"Expediency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his sentences are long and involved, full of inventions and latinized constructions. Controversy at that day was conducted on scholastic lines. Each disputant, instead of appealing at once to the arguments of expediency and common sense, began with a formidable display of learning, ransacking Greek and Latin authors and the fathers of the Church for opinions in support of his own position. These authorities he deployed at tedious length and followed them up with heavy scurrilities and "excusations," by way ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... us, with a doubt whether they really are the same people; whether they have not changed their identity since the days of their delinquency. If they really are the same, it almost throws a doubt on how far the permanent unforgiveness of sins is expedient. We of course refer to Human Expediency only—the construction of a working hypothesis of Life, that would favour peace on earth and good-will towards men; that would establish a modus vivendi, and enable us to be jolly with these reprobates—at any rate, as soon as they had served ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... dwellings on most of the canals is so small, that the width of the latter does not admit of the use of oars on both sides, at the same time. The necessity of constantly turning aside to give room for others, and the frequency of the bridges and the corners, have suggested the expediency of placing the face of the waterman in the direction in which the boat is steering, and, of course, of keeping him on his feet. As every gondola, when fully equipped, has its pavilion in the centre, the height of ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Captain Beauchamp's voyage is in danger of being abandoned. A committee of a vacant Radical borough has offered to nominate him. My influence is weak; madame would have him go back with her and her brother to Normandy. My influence is weak, I suppose, because he finds me constantly leaning to expediency—I am your pupil. It may be quite correct that powder is intended for explosion we do not therefore apply a spark to the barrel. I ventured on that. He pitied me in the snares of simile and metaphor. He is the same, you perceive. How often ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Jesuits, who are known conservatives and legitimists everywhere, and who had been accused of sympathizing with the Pretender's claims, were behind this new alliance, and, as the work of their hands, it was popularly considered as a matter of very doubtful expediency. But the queen persisted in her course, entirely without political motives, so far as anyone has been able to discover, and preparations for the wedding were ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in her life, nor how she and Gianluca would almost conceal it from each other. Besides, she was accustomed now to impose her will upon the old priest as she imposed it upon every one in her surroundings. When she asked his advice, it was about matters of expediency, and that happened every day, but she would not have thought of taking counsel with him about any action which concerned herself. If society chanced to be in opposition to her, society must either give way or ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... was no need to tie Prince to-day. The usual equine sense of expediency would be quite sufficient to keep any horse under cover. She left the sleigh, and groped her way—truly it was not easy to keep on her feet, the wind blew so—till she saw the little white church just before her. There was not a foot-track on the snow which covered the steps ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... from Thyone rendered the departure difficult, for the motherless girl had found in her something for which she had long yearned, and most sorely missed in her companion Chrysilla, who from expediency approved of everything ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the strongest argument ever raised against the study of grammar; and has been particularly urged against the ordinary technical method of teaching it, as if the whole of that laborious process were useless. It has led some men, even of the highest talents, to doubt the expediency of that method, under any circumstances, and either to discountenance the whole matter, or invent other schemes by which they hoped to be more successful. The utter futility of the old accidence has been inferred from it, and urged, even in some well-written ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... My dedication is prompted on these twofold grounds:—Bearing in your veins the blood of Scotland's Illustrious Defender, you were one of the first of your order to join in the proposal of rearing a National Monument to his memory; and while some doubted the expediency of the course, and others stood aside fearing a failure, you did not hesitate boldly to come forward as a public advocate of the enterprise. Yourself a man of letters, you were among the foremost who ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... particular, has a heavy trust; I understand he performs his penance as much for others as for himself, and it is scarce decent in us, who are believers and servants of the church, to place obstacles in his path. I will suggest the expediency, therefore, of giving him at least permission ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... country." Though in the December of the same year we find the Governor again married, now to the Widow Martha Coytemore, we refer the incident to wilderness-straits and the exactions of necessity or expediency in domestic life. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the remark left nothing to be desired; as a statement of expediency, when other infants were present, the same cannot be said. Words, in fact, were trembling on the tongue of a veteran of six months when the C.O. came suddenly ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... other upsetting of the basic tenets of your existence. That and the disharmony existing in your mind is a large part of the 'protecting' aura of discordance that seals you off from me. The memories I shared with you I selected and edited for expediency. Unfortunately, your physical reaction to a startling thought caused you to break away before you had the full truth and left you with ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... too, Curtis would have been quick to realize that a girl who had reposed such supreme confidence in his probity was entitled to share his fullest knowledge of the extraordinary bond which united them, but for one half-hour he was swayed by expediency, and expediency often exercises a disrupting influence on a friendship founded on faith. He only meant to spare her the dismay which could hardly fail to manifest itself when she heard that de Courtois was alive, and that additional complications must now arise with reference to the ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... establish the Welfare of my Countrymen. Do you blame me? It is not the business of a Ruler to be truthful, but to be politick; he must fly even from Virtue herself, if she sit in a different Quarter from Expediency. It is his Duty to sacrifice the Best, which is impossible, to a little Good, which is close at hand. I was willing to lay down a Multitude of foolish Laws, so that, under their Cloak, I might slip in a few Wise ones; and, had I not shown myself to be both Cruel ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... suffered from abuses and maladministration which they had not known under their Jesuit landlords. The aristocracy had always been in sympathy with the order, and in many states the Jesuits had been banished simply as a measure of political expediency, a sop to the restless masses. In these cases the latent power of the order was concealed rather than diminished by the pretence of a more liberal government, and everywhere, in one form or another, the unseen influence was felt to be on the watch for those who dared ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the particular nature of the subject and the special scruples imposed upon my conscience, obliged me to employ a certain number of new conditions, which I had long since, in other connections, foreseen the expediency of. I had taken the pains to arrange an opening at each end of my oval receiver, and fit into it a heavy glass, which enabled me to follow with my eye the effects of the vacuum on the Colonel. I was entirely prevented from shutting the windows of my laboratory, from fear ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... could be passed by,—if nothing more were demanded from her,—she would endeavour to forget it all, saying to herself that it had come from sudden passion. But he was too resolute for such a termination as that, and too keenly alive to the expediency of making her thoroughly subject to him. So he turned her round and took her back through the shrubbery, and in the middle of it stopped her again and renewed his demand. "Promise me that you will not speak again to ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... private doubt or passionate affection that is ordinarily stifled by convention; they are, on the contrary, eminently respectable, deliberate, and carefully expressed. 'It has ever been the habit of my mind,' he writes, 'to trust that expediency will come out of fidelity to principles, rather than to seek my principles of action in calculations of expediency.' This is what the Americans call 'high toned'; but the metal is too heavy for the light calibre ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... to me almost impossible, Weighing the language of the noble lord, To catch its counsel,—whether peace of war. [Hear, hear.] If I translate his words to signify The high expediency of watch and ward, That we may not be taken unawares, I own concurrence; but if he propose Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood To reinstate the Bourbon line in France, I should but poorly do my duty here Did I not lift ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... thing to think of, and Stephen pondered upon the expediency of letting off Wyncomb Farm, and sinking all his savings in the purchase of an annuity. He could not bring himself to contemplate selling the house and lands that had belonged to his race for so many generations. He clung to the estate, not from any romantic reverence for the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... and, when the grouse season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of English friends to see his 'improvements!' The right of conquest so cruelly exercised by the Cromwellians is in this year of grace a legal right; and its exercise is a mere question of expediency and discretion. There is not a landlord in Ireland who may not be a Scully if he wishes. It is not law or justice, it is not British power, that prevents the enactment of Cromwellian scenes of desolation in every county of that unfortunate country. It is self-interest, with humanity, in the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... excepting where the exhibits showed the work of separate institutions for the sexes. A comparison of that kind would be profitable only from a pedagogical point of view and is of minor consideration in our American system of education. Woman's place in the schoolroom is defended by tradition, expediency, and merit; and instead of surrendering in the face of foreign criticism their positions as instructors, women teachers are to-day broadening their field of labor by serving as instructors in many higher institutions where a generation since they were not even admitted ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... overlooks the strongest argument against the king of Lazica—his former revolt. * Note: The Orations in the third book of Agathias are not judicial, nor delivered before the Roman tribunal: it is a deliberative debate among the Colchians on the expediency of adhering to the Roman, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of Hood was so exemplary, that he had no fear to hinder him from being charitable. The cowardice of conscience is one of the saddest penalties of sin; and to avert suspicion from one's self by severity to others is, indeed, the most miserable expediency of self-condemnation. The temper of charity and compassion seems natural to men of letters and of art. They are emotional and sensitive, and by the necessity of their vocation have to hold much communion with the inmost consciousness ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... legislators and Christian people would go to this "heathen" philosopher and learn of him—learn that to do right