"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of all morality. But what is true for one is true for all. Each man is a member of a rational order, and possesses the inalienable independence and the moral dignity of being an end in himself. Hence the formula of all duty is, 'Act from a maxim at all times fit to ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... here for long,' Mrs. Rawson answered; 'but you mustn't think, ma'am, that I'd lay any under claim for the trouble she's been to me, only what is fair. "Fair is fair all the world over," has been my maxim ever since I started letting apartments. But perhaps, ma'am, you'll be wanting a room in my house. If you do there's the drawing-room floor, which would suit you nicely. But you can't be day nurse and night nurse yourself.' ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... chooses later and brings from their obscurity to thrust them into the light for their own sake." Thus fortune served Montaigne to perfection, and even in his administration of affairs, in difficult conjunctures, he never had to belie his maxim, nor to step very far out of the way of life he had planned: "For my part I commend a gliding, solitary, and silent life." He reached the end of his magistracy almost satisfied with himself, having accomplished what he had promised ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... put his learning to good use. He observed the wise maxim of Leonardo da Vinci, "Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker." He was not one of those learned men, of whom there are many examples—a recent and conspicuous instance was the late Lord Acton—whose minds are so choked with the accumulations of the knowledge they have absorbed ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... it,—criticising it by Nature's rules gathered from all her works, but never completely carried out by her in any one work; correcting it, by rendering it more natural, i.e. more conformable to the general tendency of Nature, according to that noble maxim recorded of Raffaelle, 'that the artist's object was to make things not as Nature makes them, but as she WOULD make them;' as she ever tries to make them, but never succeeds, though her aim may be deduced from a comparison of her efforts; just as if a number of archers had aimed ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... he began, firing in the questions with the speed of a Maxim. "Something worth while, judging from that mysterious letter of yours. What is the scheme? Why this secret meeting in the forest instead of in town? Why"—but the man he called captain ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... business of intelligent criticism is to be in touch with everything. "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner," as the French ethical maxim has it, may be modified into the true motto of aesthetic criticism, "Tout comprendre, c'est tout justifier." Of course, by "criticism" one does not mean pedagogy, as so many people constantly imagine, nor does justifying everything include bad drawing. But as Lebrun, for example, is not ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... amicable league with the Araucanians. A small military escort would therefore have been amply sufficient to protect the travellers from all danger of annoyance; but here the weakness of the newly established government betrayed itself. They are distrustful of strangers, and act upon the old Spanish maxim,—to close the interior of the country against them. The recent discovery of gold and silver mines in the mountains, which was still kept secret, from the fear that foreign powers might covet these treasures, probably, also, contributed to a refusal which has ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... departure for the interior of the State; and while I stood near the office-counter, I saw old Baron Steinberger, a prince among our early California adventurers, come in and look over the register. I avoided him on purpose, but his presence in St. Louis recalled the maxim, "Where the vultures are, there is a carcass close by;" and I suspected that the profitable contracts of the quartermaster, McKinstry, had drawn to St. Louis some of the most enterprising men of California. I suspect they can account for the fact ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... revolutions and political changes he had brought about, or seen accomplished, the events which he had controlled, had given him a certain contempt for men; moreover, he was not inclined by nature to think well of them. His lips were often heard to utter the grievous maxim—all the more grievous because he personally knew its truth—"There are two levers by which men are ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... voice training touches on the value of an Academy of Acting. Of the value—the practical value—of such an institution rightly conducted there can be no doubt. That acting cannot be taught is a well-worn maxim and perhaps a true one; but acting can be disciplined; the ebullient, sometimes eccentric and disordered manifestations of budding talent may be modified by the art of the teacher; those rudiments, which many so often ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... doctrine in reality which I myself had embraced even before I had heard of the Saint-Simonians, if not before they had published it. The religious organization was founded on the doctrine of the progressive nature of man, and the maxim that all institutions should tend in the most speedy and direct manner possible to the constant amelioration of the moral, intellectual, and physical condition of the poorer and more numerous classes. Socially men were to be divided into three classes,—artists, savans, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... got through very comfortably, for Bentley made it the occasion of a somewhat pretentious luncheon at Maxim's. There had been twelve of us at table, and the two young Poles were thirsty, the Gascon so fabulously entertaining, that it was near upon five o'clock when we put down our liqueur glasses for the last time, and the red, perspiring waiter, having pocketed ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... courses. It is a rare thing for an Italian lady to be without her cavaliere servente, or lover, who spends much of his time at her house, attends her to all public places, and appears to live upon her smiles. The old maxim of the Provencal troubadours, that matrimony ought to be no hindrance to such liaisons, seems to be generally and practically believed ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... mother has also much to do with this. He has a typically homely way of expressing it by one of his favorite maxims, one that he loves to repeat encouragingly to friends who are in difficulties themselves or who know of the difficulties that are his; and this heartening maxim is, "Trust in God and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... considered as a general maxim, that their union is so intimate, that the fall of one inevitably draws after it that of the other; and that they will always either flourish or decline together may be seen, by examining the reason of their ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... author had written in his leisure moments, were represented with success, but there is no account whether that giddy Monarch