"Line of least resistance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prolonged and, according to the circumstances and the difficulty of the case, more prolonged in one instance than in another. Like the old pioneers of National Factory legislation, the Association has proceeded along the line of least resistance: not because it lacks courage, but for reasons of sheer prudence. If it was to become, in the words of M. Millerand, the present French Minister of War, one of its oldest and staunchest members, 'the laboratory in which international treaties are ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... impossibility not to react to a genuine musical impulse are of great importance. I firmly believe that if one is destined to become an artist the technical means find themselves. The necessity of expression will follow the line of least resistance. Too great a manual equipment often leads to an exaggeration of the technical and tempts the artist to ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... line of action. If he had had nothing but Cambridge to depend upon, it would have been still worse. Now he must settle down to county business if he could, and clear his mind of all foolish regrets. Love and marriage—he was ten years too late! He had dawdled on, taking the line of least resistance, and he was now revealed to himself in a true and unsparing light. He paced swiftly on, and presently entered the wood. His feet fell soft on the grassy road ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... loss of Lombardy and the creation of the Italian kingdom. Faced by the bankruptcy of the whole political and financial system, Francis Joseph launched into a period of constitutional experiment. Following the line of least resistance, as throughout his long reign, he inclined now to federalism, now to centralism, and he was still experimenting when the war of 1866 broke out. For Austria this war was decisive, for its results were her final expulsion ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... itself, then, attention simply obeys natural laws and follows the line of least resistance. By far the larger portion of our attention is of this type. Thought often runs on hour after hour when we are not conscious of effort or struggle to compel us to cease thinking about this thing and begin thinking about ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... that there is such a diversity of attractions and distractions, of temptation and amusement in the city, that unless a youth is made of unusual stuff he will yield to the persuasion of the moment and follow the line of least resistance. It is hard for the city-bred youth to resist the multiplicity of allurements and pleasures that bid for his attention, to deny himself and turn a deaf ear to the appeals of his associates and tie himself down to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and considerable self-denial. Those who go in the line of least resistance are on the road to destruction. It is often necessary to overcome habits which produce temporary ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... which, as we now know, proceeds by evolution. Evolution finds its way by experiment; and this finding of the way varies according to the stage of development reached, from the blindest groping along the line of least resistance to intellectual speculation, with its practical sequel of hypothesis and experimental verification; or to observation, induction, and deduction; or even into so rapid and intuitive an integration ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... with Chinese methods! But this was the sort of instinct that impels a glacier to creep surely toward a lower level. Not content with owning half of Europe and all of Northern Asia, the Russian glacier was moving noiselessly,—as all things must,—on the line of least resistance, toward the East. ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... delicious, appetising, and inspiring breakfast of straight Moose, without even salt, and raw tea, we pushed on along the line of least resistance, i.e., toward flour. ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Abukir and Cape Breton, for example, the success of the extensive operations was impaired, almost lost, because of lack of energy and rapidity of execution of offensive movements. The assembled strength must be thrown forward on the line of least resistance. Defensive strategy should be used only when a delay is necessary to receive expected reenforcements. The primary aim of the operations is to dispose of hostile forces, within the shortest possible time and with ...
— Operations Upon the Sea - A Study • Franz Edelsheim
... easy-going nature, incapable of resisting tyranny. Since her marriage, her naturally submissive mind had become an echo of her husband's, although she was not always in agreement with his opinions; yet it was the line of least resistance, and "anything for a peaceful life" was her motto. Her greatest comfort had come with the birth of her daughter, who, later, was reared by her maternal relatives in England. They had means, while the Meeks had barely enough for their own needs, so Elsie had received a good education ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... the wickedness of the publican. Mrs Warren is not a whit a worse woman than the reputable daughter who cannot endure her. Her indifference to the ultimate social consequences of her means of making money, and her discovery of that means by the ordinary method of taking the line of least resistance to getting it, are too common in English society to call for any special remark. Her vitality, her thrift, her energy, her outspokenness, her wise care of her daughter, and the managing capacity which has enabled her and her sister to climb from ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... there is no valid objection to such similarity, which can be called imitation only when the themes are more or less alike, but it actually seems to have been the policy of many companies to follow the line of least resistance when selecting titles for their pictures, using a title, provided it is good in itself, and appropriate to the picture under consideration, regardless of whether or not it is already familiar to the public as the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... nowhere else, you will earn your leisure only by forethought. Make no move until you know it follows the line of greatest economy. To putter is to wallow in endless desolation. If you cannot move directly and swiftly and certainly along the line of least resistance in everything you do, take a guide with you; you are not of the woods people. You will never enjoy doing for yourself, for your days will be crammed with ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... no doubt follow the line of least resistance, and Simon Newcomb here we may be sure was no exception; thus he chose to deal in his work with the heaviest and most perplexing problems with which the human intellect can engage. I do not attempt to describe or estimate what he achieved. Only a few select minds in his ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the trick the way was easy. And I knew the way was bound to become easier the more I travelled it. Once establish