is always and ever the highest safety, the highest expediency, the highest "conservatism," the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... a child under the age of puberty is adopted by rescript of the Emperor, the adrogation is only permitted after cause shown, the goodness of the motive and the expediency of the step for the pupil being inquired into. The adrogation is also made under certain conditions; that is to say, the adrogator has to give security to a public agent or attorney of the people, that if the pupil should die within the age of puberty, he will return his property to the persons ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... appeared to the States which bordered on the Gulf of Mexico. Whilst acknowledging that the South had grievances, they saw no reason to believe that redress might not be obtained by constitutional means. At the same time, although they questioned the expediency, they held no half-hearted opinion as to the right, of secession, and in their particular case the right seems undeniable. When the Constitution of the United States was ratified, Virginia, by the mouth of its Legislature, had solemnly declared "that the powers ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in such extreme agitation, that in his own mind he saw no means of avoiding the threatened desolation of his country but by putting his wife and daughter to death. Sindokht however had a better resource, and suggested the expediency of waiting upon Sam herself, to induce him to forward her own views and the nuptials between Zal and Rudabeh. To this Mihrab assented, and she proceeded, mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, to Zabul with most magnificent presents, consisting of three hundred thousand ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... The expediency of a general freedom being granted to the Negroes considered. Reasons why it might be productive of advantage and ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... love at first sight. This is the transcendent and surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy. All other is the illegitimate result of observation, of reflection, of compromise, of comparison, of expediency. The passions that endure flash like the lightning: they scorch the soul, but it is warmed for ever. Miserable man whose love rises by degrees upon the frigid morning of his mind! Some hours indeed of warmth and lustre may perchance fall to his lot; some moments of meridian splendour, in which he ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... forgetfulness omitted to be communicated in Season. This was attributed by some Persons of illiberal Minds & Party Spirit to an abominable Design to withhold from the Court the Sentiments of the Delegates respecting the Expediency of refusing to yield Supplys to the Continental Treasury till Justice should be done us with Regard to the Old money now in our publick Treasury & private hands. I could not help diverting my self with the Ebullitions of apparent Zeal for the publick Good on this Occasion, and upon its being ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... simplicity, from a germ of the Divine life within, or am I shaping my path to obtain some immediate result of expediency? Am I endeavoring to compass effects, amidst a tangled web of foreign influences I cannot calculate; or am I seeking simply to do what is right, and leaving the consequences to the good ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... no band wagon. The musicians were mounted on horses. This was all there was of the parade. Alfred has since learned that this feature was introduced into the circus as an expediency. G. G. Grady, an impecunious circus proprietor, found his colossal aggregation without a band wagon and no funds to purchase one. He hit upon the idea of mounting his band on horses. The innovation was heralded as a feature and to this day circuses ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... men were prejudiced and mistaken, and committed great and grievous faults; but there was, at least, a redeeming element in their character—that of high conscientiousness. There was no compromise of truth, no sacrifice to expediency about them; they believed in the invisible, and they acted on that belief. Every where the tone of religious feeling, since that time, has been altered and relaxed, but perhaps nowhere so much as in the land where the descendants of those Pilgrims lived."—Godley's Letters from America, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... English school is always depicted as a coward at heart (a supposition, however, by no means always borne out in after-life), Bismarck had the courage of a bull-dog. Moreover, Bismarck was a Conservative, a statesman of expediency. The Emperor is a man of principle; and as expediency, in a world of change, is a note of Conservatism, so, in the same world, is principle the leit-motiv of Liberalism. To call the Emperor a man of principle may appear to be at variance with general opinion as founded on ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... the cities and burned, has been used to construct palaces and temples, houses and ships, with no recognition of the principles of priority or renewal. If wood was available where must it go? The oligarchy decided the issue in terms of ostentation and expediency. Rarely during recorded human history have there been oligarchs who said: "Irreplaceable resources like minerals must be used with extreme economy. Replaceable resources like forests or top-soil must be used and at the same time replaced and if ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... consulted in his mind as to the expediency of making for Havana or proceeding on his cruise. The leak had materially diminished, and, like all old vessels, though she gave a good portion of work at the pumps, a continuation of good weather might afford an opportunity to shove her across. Under these feelings, he was inclined to give the preference ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... it did in his own. Confiding the information accidentally obtained to W.H. Rand, Esq., of Chicago, a gentleman whose patriotism and whose reputation needs no encomiums, he immediately advised the expediency of conference with the State Executive, and to the honor of Governor Richard Yates, it should be said, he fully realized the importance