"Discretionary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hope your lordship will approve of." The Imperieuse, therefore, remained until the next day, when Lord Gambier, finding that Lord Cochrane would not quit his post as long as he had a shadow of discretionary authority, superseded him in the command of the fire-ships by Captain Wolfe, observing, "I wish you to join me as soon as possible, that you may convey Sir Harry Neale to England, who will be charged with my despatches." The Imperieuse, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... six armed sentinels stationed about the ship—ample to have nipped in the bud any attempt to seize the vessel, but for two serious errors of judgment on the part of the officer responsible for their disposition. These were, first, the discretionary power vested in the sentries at the scuttle; and, second, the inadequate guard, a solitary man, set for the defence of the great cabin and the arms it contained. Now let us see how these errors of judgment ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... mercenary of all Women, is gained by this false Friend of my Husband to sollicit me for him. I am frequently chid by the poor believing Man my Husband, for shewing an Impatience of his Friend's Company; and I am never alone with my Mother, but she tells me Stories of the discretionary Part of the World, and such a one, and such a one who are guilty of as much as she advises me to. She laughs at my Astonishment; and seems to hint to me, that as virtuous as she has always appeared, I am not the Daughter of her Husband. It is possible that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... annual session. Authority of any kind was to them an object of traditional dread, even when exercised by their own agents. The early State constitutions concentrated all power in the legislature, leaving the executive and judicial officials little to do but execute the laws. The only discretionary powers enjoyed by governors were ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... statute-books. He admitted that governors-general were still arresting without warrant, exiling without trial, suppressing newspapers without a hearing, and dispersing public meetings by an arbitrary exercise of discretionary power; but he maintained that in so doing they were only obeying imperial ukases which antedated the freedom manifesto and which that document had not abrogated. In all provinces, he said, where martial law had been declared, or where it might ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... Australia, to the "south cape of Van Diemen's Land," then, of course, supposed to be part of the main continent. He was ordered to land at Botany Bay and there form the settlement, but was given a discretionary power to change the site, if he ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... it, madam," replied Basil, in the same level tones, "and the fact is that I am so much gratified with your exhibition of loyalty that I permit myself the pleasure of exercising some very large discretionary powers. You would not leave this room at the request of these gentlemen. But you know that you can ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... having disobeyed the orders he had received from the secretary at war in three successive letters [379] [See note 3 B, at the end of this Vol.], touching the relief of Minorca. Mr. Fowke alleged in his own defence, that the orders were confused and contradictory, and implied a discretionary power; that the whole number of his garrison did not exceed two thousand six hundred men, after he had spared two hundred and seventy-five to the ships commanded by Mr. Edgecumbe; that the ordinary duty of the garrison requiring eight hundred men, the whole number was not ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Rhode Island, again, the court possesses what is termed "discretionary power" in divorce cases. The State Constitution, after specifying the usual prime ground—adultery—goes on to specify: "And for any other cause for which the court shall deem it proper that a divorce should be granted," or "when it shall appear ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... prove fatal to the common cause. He proposed that they should at once repair to Palestrina, and there fortify themselves; while one of the chiefs should be selected to enter Rome alone, and apparently submissive, to examine the strength of Rienzi; and with the discretionary power to resist if possible,—or to make the best terms he could for the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he was exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a severe conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was conscious that his police agent's stool was a tribunal. He was entering judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he was doing. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... department. You were accustomed to working subject to the First Level Commercial Regulation Code. Now, any law binding upon our people at home, on the First Level, is inflexible. It has to be. We found out, over fifty centuries ago, that laws have to be rigid and without discretionary powers in administration in order that people may be able to predict their effect and plan their activities accordingly. Naturally, you became conditioned to operating in such a climate ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... noblesse, another for the merchants, a third for the bourgeois, and a fourth for the peasants. These are chosen annually from the town-council. They keep the streets and markets in order, and superintend the public works. There is also an intendant, who takes care of his majesty's revenue: but there is a discretionary power lodged in the person of the commandant, who is always an officer of rank in the service, and has under his immediate command the regiment which is here in garrison. That which is here now is a Swiss battalion, of which the king has five or six in his service. There is likewise a regiment ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... ships or men he might need, and an asylum in his dominions if he should be compelled to leave Rome. He did more; he relaxed the bonds of the press, improved the administration of justice, deprived the police of their discretionary power, enlarged and amended the Council of State, emancipated the communes, and allowed their officers to be chosen by popular vote. The character and example of Pius seemed likely to effect as great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... resentment of the repeated insults and contemptuous behaviour of the islanders, and to the natural desire of revenging the loss of their commander. But, at the same time, their conduct served strongly to convince me, that the utmost precaution is necessary in trusting, though but for a moment, the discretionary use of arms in the hands of private seamen or soldiers on such occasions. The rigour of discipline, and the habits of obedience, by which their force is kept directed to its proper objects, lead them naturally enough to conceive, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... into