ever rewarded him for his loyalty, and indeed it is more probable he did not, as he pursued the duke of Lauderdale's maxim too closely, of making friends of his enemies, and suffering his friends to shift for themselves, which infamous maxim drew down dishonour on the administration and government of Charles II. Wood further remarks, that Shirley much assisted his patron, the duke of Newcastle, in the composition ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... be his care to be familiar with the signs of real and apparent difficulties, with the methods proper to particular subject-matters, what in each particular case are the limits of a rational scepticism, and what the claims of a peremptory faith. If he has one cardinal maxim in his philosophy, it is, that truth cannot be contrary to truth; if he has a second, it is, that truth often seems contrary to truth; and, if a third, it is the practical conclusion, that we must be patient with such appearances, and not be hasty to pronounce ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... I have made three or four passages, when we carried the fine weather the whole way out and home, but if we do not, we must do our best and trust to God, Mr Haliday, that is my maxim, and I have always found it hold good. I have been at sea ever since I was a boy, and in more hurricanes and gales of wind than I can well count up, and yet I never was shipwrecked, and here I am alive and well," answered Captain Johns, to whom ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... the question of the production and distribution of articles, his interest lay in the causes necessary to produce healthy, happy workmen. It seemed to him that the manufacture "of souls" ought to be "exceedingly lucrative." This statement and his maxim, "There is no wealth but life," were called "unscientific." In his fine book of essays, entitled Sesame and Lilies (1864), he actually had printed in red those pathetic pages describing how an old cobbler and his son worked night and day ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... handsome Italian, pointing his moustache and doing such execution upon me with his splendid eyes, that if they'd been Maxim guns I should ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... that I or anybody else could have other than the one," she replied. "It is an age-old maxim, is it not, Mr. Cleek, that two wrongs cannot by any possibility constitute a right? I should feel in duty bound, in honour bound, to speak, of course. To do the other would be to obtain the position by fraud—to steal ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... that other maxim of Peter's which had helped me when I had been a roadman. 'If you are playing a part, you will never keep it up unless you convince yourself that you are it.' That would explain the game of tennis. Those chaps didn't need to act, they ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... whole sincerity and utter fervour; they rose from his hot heart, and rushed through the air "like rockets druv' by their own burnin'." Consequently his readers confess that he has never forgot the Horatian maxim— ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... the time being were her Ministers. That it was chiefly on this account that I had been so very sorry to have found now, on my return from the Continent, that on the change of the Ministry a capital opportunity to read a great Constitutional maxim to the Queen had not only been lost by Lord Melbourne, but that he had himself turned an instrument for working great good into an instrument which must produce mischief and danger. That I was afraid ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... instance of the most advanced and perfected human science supporting the truest, purest, and most ancient religion; while a linear standard which the chosen people in the earlier ages of the world were merely told by maxim to look on as sacred, compared with other cubits of other lengths, is proved by the progress of human learning in the latter ages of time, to have had, and still to have, a philosophical merit about it which no men or ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... have considered it immaterial, or to have been ignorant, that, in accordance with the maxim, "Once free, forever free," declared in the courts of his own State of Maryland, the courts of Louisiana held, as did those of Kentucky and other States also, that, "having been for one moment in France, it was not in the power of her former owner to reduce her again to slavery," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... this latter terrible epitaph, it cannot be said that the maxim de mortuis was observed. But it ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... am astounded at your effrontery. I detected your philosophy the very first maxim. Who posted that parchment ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... know well your character for generosity, and I therefore rest upon it with the utmost confidence. I shall detain the letter which you did me the honor to enclose for my Lady Somerset till I receive your decision; and ever, whilst I live, will I henceforth remain firm to my old and favorite maxim, which I adopted from the glorious epistle of Horace to Numicius. Perhaps you may not recollect the lines? ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... another lesson, which gave me further insight into the habits and customs of these gay and gladsome Parisians. We were completing a round of the all-night cafes and cabarets. There were four of us. Briefly, we had seen the Dead Rat, the Abbey, the Bal Tabarin the Red Mill, Maxim's, and the rest of the lot to the total number of perhaps ten or twelve. We had listened to bad singing, looked on bad dancing, sipped gingerly at bad drinks, and nibbled daintily at bad food; and the taste of it all was as grit and ashes in our mouths. We had learned for ourselves that the much-vaunted ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... maxim with Lyons that it was desirable to remember everyone he met, and he prided himself on his ability to call cordially by name clients or chance acquaintances whom he had not seen for years. Nature had endowed him with a good memory ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... researches of scholarship in the foundations of religion, as he did of science in the material world, and of philosophy in the things of the mind. Though he loved to worship with his fellows, and was a sincere member of the Church of England, the maxim nulla solus extra ecclesiasm filled him with horror. It was ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... know that they, at least, did their part courageously and well; and, looking back now upon the stormy scenes of their labours, and contrasting the effects of their sacrifices with the cost at which they were made, the people of Ireland are still prepared to accept the maxim that— ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting; ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... himself is the preservation of his life, health, and limbs." "The special laws of the Sabbath are: 1. To rest from all labor; 2. To recruit our physical energies by rest and innocent enjoyments; 3. To sanctify our moral nature; 4. To improve our intellect." "The best maxim of conduct to our parents is, treat them as you would wish to be treated by your children." "No offensive words or actions afford a shadow of justification for killing a human being, or injuring him in his limbs or health." "Only self-defence with equal arms, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... was one of the unwritten charges. J. W. Schuckers, in his life of Chase, says that the radical leaders "felt the vast importance of the presidential patronage; many of them felt, too, that, according to the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils, the Republican party was rightfully entitled to the Federal patronage, and they determined to get possession of it. There was but one method and that was by impeachment ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... soups, as well as for other preparations for the table; and among the presents which David received from Shobi, as recounted in the Scriptures, were beans, lentils, and parched pulse. Among the Egyptians it was extensively used, and among the Greeks, the Stoics had a maxim, which declared, that "a wise man acts always with reason, and prepares his own lentils." Among the Romans it was not much esteemed, and from them the English may have inherited a prejudice against it, on account, it is said, of its ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... understands. Particular clauses should be devoted to rapacious dealers who get collecting permits as scientific men, to poison, to shooting from power boats or with swivel guns, to that most diabolical engine of all murderers—the Maxim silencer,—to hounding and crusting, to egging and nefarious pluming, to illegal netting and cod-trapping, and last, but emphatically not least, to any and every form of wanton cruelty. The next step may be to provide ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... and twenty Sidney Koblin had so often tested the maxim, "Boys will be boys," that Max Koblin's patience at length became exhausted. "Do you mean to told me you ain't got one cent left from that forty I gave you on Saturday?" Max asked on the Monday ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... arranged this simple ruse, Yourself you climb a neighboring tree; See to it that the spot you choose Commands the coming tragedy; Take up a smallish Maxim gun, A search-light, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... maintain that miracles have been wrought by that supernatural power constantly, ever since apostolic times; that they may and do occur, through the same power, at any moment to-day; and always will occur. In the ordinary gossip of the world, men hold to the maxim that if reports are current, all pointing to one particular fact, there must be truth in them. "Where there is so much smoke there is sure to be some fire." We should at least accord the same, if not a greater, degree of probability and of credence ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... as a maxim that immediate emancipation is the only just course, and the only safe policy. They say that slavery is a common evil, and therefore there is a common right to investigate it, and search for modes of relief. They say that New-England shares, and ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Universally approved. A Supreme Rule of Right to be arrived at by combining partial rules: these are obtained from the nature of our faculties. The rule of Speech is Truth; Property supposes Justice; the Affections indicate Humanity. It is a self-evident maxim that the Lower parts of our nature are governed by the Higher. Classification of Springs of Action. Disinterestedness. Classification of Moral Rules. Division ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... special grant of such extraordinary powers, not in any way related to or growing out of general Senatorial duty, and in itself a departure from the general plan of our Government, should be held, under a familiar maxim of construction, to exclude every other right of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... represented as mischievous; to say the least, his belligerent nature breaking out in childhood, and his mother's fond hope was signally defeated. He was passionately fond of athletic sports, and was excelled by none of his years. The determination he evinced in every undertaking guided by his maxim of "Ask nothing but what is right—submit to nothing wrong," seemed to be the key-note of his success, for he was not addicted to books, and ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sixteenth century. His most celebrated work is a series of frescoes on mythological subjects in the Farnese Palace at Rome. Along with his cousin Lodovico and his brother Agostino he founded the so-called Eclectic School of Painting; their maxim was that "accurate observation of Nature should be combined with judicious imitation of the best masters." The Caracci enjoyed the highest reputation amongst their contemporaries as teachers of their art. Annibale died in ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... judge for myself of the truth of that proverb, which I once held true, and is universally held as such in the highest degree, insomuch that epicures, who give a loose to their appetites, lay it down as a fundamental maxim. This proverb is, that whatever pleases the palate, must agree with the stomach, and nourish the body; or whatever is palatable must be equally wholesome and nourishing. The issue was, that I found it to be false: for, though rough and very cold wines, ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... floor, called the Hacienda San Pablo. To the left of us along the crest of hills, in a mighty crescent that reached almost to the sea, lay the army, panting from the effort of the first, second and third days of the month, resting on its arms, its eyes to its sights, Maxim, Hotchkiss and Krag-Jorgenson held ready, alert, watchful, straining in the leash, waiting the expiration of the last truce that had now been on ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... must be that some invisible person fired a silent shot"—the coroner paused a moment, then as if struck by a sudden thought—"of course, a Maxim muffler might have deadened the sound ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... masterly and exhaustive a style as to render it absolutely impossible for me to usefully add anything to his remarks. I cannot, however, leave this branch of the subject without mentioning, not a piece of ordnance, but a small arm, invented since the date of Sir William's address. I mean the Maxim machine gun. This is not only one of the latest, but is certainly one of the most ingenious pieces of mechanism that has been devised. The single barrel fires the Martini-Henry ammunition; the cartridges are placed in loops upon a belt, and when this belt is introduced ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... point there. It can be put into the form of a maxim: Get your formalities right—never mind about ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... well, it is said, Walter Gay, On shipboard with him you should be: If this maxim's true, then well I know you, For we sailed together the sea, Walter Gay, For we ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... the empire in a military and political sense had reached its culmination, in a religious and social aspect it had attained its height of immorality. It had become thoroughly epicurean; its maxim was, that life should be made a feast, that virtue is only the seasoning of pleasure, and temperance the means of prolonging it. Dining-rooms glittering with gold and incrusted with gems, slaves ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... sense. At one time you would think he was the best Prince in the world; at another he would do all he could to give people pain. Nobody seemed to be so ill with him but he would take the trouble of making them laugh at the expense of those most dear to him. His maxim was, never to seem to like one man in the Court better than another. He had a perfect horror of favourites, and yet he sought favour himself as much as the commonest courtier could do. He did not pride himself upon his ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... injustice, and give greater efficiency to the army, than the present one of exclusive seniority and brevet rank, obtained through intrigue and political influence, or high military appointments bestowed as a reward for dirty and corrupt party services. As a military maxim, secure efficiency, by limiting the privileges of rank; exclude favoritism, by giving the power of selection to boards of competent officers, totally independent of party politics. Such a system has been for some time pursued in ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... replied the traveller; "that is a right hostess's maxim, and worthy of Mrs. Quickly herself. Here is to thee, and I pray ye to pledge me before ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Perhaps so, Sir, perhaps so. Let me then say that "Ego primam tollo, nominor quoniam Leo" is a very pretty maxim for lions—and jackals. The former role I may not yet have risen to, but I'm hanged if ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Jan. 9, 1892 • Various
... This maxim of Wordsworth's truly describes the life and deeds of Jasmin. It may be said that he was first incited to exert himself on behalf of charity to his neighbours, by the absence of any Poor Law in France such as we have in England. In the cases of drought, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... mocking repetition like that of veri et falsi in 33. In falsum: note that falsum aliam rem above. For the sense cf. Sext. P.H. II. 209 [Greek: mochtherous horous einai tous periechontas ti ton me prosonton tois horistois], and the schoolmen's maxim definitio non debet latior esse definito suo. Minime volunt: cf. 18. Partibus: Orelli after Goer. ejected this, but omnibus hardly ever stands for omn. rebus, therefore C.F. Hermann reads pariter rebus for partibus. ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... mountains. I would urge only that as a guide to conduct Wordsworth's precepts are not in themselves either unintelligible or visionary. For whereas some moralists would have us amend nature, and others bid us follow her, there is apt to be something impracticable in the first maxim, and something vague in the second. Asceticism, quietism, enthusiasm, ecstasy—all systems which imply an unnatural repression or an unnatural excitation of our faculties—are ill-suited for the mass of mankind. And on the other hand, if we ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... house-breakers that it will be for their interest to reform, and they will reform and lead honest lives; according to Mr. Bentham. He says, "All men act from calculation, even madmen reason." And, in our opinion, he might as well carry this maxim to Bedlam or St. Luke's, and apply it to the inhabitants, as think to coerce or overawe the inmates of a gaol, or those whose practices make them candidates for that distinction, by the mere dry, detailed ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... to try to discover the living type from which proceeded the petrified fragments which we call terminations or suffixes, enough evidence has been brought together to establish on the firmest basis this general maxim, that Nothing is dead in any language that was not originally alive; that nothing exists in a tertiary stratum that does not find its antecedents and its explanation in the secondary or primary ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Thompson, of Vermont, is introducing a new system of medical practice which I believe to be more in accordance with the laws of life and health than any I know of. His maxim, applied to disease, is: 'REMOVE THE CAUSE, AND THE EFFECT ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... as well as the ethics, of to-day may well be summed up in the one maxim known as the "Golden Rule": "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Or in the philosophic statement of it, given by Kant: "Act so that the maxim of thy conduct shall be fit ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... functions, must have a family likeness. When men received their creed and its interpretations from an infallible authority deigning no explanations, it was natural that the teaching of children should be purely dogmatic. While "believe and ask no questions" was the maxim of the Church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely, now that Protestantism has gained for adults a right of private judgment and established the practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony in the change ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... five minutes too late for the first train, and so had been delayed for the express in which Kitty started on her adventure. Commonplace accidents determine commonplace lives, was a favorite maxim of the Berrytown Illuminati. The Supreme Intelligence whom they complimented with respect could not be expected to hold such petty trifles or petty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... unemployed took place at Union Square, New York. Emma Goldman was one of the invited speakers. She delivered an impassioned speech, picturing in fiery words the misery of the wage slave's life, and quoted the famous maxim of Cardinal Manning: "Necessity knows no law, and the starving man has a natural right to a share of his neighbor's bread." She concluded her exhortation with the words: "Ask for work. If they do not give ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... laurels, if they were not to wither, should be often bathed in hostile blood, and fed every year with soil from new fields of victory. Your majesty being the modern Caesar, the allies may be afraid lest you should adopt this maxim." ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... them of Homer's noble line to the effect that a man should strive ever to be foremost and in all things to outvie his peers; but they said that no wonder the countries in which such a detestable maxim was held in admiration were always flying at one ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... and pleasure afterwards; excellent maxim!" he said to himself half an hour later, as he removed the dust of travel from his person, preparatory to an interview with Mrs. de ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... knock, there enters Faust's famulus, or assistant, Wagner. He has heard Faust's voice and from its excited tones has concluded that he is practising declamation—reciting perhaps a Greek play. The poor amiable dryasdust literary and scientific worm-grubber, whose maxim of life is Zwar weiss ich viel, doch moecht' ich Alles wissen (I know indeed a good deal, but I want to know Everything), wishes to profit from a lesson in elocution. A scene follows in which the contrast is graphically depicted between this half ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... such a way that thou dost drag them in, rather than introduce them; if I am not mistaken, I have told thee already that proverbs are short maxims drawn from the experience and observation of our wise men of old; but the proverb that is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsense and not a maxim. But enough of this; as nightfall is drawing on let us retire some little distance from the high road to pass the night; what is in store for us to-morrow ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and the most military governments as well as to the most free and popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive their helpless subjects, like brute beasts, against ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... fourteenth verse of this discourse Nietzsche defines the solemn duty he imposed upon himself: "Become what thou art." Surely the criticism which has been directed against this maxim must all fall to the ground when it is remembered, once and for all, that Nietzsche's teaching was never intended to be other than an esoteric one. "I am a law only for mine own," he says emphatically, "I ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... my sympathies were with him, and that I would have helped him if I could; but in accordance with the maxim which I have elsewhere explained, that he who places any consideration before the King's service is not fit to conduct it, I did not see my way to thwart M. de Saintonge in a matter so small. And the end justified ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... to several modern instances of works nominally of the same description as the present were alone to be considered, it might seem that the old maxim, that nothing ought to be said of the dead but what is good, is in a fair way of being dilated into an understanding that every thing is good that has been said by the dead. The following pages do not, I trust, stand in need of so much indulgence. Their contents may not, in every ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... education, the Intellectual, the Moral, and the Religious. Things before words, or always along with words, to explain them; the concrete and sensible to prepare for the abstract; example and illustration rather than verbal definition, or to accompany verbal definition: such is his main maxim in the first department. Object-lessons, wherever possible: i.e. if boys are taught about the stars, let it be with the stars over their heads to look at; if about the structure of the human body, let it be with a skeleton before them; if about the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... negative words so far as to exclude jurisdiction over any other cases than those specifically mentioned. In the second case this observation was relied on by Virginia to defeat the power of the court to review a State judgment. But, said the Chief Justice, "it is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions in every opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... not the principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate," he said, while busied in this employment; "our own maxim, which says, 'while life remains there is hope', is more consoling, and better suited to a soldier's temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... proceed in their career undisturbed by the cries of the people, even as the moon pursues her course unimpeded by the baying of dogs." This maxim of the despotic sovereign of Russia was very inapplicable to the situation of ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the originator of the celebrated maxim, 'Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.' Their house was the headquarters for the nullifiers, and they had serenades, she said, ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... artillery, and the countless camp-followers, animals, and wagons that follow an army, would have been fatal alike to speed of marching and to success in mountain warfare. Even in the campaign of 1866 the greatest commander of this generation carried out his maxim, "March in separate columns: unite for fighting." But Wuermser and the Aulic Council[57] at Vienna neglected to insure that reunion for attack, on which von Moltke laid such stress in his Bohemian campaign. The Austrian forces in 1796 were divided by obstacles which could not ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... help suspecting him of having had in his mind, not the history of Johnson's "Rasselas," but Johnson's history of Rasselas. We think it rather hard, that, having, in general, such a limited amount of meaning to express, Mr. Wilson should have followed the maxim of Talleyrand, and employed language chiefly as a means ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... maintain that the old maxim of 'early to bed' says something on that score, as well ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... this general smile of mankind, and being naturally gentle and flexible, was industrious to preserve it by compliance and officiousness, but did not suffer his desire of pleasing to vitiate his integrity. It was his established maxim, that a promise is never to be broken; nor was it without long reluctance that he once suffered himself to be drawn away from a festal engagement by the importunity ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... each other, so that patriotism was laughed out of doors as an hypocritical pretence. This contention established a belief that every man consulted his own private interest at the expense of the public, a belief that soon grew into a maxim almost universally adopted. The practice of bribing a majority in parliament had a pernicious influence upon the morals of all ranks of people, from the candidate to the lowest borough elector. The expedient of establishing funds ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... will be found in that Golden Rule from Holy Writ that enjoins upon us to "do unto others as we would that they should do unto us," and whereon Lord Chesterfield based his maxim for the cultivation ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... know where we're at," remarked Ted, with a satisfied air, as though it might be a maxim with him ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... got into blue water, as he called it—that is, out of soundings—than he began his pranks, which never ceased till we reached Carlisle Bay. Officers and men were all treated alike, and there was no redress, for no one among us dared to bring him to a court-martial. His constant maxim was—"Keep sailors at work, and you keep the devil out of their minds—all hands all day-watch, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... power the giftie gi'e us Tae see oursel's as ithers see us." Thus spake a high an' princely Hun As he fired at Tam wi' his Maxim gun. Thinkin', na doot, that bonnie lad Was lookin', if no' feelin', bad. But Tam he stalled his wee machine An' ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... Press in Great Britain, into a serious disaster. A very bad effect was produced in the undecided districts—it is perhaps wiser not to specify them at this moment. But a few days later another armoured train ran out from Kimberley, and its Maxim guns killed five Boers without any loss to the troops. The magnifying process was also applied to this incident with equal though opposite results. Then came the news of the battle of Glencoe. The first accounts, which were very properly controlled—for we are at war with the pen as ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Shangani on October 25, and that of the Imbembezi on November 1. They fought bravely, even with desperation, but their valour was broken by the skill and the cool courage of the white man. Those terrible engines of war, the Maxim guns and the Hotchkiss shells, contributed largely to our success on these occasions. The Matabele, brave as they were, could not face the incessant fire of the Maxims, and as to the Hotchkiss they developed a curious superstition. Seeing ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... in the folk music, for its age-old rebellious submission. One hears the soul of the Russian pulsating in the continued reiteration of the same theme; it is like the endless treadmill of a life without vistas. We were looking at the Russia of Maxim Gorky, the Russia that made Tolstoy a reformer; that has now ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... like a compromise of the magisterial dignity or a concession to the popular spirit. Mr. Gravesand was a man who doated on what he called energy and vigour; others called it tyranny and the spirit of domineering. Of Lord Chesterfield's golden maxim—Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re—he attended so earnestly to the latter half that he generally forgot the former. And upon the present occasion he was resolved to parade his contempt for "the jacobinical populace" of Machynleth ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... a rule as Whatever is, is; to him that which is not clear as to how, is not at all. Philosophers in general, who tolerate each other's theories much better than Christians do each other's failings, seldom revive Leibnitz's fantasy: they seem to act upon the maxim quoted by Father Eustace[91] from the {47} Decretals, Facinora ostendi dum puniuntur, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Scandal against Queen Elizabeth 225 The Mistletoe on the Oak, by James Buckman, &c. 226 Universality of the Maxim, "Lavor come se tu," &c., by S. W. Singer 226 Replies to Minor Queries:—Tennyson's In Memoriam— Bishop Hooper's Godly Confession, &c.—Machell's MS. Collections for Westmoreland and Cumberland— Oration against Demosthenes—Borrow's Danish ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... Dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and virtue, and the completest triumph of the completest villany that ever vexed and disgraced mankind! The example is ruinous in every point of view, religious, moral, civil, political. It establishes that dreadful maxim of Machiavel, that in great affairs men are not to be wicked by halves. This maxim is not made for a middle sort of beings, who, because they cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... helps those who help themselves," is a maxim as true as it is ancient. The great and indispensable help to ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... hour. Hot weather for childbirth. So says I to Mrs. Perkins, 'If Mrs. Plummer is taken, or Mrs. Everat, or if old Mr. Grub has another fit, send off at once to No. 4. Medical men should be always in the way-that's my maxim. Now, sir, where do ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... any better Fate than those on the Plain, had the Spaniards had any other General in the Command than the Duke of Berwick; whose native Sympathy gave a check to the Ardour of a victorious Enemy. And this was the sense of the Spaniards themselves after the Battle. Verifying herein that noble Maxim, That Victory to generous Minds is only an Inducement ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... principles diametrically opposed to their parent's, while Shelley's income was mulcted in a sum of 200 pounds for their maintenance. Thus sternly did the father learn the value of that ancient Aeschylean maxim, to drasanti pathein, the doer of the deed must suffer. His own impulsiveness, his reckless assumption of the heaviest responsibilities, his overweening confidence in his own strength to move the weight of the world's opinions, had brought him ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... nothing. The Duke of Devonshire told Lady Lyndhurst that her husband ought to resign his judicial situation because he had displayed hostility to Government the other night, but it would be a new maxim to establish that the judges were to be amenable to the Minister for their political opinions and ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... totter now and float amain. For the Muse gave special charge His learning should be deep and large, And his training should not scant The deepest lore of wealth or want: His flesh should feel, his eyes should read Every maxim of dreadful Need; In its fulness he should taste Life's honeycomb, but not too fast; Full fed, but not intoxicated; He should be loved; he should be hated; A blooming child to children dear, His heart ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his famous maxim, "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are," certainly never suspected the signal confirmation which the entomological world would bestow upon his saying. Our gastrosopher was speaking only of the culinary caprices of man rendered fastidious ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... of the different types of heavy but finely made weapons had to be learned in detail—a feat of memory when it came to the watch-like mechanism of the Maxim. Guns were disabled and had to be put right. They missed fire and were made by the instructors—old naval gunners—to play every dastardly trick conceivable. The final test which had to be successfully passed was the dismantling ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... nothing to do with that Platonic affection devoid of love, but I leave you to guess what my maxim would be." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... about him all the external distinctions of Puritanism—a cropped head—a downcast eye—a measured step, and a stock of sighs and religious exclamations. There was one maxim that found a ready response within his bosom. "He was all things to all men;" could aid a smuggler, drink with a Cavalier, pray with a Roundhead. He was, moreover, a tall, powerful man—one who, if he found it fitting, could enforce a holy ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Between going about with a head of glass, with all one's thoughts displayed as in a show-case to every comer, and the settled purpose to deceive by the direct verbal falsification, there is a long series of intermediate positions. The commercial maxim that one is not bound to teach the man with whom one is dealing how to conduct his business, and the lawyer's dictum that the advocate is under no obligation to put himself in the position of the judge, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... and talk with you a little while, so there, sit there.