a line of least resistance, every succeeding journey along it will find still less resistance. And so, as you shall see, my journeys from San Quentin life into other lives were achieved almost automatically ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... way to Chartres because he was apart from Adele. Commenting upon this unsuspected devotion, Berry had been quite as outspoken as Jonah, and much more offensive. Naturally, to withstand such importunity was out of the question, and, since it was impossible for me to leave Berry, the line of least resistance was followed, and Daphne and Adele ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... dwelt in a delectable realm from which she was excluded. She was still acutely conscious of his force, but what she now felt was its lack of direction—save for the portion that drove the Chippering Mills. The rest of it, like the river, flowed away on the line of least resistance ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... determined by future pains and pleasures as to speak of our being nourished to-day by to-morrow's dinner. The 'future pleasure' does not exist; the anticipated pleasure acts by making the present action pleasant; and we then move (as it is said) along the line of least resistance. Certain conduct is intrinsically pleasurable or painful, and the future pleasure only acts through the present foretaste. When, however, we regard the pleasure as future and as somehow a separable thing, we can only express these undeniable facts by accepting a purely egoistic ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... and send their shot whizzing across his bows, the sailor, in his fixed resolve to evade the gang at any cost, resorted first of all to the most simple and sailorly expedient imaginable. He "let go all" and made a run for it. That way lay the line of least resistance, and, with luck on ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... forth, an anxious and indeed awful task executed entirely in that stifling atmosphere by the hands of Orme and Quick. Then began another labour, that of the filling in of the tunnels. This, it seems, was necessary, or so I understood, lest the expanding gases, following the line of least resistance, should blow back, as it were, through the vent-hole. What made that task the more difficult was the need of cutting a little channel in the rock to contain the wires, and thereby lessen the risk ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... has generally grown into the wrong shape. This is likely to be a hard and painful business; and indeed history assures us that it is, and further that the spiritual life is never achieved by taking the line of least resistance and basking in the divine light. With world-refusal, then, is intimately connected stern moral conflict; often lasting for years, and having as its object the conquest of selfhood in all its insidious forms. "Take one step out of yourself," say the S[u]fis, "and you will arrive at God."[57] ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... Bristles would not stand for this, and so he began to back out, following the line of least resistance, which in this case was the tunnel by means of which they ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the line of least resistance it follows the sinuosities of the country, surmounting crags and delving into valleys, so that it can be seen topping height after height as it climbs the mountain range until it becomes a mere thread and finally is lost to view in the far distance. Walking along ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... almost past answering; almost, not quite. But weakness was her "cue," as well as the line of least resistance. Having now an incentive to let herself go rather than "brace up" as O'Reilly urged, she enjoyed collapsing. Yet something within was on guard, and knew that O'Reilly had ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Richard took unwillingly under the other's soft compulsion; then, having given the matter thought—he was always one to take the line of least resistance—he assured himself that his sentryship was entirely superfluous; the matter of Blake's affair was an entire secret, shared only by those who had a hand in it. Blake was quite safe from all surprises; ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... this great land of Mexico—it is nearly two thousand miles in length—are, perhaps, less arduous than in Spanish-American countries generally. Mexico has lent itself well to the building of railways in a longitudinal direction, upon the line of least resistance from north-west to south-east, paralleling its general Andine structure. Several great trunk lines thus connect the capital City of Mexico and the southern part of the republic with the civilisation of the United States, over this relatively easy route. Yet the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... is not pleasant to do this, especially when, as is often the case, that offence has to be given to people whom you love and honour for their works and character and sacrifices. In this world, however, unpleasant things have to be faced, and frequently the line of least resistance leads in the end to the greater trouble. It is even more unpleasant to have to disappoint the hopes, and discourage the desire for service, of some young aspirant whose piety and devotion you admire; but it is better ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... himself into doubtful situations. The three important factors, school, newspaper, and theater, have reached an extraordinary degree of power. People apperceive, think, and feel as these three teach them, and finally it becomes second nature to follow this line of least resistance, and to seek intellectual conformity. We know well enough what consequences this has in law, and each one of us can tell how witnesses present us stories which we believe to rest on their own insight but which show themselves finally to depend upon the opinion ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... advocate's heart bounded with delight at the six-weeks' future companionship of the woman whose unguarded heart had silently drifted toward him "along the line of least resistance." ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... Lincoln Highway, of course, follows the line of least resistance, but it has some formidable obstacles to surmount, and it goes at them very deliberately; and, in a powerful car, gives one a sense of easy victory. But I smile as I remember persons with lighter cars standing beside them at the foot of those long, winding ascents, nursing and ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... breadth of the canvas on which I could draw my sketches of books and of life. I believe that my work on newspapers and reviews is more characteristic of me, and intrinsically better work than what I have done in fiction; but when I began to wield the pen, the novel was the line of least resistance. When I was introduced in 1894 to Mrs. Croly, the oldest woman journalist in the United States, as an Australian journalist, I found that her work, though good enough, was essentially woman's work, dress, fashions, functions, with educational ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence |
