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At all costs   /æt ɔl kɑsts/   Listen
At all costs

adverb
1.
Regardless of the cost involved.  Synonyms: at any cost, at any expense.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"At all costs" Quotes from Famous Books



... back her head and looked him squarely in the face with a sudden determination to end the present agonizing suspense at all costs. ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... made by reinforcement and by concentration to guard the vital points. The objects of the British leaders, until the time for a general advance should come, were to hold the Orange River Bridge (which opened the way to Kimberley), to cover De Aar Junction, where the stores were, to protect at all costs the line of railway which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and to hold on to as much as possible of those other two lines of railway which led, the one through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into the Free State. The two bodies of invaders who entered the colony moved along ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lay-sister and her spurious vision faded into insignificance in view of the one supreme question: What course would Hugh take? Would he keep silence and thus tacitly become a party to the deception; or would he, at all costs, tell ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... majority of these report a feeling of tiredness, languor, lassitude, sometimes restlessness, sometimes drowsiness. There is often a feeling of suffocation, and a longing for Nature and fresh air and day-dreams, while work seems distasteful and unsatisfactory. Change is felt to be necessary at all costs, and sometimes there is a desire to begin some new plan of life.[161] In both sexes there is frequently a wave of sexual emotion, a longing for love. Kline also found by examination of a very large number of cases that between the ages of four and seventeen it is in spring that running away ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... meet with no more interruptions until we get to Nerac There can be little doubt that, at present, the Catholics have received no orders to seize the queen and her son at Nerac; although they have orders to prevent her, at all costs, from going forward to Paris except under escort; and are keeping a sharp lookout, to prevent her from being joined by parties of Huguenots who would render her ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... own. His existence was becoming a network of great and little details. He had expected that success would bring him freedom and power; but it had brought only power that was in itself another kind of restraint. He had always meant to keep his personal liberty at all costs, as old MacKeller, his first chief, had done, and not, like so many American engineers, to become a part of a professional movement, a cautious board member, a Nestor de pontibus. He happened to be engaged in work of public utility, but he was not willing to become ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes

... man, young, strong, amazingly handsome, must have fallen in love with her at first sight. He must have—somehow—been watching her in Paris. He must have ascertained that she was leaving Paris that morning, have followed her to the station determined at all costs to ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... gone wrong here, and have admitted into the sanctuary of our lives influences that make for evil, we must break away from them at all costs. The sweeter and truer relationships of our life should arm us for the struggle, the prayers of a mother, the sorrow of true friends. This is the fear, countless times, in the hearts of the folks at home when their boy leaves them to win his way in the city, the deadly fear ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... somewhat after the following fashion:—"The function of religion in the human race is closely analogous to, if not identical with, that of instinct in the lower animals. Religion is the racial will to live; not, however, to live anyhow and at all costs, but to live as human beings, conforming as far as possible to the highest type of humanity. Religion, therefore, acts as a higher instinct, inhibiting all self-destroying and race-destroying impulses in the interest of a larger self than the individual life." To turn this statement into theological ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... everything, nor had he the least desire for any concealment on personal account. He did not spare his own folly and the cowardice of his flight. He felt that concealment of any sort could only injure Buck, whom at all costs he must not hurt. He even analyzed, with all the logic at his command, Mercy Lascelles' motives in accusing him. He declared his belief in her desire to marry the widowed man and her own consequent hatred of himself, whose presence was a constant ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... then that Bernald vowed to himself that he would return the next Sunday at all costs. He hardly knew whether he was prompted by the impulse to shield Winterman from Howland Wade's ineptitude, or by the desire to see the latter abandon himself to the full shamelessness of its display; but of one fact he ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... a row of wrinkles on her girlish forehead. At fifteen she seemed much older than Percy at sixteen. No one ever dreamt of taking Percy seriously; he was one of those jolly, easy-going, happy-go-lucky, unreliable people who saunter through life with no other aim than to amuse themselves at all costs. To depend upon him was like trusting to a boat without a bottom. Though nominally the eldest, he had little more sense of responsibility than Ernie, the youngest. It was Winona who shouldered ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... Sinclair