—Come then, let us see what we have to say to these saucy brats, that will not let us go sleep at past eleven. Why, I am a little impatient to know how you do; but that I take it for a standing maxim, that when you are silent, all is pretty well, because that is the way I will deal with you; and if there was anything you ought to know now, I would write by the first post, although I had written but the day before. Remember this, young women; and God Almighty preserve ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... maxim in the political economy, not of England only, but of all other commercial countries. The inland or home trade, the most important of all, the trade in which an equal capital affords the greatest ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... vain do the principles of neutrality establish, that friendly vessels make friendly goods; in vain, sir, does the President of the United States endeavour, by his proclamation, to reclaim the observation of this maxim; in vain does the desire of preserving peace lead to sacrifice the interests of France to that of the moment; in vain does the thirst of riches preponderate over honour in the political balance of America: all ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... is a Maxim in your own Law, Nemo tenetur accusare seipsum, which if it be not true Latin, I am sure it is true English, That no Man is bound to accuse himself: And why dost thou offer to ensnare me with such a Question? Doth ...
— The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead • various
... antagonistic to those of the old. Madame de la Baudraye could smile to see Lousteau with one article on the Legitimist side and one on the side of the new dynasty, both on the same occasion. She admired the maxim he preached: ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... quietly resumed the habits of social life. The generals of yesterday were the editors, the secretaries, and the solicitors of to-day. The just jealousy of the State gave life to the now forgotten maxim of Judge Blackstone, who denounced as perilous the erection of a separate profession of arms in a free country. The standing army, expanded by the heat of civil contest to gigantic dimensions, settled down again into the framework of a miniature ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... not content himself with a mere bow at our introduction. Much to my wonder how he came by the information he displayed, he made me a little speech after the manner of Louis XIV. to a provincial noble, studiously modelled upon that royal maxim of urbane policy which instructs a king that he should know something of the birth, parentage, and family of his meanest gentleman. It was a little speech in which my father's learning and my uncle's services and the amiable qualities of your humble servant were neatly interwoven, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and looked at her, I realized to the full the deeper truth underlying that very wise old maxim: ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Nice. I settled into the Pension Russe. Met Maxim Kovalevsky; lunched at his house at Beaulieu, with N.I. Yurassov and Yakobi, the artist. In ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... white stone, marking a life without intention or character at all? Or is there perhaps written there the pure {98} demand to be of use?—"For their sakes I sanctify myself;"—or is there written on your heart the name of God, or of his Christ, so that this interior maxim reads: "I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... his sovereign was a fitting recompense for his labors. If others dared to praise him, however, he treated their eulogies as insults, and, impatient of flattery, he was in dread even of its semblance. Such was the delicacy, or rather the solidity of character, of this prince. Moreover his maxim was (listen, for it is a maxim which makes great men), that, in the performance of great deeds, one's sole thought should be to perform them well, and leave glory to follow in the train of virtue. It is this which he has endeavored to instil into ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... battle in the bedclothes, battle with soap and water, curling-pins, corset, shoes. Each little act was performed with an energy it did not demand. The sponge was squeezed dry like a live thing being strangled; the toothbrush played as Maxim guns on an enemy; buttons went into button-holes with a manner of ramrods going into muskets; hooks met eyes as one army meets another. Battle in all that morning's common tasks, setting them high, dressing them with ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... defensive. We understand each other. But if any hulking stranger should undertake to interfere in our domestic concerns, we shall all unite on the instant to keep things as we wish them to remain. We shall be ready. Alfred's maxim of Peace shall be once more exemplified. In the meantime the factories shall work overtime in our own mountains, and the output shall be for the general good of our special community—the bill to be settled afterwards ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... only the British contention, but the note set by Canning for British diplomatic correspondence. He was conscious too of opposing material force to argument, and had but recently been amid the scenes at Copenhagen, which had illustrated Nelson's maxim that a fleet of ships of the line were the best negotiators in Europe. The position has its advantages, but also its dangers, when the field of warfare is that of words, not deeds; and in Madison, who superintended the American ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... by illicit intercourse is not an actionable wrong if the act of intercourse has been voluntary, even although there has been wilful and intentional concealment of the disease. Ex turpi causa non oritur actio, it is sententiously said; for there is much dormitative virtue in a Latin maxim. No legal offence has still been committed if a husband contaminates his wife, or a wife her husband.[249] The "freedom" enjoyed in this matter by England and the United States is well illustrated by an American ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... jocular tone. Addressing the paper, he says, "At page 241 you are absolutely serious. That page of Punch is a take-in. Punch ought never to be virtuously indignant or absolutely serious;" and with these words, re-affirming the maxim which Punch had forgotten in his heat, he restored peace, patched up the paper's reputation for good-humour, and with a ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... this circumstance, which had reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore so outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians then and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should ever be Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... want to know, father?" she said coolly; "then I will tell you. Because I mean to marry Owen Davies myself. We must all look after ourselves in this world, you know; and that is a maxim which you never forget, for one. I mean to marry him; and though I seem to have failed, marry him I will, yet! And now you know all about it; and if you are not a fool, you will hold your tongue and let me be!" and she went also, leaving ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... price to be paid for his prostitutions. Even those who, in a vigorous age, gave the example of wealth, in the hands of the people, becoming an occasion of freedom, may, in times of degeneracy, verify likewise the maxim of Tacitus, that the admiration of riches leads to despotical government. [Footnote: Est apud illos et opibus honos; eoque unus imperitat, nullis jam exceptionibus, non precario jure parendi. Nec arms ut apud ceteros Germanos in promiscuo, sed clausa sub custode ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... That it may promote the happiness of both nations is the ardent wish of this whole people, to the expression of which we confine ourselves; for whatever may be the feelings or sentiments which every individual under our Government has a right to indulge and express, it is nevertheless a sacred maxim, equally with the Government and people, that the destiny of every independent nation in what relates to such improvements of right belongs and ought to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that vice versa, it is the Supreme Soul that becomes the ordinary soul, for (as Nilakantha puts it in the phraseology of the Nyaya school) things different cannot become what they are not and unless things are similar, they cannot become of the same nature. Applying this maxim of the Nyaya it is seen that when the ordinary soul becomes the Supreme Soul, these are not different, and, therefore, it is the Supreme Soul that becomes the ordinary soul. Under this impression Dhritarashtra asks,—Well, if it is the Supreme ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... appealed to as an arbitrator of family dissensions, in which it was impossible to say which side was right and which wrong. Then, as a prophylactic against malaria, his wife administered doses of whiskey. The rest of the history need not be told. It illustrates the maxim that "blood will tell," which I fear is as true in scientific work as in any other field of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... some at least had been thoroughly instructed in the doctrines of Christianity, but it was clearly my duty to return as soon as I possibly could to my ship. "Find out what is right and do it, independent of all other considerations," was a maxim in which I had been instructed. Mr Bent, although more anxious to remain for some time longer even than I was, saw things in the same light I set to work, therefore, with my crew to prepare our boat for sea, so as to commence our return voyage ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... "That's a sound maxim for us all," said Crewe. "However, let's get to business. I rang up the Yard this morning and they told me you were in charge of the case and that I'd probably find you here. Can you let me have a look at the original of that letter which ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... voice, and looked round the kitchen), "she was very whimsical, expensive, ill-tempered, and, I'm afraid, a little—upon the— flightly order—a little touched or so;—but mum for that—the lady is now dead; and it is my maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The young squire was even then very handsome, and looked remarkably well in his weepers; but he had an awkward air and shambling gait, stooped mortally, and was so shy and silent that he would not look a stranger in the face, nor open ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... best to get there. In estimating the characters or explaining the conduct of acquaintances or of public men, we frame hypotheses as to their dispositions and principles. 'That we should not impute motives' is a peculiarly absurd maxim, as there is no other way of understanding human life. To impute bad motives, indeed, when good are just as probable, is to be wanting in the scientific spirit, which views every subject in 'a dry light.' Nor can we help 'judging others by ourselves'; ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... patentee. We are, however, pleased to perceive a disposition manifested by the courts to sustain patents; even if occasionally an unjust claim is recognized as a valid one, it is better, according to the legal and moral maxim, that half a dozen rogues should escape punishment for a time, than that one innocent person should be unjustly convicted; the rogue is almost certain to be caught in the end, and truth ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... appears most improper that the King should continually call for the advice of other politicians without the intervention or the knowledge of his Ministers, but this is just one of those points on which it is impossible to apply to Prussian practice English constitutional theory. In England it is a maxim of the Constitution that the sovereign should never consult anyone on political matters except the responsible Ministry; this is possible only because the final decision rests with Parliament and the Cabinet and not with the sovereign. It was, however, always the contention ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... look down the street, they at last discerned the Jew lad, quickly, yet carefully leading the horse along, with two boys mounted on its back. Thoroughly instructed in the maxim—Get money, honestly if you can, but get it by any means! young Moses had made the most of the present opportunity, by letting out the horse, at a penny a ride, from Charing Cross to the Horse ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... their commodities are equally good and equally cheap, carry on their business at the same expense, or turn over their capital in the same time. That equal capitals give equal profits, as a general maxim of trade, would be as false as that equal age or size gives equal bodily strength, or that equal reading or experience gives equal knowledge. The effect depends as much upon twenty other things as upon the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... mother express such confidence, Vint," Jack said as they walked out on the veranda to take a good-night smoke; "but just let me give you a maxim of my own, the lock's not sure unless the key is in ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... of the London journals. I found them men of talent, certainly, and much more men of the world, than "the cloistered student from his paling lamp"; but I was astonished to find it considered, tacitly, as a sort of maxim among them, that an intermediate party was not bound by any obligation of honour to withhold, farther than his own discretion suggested, any information of which he was the accidental depositary, whatever the consequences might be to his informant, or to those affected by the communication. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... will would overlook the superior claims of wealth. Themselves at least he had never been unnatural enough to banish from his house, and it seemed hardly eccentric that he should have kept away Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and the rest, who had no shadow of such claims. They knew Peter's maxim, that money was a good egg, and should be laid in a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... characteristics of a guest are tact and observation, and these will lead you to notice and do just what will give pleasure to your friends in their different opinions and ways of living. Apply in its best sense the maxim—"When you are in Rome, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various |