that assembly until it had undergone the deliberation, and received the sanction, of this preliminary council. With them, therefore, was THE ORIGIN OF ALL LEGISLATION. In proportion to these discretionary powers was the examination the members of the council underwent. Previous to the admission of any candidate, his life, his character, and his actions were submitted to a vigorous scrutiny [213]. The senators then took a solemn oath that they would endeavour ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Committee of Boston, under the authority perhaps of the City Council, had a legal right to establish and maintain special primary schools for the blacks. He believed, too, that in the exercise of their lawful discretionary power they could exclude white pupils from certain schools and colored pupils from certain other schools when, in their judgment, the best interests of all would ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... M. Faugère is strongly defended in his preface. He allowed himself no discretionary powers of emendation, because “the limits of such a power might,” he says, “be too easily overstepped, and would have left room for belief that greater liberties had been taken than was actually the case.” “The manuscripts,” he adds, “have been read, or rather studied, page by page, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... Asia, pretends to decide every controversy by the rules of natural equity, we allow that he is possessed of discretionary powers. When a judge in Europe is left to decide, according to his own interpretation of written laws, is he in any sense more restrained than the former? Have the multiplied words of a statute an influence over the conscience ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... oath, that HE would not take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites, but from Abraham's kindred. The servant went accordingly, and himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary power in the management of their master's estate, "And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his master were under his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for taking them, is not ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... discretionary system of law controlled by the amir, although civil codes are being implemented; Islamic law dominates ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... that Dr. Talmage relied upon me for the discretionary duties of a man besieged by all sorts of demands. From the first I feared that Dr. Talmage was over-taxing his strength, undiminished though it was at a time when most men begin to relinquish their burdens. Therefore, I entered eagerly into my new duties of relieving ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Day! no more of that, I beseech you! It is folly, perversity, frenzy! But, thanks to the wisdom of legislators, the law very properly invests the guardian with great latitude of discretionary power of the person and property of his ward—to be used, of course, for that ward's best interest. And thus, my dear Clara, it is my duty, while holding this power over you, to exercise it for preventing the possibility of your ever—either ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... accepting this promising student. The president himself was biased. He hinted that the function of examiners was not so much to make absolute measurement of scholastic attainments as to manifest a discretionary view of possibilities, and to remember that examination papers were often incapable of gauging the most important natural endowments of the candidate; that sometimes when it was necessary to put a blood horse over a five-barred ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... more exact nor any prediction more accurately based. Henceforth, and by virtue of the Convention's own decrees, not only have the Jacobins the whole of the executive power in their hands, as this is found in civilized countries, but likewise the discretionary power of the antique tyrant or modern pasha, that arbitrary, strong arm which, singling out the individual, falls upon him and takes from him his arms, his freedom, and his money. After the 28th of March, we see in Paris a resumption of the system ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Laubardemont, referendary, being delegated and invested with discretionary power in the matter of the trial of the magician Urbain Grandier, upon the various articles of accusation brought against him, assisted by the reverend Fathers Mignon, canon, Barre, cure of St. Jacques at Chinon, Father Lactantius, and ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... myself at the door of the Legation with the note from the Foreign Office, asking for the number, but was refused admittance by the Gardes Civiques. They were very nice, but stated that they had the strictest orders not to let anybody come in or out, and that they had not discretionary powers. At a visit at the Foreign Office later in the day, I told of my experience and asked that I be furnished by the military authorities with a laisser-passer which would enable me to enter the Legation whenever I so desire. This afternoon I received a formidable document from ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... scene. At once a pack of the fierce sledge-dogs left their foraging for the offal of the fisheries, to bound challenging in the direction of poor Deuce. That highbred animal fruitlessly attempted to combine dignity with a discretionary lurking between our legs. We made demonstrations with sticks, and sought out the hotel, for it was about time ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... after giving full discretionary powers to his literary executrix, contains these words: "I would suggest that, as regards those parts relating to Ireland, Egypt, and South Africa, the same shall be made use of (if at all) without editing, as they have been agreed to by a Cabinet colleague chiefly ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... to confer discretionary power upon the executive. Without the law, I have no hesitation to go as far in the direction indicated as I may at any time deem expedient. And I am ready to say now—I think it is proper for our military commanders to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... South, but had dared to ignore the outrageous statute which makes it a crime for any school, public or private, to teach black and white scholars in the same building or have any white teachers to eat and sleep in the same house with their Negro pupils. If these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody can question the intent of the proclamation of emancipation of the constitutional amendment that places ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 6, June 1896 • Various
... had given Washington a discretionary power in the present juncture to order out militia for the purpose of garrisoning the fort in the absence of the regular troops. Washington exercised the power with extreme reluctance. He considered it, he said, an affair of too important and delicate a nature for him to manage, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... his Commission were unusually large, leaving a great deal to his discretionary power. In choosing that officer for the execution of a most difficult and delicate mission, the Government, doubtless, made a very wise selection. Sir Theophilus Shepstone is a man of remarkable tact and ability, combined with great openness ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... freedom has no farther extent, when the contract is made: then their discretionary powers expire, and a new order of things takes its origin. Then, and not till then, and on a difference between the parties, the office of the judge commences. He cannot dictate the contract. It is his business to see that it be enforced,—provided ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... jury nor counsel, justice is delivered with great impartiality; and the judge, who is generally the governor of the town or district in which the offence has been committed, is entrusted with considerable discretionary power. ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... eleventh section simply assumes to confer discretionary powers upon the Executive. Without the law I have no hesitation to go as far in the direction indicated as I may at any time deem expedient. And I am ready to say now, I think it is proper for our military commanders to employ as laborers as many persons of African descent as can ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... governed him—a feeling which could not have owed its fuel to fancy alone, since now that reality had been so long substituted, it still burned on. From one of these letters, dated November 25th, I shall so far presume upon the discretionary power vested in me, as to lay a short extract or two before the reader—not merely as matters of curiosity, but on account of the strong evidence they afford of the struggle between passion and a sense of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his consort, and very indifferently provided, Captain Clipperton found himself under the necessity of using a discretionary power of dispensing in some respect from his instructions; but which freedom he rarely exercised, and then with the utmost caution. In all essential points he carefully complied with the instructions, constantly consulting with his officers, and doing his utmost to prosecute his voyage with effect. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... large discretionary powers. We have a very strong branch over on this side, but I would very much rather induce you to stay here ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Sampson, having hurried back from San Juan and coaled, was again in force off Havana. There he received news of Cervera's arrival in Santiago. Since Havana could not be uncovered, he sent instructions to Schley—at first discretionary, and then, as the reports were confirmed, more imperative—to blockade the eastern port. Though the commander of the Flying Squadron received the latter orders on the 23d, he had seen smoke in Cienfuegos harbor and still believed he had Cervera cornered there. Accordingly he delayed until ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... virtue of the discretionary authority conferred upon me by the aforesaid act of Congress, I hereby designate and appoint Major George M. Sternberg, surgeon in the United States Army, to attend said conference at Rome as the delegate thereto on the part of the Government of the United ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... large judge the magistrates when they come out of office, and decide concerning public affairs as well as private contracts: that the supreme power should be in the public assembly; and that no magistrate should be allowed any discretionary power but in a few instances, and of no consequence to public business. Of all magistrates a senate is best suited to a democracy, where the whole community is not paid for giving their attendance; for in that case it; loses its power; for then the people will bring all causes ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... is this last, my truly dear Hetty 'tis a real sister's letter, and such a one as I am at this time frequently looking over of old times! For the rest of my life I shall take charge' and save my own executor the discretionary labours that with myself are almost endless ; for I now regularly destroy all letters that either may eventually do mischief, however clever, or that contain nothing of instruction or entertainment, however innocent. This, which I announce to all my ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... such an esprit de corps, which, if it exists at all, exists only in the obscure ranks of the permanent subordinates. Boards, therefore, are not a fit instrument for executive business, and are only admissible in it when, for other reasons, to give full discretionary power to a single minister ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... and the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by his fellows. Yet after twenty-one all are held equally responsible—unless they're actually insane. It isn't equity! In theory no man or animal should be subject to the power of discretionary punishment on the part of another—even his own father or master. I've often wondered what earthly right we have to make the animals work for us—to bind them to slavery when we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us to see a human being put up and sold at auction. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... proposed camping place and the soldiers each morning went forward and stationed themselves along the line to detect and punish any who attempted to pass it. The penalty attached to any violation of the rules of the camp was discretionary with the soldiers. In aggravated cases they would thresh the offender unmercifully. Sometimes they would cut the clothing of the man or woman entirely to pieces, slit down the lodge with their knives, break kettles and do other damage. I was made the victim on one occasion ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... lawful authority of Lady Vargrave in all matters connected with Evelyn's education and home. It may be as well, in this place, to add, that to Vargrave and the co-trustee, Mr. Gustavus Douce, a banker of repute and eminence, the testator left large discretionary powers as to the investment of the fortune. He had stated it as his wish that from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty thousand pounds should be invested in the purchase of a landed estate; but he had left it to the discretion of the trustees to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... on her voyage from New Orleans to this point having put into Charleston S.C. there contracted the yellow fever or some other infectious disease, by which two of her crew have died. Exercising a discretionary power given by the quarantine laws to the Superintendant, I have caused this ship to commence her quarantine near this place between Rozins Bluff and Jones Point. As the removal of vessels from this port to the mouth of Elizabeth River has been found to be ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore |
