must look along the whole line to discern satisfactorily and thoroughly what manner of man this was in life ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now over the bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of one that had got that advantage over me, no matter how obtained; conforming myself then to this maxim, I considered myself as so much in his power, that I endured his kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or anger; not that he, as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevailed over the aversion of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... exposed the pit whence man has been digged and the rock whence he has been hewn, but it is surely a heartening encouragement to know that it is an ascent, not a descent, that we have behind us. There is wisdom in Pascal's maxim: ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... details of our extravagance. From these accounts, I look back to the time of the war as a time of happiness and enjoyment, when amidst the privation of many things not essential to happiness, we could not run in debt, because nobody would trust us; when we practised by necessity the maxim of buying nothing but what we had money in our pockets to pay for; a maxim which, of all others, lays the broadest foundation for happiness. I see no remedy to our evils, but an open course of law. Harsh as it may seem, it would relieve the very patients who dread it, by stopping the course ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... personal conduct of individuals are to be entrenched in this way, one of the first conditions of respect for law necessarily falls to the ground. That practical maxim which is always appealed to, and rightly appealed to, in behalf of an unpopular law—the maxim that if the law is bad the way to get it repealed is to obey it and enforce it—loses its validity. ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... prophetic note of genius as certainly does belong to the four school-boy poems they have retained, tend to injure the general effect of a body of poetry. That a writer, especially a writer of verse, should keep out of sight his third-rate performances, is now become a maxim with critics; for they are not, at the worst, effectless: they have an effect, that of diluting and weakening, to the reader's feelings, the general power of the collection. Mr. Coleridge himself constantly, after 1796, rejected a certain ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the moon is claimed to change the weather also. And an old maxim says that the third day before the new moon is the sign of the weather for that moon month. If the new moon comes upon the 10th, then the weather of the 8th is to be the general weather ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from a legally authorized medical institution, who sustains a good moral character, and practices medicine in accordance with the maxim, "Similia similibus curantur," may become eligible to membership, after having been examined and approved by the Board of Censors. He shall be elected by ballot at the annual or semi-annual meeting, and, after his election, shall sign the By-laws before ...
— The Act Of Incorporation And The By-Laws Of The Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society • Massachusetts Homoeopathic Medical Society
... could be in possession. This was doubtless their notion of statesmanship, and faithfully acted on from first to last; but Sir Robert Peel and his friends had been brought up in another school, whose maxim was—priusquam incipias, consulta—sed ubi consulueris, mature facto, opus est. The Premier stood unmoved by the entreaties, the coaxings, and the threatenings of those wriggling before him in miserable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... employment of confidential servants in matters involving trade secrets, were to be carried on to the satisfaction of the parties. Attempts to lay down fixed rules in these matters were made from time to time, but they were finally discredited by the decision of the House of Lords in the Maxim-Nordenfelt Company's case in 1894. Contracts "in restraint of trade" will now be held valid, provided that they are made for valuable consideration (this even if they are made by deed), and do not go beyond what can be thought reasonable for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... amount of forethought and prudence; but, in an Indian fight, or on any great emergency, his faculties appear to be less active, and his judgment less certain, than those exhibited by the great Nestor of the Rocky Mountains. It is a well well-understood maxim, that there are more or less narrow-minded persons who are ready and eager to pull down any and every rising man; and, for this purpose, such must choose a champion. Kit Carson's association with Colonel Fremont had won him so great renown, as a mountaineer and guide, that an opposition ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... following chapters I have endeavoured to lay before ordinary readers a simple statement of the present position of the Irish question. Following the maxim of Confucius that it is well "to study the Past if you would divine the Future," I have first shown that the tales which are told about the glories of the ancient Celtic Kingdom are foolish dreams, not supported by the accounts given by contemporary ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... yet the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the banker, the manufacturer, the promoter, are not supposed to be on this plane. They are urged to compete, even to the extent of putting their rivals out of business, in defiance of an old Jewish maxim, "He that taketh away his neighbor's living slayeth him," and in face of the Lord's Prayer in which we ask not for "my daily cake," but for "our daily bread." They are expected to consider profits, dividends, wages, as the chief end in their callings; and if ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... approving regicide or tyrannicide, as they were pleased to distinguish it in their books. Mariana, in his book, De Rege et Rege Constitutione, praises Clement and apologizes for regicide; and that, in spite of the fact that the Council of Constance had condemned the maxim according to which it was permitted to kill ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... means was a contributor to the State and local canvass. During this period I had asked nothing and would accept nothing. If I may apply so large a phrase to a matter so comparatively unimportant, I would deny the often quoted maxim that "republics are ungrateful." ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... forget to be always content with small mercies," answered the other, smiling with a gleam of his golden teeth,... "that is a favourite maxim of mine. As you truly remark, I would certainly prefer the ... the jewel to the infinitely less precious and ... interesting ... casket. But what I have, I hold. And I have you ... and your accomplice ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... It is a very probably conjecture, my dear; but you must not attribute the cause merely to good-fortune: Emily is attentive to the excellent maxim: "A place for every thing, and every thing in its place," and if you would endeavour, in this respect, to follow her example, you would find the same comfortable effects resulting ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... same stimulus will not produce the same recollection in another man who did not share your former experience, although the former experience left no OBSERVABLE traces in the structure of the brain. According to the maxim "same cause, same effect," we cannot therefore regard the peat-smoke alone as the cause of your recollection, since it does not have the same effect in other cases. The cause of your recollection must be ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... patronage, though this was one of the unwritten charges. J. W. Schuckers, in his life of Chase, says that the radical leaders "felt the vast importance of the presidential patronage; many of them felt, too, that, according to the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, the Republican party was rightfully entitled to the Federal patronage, and they determined to get possession of it. There was but one method and that was by impeachment and removal ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... definite neatness of that precocious talent which stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to him as ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... portraitures, for which mode (from its varied and detached character) it is perhaps better calculated than any of its predecessors. Our anticipatory anxiety in selecting the Two Drovers was a forcible illustration of the maxim, Qui dat cito, dat bis; for the extent occupied by the portion already quoted and its interruption, with the immense influx of works recently published, have somewhat interfered with our arrangements. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... we apply to books a maxim of the Greeks: "All things in common amongst friends." Under this maxim Cicero has enumerated, as principles of humanity, not to deny one a little running water, or the lighting his fire by ours, if he has occasion; to give ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... right in time; and if you only resolve to take it in the proper and manly temper, it may even prove all the better that this has happened. Nothing is without a remedy in this world; and I'll do what I can to make good this maxim in your case. In the mean time, however, come along, and help me to rout out these rascally white ants. Off coat, however, if you please; for we shall have a tough ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... proceeded to lay it down as a general maxim that there was nothing in life like drawing a regular salary. Ever since he had been a master-printer on his own account, he had been regretting the fact. A workman knew exactly how much he had ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... walk not alone; sheep will follow sheep; So this little maxim I would have ye keep: Would ye conquer all men, make a fool of one— The rest will turn toward thee, as ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... maxim that 'no progress can be made by the Pekin Government.' To them any progress, whether slow or quick, is synonymous to slow or quick extinction, for they will ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... two, and the Swiss seemed to take much pleasure in leading him on. His philosophy seemed to be drawn from a source equally pure with his Morality; assuming for his Motto his first and favourite Maxim, "que tous les hommes sont egaux par les lois de la Nature," &c., he thought himself justified in wishing Buonaparte (I was going to say) at the Devil (but I soon found out that the existence of that Gentleman was a matter of great doubt with the Philosopher) for daring to call ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. The old conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, what that of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not common nowadays—but I have the old maxim in my blood: ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the Aryans, see especially Prof. Maxim Kovalevsky's Primitive Law (in Russian), Moscow, 1886 and 1887. Also his Lectures delivered at Stockholm (Tableau des origines et de l'evolution de la famille et de la propriete, Stockholm, 1890), which represents an admirable ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... to that sort of definition, morality in business would be defined as that quality which makes the grocer good and respectable when he resists temptation and does not put sand in the sugar. The smug maxim that honesty is the best policy, while doubtless true enough as a verdict of human experience under normal conditions, is not fitted to arouse much enthusiasm as a statement of ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... to Maxim's, and two found them in Deviniere's. Sloane had been drinking consecutively and was in a state of unsteady exhilaration, but Amory was quite tiresomely sober; they had run across none of those ancient, corrupt buyers of champagne who ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... named Masthead—not larger, apparently, than a boy of sixteen years, though it was difficult to say from the outside how much of him was editor and how much cast-off clothing; for in the matter of apparel he had acted upon his favorite professional maxim, and "sunk the individual;" his attire—eminently eclectic, and in a sense international—quite overcame him at all points. However, as my friend had assured me he was "a graduate of one of the largest institutions in his native State," ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... too, how it is that this copybook maxim is now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... nothing to wear, And renders her life so drear and dyspeptic That she's quite a recluse, and almost a skeptic, For she touchingly says that this sort of grief Can not find in Religion the slightest relief, And Philosophy has not a maxim to spare For the victims of such overwhelming despair. But the saddest, by far, of all these sad features, Is the cruelty practised upon the poor creatures By husbands and fathers, real Bluebeards and Timons, Who resist the most touching ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Commissioners; but that sympathy has deserted them; they are now hidden in holes and corners from their oppressors, and have to go by false names, and are kept out of work; for odisse quem loeseris is the fundamental maxim of their oppressors. Not so the assassins: they flourish. I have seen with these eyes one savage murderer employed at high wages, while a man he all but destroyed is refused work on all hands, and was separated by dire ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... oriental workmanship, and upon its jeweled handle was an inscription in the Arabic tongue. Monte-Cristo took the weapon to the window and the full light of the silvery moonbeams fell upon it. The inscription was from the Koran, and was a maxim adopted by the Khouan tribe. The ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... account of the kindness of the negro women of the interior to him is well known. Many instances could be given of the noble fidelity of savages towards each other, but not to strangers; common experience justifies the maxim of the Spaniard, "Never, never trust an Indian." There cannot be fidelity without truth; and this fundamental virtue is not rare between the members of the same tribe: thus Mungo Park heard the negro women teaching their young children to love the truth. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... him in the little bird-dealer's esteem. The birds all seemed to recognize a friend in him; and even those which were but partially tamed, and were gentle only with Andreas himself, would perch willingly upon his hand. With Andreas it long had been a maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of human character, and the testimonial thus given to Lud-wig's worth counted with him for a great deal—as did also the quite converse opinion of the birds in regard to the young Herr ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... used to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, "Ancient ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... spirit of the injunction by entering into an alliance which would secure peace and make entanglements impossible, than she is when she leaves herself and the world exposed to the constant menace of war, merely for the sake of seeming to comply with the letter of a maxim which is now meaningless. If Washington were alive to-day, it does not seem to me possible to doubt that he would favour a new English treaty, even though he might have more difficulty in compelling Congress to accept his views than he had ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... as this is to do good, if the reader really wishes to benefit by the advice that it gives him, it must be read thoughtfully and diligently, not fitfully and forgetfully, and the reader most steadfastly keep before him the maxim of the Author—"Poise is a power derived from the ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... get and hold office; and their leading political maxim . . . is that, "to the victors belong the spoils of victory!"[8] . . . Can any one, who will duly reflect on these things, venture to say that all is sound, and that our Government is not undergoing a great and fatal change? Let us not deceive ourselves, the very essence of a free government ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... are the electricians, particularly the incandescent light companies. I supply the platinum wire for both the Edison and the Maxim companies, and the quantity they require so constantly increases that the demand threatens to exceed the supply of the metal. Sheets of platinum are bought by chemists, who have them converted into ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... virtue. But it is often the duty of a wise man to depart from life, when he is thoroughly happy, if it is in his power to do so opportunely; and that is living in a manner suitable to nature, for their maxim is, that living happily depends upon opportunity. Therefore a rule is laid down by wisdom, that if it be necessary a wise man is even to ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... every variety of metre in common use, and appropriate to every occasion where God is worshipped and men are blessed. From the compositions of Billings, Holden, Maxim, Edson, Holyoke, Read, Kimball, Morgan, Wood, Swan, &c. &c., and eminent American authors now living, as well as from distinguished European composers. Embracing a greater variety of Music for Congregations, Societies, Singing Schools, and Choirs, ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... be a well-understood maxim of the novelist's art that many a liberty taken with hero or heroine, or both, is forgiven if the writer keeps a constant eye upon his villain, and deals honestly by him. In Long Odds there are two villains, and at least two ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... place, Cameta, and spend a few days with his friends. It seemed not to matter to him that he had a cargo of merchandise, vessel, and crew of twelve persons, which required an economical use of time; "pleasure first and business afterwards" appeared to be his maxim. We stayed at Cameta twelve days. The chief motive for prolonging the stay to this extent was a festival at the Aldeia, two miles below Cameta, which was to commence on the 21st, and which my friend wished to take part in. On the day of the festival the schooner ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... servicing and maintaining equipment of a motor transportation company which is engaged in interstate commerce (Boutell v. Walling, 327 U.S. 463 (1946)). Nor does the maxim "de minimis" apply to the act. Hence the publishers of a daily newspaper only about one half of one per cent of whose circulation is outside the State of publication are not by that fact excluded from the operation of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... so we set the sergeant free, and him instead I charged with a message that must have given Mazarin endless pleasure when it was delivered to him. But he had the Canaples estates wherewith to console himself and his never-failing maxim that "chi canta, paga." Touching the Canaples estates, however, he did not long enjoy them, for when he went into exile, two years later, the Parliament returned them to their ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... precocity than that which Madame Périer has given of her brother, accustomed as we have become to such stories in the lives of eminent men. Detecting the remarkable powers of the boy, his father had formed very definite resolutions as to his education. His chief maxim, Madame Périer says, was always “to keep the boy above his work.” And for this reason he did not wish him to learn Latin till he was twelve years of age, when he might easily acquire it. In the meantime, he sought to give him ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... it is "ein aeusserst feines und modernes nacht etablissement" we enter, partake of a bottle of champagne (thirty kronen—New York prices) and pass out and on to Le Chapeau Rouge, where we buy more champagne. From there we go to the Rauhensteingasse and enter Maxim's, brazenly heralded as the Montmartre of Vienna. Then on to the Wallfischgasse to mingle with the confused visitors of the Trocadero, where we are urged to have supper. But time is fleeting. The cabmeter is going round like ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... of the officers in the colony were allowed people to shoot for them, it became necessary to make some example of the man who bought, rather than of him who sold; for it was a maxim pretty generally adopted, that the receiver was more culpable than the thief. The lieutenant-governor, therefore, ordered Lane to be punished with one hundred lashes, placed upon the commissary's books for provisions, and sent up to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... of the law usually entered the offices of attorneys in large practice. At that period, the division between the two branches of the profession was much less wide than it subsequently became; and no rule or maxim of professional etiquette forbade Inns-of-Court men to act as the subordinates of attorneys and solicitors. Thus Philip Yorke (Lord Hardwicke) in Queen Anne's reign acted as clerk in the office of Mr. Salkeld, an attorney residing in Brook Street, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... a struggle to rise from his chair—then he saw the collar and tie of the Rev. Mr. Purvis, and the full horror of the thing dawned upon him. Nor did the three gin cocktails, which Mr. Sims had had stationed ready for the reunion, greatly help its geniality. Yet it had been a maxim, in the recollections of Mr. Sims, that when any of the boys blew in anywhere the bringing of drinks must ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... noticeable, showing how low the men are in the ground. The sandbags shown it took us four hours one night to place in position. As fast as we put them up they were shot down again by the enemy's maxim fire. We were all so tired and sleepy that, working on automatically, we hardly knew whether we were putting the mud in the ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... maxim with the Italian connoisseur of art, that no landscape is perfect without one red spot to give value to its varieties of green. On this principle, let me break the monotony of this little rural sketch with the one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... forty nights Moses now devoted to the study of the Torah, and in all the time he ate no bread and drank no water, acting in accordance with the proverb, "If thou enterest a city, observe its laws." The angels followed this maxim when they visited Abraham, for they there ate like men; and so did Moses, who being among angels, like the angels partook of no food. He received nourishment from radiance of the Shekinah, which also sustains the holy Hayyot that bear the Throne. Moses ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the eating of the sacrifice the same day it was offered, seems to mean only before the morning of the next, although the latter part, i.e. the night, be in strictness part of the next day, according to the Jewish reckoning,] is greatly to be observed upon other occasions also. The Jewish maxim in such cases, it seems, is this: That the day goes before the night; and this appears to me to be the language both of the Old and New Testament. See also the note on Antiq. B. IV. ch. 4. sect. 4, and Reland's note on B. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... bargaining away a better right for another of less value. These gentlemen of expedients may beat their brains as much as they please, they will never invent any means so simple, and so sure of attaining the great ends included in the political maxim just quoted, as by adhering to the plain, direct dictates of common honesty. Each trifling temporary advantage they may gain, will certainly and speedily be met by some contingent disadvantage, that will render them losers ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... councils, began to make preparations of war against Sweden; but a body of Russian auxiliaries arriving in that kingdom, under the command of general Keith, and the czarina declaring she would assist the Swedes with her whole force, the king of Denmark thought proper to disarm. It had been an old maxim of French policy to embroil the courts of the North, that they might be too much employed at home to intermeddle in the affairs of Germany, while France was at war with the house of Austria. The good understanding between the czarina and the queen of Hungary was at this period destroyed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronising infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense; but in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... than half pagans at heart; we are as our country and our traditions have made us. It will need another visitation of Christ before we shall learn how to forgive those that despitefully use us. Such a doctrine seems to us a mere play upon words—a weak maxim only fit for children and priests. Besides, did Christ himself forgive Judas? The gospel does ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... That first morning I endeavoured to direct my pupil's steps toward the Musee de Cluny, with the purpose of inciting him to instructive study; but in the mildest, yet most immovable manner, he proposed Longchamps and the races as a substitute, to conclude with dinner at La Cascade and supper at Maxim's or the Cafe' Blanche, in case we should meet engaging company. I ventured the vainest efforts to reason with him, making for myself a very uncomfortable breakfast, though without effect upon him of any visibility. His air was uninterruptedly mild and modest; he rarely lifted his eyes, but to ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... Never was Napoleon's maxim that men are nothing, a man is everything, more justified, and never did the genius of Sherman shine more brilliantly than on that morning. It was he, alone, cool of mind and steady in the face of overwhelming peril, who first faced ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of the important question at issue, the great Southern general gave me, at some length, his feelings with regard to the abstract right of secession. This right, he told me, was held as a constitutional maxim at the South. As to its exercise at the time on the part of the South, he was distinctly opposed, and it was not until Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 men to invade the South, which was deemed clearly unconstitutional, that Virginia ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... the English Parliament. They contended that, according to the law of the land, taxation and representation were inseparable. The rule of taxation being agreed upon by the convention, it is possible that the maxim with which we successfully opposed the claim of England may have had an influence in procuring the adoption of the same rule for the apportionment of representatives; the true meaning, however, of this principle of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... esteem with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so much in esteem as with us. The idea of perfection as a general expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the individual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself." The idea of perfection as an harmonious expansion of human nature is at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense [16] energetic absorption in the particular pursuit we happen ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... is a good maxim not to halloo till you are out of the woods, our kind host and hostess must be very quiet this evening, for it seems to me that they are in the thick of it. If their friends had been about to burn them alive instead of to wish them joy on their fifth wedding-day, they could scarcely ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... party spending a very enjoyable day on deck, although there was little or nothing to be seen, only two craft—both of them steamers— being sighted during the day. They were steering north, and were hull-down, so that they probably failed to notice the presence of the Flying Fish. The Maxim gun, being no longer needed, was dismounted again and stowed away, in accordance with a recognised rule that the ship was always to be kept in condition for either mounting into the air, or descending beneath the surface of the sea, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... enjoys alone, in contradistinction to others, and not to those which he enjoys in common with any of his subjects: for if once any one prerogative of the crown could be held in common with the subject, it would cease to be prerogative any longer. And therefore Finch[i] lays it down as a maxim, that the prerogative is that law in case of the king, which is law in no ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... it And yet—this greatest of political transgressors was in turn the regenerator of his country. There is scarce a structural idea in Roman monarchy, which is not traceable to Gaius Gracchus. From him proceeded the maxim—founded doubtless in a certain sense in the nature of the old traditional laws of war, but yet, in the extension and practical application now given to it, foreign to the older state-law—that all the land of the subject communities was ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... her the surgeon's prediction that Captain Farnham would be well in a week or two. "He said the scalp wound was healing 'by the first intention,' which I thought was a funny phrase. I thought the maxim was that second thoughts were best." Alice had never mentioned Farnham's name since the first night, but he was rarely out of her mind, and the thought that his life was saved made every hour bright and festal. "He will be well," she thought. "He will have to come here to ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... this maxim to literature we may say that that is truly beautiful which agrees both with the nature of things themselves and with the inclinations of our senses and of our soul. And since in a work of literature one takes account of sound, diction, and idea, the agreement of all these with ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... the ennui of the French. I {222} recollect an allusion to the phrase somewhere in Miss Mitford's writings, who speaks of it as peculiar to Berks; but as I was then ignorant of Captain Cuttle's maxim, I did not "make a note of it," so that I am unable to lay my hand ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... convinced him on which side his interest lay, and saw him return to Paris, where very shortly afterwards he disappeared for ever from this world, being forced into a duel, much against his will (with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to defraud), and shot through the lungs. Thus verifying a favourite maxim of Lord Lilburne's, viz. that it does not do, in the long run, for little men to play ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are the life and soul of the strategical offensive." That maxim reads well but, in practice, it is important to provide against being surprised by the other fellow before you spring your surprise ...