decided to rush that window and dispose of the cool-minded speaker at all costs before he died. There, at least, was the one man he wished to kill. He followed that impulse long enough to throw himself sidling along the floor, so as not to betray his real strategic position to those at the door, and he splashed two bullets into the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... combined with so much exalted resolution and sound discretion, as in this compact utterance. Among the external interests of Great Britain, the West Indies were the greatest. They were critically threatened by the force he was pursuing; therefore at all costs that force should be so disabled, that it could do nothing effective against the defences with which the scattered islands were provided. For this end he was prepared to risk the destruction of his squadron. The West Indies were now ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... satisfaction at the importance which it had undoubtedly given her in my eyes. The opinion may smack of vanity, though, in reality, the very springs of conversation reside in that same human, universal itch to thrill the auditor. The peculiarity of Miss Melhuish was that she must be thrilling at all costs. And ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... held below the surface all she wished to forget until it ceased to struggle. She never again gave a thought to her early relationship with her husband; not even to the indifference or distaste which had followed so quickly upon her curiosity and her determination to feel romantic at all costs. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... began his final conflict with Frederick II., and demanded the support of all Europe. As before, from 1227 to 1230, the pressure of the papal necessity was at once felt in England. The legate had to raise supplies at all costs. Crusaders were allowed to renounce their vows for ready money. Every visitation or conference became an excuse for procurations and fees. Presents were no longer rejected, but rather greedily solicited. On the pretence that it was necessary to reform ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... Keep your mind wide open to receive the facts. Look at a subject from the other man's viewpoint. Cultivate breadth of mind. Do not let your personal interests or desires mislead you. Insist upon securing the truth at all costs. ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... 1850, the Queen asserted her "constitutional right" to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he altered a despatch which had received her sanction. The memorandum was, in fact, a plain declaration that the Crown intended to act independently of the Prime Minister. Lord John Russell, anxious at all costs to strengthen himself against Palmerston, accepted the memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the claim of the Crown. More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston, among the grounds on which Lord John justified that dismissal in the House of Commons ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of that swift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of Fate towards him. He was astonished that he could have seen things in any other light. In that final emergency he debated, thrust debate resolutely aside, determined at all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken. And he could find no word to begin. Even as he stood, awkward, hesitating, with an indiscrete apology for his inability trembling on his lips, came the noise of many people ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... pleasant thoughts at times. Though he wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... he believed it kinder to hide the truth from Lois. Only at the last he determined to speak at all costs. But it was too late. You know—he was murdered on the steps ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be the first victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to call in the enemy and make peace, give up their walls and ships, and at all costs retain possession of the government, if their lives ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... We shall see in a minute that this egg not merely serves as a raft for the tiny creature floating on a very treacherous lake, but also constitutes the first and indispensable part of its diet. To get at this egg, situated in the centre of the lake of honey, to reach, at all costs, this raft, which is also its first ration, the young larva evidently possesses some means of avoiding the fatal contact of the honey; and this means can be provided only by the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... as his wagon was left with the car he rode one horse and led the other, carrying with him harness and such equipment as was absolutely necessary on the road. He expected some trouble from the streams, which were now breaking up in earnest, but he was determined that at all costs he would get his wagon, plough, and tools to the homestead before the frost came out of the ground and left ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... the skirmisher becomes more and more predominant. It is more necessary to watch over and direct him as he is used against deadlier weapons and as he is consequently more prone to try to escape from them at all costs in any direction." ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... on a wider platform in a more pressing and formidable shape: what is to happen when obedience to the law is inconsistent with obedience to an invisible master? Is it incumbent on the State to respect the conscience of the individual at all costs, or within what limits? The Christians did not attempt a solution, the general problem did not interest them. They claimed the right of freedom exclusively for themselves from a non-Christian government; and it is hardly going too far to suspect that they ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury

... read Frederick a lecture on the art of handling women. This led to his boasting, which detracted markedly from his quality of fineness. His intellect also shrank in direct proportion to the increase of his vanity. Something seemed to be working in him impelling him to impress people at all costs with his ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Barbara was showing signs of madness when she proposed going to the baths, and was not a little annoyed when her disapproval failed to turn the girl from her purpose. Barbara had grave doubts about Alice being allowed to go, but she felt she, at least, must at all costs be there. She had time to remind the bath-boy of his bargain, and to promise him something extra when next she came, if he were true to his word, and was just ready to return home, when Alice arrived with the old maid. She succeeded in giving her a little piece of paper with ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... slipping behind him, and we perforce had to follow and lie almost flat on the horse's backs as we descended the "precipice" the other side. We felt English honour was at stake and with our hearts in our mouths (at least mine was!) followed at all costs. ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... explanation of her determination to stay at home, and Esmeralda was sweetly sympathetic and concerned, but quite decided that exertion must at all costs ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Bernard was a sensible little woman with no exaggeration about her. But it is growing colder, and still her husband does not return. She must gather the remnants of the fire together, and baby at all costs must go to bed, and if Bernard does not soon come she herself must go too. She cannot risk catching a bad cold herself just as Paul is recovering from an attack of bronchitis. And she is turning to open a door leading into the one bedroom of their appartement, when the well-known ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... chance of success, seems enormous when the risks they ran and the difficulties they faced are fully recognised. Among the means which were effective in first rousing Italy from her lethargy, and in fostering the will to acquire her independence at all costs, the secret society of the Carbonari undoubtedly occupies the front rank. The Carbonari acted in two ways; by what they did and by what they caused to be done by others who were outside their society, and perhaps unfavourable to it, but who were ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... hypocrites), the rich (all idlers), and the organised workers (all sycophants) were treated as if they fully understood and admitted the claims of the Socialists, and were determined for their own selfish ends to reject them at all costs. ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... one feels is that, with its opportunities, it is not more so. I do not think that M. Viollet-le-Duc's restoration is in fault, but that the original architects had no idea of anything better, were men of mediocre abilities, or cared only to make the defences strong at all costs, and to sacrifice everything else to this ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... characters often graduate from no college, but make experience their master, and life their book. Others cared only for the mental culture, and were in danger of over-studying, under the delusion which pervades New England that learning must be had at all costs, forgetting that health and real wisdom are better. A third class of ambitious girls hardly knew what they wanted, but were hungry for whatever could fit them to face the world and earn a living, being driven by necessity, the urgency of some half-conscious talent, or ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... she could almost hear the words he must have spoken when again he wooed. Small wonder that Philippa's heart had awaked to his appeal. The fact of her own affection, although it did not entirely blind her, distorted her outlook. She only saw that Francis' peace of mind must be preserved at all costs, and it was not likely that she, who would have sacrificed herself gladly for his lightest good, could bring a clear judgment to bear upon the ethics of the case. Had she been in Philippa's place no question of abstract morality would have carried weight with her. She would have taken any action ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... problem becomes singularly complicated. The subjects of my experiment receive only the diffused light of the sky, entering my study through an open window; yet this tempered light frightens them out of their senses. They flee the painful apparition; they are bent upon escaping at all costs. ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... to speak, that day. But I knew you would when the time came! I knew that a man of power goes over all obstacles, once his sense of right is aroused! I knew—I never doubted it, that once you felt a thing to be right you would strike for it, with all your great strength—at all costs—at all—" ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... felt that the fighting was suspended, and he wanted to see Marjory. The innkeeper was, doing a great pantomime in the middle of the darkened room, pointing to the outer door and then aiming his rifle at it to explain his intention of defending them at all costs. Some of the students moved to a billiard table and spread them- selves wearily upon it. Others sank down where they stood. Outside the crowd was beginning to roar. Coleman's groom crept out from under the little Coffee bar and comically saluted his master. The dragoman was not present. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... own must be racked in turn!" said she. "My son, it is no ordinary fate that will be yours. You will go forward at all costs; you will keep your word bright as the knife in your belt—you will drive yourself. What that means to you in agony—what that means when your will is set against the unalterable and the inevitable—I wish—oh, I wish I ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... Duncan's reputation was the stake he played for—that Guilford Duncan's entire future was in his hands. There were reasons more vital to him than his friendship for Duncan, for regarding success in this matter as an end that must be achieved at all hazards, and at all costs. For years ago these two had quarreled as rivals in love, after being friends of the closest sort from infancy, and only Duncan's great generosity of mind had made forgiveness and reconciliation possible. Dick Temple knew that in the matter out of which the quarrel ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... sitting-room. Twenty years previously, when her husband died, she sold his business to his best workman, who gave his master's widow work enough to earn a daily wage of thirty sous. She had made every sacrifice to educate her son. At all costs, he should occupy a higher station than his father before him; and now she was proud of her Aesculapius, she believed in him, and sacrificed everything to him as before. She was happy to take care of him, to work and put by a little money, and dream of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... and, lighting eight fire-ships at midnight, sent them down with the tide upon the Spanish line. The galleons at once cut their cables, and stood out in panic to sea, drifting with the wind in a long line off Gravelines. Drake resolved at all costs to prevent their return. At dawn on the twenty-ninth the English ships closed fairly in, and almost their last cartridge was spent ere the sun ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... upon flight from the accursed place. He would report the whole thing to the office and let Bland do what he pleased about it. Doubtless Handlon had already left. Then he stumbled over Handlon's camera. Evidently the Professor had neglected to take possession of it. That must be rescued, at all costs. He picked it up and felt the exposed plate still inside. He ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... trying to surrender her social creed for his happiness; it was not a little thing that he had asked of her, but it seemed to him that her soul had been nearer to her eyes than ever before during these days when she had been suffering. At all costs these women—his dearest in the world—must love each other, must ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... to win back the castles which had fallen to the House of Blois. His brother Geoffrey, Earl of Nantes, was dead, and he must secure his own succession to the earldom. Two rival claimants were disputing the lordship of Britanny, but Britanny must at all costs be brought into obedience to Henry. There were hostile forces in Angoumois, La Marche, Saintonge, and the Limousin, which had to be finally destroyed. And besides all this, it was necessary to enforce Eleanor's rights over Berri, and her disputed claims to supremacy over Toulouse and Auvergne. Every ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... marrying her first daughter with an aching, foreboding heart, unable either to approve or to prevent, and obliged to console and cheer just when she would have imagined herself insisting upon a rupture at all costs. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... She was white as paper though she faced him steadily. But her heart wavered. She dared not call out for fear her brother might hear and come to her assistance. This she must forestall at all costs. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... Lament is often made to-day, and not without reason, of our failing sense of the seriousness of life. A plague of frivolity, more deadly than the locusts of Egypt, has fallen upon us, and is smiting all our green places with barrenness. Somehow, and at all costs, we must get back our lost sense of responsibility. If we would remember that God has a right hand and a left hand; if we would put to ourselves Browning's question, "But what will God say?" if sometimes we would pull ourselves ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... been doing, Sis? First of all, you've tried to live two lives and get the best out of each. That was tempting Providence, as Mrs. Rogers would say. You found that wouldn't work, so you said to yourself, 'I give it up. Here goes; I'll be a woman at all costs. I'll know what it ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... come," he wrote, "to advance at all costs, and to die where you stand rather than ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... let him leave you till you see me come up again.' He puts his eyes close to mine. 'Keep him with you at all costs.' ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... us later. But we may risk the assertion that he would certainly have avoided the blunder of the Addington Ministry in 1802 in giving up the Cape and neglecting to secure Malta against recapture by Napoleon. Early in the course of the Napoleonic War, Pitt resolved at all costs to retain Malta and to re-conquer the Cape. During the negotiations of 1805 with Russia he refused to allow the discussion of our title to Malta; and in the parleys with Prussia a little later he distinctly excepted the Cape from the list of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... had arrived before Aleppo and scattered enemy patrols, and that an officer had been to the town and demanded its surrender. He was received with every courtesy, but the gallant commander regretted that he was unable to surrender the city as he had received orders from Constantinople to hold out at all costs, in order to cover the retirement of the Mesopotamian forces! That was some days previously. Later, we learnt that on the day in question, the 15th Brigade, having arrived before the "city gates," the Turks withdrew after ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... to our wounded and sick soldiers have been the best known to medical science. Those standards must be maintained at all costs. We cannot tolerate a lowering of them by failure to provide adequate nursing for the brave men who stand ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... morrow, when her father and all those who had been present at that meeting at Susan's house were arrested by order of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, she still clung to that belief. Yet presently a doubt crept in, a doubt that she must at all costs resolve. And so presently she called for her litter, and had herself carried to the Convent of St. Paul, where she asked to see Frey Alonso de Ojeda, the Prior of the Dominicans ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... ticklish point to argue with her; and, for all her tears, there was a firmness in the set of her chin (it was dented with a dimple) that warned me such argument would be a waste of time. She had made up her mind, and would stand to it at all costs. It was martyrdom in an eminently feminine style; women deliver themselves up to it day by day, and contrive to be perfectly unreasonable, yet somehow in the right. She wiped her eyes presently, shut her mouth on a sob, and went resolutely ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... subservience to party policy. The one had an instinct for what was practical and knew exactly how far he could combine interests to carry a measure; the other was all on fire for the cause and ready to push it forward against all obstacles, at all costs. Ashley, it is true, had to work through Parliament to attain his chief ends, and many a bitter moment he had to endure in striving towards the goal. But if he was not an adroit or successful politician, he gradually, as the struggle went on, by earnestness and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... object, general," Dr. Rutledge replied. He continued impressively: "You have until now relied upon me largely in the waging of this war to save the white race from the menace of the yellow. Since all is lost at any rate, grant me one last effort in behalf of my country. At all costs, Loomis, hold your present lines for two days, preparing to suddenly retire to the west bank of the Mississippi. I leave it to your strategy to make a sudden retreat (which should extend over a period of at least ten days) appear as if enforced by ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield

... and America, that there is no school of artists even whose members do not hate and are not jealous of each other. "Professional" hatred and envy have become proverbial; men seek each to benefit himself at all costs, and even the so-called courtesies of life are but a hollow mask covering these demons of hatred ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... At all costs Eve must be protected. She must never know the truth. It was bad enough that her husband was dead. He wondered vaguely how far her love had survived the man's outrages. Yes, she loved him still. He ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... there was a conflict of emotions and desires that fairly electrified the place. Eva ardently craved her father's recovery at all costs. Flint's avaricious mind wavered between a scheme nearing success and the possibility of failure and the fear of the Automaton. Balcom strained to hear the purport of the message that Locke ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... steels us to present a united front against our aggressors. No one can guarantee, under such circumstances, who will be the victor and who the vanquished in the end. But there is an evil habit which has become almost a custom among our viceroys and governors which, however, must be eradicated at all costs. For instance, whenever these high officials have had on their hands cases of international dispute, all their actions seem to be guided by the belief in their breasts that such cases would eventually be 'amicably ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... thing that made him hesitate. Was his word of honour in any wise pledged to Edward? He had paid him homage for his lands: did that act bind him to obedience at all costs? ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... necessitated a new policy. During the eighties, and in a lesser degree in the nineties, Japan had apart from everything else been content to act in a modest and retiring way, because she wished at all costs to avoid testing too severely her immature strength. But owing to the successive collapses of her rivals, she now found herself not only forced to attack as the safest course of action, but driven to the view that the Power that exerts the maximum pressure constantly and unremittedly ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... remembered; every man thinks that, though all the rest should fall, he shall stand at the last; a sense of danger in the future is a trumpet-call. And this is a noble part of warfare, to relieve the distressed. A duty to be done at all costs; no questions of how or ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... which on his own showing is a dream. That motive, he says, is devotion to truth for its own sake—the only principle that is really worthy of man. His argument is simply this. It is man's holiest and most important duty to discover the truth at all costs, and the one test of truth is physical verification. Here he tells us we find the only high morality, and the men who cling to religious dream-dogmas which they cannot physically verify, can only answer their ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... was France to be supplied with provisions, but the confidence in her ultimate triumph was at all costs to be kept up in the native mind. German influence was as deep-seated as a cancer: to cut it out required the most drastic of operations. And that operation consisted precisely in letting it be seen that France was strong and prosperous ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... or emerge from his Gruyere asylum, and prayed the seigneurs of Berne to write to the king in his favor. Before the grave assemblage of the Confederation of the Diet at Baden, Count Michel magnificently declared that as for him he would protect the refugees at all costs, and left the matter to the justice of the delegates. The Diet as stoutly declining to dissolve a legalized marriage, defied the summons of the king and the emperor and ordered the pursuit of the lovers ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... on the text "Thou art Peter, and on this rock—" and he sat up. Peter had betrayed his trust through cowardice—as he had. But Peter had not been held unworthy. Might it not be so with him? He rose to his feet, a new light in his eyes. He would return! He would return, and at all costs, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he would obtain access to the letters. And then—not the fear of Count Hannibal, not the fear of instant death, should turn him ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... towns have their own wants to consider, and the first of these is a railway. If the town is on a line already, then a new line to tap the back country; but at all costs a line. For this it will sell its corrupted soul, and then be very indignant because the railway before which it has grovelled rides rough-shod ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... sciences; over the marvellous dexterity of the psychological analysis; over the magic of a style which can call up what words cannot express. The solidity of the construction will not be evidenced in these pages, nor its austere and subtle beauty. But what I do at all costs wish to bring out, in shorter form, in this new philosophy, is its directing ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... "The treasure is there, and we've just got to think up a way to get it out. At all costs you mustn't cry yourself sick about the future—you'll spoil all the fun awaiting you in the weeks before Christmas. And you know you can't study as well when you're depressed, and, goodness knows! one has ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... will imagine you understand, but it is impossible that you can ever realize the nature of the pain this proposal involves for me; nevertheless, if you accept and keep the compact, I believe you know that, at all costs, I shall never ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... at the railway station, when bidding Dale good-by, that she made up her mind to save him at all costs. When he refused to act on Ridgett's advice, when he showed himself so firm, so unyielding, she knew that he was a man going to his doom, unless she could ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... before," said Fletcher, "and my answer is the same. I will be no man's confederate in dishonesty; I will raise every penny at all costs, and save the name of the firm—and yours with it—but I will never have you darken the office again, or sit in ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... He must see—at all costs he must see. And he climbed down from his chair, and crept unnoticed towards the front. Nobody saw him or realised him.... Stephen was bending back, he seemed to be slowly sinking down. The other man, from ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... Watchman of the Milky Way, Shepherd of the Golden Stars, have mercy upon us, smallest of the heavenly Shiners. Our star burns dim as a corpse light: the huge black chasm of space closes in: if only by blood ...? Thy Will be done. En avant—at all costs—en avant! ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... the "Battle of Calais." It is superfluous to add that events in Poland explain in a large measure the passionate resolve of the German General Staff to obtain a decision in the Western theatre of operations at all costs. This decision would be obtained if our left were pierced or driven in. To reach Calais, that is, to break our left; to carry Ypres, that is, to cut it in half; through both points to menace the communications and supplies of the British expeditionary corps, perhaps ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... choose between what we can only describe as two detestable evils. If she resists Angelo, and lets her brother die, she recoils from an act of self-sacrifice; and, although we may coldly approve, we cannot admire or take pleasure in her action. If, on the other hand, she determines at all costs to save her brother's life, her sacrifice is a thing from which we want only to avert the mind: it belongs to the region of what Aristotle calls to miaron, the odious and intolerable. Shakespeare, indeed, confesses the problem insoluble in the fact that he leaves it unsolved—evading it ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... return the protrusion speedily, a surgeon should be secured at all costs—the patient meanwhile lying in bed with an ice bag or cold cloths over the rupture. The surgeon will reduce the protrusion under ether, or operate. Strangulation of any rupture may occur, but of course it is less likely to happen ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... the other acts of his life, and like all the acts of all men's lives. Do you see where the kernel of the matter lies? A man cannot be comfortable without HIS OWN approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that, at all costs, all sacrifices. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... unfortunate appropriation by Revolutionary propagandists. Blue, though affected by statisticians and Government publishers, has a traditional connection with the expression of sentiments of an antinomian and heterodox character. At all costs the sobriety and dignity of fiction should be maintained, and sparing use should be made of the brighter hues of the spectrum. He had forgotten a good deal of his Latin, but there still lingered in his memory the old warning: "O formose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... ye what ye'll do, Mr. Hobson. You will get Maggie back. At any price. At all costs to your pride, as your medical man I order you to get Maggie back. (Movement from HOBSON.) I don't know Maggie, but I prescribe her, and— damn ye, sir, are ye going to ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse

... the bell?" he went on, feeling that at all costs he must turn the conversation. "I think it ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne

... worse than the oppression of Palma's crowd. They have held the offices since Roosevelt gave them the government, and they lined their pockets with what you Americans call 'graft.' That made them determined to hold on at all costs, and so my father's party—the Liberals—was not only over-taxed and annoyed by extortions on every hand, but was cheated and robbed at the polls when it tried to get control ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... is not a case where the one who goes is happier than the one that's left behind," mused Hawke. "I must settle matters rapidly with Ram Lal, for if the will leaves the property to Nadine, she must be mine at all costs! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... be sacrificed to the race, nor does she admit that any individual should be so sacrificed. She is tired of hearing that women must make sacrifices for the sake of the community and its future; and the statement of this proposition in its new eugenic form, which asserts that, at all costs, the finest women must be mothers, and the mothers must be the finest women, is no more satisfactory to her than the crude creed of the Kaiser that children, cooking and church are the proper concerns of women. She claims to be an individual, as much as any man is, as much as any individual of ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... mind to go at all costs, she felt that she was out of danger. Little by little her ideas grew clearer; her spirits rose and she allowed herself to think about it all, feeling that however much she thought, however much she dreamed, she would go away. While her husband was asleep, the evening gradually came ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... similarity to the Starling narrative in Sterne's volume fills Pankraz's heart with glee. The Starling wanted to get out and so do his monkeys, and Pankraz's only questions are: "What did Yorick do?" "What would he do?" He resolves to do more than is recorded of Yorick, release the prisoners at all costs. Yorick's monolog occurs to him and he parodies it. The animals greet their release in the thankless way natural to them,—apoint already enforced in the conduct ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... himself. At all costs he must placate this worm. Mr Blatherwick was an austere man. He would not overlook such ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... tired and depleted Division to advance without further preparation. The line held by the enemy was our old front line of March overlooking the Bellicourt-Le Catalet section of the Hindenburg line, and they were determined to hang on to that at all costs. The attack on the Hindenburg line was not for us. The 74th Division was booked for the ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... chances of reform as no court of law in the world would grant. But, at last, his patience was exhausted. Whether the enslavers of Germany thought, in that crass ignorance of other men's minds they have so often displayed, that America meant to keep out of the war at all costs, or were merely careless of consequences so long as the immediate end was attained, is now immaterial. From the welter of Teutonic misdeeds and lies arises the vital, the soul-inspiring spectacle of a union of all democracies ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... third christening, however, he came to the conclusion that matters were serious and started playing his old game with the inevitable results: doctor, sick-leave, riding-exercise, port! But there must be an end of it, at all costs. Every time the balance-sheet ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... to see that this debasement of the whole idea of self-government is to affront and discourage all in Great Britain who saw in the grant of its own political freedom to that great country a healing for its many woes. In the meantime Liberalism must back the native deputation at all costs, and it is well that 'The Daily News and Leader' should lead ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... charm; and the bachelors, in due course, made the circuit of Kohat's handful of bungalows. The station was a few degrees less cheerful, owing to the absence of its own particular men; but in India spirits must be kept up at all costs, if only as an antidote to the moral microbes of the land; and the usual small sociabilities ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... Thurston would give no reply, but maintained a dogged silence. Gull and Hawley, however, anxious at all costs to save their own skins, practically answered the question by saying, "We didn't," and casting significant glances at Noaks ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery

... like food. There's no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower classes, and they pass it back to you, and this you call 'social intercourse' or 'mutual endeavour,' when it's mutual priggishness if it's anything. Our friends at Chelsea don't see this. They say one ought to be at all costs intelligible, and sacrifice—" ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... Peru, Don Antonio Ribera, was ready to open negotiations. Las Casas, who was sleepless where the interests of his proteges were concerned, perceived how vitally their welfare was threatened by this nefarious scheme and vividly realised that Philip must be prevented, at all costs, from giving his decision during his ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... capacities or from using their powers of imagination and feeling. While some withdraw into a dull kind of existence, others overcompensate in a great show of tireless initiative and a quality of "go-at-it-iveness" at all costs. These people often overdo to a point where they can never relax, and they feel that their worth as people consists entirely in what they are doing rather than in what ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe

... Berny came forward with substantial help, and allowed her name to appear as partner in his place. However, even this assistance did not long avert disaster—bankruptcy was impending, and Madame de Berny and Laure implored Madame de Balzac to prevent this. The latter, wishing at all costs to keep the matter from the ears of her husband, now a very old man and failing in health, begged a cousin, M. Sedillot, to come forward, and at least to save the honour of the family. M. Sedillot, who appears to have been a good man of business, at once set ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... and a contemptuous expression destroys the calm dignity of her face. For the moment only. Another moment, and it is gone: she has recovered herself. The one sign of emotion she has betrayed is swallowed up by her stern determination to conceal all pain at all costs, and if her fingers tighten somewhat convulsively on those of her boy's, why, who can be the wiser of that? No ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... a steadying hand on her arm. "Let me think a moment." Totally unconscious of the tears which fell one by one on her white cheeks, the excited Frenchwoman kept step with him in silence for three blocks; then the Captain roused himself. "You are willing to shield Mademoiselle Kathleen at all costs?" he asked. ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... leaned on the piano, I felt—oh! I had never been so agitated in my life. At all costs he must not say anything to me, nothing that I should have to stop, nothing to break this ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... disposed to prevent such a transportation of the heir of the realm to a foreign country. I fear me that you are in a state of doubt and anxiety, but I need not exhort your good mother's child to be true and loyal to her trust and to the Anointed of the Lord in all things lawful at all costs. If you are left in any distress or perplexity, go either to Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe's house, or to that of my good old friend, the Dean of Westminster; and as soon as I hear from you I will endeavour to ride to town and bring you home ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shuffling of feet on the deck would have disturbed him. True, he had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not to be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message without any conviction, and the unanimous decision was that the owner must, at all costs, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... yes, of course: but God was no haggler over hours. In an hour or two . . . "That those things may please him which we do at this present—" She caught at her heart now as the terror—a practical terror this time—returned upon it. At all costs she must find John Romley after service, though indeed there was little danger of missing him, for he, no doubt, would ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... himself a little, and repeated the words in the native tongue, explaining to the crowd that German dignity should be upheld at all costs. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... the marquis's attempts became so direct and so pressing, that the poor young woman resolved to escape at all costs from his hands. Her first idea was to write to her father, explain to him her position and ask help; but her father had not long been a Catholic, and had suffered much on behalf of the Reformed religion, and on these accounts it was clear ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... shelling became heavier, and in the distance large massed bodies of the enemy could be seen. The first contact occurred when a German scout was wounded and captured by a patrol. Orders were then received that the line was to be held at all costs. The apparent strength of the position, however, inspired confidence, and it was not till towards dusk that the first serious ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown

... and dramas which cannot be acted; but which contain some most interesting scenes representing manners and customs. You will read in it how, in the reign of Charles X, a vicar of one of the Paris churches, the Abbe Mouchaud, would refuse burial to a pious lady, and would, at all costs, grant it to an atheist. Madame d'Hautefeuille was religious, but she held some national property. At her death, she received the ministrations of a Jansenist priest. For this reason, after her death, the Abbe Mouchaud refused to receive her into the church ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... their admirable bones, we should thank nature for that rational skeleton, imposed by material conditions on an art which in its life-time was goaded on only by a pious and local emulation, and wished at all costs to be sumptuous ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana



Words linked to "At all costs" :   at any expense



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