of acquiring reliable information of the plots of the secret ally of Jeff. Davis. By Governor Yates an introduction ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... then only relative terms, a habit which is advantageous for one man in one case may be disadvantageous for another man, or even for the same man, under different circumstances. Education must, therefore, accustom the youth to judge as to the expediency or inexpediency of any action in its relation to the essential vocation of his life, so that he shall avoid that which does ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... very much, and who did not regard controversy with any favour—men of strong conscientious principles, and of deep and earnest piety, who were not prepared to sacrifice their opinions to any government, or to any view of expediency, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... opposition immediately declared itself. Objection was made to an address, and in its stead the appointment of a committee to wait personally on the President was moved. The covert intent was apparent through the thin veil of expediency, but the Republicans as a body were unwilling to go this length in discourtesy, and did not support the motion. Only eighteen members voted for it. Messrs. Madison, Sedgwick, and Sitgreaves, the committee to report an address, brought in a draft on the 14th which was ordered to be ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... rights of labour, and the welfare of the masses. Thrice he had quarrelled with his father;—but the old man loved his son, and though he was stern, strove to bring the young man into the ways of money-making. How was he to think of marrying Polly Neefit,—as to the expediency of which arrangement Mr. Moggs senior quite agreed with Mr. Moggs junior,—unless he would show himself to be a man of business? Did he think that old Neefit would give his money to be wasted upon strikes? Ontario, who was as honest a fool ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... loading of vessels. In fact, it would be impossible, in summarily noticing the beneficial tendency of this great work, to particularize its manifold advantages; they are too weighty to be overlooked, either by the Legislature or the community at large, and will doubtless dictate the expediency of bringing them into effectual operation. The different modes suggested of raising the capital required for the undertaking are: 1st. From the Provincial revenue by the annual rate of a loan; 2nd. By an Act vesting it in the City of Quebec, by way of loan to the city, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... a peaceful country, and in the second, had one of our party been wounded, the consequent delay would have rendered our return to the boats certainly a work of great difficulty, perhaps wholly impossible; for no considerations of expediency would in my mind have justified the abandonment of a defenceless comrade, wounded in the common cause, either to the natural dangers and privations of the country, or the barbarous revenge of its inhabitants. They ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... in 1860 occupied more nearly the ground held by Clay than that held by Birney; and the men who supported the latter in 1844 were the prototypes of those who worked to oppose Lincoln in 1860, and only worked less hard because they had less chance. The ultra Abolitionists discarded expediency, and claimed to act for abstract right on principle, no matter what the results might be; in consequence they accomplished very little, and that as much for harm as for good, until they ate their words, and went counter to their ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... murmured a little among themselves;—the expediency of Stephen's proposition was evident, and they at length assented ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Reformer. What was our astonishment to discover shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! It was very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, others from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in any respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... than from Major A——'s. He dislikes Bruce, of course; but he would just as soon think of objecting to a partner at whist as to a son-in-law because he happened to be unprepossessing. When the poor little Iphigenia is sacrificed on the shrine of expediency, you will see him, not veiling his face but taking snuff with the calm grace that is peculiar to him. Arguing with such a ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... that whole body of measures of Compromise, by which the Government has sought to compose the country, and then for every man to set himself to suppress the further political agitation of this whole subject. These measures were then referred to, one after the other, and the essential justice and expediency of each were declared. The two great political parties of the North, he said, ought at once to strike this whole subject from their respective issues. He was not for any amalgamation of parties, or for the formation of any new one: the two great parties had united for the settlement of this great ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that the circular form is the more primitive and was formerly used by some tribes which now have only the rectangular form. Still the abandonment of the circular and the adoption of the rectangular form, due to expediency and the breaking down of old traditions, was a very gradual process and proceeded at a different rate in different parts of the country. At the time of the Spanish conquest the prevailing form in the old province of Cibola was rectangular, ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... republics, and were led to consider an augmented population as incompatible with free institutions. The desire of a remedy for this supposed evil, and the wish to establish marts for trade, led the governments often to undertake the establishment of colonies as an affair of state expediency. Colonization and commerce, indeed, would naturally become objects of interest to an ingenious and enterprising people, inhabiting a territory closely circumscribed in its limits, and in no small part mountainous and sterile; while the islands of the adjacent ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... not confined within