"Initiative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... majority of his political opponents, now united among themselves. The schism in the Liberal party had been healed by the question of Reform, and they could now defeat the government whenever they chose to do so; consequently Mr. Gladstone took the initiative. His compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill was introduced and accepted. By this measure all legal proceedings for the recovery of church rates were abolished. The question that overshadowed all others, however, was that of the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... practically disabled her. It might confine her to a chair and render her dependent upon the service of others, but over it, also, was she spiritual victor. She could sit in her kitchen and issue orders; and her daughter, with no initiative genius of her own, had all aunt Ann's love of "springin' to it." She cherished, besides, a worshipful admiration for her mother; so that she asked no more than to act as the humble hand under that directing head. It ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... children have tried to stop abuses. Trade-unions, consumers' leagues, and State bureaus have taken the initiative. Voluntary organizations, like the National Child Labor Committee, make the regulation of child labor their special object. They have succeeded in the establishment of a Federal Children's Bureau in Washington, and have encouraged State and national legislation. Most ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... the popular will as expressed through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic will, just as the Tsar's Government did. The initiative of the new society shall come from below.... The form of the Government will be modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The new Tsay-ee-kah, responsible to frequent meetings of the All-Russian ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... origin to the man Marley, and he expected every day that some matter would bring this man and himself into a personal conflict, in which he meant to conquer, and he preferred to wait for this to happen than to, in any way, take an initiative step in bringing ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... States-General, under the guidance of Barneveld, were not likely to be driven headlong by Brandenburg and Neuburg. They managed with caution, but with perfect courage, to move side by side with Henry, and to leave the initiative to him, while showing an unfaltering front to the enemy. That the princes were lost, Spain and the Emperor triumphant, unless Henry and the States should protect them with all their strength, was as plain as a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... quality that won the day. They did not return, but they drove the Turk before them and enabled others to dig in before he could re-form. You would have to go back to mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... be called the cavalry of the sea. It calls for dashing initiative, aggressiveness and courage and daring to the point of rashness. Where an officer would be justified —even duty bound — by navy standards to run away with a bigger and more valuable vessel, the commander of a destroyer often must close in ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... as a second chance, after the possibility of a broad handling of the settlement by the Czar, and as a very much bigger probability, is the insistence by America upon her right to a voice in the ultimate settlement and an initiative from the Western Hemisphere that will lead to a world congress. There are the two most hopeful sources of that great proposal. It is the tradition of British national conduct to be commonplace to the pitch of dullness, and all the stifled intelligence of Great Britain will beat in vain against ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the belief that justice was certain in so good a cause, or inclined to procrastinate in a matter which did not concern them personally, had put off bringing the suit until they returned to Tours. Consequently the friends of Mademoiselle Gamard had taken the initiative, and told the affair wherever they could to the injury of Birotteau. The lawyer, whose practice was exclusively among the most devout church people, amazed Madame de Listomere by advising her not ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... nests and buildings are relatively larger than man's. The scientists speak of their paved streets, vaulted halls, their hundreds of different domesticated animals, their pluck and intelligence, their individual initiative, their chaste and industrious lives. Darwin said the ant's brain was "one of the most marvelous atoms in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of man"—yes, of present-day man, who for thousands and thousands ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... supply the kinds of stimulus I lacked. This she did by repeating to me as far as possible, verbatim, what she heard, and by showing me how I could take part in the conversation. But it was a long time before I ventured to take the initiative, and still longer before I could find something appropriate to say at the ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... readily be understood how ministers of undoubted ability and consecration, are backward to inaugurate such a movement. That many are in hearty sympathy with such a reformation, I know well. Only let the men in the Missionary Movement take a constitutional initiative in the matter, and they will be surprised how many ministers will be with them. I know for a fact that many are longing ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... all, but an accountant, and it was inconceivable that he would ever be anything else. Wagstaff, who supervised the Southern and a part of the Western field, was a good enough machine man, capable in a routine way and within his limitations, but helpless outside them; he had no initiative, wholly lacked dash and imagination, and it was out of the question that he be given charge of the general underwriting of the company, even under such a chief as Mr. Wintermuth. Cuyler, the head of the local department, was a city underwriter pure and simple; ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... and the tides! I have seen a log, caught in an eddy in a flooded stream, apparently make such struggles to escape that the thing became almost uncanny in its semblance to life. Man himself often obeys just such unseen currents of race or history when he thinks he is acting upon his own initiative. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... was prepared to ask questions, following a routine he had employed with other subjects, but Bassett began to talk on his own initiative—of the town, the county, the district. He expressed himself well, in terse words and phrases. Harwood did not attempt to direct or lead: Bassett had taken the interview into his own hands, and was imparting information that might have been derived from a local history at the town ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V. of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, was nominated as Captain-General of the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... adequate transportation infrastructure. Despite Rwanda's fertile ecosystem, food production often does not keep pace with population growth, requiring food to be imported. Rwanda continues to receive substantial aid money and was approved for IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative debt relief in late 2000. But Kigali's high defense expenditures cause tension between the government and international donors ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... him. Prince Charles, leaving a few hundred men to continue the siege, matched out to Bannockburn. The English did not move out from Falkirk, and the prince, after waiting for a day, determined to take the initiative. ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... that in order to diminish the litigation under the gold law, and to make that fearful and wonderful agglomeration of erratic, experimental, crude, involved, contradictory and truly incomprehensible enactments at all understandable, the Chamber had to codify it at its own expense and on its own initiative, illustrate both the indispensable character of the organization, and the ignorance and ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... and is more evident in Europe than here. If the Association takes an active stand in the matter and develops a center of registry of nut names for this continent, it may very well display a quality of initiative and service that will make it pre-eminent on the international level and will cause others to look to it for guidance, information, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... to inform the President of Mexico of the above in greatest confidence, as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States, and suggest that the President of Mexico on his own initiative should communicate with Japan, suggesting adherence to this plan. At the same time offer to mediate between ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... takes place through the agency of imitation or of inculcation; through one or the other according as the initiative is taken by the receiving or the giving party respectively. Inculcation includes education in its broadest sense; but since that term implies in general usage a certain, let us say protective, attitude taken by the educator (as toward the young), the broader and more colorless designation ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Law. Politics. Woman's Suffrage. Initiative and Referendum. A Larger Navy. War. Peace. Foreign Immigration. The Liquor Traffic. Labor Unions. Strikes. Socialism. Single Tax. Tariff. Honesty. Courage. Hope. Love. Mercy. Kindness. Justice. Progress. Machinery. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... boat-shop goes on,—its labor, its discussions on politics and religion, its criticism of yachts. All day long small boys play about the pier, race in skiffs or in such insignificant sailing-craft as may be available, and every half-hour, at the initiative of some infant leader, all doff their little print waists and short trousers and "go in," regardless of the ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... the subtle and penetrative brain of a really great detective, but he possessed energy, initiative, and observation. These qualities had stood him in good stead before, but in this case they had brought nothing to light. The mystery and meaning of the terrible murder of the previous night were no nearer solution than when he had arrived ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... is of course less imminent when not the family but the patient himself takes the initiative. Yet even here distrust is wise. The patient has sometimes the most sincere intention to be cured, but under pressure of his craving he admits compromises which he hides from the physician. Having reduced the large quantity of alcohol to which he was accustomed, he hides ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... becomes expert at his particular job; but does he not in time, because of his very expertness, lapse into a machine whose hands move automatically and whose mind is idle? Such a result is fatal both to his intellect and his will. He becomes passive until at length all initiative is destroyed. For many years the colored people of the South reaped precisely this harvest of mental inertia. Now, thank heaven, they are rousing out of the lethargy that has been their inheritance and their brains are getting to work. It will, however, take years, ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not desire war, and had no ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... possible to suggest that the Hague Tribunal is conceivably the germ of such an overriding direction and supreme court as the peace of the world demands, but in reality the Hague Tribunal is a mere legal automatic machine. It does nothing unless you set it in motion. It has no initiative. It does not even protest against the most obvious outrages upon that phantom of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... fortunes of Protheus. Notice how it happens that his own deception has a direct influence upon his father, so that his departure to join Valentine is as much due to his own lack of firmness in his desire to stay on Julia's account, as to Valentine's initiative in going. ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... behind the hedge, and coolly reloaded their guns. Yet they, as well as their opponents, understood that time was fighting against them, and as soon as it became obvious that those in the barn intended no sortie they assumed the initiative. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the best American parable of efficient service since ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... a second source of dissatisfaction. He had not called up to ask after Amy; but Mrs. Phillips, with a great show of solicitude, had called up early on Monday morning to ask after him. He had then, in turn, made a counter-inquiry, of course; but he could take no credit for initiative. Neither had he yet called at the house; nor did he feel greatly prompted to do so. That must doubtless be done; but he might wait until the first fresh impact of the event should somewhat have ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... was so genuine as to be beyond question. Whatever Billie had done, it was through no connivance with the father, but upon her own initiative. Yet she was fully capable of the effort; convinced the cause of the South was in her hands, she was one to go through fire and water in service. Neither her life nor mine would weigh in the decision—her only thought the Confederacy. Still it was not ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... did not feel like becoming the instigator of a most disastrous scandal. After all, it was not primarily an affair where he ought to take the initiative, and this aside from the further consideration that he would probably become involved in a duel by taking the lead in exposing the guilty parties. He therefore also made up his mind to ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... to fortify and hard to force the line; always provided that free communications are kept open to the central reserve and from one part of the line to another. It must be confessed that the concealment of the thickets is also favorable to the initiative, as it enables the attacking party to mass his troops against the weak parts without being observed. Hooker probably thought if Lee assailed a superior force in an intrenched position he would certainly be beaten; and if he did not attack he would soon be forced to fall ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... times I have met men who were not getting the most out of their college or university course though you could not tell that from their scholarship or so-called "standing." They lacked the spirit of enjoyment, the power of initiative. They lacked the power of sympathetic touch with other men that makes ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... article of the Russian proposals, relating to the non-augmentation of land and sea forces, is so inapplicable to the United States at present that it is deemed advisable to leave the initiative, upon this subject, to the representatives of those powers to which ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... vast and