— A Battery at Close Quarters - A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, - October 6, 1909 • Henry M. Neil
... Madam, the truth of the French maxim, le vrai n'est pas toujours le vrai-semblable; your last was so full of expostulation, and was something so like the language of an offended friend, that I began to tremble for a correspondence, which I had with grateful ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... attack commenced with a vigor which quite equalled the energy of the resistance; and on the 27th January, after a general assault, which was deadly and long-continued, the entire circuit of the walls was carried by the French troops. It is a maxim of war that every town deprived of the protection of its walls capitulates, or surrenders at discretion; but in Saragossa the real struggle—the struggle of the populace—was only beginning. On the 28th, Lannes wrote to the emperor: "Never, sire, have I seen such keen determination ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... the copyright of the maxim, he nevertheless had a high opinion of it, and frequently acted upon it in the conduct of his ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... smoothly, are the novels they write in that period of content coloured with optimism? And if things are running crosswise, do they work off the resultant gloom on their faithful public? If, for instance, Mr. W. W. Jacobs had toothache, would he write like Hugh Walpole? If Maxim Gorky were invited to lunch by Trotsky, to meet Lenin, would he sit down and dash off a trifle in the vein of Stephen Leacock? Probably the eminent have the power of detaching their writing self ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... This maxim was no sooner received, but we immediately fell to translating the Italian operas; and as there was no great danger of hurting the sense of those extraordinary pieces, our authors would often make words of their own which were entirely foreign to the meaning ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... as saints and Christians, are obligatory upon, and to be followed by all Christians; but those acts which are done by magistrates, prophets, apostles, ministers, &c., only as such, are only obligatory on such as have like offices, not on all; according to the maxim, that which agrees to any thing as such, agrees to every thing that is such. Thus James urges the example of Elias in praying, James v. 17. Paul presses the example of Abraham in being justified by believing, Rom. iv. 23,24. Peter prescribes, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... want to be alone to muse of things in your dreamy way, but my love, it is better not to do so, it only makes things harder to bear. Try to banish disagreeable subjects as much as possible, that is my maxim. But I cannot refuse you anything just now, so after luncheon I will go home, and will come back for ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... of opinion, That truth ought to be strictly adhered to on all occasions: and am concerned that I have, (though with so good a view,) departed from my old maxim. But my dear friend Mr. John Harlowe would have it so. Yet I never knew a departure of this kind a single departure. But, to make the best of it now, allow me, Sir, once more to beg the lady, as soon as possible, to authenticate the report given out.] When both you and the lady ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... her shall rarely find when the truth he seeks is something not suited for scientific formulae. The real observer is he who does not observe, but is gradually aware that he knows. Sometimes he does not learn that he is wise till long years have passed, and then perhaps the mechanical maxim of a mechanical eye-server of Nature shall startle him into a sense of deep abiding, but perhaps incommunicable, knowledge. So comes the knowledge of mountain, moor and stream; so rises the Aphrodite truth of the sea, born from the foam ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... eat, one can always drink—a maxim of poor Athos, the truth of which I have discovered since ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... further elaborated and fortified the traditional canon of pecuniary reputability in goods consumed; until we have finally reached such a degree of conviction as to the unworthiness of all inexpensive things, that we have no longer any misgivings in formulating the maxim, "Cheap and nasty." So thoroughly has the habit of approving the expensive and disapproving the inexpensive been ingrained into our thinking that we instinctively insist upon at least some measure of wasteful expensiveness in all our consumption, even in the case of goods which are consumed in ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... a maxim of the law, that the judges respond to the question of law, and juries only to the question of fact. The answer to this objection is, that, since Magna Carta, judges have had more than six centuries in which ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... new world of thought she had entered! it occupied her mind from its very novelty. Everything looked dull and dim by the side of it; her brother had ever been dinning into her ears that maxim of the heathen, "Enjoy the present, trust nothing to the future." She indeed could not enjoy the present with that relish which he wished, and she had not any trust in the future either; but this volume spoke a different ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... operation of which he became converted. Now this is to them a very satisfactory way of accounting for the conversion. But may not this change in the man take place without this tertiam quid, or third something? If it may, then to import it into the controversy is to violate the law of parsimony or maxim of philosophy, that it is wrong to multiply causes beyond what are necessary. But let us look at life: let us enter the sphere of human experience. We find men, for instance, who in politics were at one period ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... the gods It would be to ensnare an irreligious 860 Dishonourer of Dagon: what had I To oppose against such powerful arguments? Only my love of thee held long debate; And combated in silence all these reasons With hard contest: at length that grounded maxim So rife and celebrated in the mouths Of wisest men; that to the public good Private respects must yield; with grave authority' Took full possession of me and prevail'd; Vertue, as I thought, truth, duty so ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... more Numerous and Terrible, but Wealthy and care not for Wars, had rather stay at Home and Quarrel with one another, than go Abroad to Fight, making good an Old Maxim, Too Poor t'Agree, and yet ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... gives some idea of these. The photograph was taken by Mr. Kisch after the relief of Ladysmith. For