the strict limits of physical causes, but is more lax, and takes in moral and even presumed and argumentative necessity, a necessity which is in fact nothing more than a great degree of expediency. The law creates a fictitious necessity against the rules of evidence in favor of the convenience of trade: an exception which on a similar principle had before been admitted in the Civil Law, as to mercantile causes, in which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... expediency, is the thing that must guide us," is the emphatic declaration of President Woodrow Wilson. The false assumption that "the end justifies the means has come from self-centered men, who see in their own interests the interests of the country, and do not have vision enough to ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... ask whether the counsel that he is receiving is right or wrong, or whether what he is intending to do is in conformity with, or in opposition to, the will of God, but, passing by all such questions, at once he fastens on the lower consideration of expediency—'What is to become of me if I do as this prophet would have me do? What a heavy loss one hundred talents will be! It is too much to sacrifice to a scruple of that sort. It cannot ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... In the expediency of this I could not but acquiesce; and as the natives had now completed their preparations, I watched with the liveliest interest the reception that Toby's application might meet with. As soon as they understood from my companion that I intended to remain, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... assumes many forms—such as diplomacy, expediency, and moral reservation; and, under one guise or another, it is found more or less pervading all classes of society. Sometimes it assumes the form of equivocation or moral dodging—twisting and so stating the things said ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... carrying a passenger both ways, was only a dollar and a half. Ben calculated that his extra expenses, including dinner, might amount to fifty cents, thus making the cost of the trip two dollars. This sum, small as it was, appeared large both to Ben and his mother. Some doubts about the expediency of the journey suggested ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... quiet, still man, who does not live with his ear to the ground and his eye on the weathercock, who refuses to buy popularity by infinite hand-shaking and robustous speech, but comes out to action from a sanctuary of his own thoughts, where principle and not expediency ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... moral law and righteousness to the individual cases in his life. The stars are very bright, but they do not show me which street to turn up when I am at a loss; but Christ's example comes very near to us, and guides us, not indeed in regard to questions of prudence or expediency, but in regard to all questions of right or wrong. It is superior, in the help it gives to a soul struggling with temptation. It is very hard to keep law or duty clearly before our eyes at such a moment, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... weather became fine, however, the trades returned, and the ship swung round to her old berth. Bob now suggested the expediency of carrying out their heaviest kedge ashore, of planting it in the rocks, and of running out to it two or three parts of a hawser, to which a line of planks might be lashed, and thus give them the means of entering and quitting the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... touching France, which in practice would come before that. I mean Alsace-Lorraine. Unless Germany conquers Europe, Alsace-Lorraine should be restored to France. A profound national sentiment, to which all conceivable considerations of expediency or ultimate advantage are unimportant, demands imperatively the return of the plunder. And in the councils of the Allies, either alone or with German representatives, the attitude of French diplomacy would be: "Is it clear about Alsace-Lorraine? If so, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... you!" he burst out suddenly. "I don't understand you people! Diplomatic lies, yes. Expediency, yes! But this ... this madness, this fanatical, illogical devotion of the state in the cause of a people who will tolerate no state! This ... no, this ...
— Citadel • Algirdas Jonas Budrys
... The expediency of granting any right to the occupancy of this land is, in my opinion, very doubtful. If it is done, it should be in the form of a mere license, revocable at any time, for the purposes used by the officers to which its use and disposition are ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Bakahenzie, squatting motionless on the threshold of his hut, began to mutter incantations and to rock from side to side. Now every one of the inner cult knew well enough that this performance was merely a ceremony prescribed by tradition and expediency; yet for that very reason and particularly for the benefit of the lesser wizards, they solemnly accepted it, grunting in chorus as heartily as the others to the chant of Bakahenzie. As suddenly as dramatically, Bakahenzie stopped with eyes staring ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... man whom they have sacrificed to their appetite, or the delirious excitement with which a brutal crowd witnesses a lynching overbalance the pain of their solitary victim? Yet our souls revolt against such things. We cry, ruat caelum, fiat justitia! Justice is prior to all expediency! Is this irrational, or can it be ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... he is a constituent part of the supreme legislative power; and, as such, has the prerogative of rejecting such provisions in parliament, as he judges improper to be passed. The expediency of which constitution has before been evinced at large[k]. I shall only farther remark, that the king is not bound by any act of parliament, unless he be named therein by special and particular words. The most general words that can be ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... Their correspondence, which was extremely full and copious, and which we may hope will one day be made accessible to the public, turned principally upon the two great questions of the equality between men and women, and of the expediency and constitution of a sacerdotal or spiritual order. When Comte found himself straitened, he confided the entire circumstances to his English friend. As might be supposed by those who know the affectionate anxiety with which Mr. Mill regarded the welfare of any one whom he believed to be doing ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley
... impulse of that angry nature is not over in a minute, and, before either of us had sufficiently cooled to be entirely reasonable, the whole party was fairly out of sight of the hut. After that no one appeared to think of the necessity or of the expediency of reverting to the original intention. It was certainly indiscreet, thus to confide absolutely in the good faith of a savage, or a semi-savage, at least, whom we scarcely knew, and whom we had actually distrusted; but we did ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... the officer, "but still expediency winks at even more. I do not attempt to defend the system, but we must have soldiers. The seamen are impressed by force, the soldiers are entrapped by other means, even more discreditable: the only excuse is ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... flagitious means, are reduced to slavery and misery in the British colonies, beg leave to address this honourable house in their behalf, and to express a just abhorrence of a system of oppression, which no prospect of private gain, no consideration of public advantage, no plea of political expediency, can sufficiently justify ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... embodiment of the patriotic sentiment in its most attractive guise. He is a manly soldier, blunt in speech, contemning subterfuge, chafing against the dictates of political expediency, and believing that quarrels between nations which cannot be accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or the other, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He is the sworn foe of the ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... by men and boys, in a continuous line, was resolved upon. Marshals were appointed, signals agreed upon, and appliances and restoratives provided; and the men were hastening to their places. A little knot near the Judge's house were still discussing the matter, as in doubt about the expediency of ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... colonial assemblies, for Licenses to retail liquors, for all pamphlets, advertisements, handbills, newspapers, almanacs, and calendars, and for the sale of packages containing playing cards and dice. The expediency of the act was now explained to the House, as it had been explained to the agents. That the act was legal, which few people in fact denied, Grenville, doing everything thoroughly and with system, proceeded to demonstrate ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Aunt Margaret in horrified protest against the last item on the programme. But Sylvia gave a chuckle of cheerful complacency, and, so far from being overcome, looked so much revived by the prospect that there could be no doubt as to the expediency of the proposed visit, so far as health ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Charlotte colored, and was silent through the meal. She knew her tongue was sharp; she knew that she was self-willed and was not humble. But she had not taken herself in hand, religiously; to take one's self in hand morally, or on grounds of expediency, never amounts to much; and such taking in hand was all that Charlotte had as yet attempted. In a little passion of self-reproach and mortification, she occasionally lopped off ugly shoots; but the root was still vigorous and lusty, and ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... some of the hard things I have thought and said of Mrs. ... of No ... West Fifty-seventh street. Having let the creature abide under her roof for eleven months, she must justify herself for the act. She meant to leave town, as I mean to go back to town, and, like me, truckled weakly to expediency. Nevertheless, her weakness did me ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... is a very candid admission, and quite characteristic of the ordinary race of sailors. They who freely expose their own lives, as a principle of professional expediency, are not by any means solicitously sparing of the lives of others, who may happen to disagree with them on questions of interest and advantage. Even the inferior officers, and especially those who wish to attract notice in whatever is reputable, as the means ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... degenerate and vicious men, women and children, very rarely is broken in a free wild herd or flock. In the observance of this fundamental law, born of ethics and expediency, mankind is far behind the wild animals. It would serve a good purpose if the criminologists and the alienists would figure out the approximate proportion of the human species now living that bullies and maltreats and oppresses the weak and the defenseless. At this moment "society" ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... worship of custom and tradition! Let us do the thing that gives the greatest immediate benefit to our pupils. Let us discard the elements in our courses that are hard and dry and barren of practical results." Now these men, I believe, are basing their argument upon the fallacy of immediate expediency. The old is bad, the new is good. That is their argument. They have no sheet anchor out to windward. They are willing to drift with ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... capable of so much cynicism. He said to himself that for people of that sort (religious fears or the vanity of righteousness put aside) money—not great wealth, but, money, just a little money—is the measure of virtue, of expediency, of wisdom—of pretty well everything. But the girl was absolutely destitute. The father was in prison after the most terribly complete and disgraceful smash of modern times. And then it dawned upon Fyne that this was just it. The great smash, in the great ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... way affecting its government. Ministerial explanations are never asked for nor given in the East. The power of the prime minister is absolute till he is shot, when it becomes unnecessary to question the expediency of his measures, and the people are only interested to this extent, that, generally speaking, the