formidable an experiment as that of 5 administering the affairs of a continent under the form of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and anxiety 10 inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Hamburg. Bassano and Champagny were mediocre ministers, they did not comprehend the intention which had dictated that note. I myself could not argue with Kurakin. They persuaded me that it meant declaration of war. Russia had taken off several divisions from Moldavia and would take the initiative with an attack on Warsaw. Kurakin threatened and asked for his passports. I myself believed finally they wanted war. I mobilized! I sent Lauriston to Alexander, but he was not even received. From Dresden I sent Narbonne, everything convinced me that Russia ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... first filled and the tongue is loosed. "I suppose he has gone over to Paris again as he hinted might be the case. If there is no news to-morrow, we must reconsider the arguments and see how we stand. You know that I am perfectly willing to be guided by him and will do nothing of my own initiative. If he can procure the old man's freedom, I will be the first to congratulate you. Meanwhile, I am not to forget that we have a box at the opera and that Huguenots is on the bill. When I am not in musical ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... free unsecluded woman could see and meet the ablest man of the community, and tempt him to make her his tenth wife by all the arts peculiar to women in English-speaking countries. No eastern woman can do anything of the sort. The man alone has any initiative; but he has no access to the woman; besides, as we have seen, the difficulty created by male license is not polygyny but polyandry, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... politics, know that nothing is more unnatural. For "institutions make men." And when amid a people used to institutions of one kind, we see suddenly arise institutions of an opposite kind, we know that behind them must be that active, that initiative force—the "men who in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... garden too and worked. And his work Neville felt that she too could have done; it was work needing initiative and creative thought, work suitable to his forty-five years, not cramming in knowledge from books. Neville at times thought that she too would stand for parliament one day. A foolish, childish game it was, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... you to be more than ever careful." It was, I confess, a pang to me, who thought only of love, to hear that anything else should have been the initiative power of her coming, even though it had been her concern for my own safety. I could not but notice the bitter note of chagrin in my ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... a little help from the police, which they will gladly furnish. They know I'm Daddy's daughter, for I have already introduced myself to them, and while they may be slow to take the initiative they are always quite willing to aid in an affair of this sort. Now, it stands to reason, Mary Louise, that the nurse didn't use the streets to promenade with. Alora. That would have been dangerous to her plans. There are so few people abroad in Chicago at six o'clock ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... consider the Dramatic Club ought to be put upon a general basis. Everybody, except those who were already members, agreed. Many had thought the present arrangement unfair, and had grumbled loudly, though nobody had had the initiative to start a revolt. Now Joan Masters and Elspeth Frazer took the matter in hand seriously, tackled the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... left no directions with regard to his funeral, and it was fitting that it should receive the highest honour Sovereign and people could pay. But the Queen refrained from issuing an order, preferring that the country should take the initiative. It was necessary to wait till the 11th of November, when Parliament must meet. In the meantime the body of the Duke was placed under a Guard of Honour at Walmer. Viscount Hardinge was ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... effect. In a circular letter to the governors, dated June, 1783, he says: "It is indispensable to the happiness of the individual States that there should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to regulate and govern the general concerns of the confederated republic." Yet not a State would take the initiative ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... (as part of the sripedia.org initiative). OCRed and proofed at Distributed Proofing by other volunteers; Juliet Sutherland, project manager. Formatting and additional proofreading at Sacred-texts.com by J.B. Hare. This text is in the public domain worldwide. This file may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... Mass is a careful and rapid ritual. Now it is the function of all ritual (as we see in games, social arrangements and so forth) to relieve the mind by so much of responsibility and initiative and to catch you up (as it were) into itself, leading your life for you during the time it lasts. In this way you experience a singular repose, after which fallowness I am sure one is fitter for ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... machine" of the Wisconsin Party, damned it by faint praise, though it was an element of his own platform; and he had claimed credit for having first proposed it in Wisconsin. He acknowledged that the Initiative and Referendum make towards Socialism and are the surest way in the end, but urged that they are "also the longest way," and wrote ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... the business of the Law to detect and punish crime. Let the Law do it in its own way, find its own clues, solve the mysteries given it to solve. Why should you complicate things? The official fellows could never do what you could do, if you were a detective. They haven't the brains or initiative or knowledge. And since you are not a detective, and can't devote yourself to this most delicate problem, if there be any problem at all, I would suggest—I imitate your own rudeness—that you mind your ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the essential preliminary work as I teach it has obtained a satisfactory mastery of the body, and has a large range of movement at command; is now able to control the source of movement and to relax opposing muscles so that the movement may follow through; that is, may continue from its initiative in any part of the body to the desired climax, without muscular obstruction. The entire body is now ready and responsive to any call upon it, and the act of dancing becomes a pleasure and a joy it never was before, and never ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... had marked an epoch in his life. Never before had anyone quite like her crossed his path, and at that moment romance had come to him. His was essentially a respectful admiration. He was content—indeed, he preferred to worship from afar. Of his own initiative he would never have met her again. In her presence, with those gray eyes of hers looking at him, tremors ran down his spine, and his conscience, usually a battered and downtrodden wreck, became fiercely aggressive. She filled ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the inaugural symptoms of some infectious diseases may be due to phylogenetic association. These inaugural symptoms are measurably a recapitulation of the leading phenomena of the disease in its completed clinical picture. Thus, the furious initiative symptoms of pneumonia, of peritonitis, or erysipelas, of the exanthemata, are exaggerations of phenomena which are analogous to the phenomena accompanying physical injury and fear of physical violence. Just as the acute phenomena of fear, or those which accompany ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... development came through the mother's love for her child; but at once he turns aside from this, drawn, I think unconsciously, to the common opinion of the complete subjection of the females to the male, an opinion always making it difficult to accept the initiative in reform as coming ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... in the new theory, every principle promulgated, every precaution taken, every suspicion awaked is aimed against the policeman. In the name of the sovereignty of the people all authority is withdrawn from the government, every prerogative, every initiative, its continuance and its force. The people, being sovereign the government is simply its clerk, and less than its clerk, merely its domestic.