the want of more extended knowledge I shall confine myself to the description of a few injuries caused by two classes of large shell, those of the Vickers-Maxim or 'Pom-pom,' ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... promising lad, His intentions were good—but oh, how sad For a person to think How the veriest pink And bloom of perfection may turn out bad. Old Flash himself was a moral man, And prided himself on a moral plan, Of a maxim as old As the calf of gold, Of making that boy do ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... his almost intuitive discrimination stripped them of their deceptive appendages, and separated fallacies from truth, marshalling their arguments, so as to elucidate or detect each other. But in all his disputations, it was an invariable maxim with him never to interrupt the most tedious or confused opponents, though, from his pithy questions, he made it evident, that, from the first, he anticipated the train and ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... criterion of man's duty toward his fellow-men, based obligation upon a universal law. "Act," said Kant, "as if the motive of thy conduct were to become by thy will a universal law." Suppose we apply this maxim of Kant to the use of human beings for research purposes. An experimenter in a hospital makes dying children his material. Is he willing that the maxim of his act should be universal, and apply to experiments upon his own child, when it lies at the point of death? ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... reader. But still if we turn to a volume of Paine's (his Common Sense or Rights of Man) we are struck (not to say somewhat refreshed) by the difference. Paine is a much more sententious writer than Cobbett. You cannot open a page in any of his best and earlier works without meeting with some maxim, some antithetical and memorable saying, which is a sort of starting-place for the argument, and the goal to which it returns. There is not a single bon mot, a single sentence in Cobbett that has ever been quoted again. If anything is ever quoted from him, it is an epithet of abuse ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of a remark of the learned Gentius, in one of his notes on the Gulistan of Saadi, that music was formerly in such consideration in Persia that it was a maxim of their sages that when a king was about to die, if he left for his successor a very young son, his aptitude for reigning should be proved by some agreeable songs; and if the child was pleasurably affected, then it ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... ask no questions" was the maxim of the church, it was fitly the maxim of the schools. In that age men also believed that a child's mind could be made to order, that its powers were to be imparted by the schoolmaster; that it was a receptacle into which ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... and uneasy on account of rumours spread, that you design to alter the tax-act, for sinking your paper currency. Public credit ought to be sacred, and it is a standing maxim, That no state can subsist longer than their credit is maintained: I hope therefore you have no such intentions, which would put me under a necessity of doing what I have never yet done; I mean, disagreeing with you. I expect therefore you will ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... a maxim of that excellent divine," said he, "that Christian censure should never be used to make a sinner desperate; for then he either sinks under the burden or grows impudent and tramples upon it. A charitable modest remedy, says he, preserves that which is virtue's girdle-fear ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... away, you will find that you not only hit the ball satisfactorily but that it flies straighter than you had hitherto found it willing to do. When you are getting on, and begin to have some satisfaction with yourself, then remember that this maxim still requires as close observance as ever. If you find yourself off your game—such as it is—ask yourself at once, "Am I keeping my eye on the ball?" And don't be in a hurry to assume ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... p. 31). "Another erroneous practice was adopted by them, which, though it was not so universal as the other, was yet extremely pernicious, and proved a source of numberless evils to the Christian Church. The Platonists and Pythagoreans held it as a maxim, that it was not only lawful, but even praiseworthy, to deceive, and even to use the expedient of a lie, in order to advance the cause of truth and piety. The Jews, who lived in Egypt, had learned and received this maxim from them, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... moment he wondered whether the rabbi had guessed his secret, but the learned man said to him he was but repeating a maxim from the Talmud. ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... been reproved for his worldliness in amassing a large enough fortune to buy a good farm, answered his complaining congregation thus: "I have obtained the money to buy this farm by neglecting to follow the maxim to 'mind my own business.' My business was to study the word of God and attend to my parish duties and preach good sermons. All this I acknowledge I have not done, for I have been meddling with your business. That was to support me and my family; that you have not done. But remember ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Grecian (or in the first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was deputy Grecian; and the same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his conversation. In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor cease till far midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him,—who would obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? He had the tact of making the unintelligible ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... scales had fallen from my eyes. My old idealisation of the life of the tramp, somehow or other, was entirely gone—an idealisation that had, anyhow, been mainly literary, induced by the writings of Jack London, Josiah Flynt and Maxim Gorky. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... of the same material. True courage consists in presence of mind; and here mine came to my aid at once: recollecting the loss I had just sustained, and perceiving that all was still about me, with that right Peninsular maxim, that reprisals are fair in an enemy's camp, I proceeded to strip the slain; and with some little difficulty—partly, indeed, owing to my unsteadiness on my legs—I succeeded in denuding the worthy alderman, who ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... few their wishes—what their farm denied, The neighbouring town, at trifling cost, supplied. If at the draper's window Susan cast A longing look, as with her goods she pass'd, And, with the produce of the wheel and churn, Bought her a Sunday—robe on her return; True to her maxim, she would take no rest, Till care repaid that portion to the chest: Or if, when loitering at the Whitsun-fair, Her Robert spent some idle shillings there; Up at the barn, before the break of day, He made his labour for th' indulgence pay: Thus both—that ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... stanzas, the author had got at the heart of a good deal of America. In another cheap magazine, professing to be devoted wholly to stories, he hoped for a breathing-space, and was tasked by nothing less familiar than Swift's versification of a well-known maxim of La Rouchefoucauld. In a ten-cent magazine which is too easily the best of that sort, he found two pieces of uncommon worth, which opened the way so promisingly, indeed, for happier fortunes that he was not as ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... many pupils to Bagdad, and, when one knows his teaching, this is not surprising. Some of his aphorisms are very practical. While the expressions just quoted with regard to Galen and Aristotle might seem to indicate that Rhazes was absolutely wedded to authority, there is another well-known maxim of his which shows how much he thought of the value of experience and observation. "Truth in medicine," he said, "is a goal which cannot be absolutely reached, and the art of healing, as it is described in books, ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... whole Roman Empire. It was a toy, a plaything, a show-box, in which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid from time, to give to the wonder of posterity—the moral of the maxim, that under the sun ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... exclusion, Hindu exclusion suddenly became party shibboleths—always for the party out of power, never for the party in power. The party in power kept a special Maxim silencer on the subject of Oriental immigration. The politician in office kept one finger on his lip and wore rubber-soled shoes whenever an almond-eyed was mentioned. With that beautiful consistency which only a politician has, a good British Columbia member, ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... (here he lowered his voice, and looked round the kitchen), "she was very whimsical, expensive, ill-tempered, and, I'm afraid, a little—upon the— flightly order—a little touched or so;—but mum for that—the lady is now dead; and it is my maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The young squire was even then very handsome, and looked remarkably well in his weepers; but he had an awkward air and shambling gait, stooped mortally, and was so shy and silent that he would not look a stranger ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... in actual possession, and he called to mind the old maxim, that "possession is nine points in the law." He was unwilling to risk the bright prospects, which had so suddenly opened upon him, on the tenth point. Fearing that Jaspar's unscrupulous character would enable him to defeat the heiress, he had not the courage to do his duty and trust Heaven ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... failed to point out the right and wrong in her stories, for she feared that I would be carried away with whatever was most dazzling, and thus form erroneous impressions. It is an excellent maxim that "people should be just before they are generous;" and did all bear this in mind while admiring actions that often dazzle with a false glitter, they would assume ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott, whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this fidelity to business ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... of fifteen years) that she intended to be an old maid, and that we might all come and live with her. Some one listening reproved her, but she said, "Why, if they fit themselves to be good, helpful, cheerful old maids, they will certainly be better wives, if they ever are married," and that maxim I laid by in my memory for future contingencies, for I believed in every word she ever uttered. She herself, however, did not carry out her girlish intention. "Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also; ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... now make iron float by the very same law by which it sinks, because by the introduction of the PERSONAL factor, we provide conditions which do not occur spontaneously—according to the esoteric maxim that "Nature unaided fails." Now we want to apply the same process of specializing a generic Law to the first of all Laws, that of the generic life-giving tendency of Spirit itself. Without the element of INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY the Spirit can only work cosmically ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... lift suddenly above the range of my breath. But until that moment no person of the fair sex had ever subjected me to such a whimsical piece of familiarity as that of tickling my nose with my own feather pen. Happily I remembered the maxim of my late grandfather, who was accustomed to say that everything was permissible on the part of ladies, and that whatever they do to us is to be regarded as a grace and a favour. Therefore, as a grace and a favour I received ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... of learning, and some women of elegance, often visited him; and he wrote, from time to time, either verse or prose; of his verses he willingly gave copies, and is supposed to have felt no discontent when he saw them printed. His favourite maxim was, "Vive la bagatelle;" he thought trifles a necessary part of life, and, perhaps, found them necessary to himself. It seems impossible to him to be idle, and his disorders made it difficult or dangerous to be long seriously studious, or laboriously diligent. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... assured himself with much complacency, as he perceived Timokles being carried, "I follow the maxim of Ptah-hotep: 'Treat well thy people, as it behooveth thee; this is the duty of those whom ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... his teaching led to the foundation of the Medical School of the Methodists. His most important maxim was that a cure should be effected "tuto, celeriter, ac jucunde," and he believed that what the physician could do was of primary importance, and vis medicatrix naturae only secondary. He was thus directly opposed to the teaching of Hippocrates. He ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... of a guest are tact and observation, and these will lead you to notice and do just what will give pleasure to your friends in their different opinions and ways of living. Apply in its best sense the maxim—"When you are in Rome, do as the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... along, and talk with you a little while, so there, sit there.—Come then, let us see what we have to say to these saucy brats, that will not let us go sleep at past eleven. Why, I am a little impatient to know how you do; but that I take it for a standing maxim, that when you are silent, all is pretty well, because that is the way I will deal with you; and if there was anything you ought to know now, I would write by the first post, although I had written ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... for both sexes, and to take the milder methods of exercise in use among the Grecians, we find that the chace, that foot-races, and especially dancing, principally composed the amusement of the young ladies of that country; where, in the great days of Greece, no maxim ever more practically prevailed, than that sloth or inactivity was equally the parent of diseases of the body, as of vices of the mind. Agreeable to which idea, one of the greatest physicians now in Europe, the celebrated Tronchin, while at Paris, vehemently declaimed against this false ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... the public stocks. There were still a public pillory and stocks within the city, but, like those in Squire Hazeldean's parish, they had long been disused. Mackenzie had probably never heard of the maxim Quieta non movere. At any rate, the greater part of his life was spent in efforts in an opposite direction. His sentence was carried out, and the culprit was placed in the stocks. Had this been the act of a fossilized member of the Compact it would not have appeared very incongruous, but in ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... reading the following maxim in Rochefoucault, 'Dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous deplait pas;'—'In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something that doth ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... forth that no good citizen had occasion for more than three books, viz. bible, prayer-book and almanack. Mr. Bryant was a bachelor of some sixty years old or thereabouts. He had a snug little business though but a small establishment; for it was his maxim not to keep more cats than would catch mice. His establishment consisted of only two individuals; a housekeeper and an apprentice. His housekeeper was one Mrs. Dickinson, a staid, sober, matronly looking personage, who tried very hard, but not very successfully, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... social arrangement, or political or other institution, as good, and another as bad—one as desirable, another as condemnable, very much has been done towards giving to the one, or withdrawing from the other, that preponderance of social force which enables it to subsist. And the maxim, that the government of a country is what the social forces in existence compel it to be, is true only in the sense in which it favors, instead of discouraging, the attempt to exercise, among all forms of government ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... producing the various munitions and equipments, the want of which had caused early embarrassment. Thus a good deal had been done to produce the needed material of war, and to refute the croakers who found in our poverty application for the maxim, "Ex nihilo nihil fit." ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Kotzebue country they stumbled onto the little camp in the early winter, and as there was food a plenty, of its kind, whereas they had subsisted for some days on puree of seal oil and short ribs of dog, Captain and Big George decided to winter. A maxim of the north teaches to cabin ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... that some honest man chooses later and brings from their obscurity to thrust them into the light for their own sake." Thus fortune served Montaigne to perfection, and even in his administration of affairs, in difficult conjunctures, he never had to belie his maxim, nor to step very far out of the way of life he had planned: "For my part I commend a gliding, solitary, and silent life." He reached the end of his magistracy almost satisfied with himself, having accomplished what he had promised ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... answer that this is all well enough for the trained photographer and that in these days of my semi-professionalism I practice that same sort of thing myself. But in the beginning I was duly grateful to the man who gave me the golden maxim of "the closer the object, the larger the stop; the more distant the object, the smaller the stop"—a piece of advice which enabled a novice, with only one simple adjustment to worry about, to take a passably sharp, properly exposed picture. ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... believe, these things have reality; if not, they have none." His gesture, as he repeated the native maxim, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... something in the air which was new to her. All at once between her and the church there shone a light on the right hand, unlike anything she had ever seen before; and out of it came a voice equally unknown and wonderful. What did the voice say? Only the simplest words, words fit for a child, no maxim or mandate above her faculties—"Jeanne, sois bonne et sage enfant; va souvent a l'eglise." Jeanne, be good! What more could an archangel, what less could the peasant mother within doors, say? The little girl was frightened, but soon composed herself. The voice could be nothing but sacred and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... imperial table; that [Greek text], to disturb the Goths, was a deadly offence throughout the Empire: all these things did not prevent a thousand new statues from rising in honour of the great Caesar, and excited nothing more than grumblings of impotent jealousy from a people whose maxim had become, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... to a man than to speak the truth; a maxim that ought indeed to be approved of by all; but still sincerity is frequently ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... king's request, he came to Paris, he received letters of remonstrance for his imprudence, from all parts of France. He was reminded that other monarchs before Charles had broken their pledges. Huss had been burned at Constance notwithstanding the emperor's safe conduct, and the maxim that no faith need be kept with heretics had obtained a mournful currency.[893] To these warnings Admiral Coligny replied at one moment with some annoyance, indignant that his young sovereign should be so suspected; at another, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... presume in humble lays, My dancing fair, thy steps to praise? While this grand maxim I advance, That all the world is but a dance, That human-kind, both man and woman, Do dance is evident and common. David himself, that God-like king, We know could dance, as well as sing. Folks who at court would keep their ground, Must dance the year attendance round. All nature ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... armoured train in the railway-yard, with a Maxim and a Hotchkiss. We have a Nordenfeldt, a couple of Maxims more, four seven-pounder guns of almost prehistoric date, slow of fire, uncertain as regards the elevating-gear, and, I tell you plainly, as dangerous, some of 'em, to be behind as to be in front of! One ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is specially prepared for the duties of parenthood. The teacher, on the other hand, is required to spend years in preparation for his work. He is expected, moreover, to set a worthy example for children to follow. "As the teacher so the school," is a maxim that ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... despair of this task were it not that I think I see symptoms in the Irish people both of greater reliance on their own energies and exertions, and of greater intelligence to co-operate with each other. Happy will it be, indeed, if the Irish take for their maxim, "Help yourselves and Heaven will help you," and then I think they will find there is some ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... "An excellent maxim," said the merchant, availing himself of the youth's assistance in handing the cup, and filling it from a ewer which seemed of the same materials with the goblet, without any of those scruples in point of propriety which, perhaps, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... positive and extremely real. Accordingly, the avaricious man foregoes the former in order that he may be the better preserved from the latter, and thus it is that bear and forbear—sustine et abstine—is his maxim. And because he knows, further, how inexhaustible are the possibilities of misfortune, and how innumerable the paths of danger, he increases the means of avoiding them, in order, if possible, to surround himself with a triple wall of protection. Who, then, can say where precaution against ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Dickens as the contemporary of all these phenomena. In point of fact, to G.K.C. everybody is either a contemporary or a Victorian, and "I also was born a Victorian." Little Dorrit sets him talking about Gissing, Hard Times suggests Herbert Spencer, American Notes leads to the mention of Maxim Gorky, and elsewhere Mr. George Moore and Mr. William Le Queux are brought in. If Chesterton happened to be writing about Dickens at a time when there was a certain amount of feeling about on the subject of rich Jews on the Rand, then ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West |