longer a premier can maintain his position, by so much ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... is," said old Orsola, after a few moments of rapid reflection as to the expediency of telling her trouble to the porter, and a decision prompted by the good-natured manner of the man, and by the poor woman's extreme need of some one to tell her trouble to,—"the fact is, that I wanted to ask the advice ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... we find the offices of the trio marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect concerns itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms:—waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity—her disproportion—her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious—in a ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... quite young children, in a dying state, when their parents have hesitated as to the expediency of referring, in the presence of the child, to the period of dissolution as near, in some paroxysm of distress at once soothed and quieted by the strains of agonizing prayer of the father, that relief might be afforded to the little ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... strong, and the quiet citizen upon a level with the military adventurer, or the ruffian of the gambling-house. The fact, I say, cannot be denied; neither can the low price be denied at which this vast result is obtained. And it is evident that, on the principle of expediency, adopted as the basis of morality by Paley, the justification of duelling is complete: for the greatest sum of immediate happiness is produced at the least possible sacrifice.[15] But there are many men of high moral principle, and yet not professing to rest upon Christianity, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Fort of Kara-Burnu which commands the entrance to Salonica Harbour. He seized it—despite a solemn engagement to the contrary.[1] Then he judged it necessary to occupy the town of Florina. He occupied it. An appreciation of the efficacy or expediency of these measures—beyond a passing allusion to the obvious blunder committed by the destruction of the Demir-Hissar bridge—would be out of place here. For our present purpose their interest lies in the light they throw upon the conditions, apart ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... effort, in the other it is a waste of goods. Both are methods of demonstrating the possession of wealth, and the two are conventionally accepted as equivalents. The choice between them is a question of advertising expediency simply, except so far as it may be affected by other standards of propriety, springing from a different source. On grounds of expediency the preference may be given to the one or the other at different ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... of what is being accomplished in the physical and the intellectual, principles are being apprehended that will finally enable the individual to distinguish between right and wrong, to organize on principle rather than upon expediency his relationships with his fellows, and eventually to become a free moral agent, self-controlled and self-directed. It is the period, therefore, when ideals are being formed, habits fixt, character shaped, life plans matured, and ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... character of the opinions which were received at the time in Europe, as well as the strong consciousness on the part of the patriarch, and those who acted with him, of the expediency of throwing the voice and countenance of the Church into the scale alike against the tribunitial oligarchy and against local jealousies and prejudices. There was perhaps in this case the additional inducement ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... reform. It was known also that he 'gat the Gazeteer,' and that was enough to mark him out as a disaffected person. No doubt he also talked imprudently; for it was not the nature of this man to keep his sentiments hidden in his heart, and to talk the language of expediency. What he thought in private he advocated publicly in season and out of season; and it was quite in the natural course of things that information regarding his political opinions should be lodged against him with the Board of Excise. His ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... the salt to the whole affair. Moreover, there was this ground for it, that had her lord once roused from the straw-yards of his prize cattle, there was a certain stubborn, irrational, old-world prejudice of pride and temper in him that would have made him throw expediency to the winds, then and there, with a blind and brutal disregard to slander and to the fact that none would ever adorn his diamonds as she did. So that Cecil had not only her fair fame, but her still more valuable jewels in his keeping when ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of mere utility. This point would never have been reached had the practice prevailed of covering the walls with a coating of mud. The cruder examples of banded construction, however—those that still kept well within constructional expediency—were doubtless covered with a coating of plaster where they occurred inside of the rooms. At Tusayan and Cibola, on the other hand, the tendency has been rather to elaborate the plastic element of the masonry. The nearly ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... which was wrought a rich mosaic of coloured beadwork. White ermine tails dangled from his shoulders, arms, and breast. He was in reality cruel and vindictive, but his cunning and worldly wisdom made him a master in expediency. He had intelligence above the average, but lacked the good qualities of such as the loyal Crowfoot, the Chief of the Blackfoot nation, who also had the benefit of Pere Lacombe, that great ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Allmash asked me last night whether my thoughts had been directed to the topic which is uppermost just now in so many minds in regard to the religion of the future, and I ventured to tell her that it would be found to be contained in the generalised expediency ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... Freeport is the retired merchant, drawn to the life. He is moderate in politics, as expediency in that age would suggest. Thoroughly satisfied of the naval supremacy of England, he calls the sea, "the British Common." He is the founder of his own fortune, and is satisfied to transmit to posterity an unsullied name, a goodly store ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... little tract of his, 'Notes on Sheepfolds,' and gave him up again, when I found that he had a leaning to that 'Clapham sect.' I have dropped politics: for I have no reason, no ground, no principle in them, but expediency. When they asked me this summer to represent the interests of the county in Parliament, I asked them how they came to make such a mistake as to fancy that I knew what was their interest, or anyone else's? I am becoming more and more of an animal; fragmentary, inconsistent, seeing to the root of ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... power," we have heard one of this class say, "evil and sorrow and pain should cease from the earth in a moment." And in saying this the thought was not concealed that God had this power, but failed to exercise it. With them no questions of expediency, no regard for time-endowed prejudices, no weak spirit of waiting, no looking for the fullness of time could have any influence. What they willed to be done must be done now; and they were impatient and angry at every one who stood in their ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... instructions for preparing and well-disposing their limbs. This holds good, particularly with regard to that propensity innate to most persons of turning in their toes. I have already mentioned the expediency of curing this defect, by the directing them to acquire a habit of turning the knees outward, to which I have to add, that on the proper turn of the knee, chiefly depend the graces of the under part of the figure, that is to say, from the foot ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... Lord Vargrave was employed in examining the general outlines of the estate; and the result of this survey satisfied him as to the expediency of the purchase. On the third day, he was several miles from the house when a heavy rain came on. Lord Vargrave was constitutionally hardy, and not having been much exposed to visitations of the weather of late years, was not practically aware that when a man is ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... at once a proprietary of quite a new description. Had the law of equal partition been extended only to cases in which there was no testamentary provision, it could not have inflicted serious damage, and would at all events have been consistent with reason and expediency: but it went the length of depriving a parent of the right to distribute his property in the manner he judged best, and handed over every tittle of his earnings in equal shares to his children. One child might be worthless, and another the reverse; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... the late Republican farce has closed I hope to get some more subscribers for the Standard. Honest men's eyes will be opened after a while, and the standard of right and expediency be elevated. Let us ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... one eye on the market and the other on the public journals, that he should humbug himself into the delusion that book-writing is the highest work in the Universe, and that he should regulate his likes and dislikes by one law, that of expediency. If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in Society or in Literature itself, he must be silent. Above all, he must lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the World speaks well of him ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was accomplished through the people; it was impossible to be severe with them;"[2135] hence, when insurrections were to be put down, the Assembly had neither the courage nor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of decency; they frame their deeds by expediency." and in turn justly undergo the pressure which they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only three or four times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too daring—after the murder of the baker Francois, the insurrection of the Swiss ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... adjusting the question of slavery, gave it his approval. The act passed with only one dissenting voice, (that of Mr. Yates, of New York,) the South equally with the North avowing the fitness and expediency of the measure on general considerations, and indicating thus early the line of national policy, to be pursued by the United States' Government on the subject ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... climes both rendering the typical character of Light more deeply felt than in Italy, and necessitating its admission in larger masses; the Italian, even at the period of his most exquisite art in glass, retaining the small Lombard window, whose expediency will hardly be doubted by anyone who has experienced the transition from the scorching reverberation of the white-hot marble front, to the cool depth of shade within, and whose beauty will not be ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ordered all his cool love-affairs that, having taken a wife as a matter of expediency, he continued as a matter of expediency to make her a fair husband, as husbands go. It also seemed to him, they relate, a matter of expediency to ignore the interpretation given by scandalous persons to the paternal friendship extended to Madame de ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... pitiless as they proved themselves, to those against whom they fought, one cannot but admire them, for they were heart and soul in their cause. There was no flinching, no half measures, no concessions for the sake of expediency. On the ground on which they took their stand, they conquered or died. Would that a like spirit ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... considerable supply of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... look vastly the more comfortable at present," said De Forest, looking from Gerald's cool cheeks and unruffled muslin flounces to Phebe's flushed face and tumbled cambric. "You are a practical embodiment of the beauty and expediency of selfishness." ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... withdrawn from your proper life. But do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman's-bluff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.) |