—Between them "no contract" indefinite or at least enduring, "and which may be canceled only by mutual consent or the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a wholly incredible thing: first, that any nation should have the foresight, the strength, and the persistence to plan and fulfill such a task; and second, that women should have had so much initiative. We have assumed, as a matter of course, that women had none; that only the man, with his natural energy and impatience of restriction, ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... these two strong, handsome, vivid young things should have dropped into her life and taken her into their hearts in this way as if she really belonged, as if they loved her! She was too excited to talk. She hardly knew what to do first. But they did not wait for her initiative. Allison was off with his car and his man, munching cookies as he went, and promising to return in fifteen minutes hungry as ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Reality had I been merely related to my Presentment as a passive and percipient subject. In point of fact, however, I am in relation with the energetic system not merely or primarily as an Intelligence percipient of the transmutations proceeding in it at a particular point, but also as a Will initiative to some extent of such transmutations and capable of influencing and directing the physical process. Life necessarily involves a process of energetic transmutation constantly proceeding at that portion of the system of ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... contact with the great southern empires. It is uncertain whether the use of bronze is due first to the southern nations or to some European people, but the invention of iron weapons is most probably due to European initiative. Again, it is now not believed that the alphabets of Europe are derived from the hieroglyphics of Egypt, though it is an open question whether they were not derived, through Phoenicia, from certain signs which we find ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... that the mere fact of your bodily presence is agony to me. When I met you to-day I was battling with my invention to devise some means of leaving the place where you are without exciting suspicion. If you ever loved, have pity on me now; take the initiative, and rid ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... intention of getting up at five o'clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet lawn, or to mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening of George ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... the other side of the ridge. But that he had happened to ride to the crest, the charge of the Light Brigade would have begun and ended without the knowledge of "C" Troop. No order from any source reached it, and Brandling, acting on his own initiative, took his guns rapidly to the front along the inner edge of the ridge and unlimbered at point G. He durst not fire into the bottom of the North valley where our light horsemen were mixed up with the enemy; ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... be heard in the din; it was necessary to watch the front of the square, and move on or halt as it did, unless a particular rush at a certain point compelled those at it to take the initiative, and then others had to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... necessary to describe in detail each of these industries. In their broad outlines they merely repeat the story of steel, of oil, of agricultural machinery; they are the product of the same methods, the same initiative. There is one branch of American manufacture, however, that merits more detailed attention. If we scan the manufacturing statistics of 1917, one amazing fact stares us in the face. There are only three American industries whose product ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... selected students. They come from the humblest families, from homes that have been wiped out early. But the training at Mooseheart is so well adapted to human needs that these orphans soon outstrip the children of the more fortunate classes. They become quick in initiative, sturdy in character and brilliant in scholarship. Visitors who come from boys' preparatory schools where the children of the rich are trained for college are amazed to find these sons of the working people so ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... bringing his command to a high state of efficiency, and the battalion owed much to his careful preparation. It was due largely to his teaching that the men knew how to advance from cover to cover and displayed such ready 'initiative' in the various battles of the Natal Campaign. The opportunity of putting into practice this teaching soon presented itself, for on October 12th news was received that the South African Republics had declared ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... his polar expeditions he was helped, to an extent which will never be appreciated, by Wilson: in the last expedition by Bowers. I believe that there has never been a finer sledge party than these three men, who combined in themselves initiative, endurance and high ideals to an extraordinary degree. And they could organize: they did organize the Polar Journey and their organization seemed to have failed. Did it fail? Scott said No. "The causes of this disaster are ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... below stairs to take care of itself even for the half hour to which he mentally resolved to limit his interview with the stranger. However, he dismissed the waiter with some extra charges, and then placed himself at the service of his guest, and even took the initiative of the tete-a-tete ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... your proposal is not wanted. These young ladies have taken their affairs into their own hands. It is Leap-Year. One of them, at least, (looking to his daughter,) has made good use of its privilege. The initiative, Sir ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... and original way to the heart of a difficulty, as was his wont, he could see no ray of light thrown by the candle of his own inspiration. Inspiration, in fact, he wholly lacked. Once only in the past—after an attack of influenza—had he felt so barren of initiative as now, so ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Rome. It was an enterprise requiring consistency in the objects aimed at, variety in the means, combination with the Powers and avoidance of rivalry, an authority superior to national obstacles and political limitations. At first the initiative did not reside with the Papacy. Farnese, in whose pontificate the transition occurred from the religion of Erasmus to the religion of Loyola, allowed men to act for him whose spirit differed from his ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... but no bally hell came from her. She showed absolutely no sign of anyone, not even a pile of canvas or a box that might hide a sharp-shooter. That, then, was the old counterfeiter's ruse: to tempt us into taking the initiative when, more than likely, he was ready with the probable ten-pounder to sink us. Still, it felt rather snug to be lying there elbow to elbow ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... p. 287. George Francis Train on his own initiative spoke for woman suffrage before the New ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... seem to be aware that one of the handsomest young noblemen in all France was standing there before her, trying to win a glance from her lovely eyes—but then, she was a singular girl, this sweet Isabelle! At length, exasperated by her utter indifference, Vallombreuse suddenly took the initiative, and said to her, "Mademoiselle, you take the part of Sylvia in this new play, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... on in the expectation that those who had the power would take it upon themselves to do something for him. Perhaps he credited them with a sense and a generosity they could not lay claim to; though had one of them taken the initiative in this matter, he would have honoured himself in honouring Burns, and endeared his name to the hearts of his countrymen for all time. But such offices are created and kept open for political sycophants, ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... give you plenty of proofs of this.... The following sentences occur in a letter written from Delhi during our recent panic, by an officer.... 'The native force here is much too small to be a source of anxiety, and unless they take the initiative it is my opinion that there can be no important rising. The Mussulmans of Delhi are a contemptible race. Fanatics are very rare on this side of the Sutlej. The terrors of that period when every man who had two ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... was in peril, and grave peril. Even though the storm-swept marsh had not stood in his way he was quite too weary to walk farther. He was thrown entirely upon his own resources. His life depended upon his own initiative, for he was quite beyond help from others. It was a great unpeopled wilderness in which Jamie was lost, and he was but a wee lad, and even though Doctor Joe and David were looking for him there was scarce a chance that they could find him in the ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... principle involved, is that of the susceptibility of the Impersonal to suggestions from the Personal. This follows of course from the very Conception of Impersonality; it is that which has no power of selection and volition, and which is therefore without any power of taking an initiative ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... to these, souls still athirst for spiritual guidance turned. They were a minority even at the end of the sixteenth century, the last years of Elizabeth, but they were a minority full of initiative and of action. With the turn of the century (1600-1620) the last men who could remember Catholic training were very old or dead. The new generation could turn to nothing but the new spirit. For authority it could find nothing definite but a printed book: a translation ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... wiped out and obliterated? The answer to this objection is that Jock is not asked to sacrifice his personality; he is asked to sacrifice his angularity. The ideal of British discipline is, not to turn men into machines, but to preserve individuality and initiative; and yet, at the same time, to make each man of as great value to his comrades as is by any means possible. In the church we do the same. Brown means well, but he is all gush. You ask him to do a thing. 'Oh, certainly, with the greatest ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... it may be remarked that it is generally resorted to under the advice and protection of some more powerful and affluent personage. If undertaken on one's own initiative it might be risky, and certainly always is a highly expensive affair. Even when carried out with the connivance of a datu or a warrior chief, it has on occasions proved fatal, so ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... will, this it is that accounts for the vast number of earnest, thoughtful, forward looking men and women who are passing over, and in many cases are passing from, traditional Christianity, and who either of their own initiative, or under other leadership, are going back to those simple, direct, God-impelling teachings of the Great Master. They are finding salvation in his teachings and his example, where they never could find it in various phases ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... character—except, perhaps, from the fact that it was not OUTWARDLY suspicious, which I grieve to say did not lull them to security. He seemed to be either fixing up his cabin or smoking in his doorway. On the second day he checked this itinerant curiosity by taking the initiative himself, and quietly walking from claim to claim and from cabin to cabin with a pacific but by no means a satisfying interest. The shadow of his tall figure carrying his inseparable gun, which had not yet apparently ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... haste to murmur her congratulations. "Very gratifying, I am sure,—at your age;" to which Alice responded like a chorus, but without any initiative warmth, "Very gratifying, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... moral foundation upon which you have, so to speak, reared the edifice of our community. On this occasion we offer our homage especially to the clear-sighted, indefatigable, unselfish—nay, self-sacrificing citizen who has taken the initiative in an undertaking which, we are assured on all sides, will give a powerful impetus to the temporal prosperity ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... that he intended to be a candidate for the Legislature, but would not declare himself until just before the election, and assigned as a reason that it was so very hard to be clever for a long time at once." Before the caucus had eliminated the individual initiative, there was much more of personal feeling in elections. A vote against a man had something of offense in it, and sometimes stirred up a defeated candidate to heroic vengeance. In 1827 the Legislature elected a State treasurer after an exciting contest, and before ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... lived here was disoriented, dwelling in that unending abjection produced by everlasting, irremediable poverty; many sloughed their occupations as a reptile its skin; others had none; some carpenters' or masons' helpers, because of their lack of initiative, understanding and skill, could never graduate from their apprenticeship. There were also gypsies, mule and dog clippers, nor was there a dearth of porters, itinerant barbers and mountebanks. Almost all of them, if opportunity offered, stole what they could; they all presented the same pauperized, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... I must be allowed to assert that the initiative which pushed it forward was mine. It made a jump when he spent a week-end in the Thames Estuary on my yacht. If any reader has a curiosity to know what my yacht is not like, he should read the striking yacht chapter in Nocturne. ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... they had thrown off the tyranny of atmospheric conditions and accepted and fulfilled diverse missions in all kinds of weather. Verdun had hardened them, as it had "burned the blood" of the infantry who had never known a worse hell than that one. But as our operations now took the initiative, the aviation corps was able to prepare its material more effectively, to organize its aerodromes and concentrate its forces beforehand. Its advantage was evident from the first day of the Somme offensive, not only in mechanical ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... well be able to give a rebuff to a hoary-bearded elderly son, and, erewhile, an official, were he to express a wish to have her as an inmate of his household! I sent for you for no other purpose than to deliberate with you, and here you take the initiative and enumerate a whole array of shortcomings. But is there any reason why I should commission you to go? Of course I'll go and speak to her! You make a bold statement that I don't give him any good counsel; but don't you yet know that with a disposition, such as his, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... in gratified silence, accepting the German as an excellent comrade. As he controlled absolutely the family fortune, he aided Karl very generously without arousing the resentment of the old man. He also took the initiative in bringing about the realization of Karl's pet ambition—a visit to the Fatherland. So many years in America! . . . For the very reason that Desnoyers himself had no desire to return to Europe, he wished to facilitate ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... much discernment. Without comparing the two systems, American and French, which correspond each to the particular genius of the two nations, it will be seen that the American system leaves much more to private initiative, and that it would become ineffectual when the victim of the offence, being a child, has neither the energy nor the knowledge necessary to demonstrate that its complaint is well founded, without the aid of some one in power. This is the aid which is given by ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... underwriters and outside companies have blaced matters in my hands and will not bay until I take der initiative. We must hear from one John Rowland, who, with a little child, was rescued from der berg and taken to Christiansand. He has been too sick to leave der ship which found him and is coming up der ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... whom he knew to be influential with the emperor, and who was a leader in the anti-Burgundian and anti-Bohemian German party. This seemed fair, but the emperor suddenly put on a show of authority and declared, with an injured air, that he was perfectly free to act on his own initiative without confirmation. In the interests of Christianity and of the empire he would appoint Charles of Burgundy chief of the crusade, and he would crown ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... more involved, or more tedious, than to find actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that it becomes a permanent evil only through its ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... Czechs is the result of discipline and courage rather than strategy. Their rise to power was on their own initiative. They could have stayed passive as have so many times their number among the prisoners from other parts of Austria. But their stand for freedom from the Austrian yoke is uncompromising. They started out determined to fight for France and victory. The great bulk of the remaining Austrian prisoners ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... of the French. Von Moltke made a similar criticism (which Sir John French approves) on the Prussian cavalry after the war of 1866. "Our cavalry failed," he wrote, "perhaps not so much in actual capacity as in self-confidence. All its initiative had been destroyed at manoeuvres, where criticism and blame had been almost synonymous, and it therefore shirked independent bold action, and kept far in the rear, and as much as ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... imposes a form of labour, a method or a subject of instruction, a creed, or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts positively upon men. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own will, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiative. They have no need to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does all that for them. The intellect is for them a useless lumber; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... marked by an unusual display of initiative on the part of the Emperor, who now ordered the introduction of railways; but in 1897 complications with foreign powers rather gave a check to these aspirations. Two German Catholic priests were murdered, and as a punitive ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... likely to mention was the change in her. She wrote that she would return to her old home some time, of course, for a visit; and letters such as this brought returns that amused Madeline, sometimes saddened her. She meant to go back East for a while, and after that once or twice every year. But the initiative was a difficult step from which she shrank. Once home, she would have to make explanations, and these would not be understood. Her father's business had been such that he could not leave it for the time required ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... is the hope and confidence that out of unknown homes will come men who will constitute themselves the masters of industry and of politics. The average hopefulness, the average welfare, the average enterprise, the average initiative, of the United States are the only things that make it rich. We are not rich because a few gentlemen direct our industry; we are rich because of our own intelligence and our own industry. America does not consist of men who get their names ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... swarmed in the desert. Nothing daunted them. Spain's best blood poured into the New World, a fact which doubtless accounts, in part, for the devitalized energies and genius of this mother country of their birth and hopes and initiative. "Florida" is a Spanish tide-mark. "St. Augustine" is a gravestone of history, marking the mound where lies the dust of the first permanent colony planted in America. The Spaniard headed toward the southern provinces of America, as the Englishman to the east, and the Frenchman ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... the monthly council; who, in their turn, decide whether the courtship may go on or not. That's not the worst of it, even yet! In some cases—where we haven't the slightest intention of falling in love with each other—the governing body takes the initiative. 'You two will do well to marry; we see it, if you don't. Just think of it, will you?' You may laugh; some of our happiest marriages have been made in that way. Our governors in council act on an established principle: here it is in a nutshell. The results of experience ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... feeling of discontent has given rise to numerous attempts at establishing national schools and colleges. But, unfortunately, our very education has been successful in depriving us of our real initiative and our courage of thought. The training we get in our schools has the constant implication in it that it is not for us to produce but to borrow. And we are casting about to borrow our educational ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... pipe, and made himself conformable in a low cane-bottom chair, which had stood folded-up against the wall. Talk began to range over very various topics, Waymark leading the way, his visitor only gradually venturing to take the initiative. Theatres were mentioned, but Julian knew little of them; recent books, but with these he had small acquaintance; politics, but in these he ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Spain in 1808 General Canclaux, a friend of the Prince de Conti, brought to the notice of Napoleon that the tiresome formalities insisted on by the pestilent clerks of all nations were observed towards these regal personages. Gaudin, the Minister of Finance, apparently on his own initiative, drew up a decree increasing the pensions to 80,000 francs, and doing away with the formalities. "The Emperor signed at once, thanking the Minister of Finance." The reader, remembering the position of the French Princes then, should compare this action of Napoleon with the failure of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to call the son of Aiakos to the voyage he found the whole company at the feast. And as he stood there in his lion's skin, then did Telamon their chief challenge Amphitryon's son of the mighty spear to make initiative libation of nectar, and handed on unto him the wine-cup rough ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... presume it never occurred to you, Katie, that neither Ann nor I was fairly surfeited with opportunities for conversational initiative? Just drop me a hint sometime when you are not going to be at home, will you? I should like a chance to get ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... enough about bears to know that it is never well to argue too confidently as to what they will do. The more he waited and listened, the more he felt sure that the bear was also waiting and listening, in an uncertainty not much unlike his own. He decided that it was for him to take the initiative. Clapping his hands smartly, he threw back his head, and burst into ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... lyrics have been chosen. Obviously it is freshness that he generally lacks, for all his vigour, his emphatic initiative, and his overbearing and impulsive voice in verse. There is a stale breath in that hearty shout. Doubtless it is to the credit of his honesty that he did not adopt the country- phrases in vogue; but when he ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... The sigh might be taken as expressing grief over the sin of the erring brother whose conduct they were then to discuss, and was not amiss. But when the sigh with its attendant murmurs had passed away it was necessary that some initiative step should be taken. "Dr Tempest," said the bishop, "what are we to do about this poor stiff-necked gentleman?" Still Dr Tempest did not speak. "There is no clergyman in the diocese," continued the bishop, "in whose prudence and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... he gets to this part of his story we have, at my initiative, left the bridge and are walking towards the Utopian guest house. The Utopian guest house! His voice rises and falls, and sometimes he holds my arm. My attention comes and goes. "Good-night," two sweet-voiced Utopians cry to ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... struck with this, and expressed freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed—that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made—that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one branch, and never ask ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... went on, "the law must simultaneously be broken and not broken. Those who never break a law never rise in status. They are usually killed off in one way or another, since they lack the necessary initiative to survive. For those who, like yourself, break laws, the situation is somewhat different. The law punishes them with absolute severity—unless they ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... looking for cattle and prepared to charge these Indians with cattle-stealing. This will put them on the defensive. Then the arrest will follow. You two will remain within sound of whistle, but failing specific direction let each man act on his own initiative." ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... part of his thoughts he expressed aloud, but the animal made no response. It evidently threw the responsibility of taking the initiative on the man. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... Swiss people give the nation an importance for the student of politics altogether out of proportion to its size and population. Nowhere in our day have been put to the test in more thoroughgoing fashion the principles of federalism, of a plural executive, of proportional representation, of the initiative and the referendum, and, it may be said, of radical democracy in general. The results attained within a sphere so restricted, and under conditions of race, religion, and historical tradition so unusual, may or may not be accepted as evidence of the universal practicability ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... measure so distributed as to become available in the country village homes to lighten the burden and lessen the human drudgery and yet increase the efficiency of the human effort now so well bestowed upon subsidiary manufactures under the guidance and initiative of the home, where there may be room to breathe and for children to come up to manhood and womanhood in the best conditions possible, rather ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... Governor-General who thus shuffled off his responsibility upon two soldiers who previously had been sedulously restricted within narrow if varying limits. Their relief from those trammels set them free, and it was their joy to accept the devolved responsibility, and to act with soldierly initiative and vigour. The chief credit of the qualified yet substantial triumph over official hesitation certainly belongs to Pollock, who gently yet firmly forced the hand of the Governor-General, while Nott's merit was limited to a ready acceptance of the responsibility of a proffered option. ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... if by some natural instinct everyone was just ready to do his bidding. He was the leader of the herd towards whom everyone looked ready for a new order to meet any new situation which might arise. Initiative and resource were a monopoly in his hands. He was silent, and worked to get ready to descend the old air-shaft, with grim set lips. Yet there seemed to be no sense of bustle, only the work was done quickly and orderly, his orders being issued as much by signs as by ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... cannot suffice to save his soul. Thus it is that the individual must bear his own burdens, for it is only in so doing that the muscles of his body grow strong and that the energies of his spirit become keen. It is by the qualities of the individual alone that work is sound and that initiative is possible. All trade and commerce, every practical affair of life, depend for success on the personal ability of individuals.[253] It is not only so in the everyday affairs of life, it is even more so on the highest ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... resentful, and now beginning to be jealous of a green hand's originality and daring taste—was not an Oriental for nothing. She didn't possess the initiative ability of a designer, but she could appreciate the crashing music of gorgeous colours met together on the right notes. Love of colour was in her Jewish blood, and she was a shrewd business woman also, animated with too vital a selfishness to let ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... always insisted. Watching his chance, and skilfully manoeuvring, he succeeded in approaching the schooner stern first, when the cable just allowed him to touch the perpendicular deck. His shouts to the others had now quite a different ring. His words were commands, leaving no initiative to them. They realized also that their one and only chance for life lay in that boat; and returning hope lent them the courage which they had hitherto lacked. After a delay which seemed hours to the anxious ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... the successful reporter an impossibility is only an opportunity in disguise. In his lexicon there is no such word as "fail." He must know how to make and keep friends. He must have that kind of originality which is called "initiative." Above all, he must be scrupulously honest. He must be actuated by a fixed determination to get the news, the whole news, and ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... took its direction chiefly from the initiative of Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. With great sprightliness and humour, and with an astonishing light-hearted courage, she rallied the Cardinal upon the neglect in which her native island was allowed to languish by the powers at Rome. "The most Catholic country ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... are waiting for me to say something about your letter and my answer to it. I did not mean to embarrass you by not speaking of it, but I was not certain that the initiative lay with me." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... well, at present, though undeniably it would have been better if Lucia could have had Lady Adeliza's advantages. Ah! that was the next step. There was Lady Adeliza to be got rid of—if she did not herself, take the initiative—and that was not a pleasant affair. He had only been extremely attentive to her, that was the utmost anybody could say; but then there was his father—the two fathers, indeed, for he had good reason to believe that the Earl had not urged him to pay ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... carrying on the contest until Russia should be thoroughly humiliated. Considering all these things, it was not unreasonable to believe that peace could be maintained, and that Austria, far from taking the initiative in the war, would be found ready to make such concessions as should lead to the indefinite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... any experience with large boats. Besides, we can't afford to pay him what he's clearing on the Minerva. Sparrowhawk is a good man—to take orders. He has no initiative. He's an able sailor, but he can't command. I tell you I was nervous all the time he had charge of the Flibberty at Poonga-Poonga when I had to stay by ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... is now in being, and a crowd gathers with calm joy and stares, passive and determined. The puppy offers no sign whatever; just lies in the road. Then a boy, destined probably to a great future by reason of his singular faculty of initiative, goes to the puppy and carries him by the scruff of the neck, to the shelter of the gutter. Relinquished by the boy, the lithe puppy falls into an easy horizontal attitude, and seems bent upon repose. The boy lifts the ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... conduct would not be permitted; and that if such a scene should occur again, I should not allow the troops to be surrounded by thousands of armed men, in hostile attitudes, without immediately taking the initiative. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... this initiative step, the President makes it inevitable that the rebuilding of the government shall be controlled by the ex-rebels; the men who have fought desperately for four years to overthrow the federal government; the men who hate republicanism; the men who love and are determined to enjoy aristocracy. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... to be exercised by the teacher to place the responsibility of preparing a salable product upon the pupil. Too much assistance on the part of the teacher in directing the pupils' work and in deciding when a food is sufficiently cooked or baked, may interfere in developing initiative in pupils,—one of the aims to be accomplished in education. The plan of having each pupil prepare a food for the first time in individual quantity and then later in family quantity for the lunch room has proved satisfactory in ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... the condensation of the primary substance into concrete aggregation, and also does this in certain areas to the exclusion of others, we cannot avoid attributing to Spirit the power of Selection and of taking an Initiative on its ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... concealment only very rarely and only on its own initiative. Such instances of atavism have been described in previous lectures, and their existence has ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... consternation of what Father Hogan had told him. Larry was not of those who nurse their wrath to keep it warm, and the thought of Dick's misfortunes swept away the recollection of his insults. Joker had, of his own initiative, soon turned aside from the high road into a grassy lane, and he moved along it in the relentless manner in which many horses will decline to stand still while Larry, deep in thought, allowed the reins to lie on the horse's neck while he lit a cigarette and tried to fix in his ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... their protracted stay, with their hostess visibly in a fidget, was a sign of a want of breeding. Miss Grace after all then was not such an improvement on her mother, for she easily might have taken the initiative of departure, in spite of Mrs. Mavis's imbibing her glass of syrup in little interspaced sips, as if to make it last as long as possible. I watched the girl with an increasing curiosity; I could not help asking myself a question or two ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... desert regions, on the development of monotheistic beliefs was noted in an early chapter. In India it has played the chiefest part in fostering abstract universalism and the conception of a pantheistic Absolute, and has tempted men to views which leave no room for human initiative nor for belief in objective reality. And when we recognise the wide and deep influence exerted by Buddhism upon ethics and metaphysics ancient and modern, we realise that the dome of heaven has proved itself a mystic force of ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... ants, act in obedience to streams of influence which appear to emanate from small and scattered groups, sometimes in the van and sometimes in the rear. When the army is on the march, the entire column will suddenly halt, remaining indecisive and motionless, as if paralysed. Of a sudden, the initiative will be taken by some small group of ants whose members rush about among the others, striking these on the head; then the temporary leaders start off, and the whole army is in motion ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... sandy desert. But I beg the gentleman's pardon; he has already secured to himself a more imperishable fame than I had supposed; I think it was about four years that he submitted to the House of Representatives an initiative proposition for the impeachment of Mr. Jefferson. The house condescended to consider it. The gentleman debated it with his usual temper, moderation, and urbanity. The house decided upon it in the most solemn manner, and, although the gentleman had somehow obtained a second, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... side," he continued,—"I mean America, of course—if we make up our minds that we want to see something of a girl and there isn't any real reason why one shouldn't, then the initiative generally rests with the man. Of course, if you are an only daughter, I can quite understand your father being a bit particular, not caring for men callers and that sort of thing, but that can't go on for ever, you ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... present possessors of landed property in the Far West or in the Far South. That is no reason why I should wish to dispossess them of land which they have legitimately acquired, whether they owe it to their luck or to their pluck, to favourable circumstances or to their initiative and perseverance." ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea |
