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Maxim   /mˈæksəm/   Listen
Maxim

noun
1.
A saying that is widely accepted on its own merits.  Synonym: axiom.
2.
English inventor (born in the United States) who invented the Maxim gun that was used in World War I (1840-1916).  Synonym: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim.



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"Maxim" Quotes from Famous Books



... Maxim, "Know Thyself," is one of the strongest moral precepts in Ethics. Although the sophists had already called attention to the fact that "man is the measure of all things," however they applied to the individual and not to human nature ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... a shut-in valley, says the jongliere; but Manitou, who strides from peak to peak, knows there is more than one valley, which had been a maxim among the jonglieres long before one Danish gentleman assured another there were more things in heaven and ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL—and that is enough!" and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained. Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: "THE ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... "It's your own maxim, your own teaching—share and share alike. I won't recognize any other doctrine. It shall go to ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... rampant and triumphant, prelacy is now become fashionable and epidemical, and of popery we are in as much danger as ever[13]; Socinian and deistical tenets are only in vogue with the wits of the age, foli rationi cedo, the old Porphyrian maxim having so far gained the ascendant at present, that reason (at least pretenders to it, who must needs hear with their eyes, and see with their ears, and understand with their elbows till the order of nature be inverted) ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... statesman, Talleyrand, is supposed to have said: words are merely to conceal thoughts. It may be that it was true respecting the diplomacy of his century, but I cannot imagine a maxim less suited to the present day. The millions who are fighting, whether in the trenches or behind the lines, wish to know why and wherefore they are fighting. They have a right to know why peace, which all the world is longing for, has ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... question of size nearly all the principal judges of the Fox-terrier are agreed. Their maxim is "a good little one can always beat a good big one." The difficulty arises when the little ones are no good, and the big ones are excellent; it is a somewhat common occurrence, and to anyone who loves a truly formed dog, and who knows what a truly formed dog can do, it is an extremely difficult ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... Senior Service is the man who gets things done; and long experience has formulated for him a golden rule: "If you want to get things done you must see them done." This laudable maxim applies in a lesser degree to all his subordinates, right down to the newly-joined boy, who can't very well help seeing some things done, unless he makes a habit of working with his eyes shut—a practice which does ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various

... the Courts are concerned only with the constitutionality of legislation and not with its motives, policy or wisdom, or with its concurrence with natural justice, fundamental principles of government, or spirit of the Constitution.[280] In various forms this maxim has been repeated to such an extent that it has become trite and has increasingly come to be incorporated in constitutional cases as a reason for fortifying a finding of unconstitutionality. Through absorption of natural rights doctrines into ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... "as an illustration of God's methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened?" Such an admonition, he says, is "morally about on a level with telling a naughty child that a bogy is coming to fetch it away." Let us apply this maxim to ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... the picture up in detail, with minor reference to the mass of the structure; and this was the weakness of Brown's art, for what he did was done with such intensity that no after treatment could bring it into complete subordination to the general effect. Theodore Rousseau's maxim, "If you have not got your picture in the first five lines you will never get it," seems to me the true golden rule of the art of painting, as in all creation. A picture should grow pari passu in all its parts; ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... vaguely located on some quiet and deserted-looking kopje in front. Go with the gunners, and every time you go you will come back with an increased admiration for them. It is impossible to tell the result of rifle or even Maxim fire unless, as at Omdurman, the enemy stand up to be massacred; but with the guns you can at least see where the shells fall or the shrapnel burst. For this reason the Vickers-Maxim automatic—or pom-pom, as it was christened at Ladysmith—must be a most delightfully ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... thoughts when you left the land of the west," said Agelastes; "but, fair Countess, have they experienced no change? You have left a shore streaming with human blood when the slightest provocation occurred, and thou hast come to one whose principal maxim is to increase the sum of human happiness by every mode which can be invented. In the west yonder, he or she is respected most who can best exercise their tyrannical strength in making others miserable, while, in these more placid realms, we reserve our garlands for ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... thought the softness, earnestness, and repose of European woodland scenery were far more pleasing, and that these formed one of the causes of the superior moral character of European nations. Live and let live is certainly not the maxim taught in these tropical forests, and it is equally clear that selfishness is not wanting among the people. Here, in view of so much competition among organized beings, is the spot to study Darwin's "Origin of Species." We have ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... administration which was soon to assume the reins of government. A number of congressmen and senators among our stockholders were prominent in the ascendant party, and once the new regime took charge, a general shake-up of affairs in and around Fort Reno was promised. I remembered the old maxim of a new broom; yet in spite of the blandishments that were showered down in silencing my active partner and me, I could almost smell the burning range, see the horizon lighted up at night by the licking flames, hear the gloating ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... series of pleasures is a chimaera; that, on the contrary, it is pains which are positive and extremely real. Accordingly, the avaricious man foregoes the former in order that he may be the better preserved from the latter, and thus it is that bear and forbear—sustine et abstine—is his maxim. And because he knows, further, how inexhaustible are the possibilities of misfortune, and how innumerable the paths of danger, he increases the means of avoiding them, in order, if possible, to surround himself with a triple wall of protection. ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... Blackletter. It is painful to read. Therefore I must insist on returning it at opportunity, not from contumacity and reluctance to be oblig'd, but because it must suit you better than me. The loss of a present from should never exceed the gain of a present to. I hold this maxim infallible in the accepting Line. I read your Magazines with satisfaction. I throughly agree with you as to the German Faust, as far [as] I can do justice to it from an English translation. 'Tis a disagreeable canting ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... exacted from them an explicit disavowal of any intention to arrest, in the case of a person whom they had merely detained, as they asserted, until such time as they could deliver him into the hands of a competent civil officer.[262] And it had become a maxim of French jurisprudence, that "an inquisitor of the faith has no power of capture or arrest, save with the assistance, and by authority, of ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... different forms in literature. We find it among the wisdom of the ancients, and it remains still as one of the conventional properties of the dramatist, and one of the accepted traditions of the novelist. It is expressed in maxim and apothegm, in play and poem. One of our old pre-Elizabethan writers has put it in classic ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... any means of comparing the troubles of their lives with those of people lower in the social scale; and if ever the thought of those heavier troubles obtrudes itself upon them, they console themselves with the maxim that people do get used to the troubles they have to ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... so that most of the country is under water for half the year, for which reason all the houses are built on posts. The capital is a large city, consisting at least of 50,000 houses, with a prodigious number of temples.[2] The natives are all pagans, and hold this singular maxim, "That all religions are good, provided they tend to the honour of God." They think, however, that their own is the best; though they sometimes own that the God of the Christians is most powerful, because ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... maxim of war is very naturally introduced, upon Menelaus being ready to spare an enemy for the sake of a ransom. According to Dacier, it was for such lessons as these that Alexander so much esteemed Homer ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song; for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation going on there is music. As to the red-breast and wren, it is well known to the most incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... Maxims of the Saints, which was said to favor Mme. Guyon's doctrines, and which was sent to Rome for examination. He defined her doctrine of divine love in the following maxim, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... obstinately and wilfully wrong—have occasionally interfered with the success of negotiations. But this is one of the evils inseparable from a free government. The French court, from the death of Louis XIV., was anxious to pursue a pacific policy, to improve their marine, and to pursue Colbert's maxim, that a long war was not for the benefit of France. But the democratic party, which had been formed before the death of Louis XV., employed diplomatic agents at every court to upset and overturn the pacific ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... important 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, do as the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... most palpable evils arose from the feebleness of the central government, the French reformers demanded more government and the English reformers demanded less government. 'Everything for the people, nothing by the people,' was, as Mr. Morley remarks,[73] the maxim of the French economists. The solution seems to be easy. In France, reformers such as Turgot and the economists were in favour of an enlightened despotism, because the state meant a centralised power which might be turned against ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... danger can justify a commercial nation in consenting to enlarge the field of contraband; nor can there be an apology for the renewal of the clause in the compact, by which our true interests and essential rights have been surrendered." Following the maxim that "Free ships make free goods," he establishes himself on the proposition that "neutrals have a better right to trade than nations have to fight and plunder." Webster argued strenuously in maintenance of rights which were in jeopardy, and the disregard ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... in the estate had any right to a share in the government, or that a Raja could be dispossessed by anybody but another Raja. Of that, indeed, there was no lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend himself against the enemies in his own house but external politics seemed based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... of the Joei code in Yasutoki's days. Another objection to the Daiho code and its correlated enactments was that, being written with Chinese ideographs solely, they were unintelligible to the bulk of those they concerned. Confucius laid down as a fundamental maxim of government that men should be taught to obey, not to understand, and that principle was adopted by the Tokugawa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But in the thirteenth, the aim of Yasutoki and his fellow legislators was to render the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... history of sea power. I shall begin with the first sea-fight of which we have a detailed history—the Battle of Salamis (B.C. 480), the victory by which Themistocles the Athenian proved the soundness of his maxim that "he who commands the sea commands all." I shall end with the last and greatest of naval engagements, the Battle of Tsu-shima, an event that reversed the long experience of victory won by West over East, which began with Salamis more than two thousand years ago. I shall have to tell of British ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... was descending the stoop, had seized her by the wrist and almost swung her off her feet as he swept her back into the house and rounded her up before the three men, dumb with fright and barely able to stand. Still gripping her wrist, Bateato let go the Maxim volley: ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... command, General Sullivan, attracted, no doubt, by the superior comfort of the old country-seat, laid himself open to similar correction by his chief. In these two cases it will be seen Washington enforced his own maxim that a general ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... thing, great and small, which could be brought before it. A single glance of his eye penetrated the most obscure and perplexing parts of a case—a touch of his master-hand disentangled apparently inextricable complexities. He could apply, with beautiful promptitude and precision, some maxim or principle which had not occurred to those who had devoted long and anxious attention to the case, and which at once dissolved the difficulty. Whether acting on the offensive or defensive, he was equally characterised by the great qualities essential to successful advocacy; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... know," and the Abbe settled himself in his chair more comfortably;—he loved an argument with "the Sovrani", and was wont to declare that she was the only woman in the world who had ever made him wish to be a good man,—"But that maxim can be taken in two ways. It may mean that no man is happy till his death,—which I most potently believe,—or it may mean that a man is only JUDGED after his death, in which case it cannot be said to affect his happiness, as he is past caring whether people think ill or ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... 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 Tracy. "Now ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... returned. And the trials which followed, though they showed the strength, the nobleness, the rare balance and solidity of his character, did not create these virtues, which had been formed and established by habit long before. Respice finem is not here a wise, at least a sufficient, maxim: we must look along the whole line to discern satisfactorily and thoroughly what manner of man this was in life and ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... 'at the expense of other States.' With the exception of Austria, they had done more than 'attempt'—they had effected the aggrandisement.] respect for peace and the law of nations has become a ruling maxim of international policy. When internal revolution in any State has rendered territorial changes necessary, these changes have been recognised and accepted only after the examination and consent of Europe. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine

... sufficient to protect the city from hunger for a considerable time. As the French army behaved all over Saxony as though it had been in an enemy's country, and consumed every thing far and near, the most urgent want was the inevitable consequence. They forgot the common maxim, that the bread of which you deprive the citizen and the husbandman is in fact taken from yourself, and that the soldier can have nothing where those who feed him have lost their all. The country round Dresden was already exhausted. Soldiers and travellers coming from that quarter could scarcely ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... A thousand years before his birth, the judges of Persia had given a solemn opinion, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 31, p. 210, edit. Wesseling.) Nor had this constitutional maxim been neglected as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... intend to sell the place—in fact, nothing would induce me to do so. Some day I may marry, and want to transmit it to some future Caresfoot; but I confess I don't mean to do that just yet. Marry when you want a nurse, but never before; that's my maxim. Marriage is an excellent institution for parsons and fools, the two classes that Providence has created to populate the world; but a wise man should as soon think of walking into a spring-trap. Take your own case, for instance, my dear Philip; ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... to hold our American colonies by a law that was at least convenient for its framers. The maxim was, that whoever possessed the coast had a right to all the territory in hand as far as the Pacific; so that the British charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from north to south, leaving them quite free from ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... was intimate with something below the face-value of public men, and he used the language that Providence made for maxims. But, above all, he had the acid or tang of poison needed to make the true, the medicinal maxim. His present editor compares him with Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Bacon—great names, but gnomic philosophers rather than authors of maxims proper. Nor were the splendid figures of the eighteenth ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... Superintendent, followed by the Sergeant, turned his horse. Not a word was spoken by either man. It was not the Superintendent's custom to share his plans with his subordinate officers until it became necessary. "What you keep behind your teeth," was a favorite maxim with the Superintendent, "will harm neither yourself nor any other man." They were on the old Kootenay Trail, for a hundred years and more the ancient pathway of barter and of war for the Indian tribes that hunted the western ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... is such a new thing, and yet it is rather nice, too, to hear Edna say in the morning, 'Now, what shall we do to-day?' as though one's whole duty were to amuse one's self. Father always says, 'Whatever you do, do it thoroughly,' and I am carrying out his maxim to the letter, for I do nothing but enjoy myself, and I do it thoroughly. On Monday I finished my letter to Crissy before breakfast, and afterward, as Edna was busy, I spent a long morning reading 'The Village on the Cliff.' I have finished it now, and think ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... too, how it is that this copybook maxim is now for me a practical reality. For at first, with my growing perception, I was distressed at what seemed to me the lavish waste, the reckless, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... Madame Marneffe, who had been frightened by this scene, and had no remembrance of having uttered this maxim. "I am sure you are right, my dear child. Life is not so long after all, and we must make the best of it, and make use of others to contribute to our enjoyment. Even I have learned that, young as I am. I was brought up a spoilt child, my father married ambitiously, and almost forgot ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... Injuries by James the First, their unexampled Sufferings by the excessive harsh Measures of King Charles the First, his Ministers, and Deputies, or their unheard-of Treatment (I won't say Wrongs, it being a Maxim the King of England can do none) by King Charles II. Little Wonder, a House, constantly sapping it's own best Pillars, should at ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... stamina by developing its moral faculties, and establishing in them the habit of moral action. This training has its foundation in the law of habit. It is given, with its results, in the Word of God. "Train up a child," &c. Also in the old maxim, "Just as the twig is bent, the tree ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... Pitt, quite young as yet, but already established in that foremost rank among orators and statesmen which he was to occupy to his last hour, maintained the great principles of European policy. "It is a very false maxim," said he, "to assert that France and England are not to cease to be hostile because they have been so heretofore. My mind revolts at so monstrous a principle, which is an outrage upon the constitution of societies as well as upon the two nations. Situated as we are in respect of France, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... endeavour to establish this Maxim, That the Practice of Virtue is the most proper Method to give a Man a becoming Assurance in his Words and Actions. Guilt always seeks to shelter it self in one of the Extreams, and is ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... Voltaire, and written in ridicule of the famous maxim of Leibnitz, "All for the best in the best of all possible worlds"; it is a sweeping satire, and "religion, political government, national manners, human weakness, ambition, love, loyalty, all come in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... start off with a reservation like that, Miss Copley. You made a naive, but very wise, remark this afternoon when you said you might just as well tell me something, especially as I was bound to find it out anyway. Stick to that maxim. It will save me time and ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... a maxim, unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, that whenever you are invited to a supper at Paris, Lyons, or any of the great cities, where a little trifling play commences before supper, that GREAT PLAY is intended ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... and that, therefore, to take it in the belief that it did do so is an error. It may give a momentary stimulus in considerable doses, but this is invariably followed by a corresponding depression, and it is a maxim now generally followed, especially on service, never to give it before or during work. There are, of course, some persons who are better without it altogether, and so all moderation ought to be commended, if ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... great deficiency that no provision was made for it; or (as we should prefer to say) the difficulty may have been foreseen and yet no provision have been made for it, simply because none could have been made consistently with Frederick William IV.'s maxim, 'A free people under a free king'—a maxim which sounds well, but which, when the people are bent on going in one way and the king in another, is difficult to reconcile with the requirement of the constitution that both must go in the same way. In a republic, where the legislature and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... regarded as the effect of envy and disappointed ambition. All administrations are declared to be alike. The same necessity justifies all their measures. It is no longer a matter of discussion, who or what administration is; but that administration is to be supported, is a general maxim. Flattering themselves that their power is become necessary to the support of all order and government, everything which tends to the support of that power is sanctified, and becomes a ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... esteem. The birds all seemed to recognize a friend in him; and even those which were but partially tamed, and were gentle only with Andreas himself, would perch willingly upon his hand. With Andreas it long had been a maxim that canary-birds were rare judges of human character, and the testimonial thus given to Lud-wig's worth counted with him for a great deal—as did also the quite converse opinion of the birds in regard to the young Herr Strauss: from whom, notwithstanding his ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... books, satisfied with their life, and in no wise solicitous for the future. Nevertheless ambition and the desire to rule trouble even them, and they fight amongst themselves, so that even in the golden age there is never a moment without war; the maxim Cede, non cedam, has always prevailed ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... little, dark-skinned men, Indians who carried great knives in their hands. Those leapt over the first trench and running on with wild yells, dived into the second, those who were left of them, and there began hacking with their knives at the defenders and the soldiers who worked the spitting maxim guns. In twenty minutes it was over; those lines of trenches were taken, and once more from either side ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... confidant, the response made by her rival to her complaint, a sudden thought darted through her mind. "Chere amie," said she to the confidant, "I beg you to say to her ladyship, that, since such is her opinion, I hold her to the acceptance of the consequences of her maxim." ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... rulers. When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that as 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 most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of Egypt, or the emperor of Rome, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... divides their heads, that he may divide their hands; when Jacob had prophesied of the cruelty of Simeon and Levi, who were brethren, he threatens them with the consequent of it (Gen 49:7): 'I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.' The devil is not to learn that maxim he hath taught the Machiavellians of the world, divide et impera—divide and rule; it is a united force that is formidable: hence the spouse, in the Canticles, is said to be 'but one,' 'and the only ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... consequently deserving of punishment. But then, this line of argument would equally tell against the publication of unsettling opinions after his death, as against publishing them during his life-time. Apres moi le deluge, is not an elevated maxim; yet the only other principle upon which his mode of proceeding admits of explanation is, that he wrote his last works in the spirit of a soured and disappointed man, who had been in turn the betrayer and betrayed of every party with which he ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... blow, before the irresistible tyranny of the established order. Schiller's hero is of another ilk. Romantic flight with his lady-love does not occur to him. Surrender to the wrong is out of the question. He finds another form for the return to nature and puts into practice the maxim, Here or nowhere is America. He stays and fights at the head of a troop of bandits. Thus the play which was originally to have been called 'The ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... command, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... giant. His works had nothing of the definite neatness of that precocious talent which stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... a good man to have for a partner in respect of wealth: for he can easily be wronged, since he values not wealth, and is more vexed at not spending where he ought to have done so than at spending where he ought not, and he relishes not the maxim ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... scoundrel even if he adores us." But there is one saying which the most modern psychologist would accept, as it might just as well be a quotation from a report of the latest exact statistics. The Indian maxim says: "There is truth in the claim that the minds of the sons resemble more the minds of the fathers, those of the daughters more those ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... one sense a means of repair, inasmuch as it quickens the circulation and respiration, and makes the whole organism more active. The old maxim that Exercise strengthens every power must not be overlooked, as the arm of the rower or the wrist of the confirmed croquet-player will testify. But it must also be remembered, and this is a matter of prime importance, that it ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... garden the Major kept a cow; in the garden itself he had half-a-dozen hives; while not far away was a fowl-house that supplied him with more eggs than he could dispose of, except by sale. The Major's maxim was, that the humblest offices of labour could be dignified by a gentleman, and by his own example he proved the rule. What few leisure hours he allowed himself were chiefly spent with rod and line on the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... true to his maxim of deserting no one, was constant in his visits and endeavors to comfort and assist him in preparing for his trial. But never had man a more arduous task than he found in this self-imposed duty; for the hidden transactions of Rust's past life ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... a wall I'm trying to climb," she thought, "but I mean to climb it." And for the second time within an hour, she gave tongue to her sustaining maxim: "I must ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... incomparable man in such companies, where people talk of fashion, of clothes, of frippery, and all other sorts of triviality, neither gives pleasure to others nor finds pleasure himself." And the friendly Swede rises to the height of generalisation in the quaint maxim, Where an empty head shines, there a thoroughly cultivated ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... possession of the extensive coast of Africa, the Portuguese had, as yet, no declared title to it, for that purpose, therefore, they appealed to religion or rather the superstition of the age. It was a maxim, which the bigots of the Vatican had endeavoured strongly to inculcate, that whatever country was conquered from infidel nations, became the property of the victors. This title was, however, not completed until it was confirmed by a special grant obtained from the pope, and accordingly ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... other hand, in disgust at the mutilation of human nature and under pretext of its consummation, has arisen the "fleshly school," whose maxim is "obedience to Nature,"—leaving undefined what nature, the nature of the swine or the nature of the man,—which holds that every natural instinct ought to be obeyed, which takes the agreeable as the test ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... old maxim which says: "The empty wagon makes the most noise," and it is interesting to note that the loudest-mouthed and most loquacious of all the animals are the lemurs, who are the least intelligent members ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... with us. The idea of perfection as a general expansion of the human family is at variance with our strong individualism, our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the individual's personality, our maxim of "every man for himself." The idea of perfection as an harmonious expansion of human nature is at variance with our want of flexibility, with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold

... shelves, and thus became well versed in history, both ancient and modern, in the biographies of most of the celebrated men of all ages, and was also well acquainted with the most eminent poets, from Chaucer to Tennyson, ever having an apt quotation at his command to fasten home a maxim or make more pungent a witticism. In fact he had further developed a mind naturally broad by making his own the best thoughts of the ages, and his sensitive nature could not, knowingly, have given pain to a worm—no one that was worthy appealed in vain to ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... until, by the eighteenth century, the offices of the latter had become largely honorary though still richly remunerative. To keep the nobles amused and in money, and thereby out of mischief and politics, became, from Richelieu's time, a maxim of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... think I took Taylor's words in too literal a sense; the remarks, however, on the common maxim, 'In rebus fidei, quod prius verius,' seem to me just and valuable. ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... example—an example the too free extension of which she resented highly—of putting reckless giving above almost all other good deeds; and when the system of private war, of ransoms and other things of the same kind, made "light come, light go," a maxim almost more applicable than in the days of confiscations, in those of pensions on this or that list, or in those of stock-jobbing. Moreover, inquirers into this matter have certainly not escaped the besetting sin of all but strictly political historians—a sin which even the political ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... were, with such extreme affection show us a way by which to travel through darkness unto light. To those who cannot see this perfection of goodness depicted in Christ's own words, I would say in the terse Oriental maxim: ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... recommendation of a favorite remedy than with the natural history of the disease, "as if," he says, "the treatment of every disease without accurate knowledge of its symptoms involved in it neither danger nor uncertainty," and he quotes the following maxim of Dr. Gault: "We cannot cure diseases by the resources of art, if not previously acquainted with their terminations, when left to the unassisted efforts of nature." Exclusive attention to the physical condition and factors, or to the mental condition and factors, ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... Freemen of the Borough. These men had an inherited right to the use of lands belonging to the Corporation, which they let; and to a vote at a Parliamentary election, which they sold. When an election drew near, it was a maxim with both political parties that the Freemen must be conciliated at all costs; and the Freemen, knowing this, were quite prepared to presume on their knowledge. Once, at an election time, it happened that in the house of a prominent political leader in Berwick a fine roast of beef was ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be the subjects of our study. Then ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... father won his captaincy there, in a regiment that mistook orders, charged three lines of cavalry, and broke them one after another. It also broke a sound maxim of war by charging between flanking batteries. The British Army has made half its reputation by mistaking orders—you will understand why, if ever you have the honour to belong to it. Isabel, get me ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... under all circumstances, a gentleman should maintain an appearance of imperturbable serenity. When, however, he suddenly beheld the street boy falling, and his daughter standing up in her wickerwork chariot, holding on to the brown pony like an Amazon warrior of ancient times, his maxim somehow evaporated. His serenity vanished. So did his hat as he bounded from beneath it, and left it far behind in his mad and ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... as cheaply as you can and sell for as much as you can," Stubby reminded him, "is a fundamental of business. You can't get away from it. My father abandoned that maxim the last two years of his life, and it nearly broke us. He was a public-spirited man. He took war and war-time conditions to heart. In a period of jumping food costs he tried to give people cheaper food. As I said, he nearly went broke trying to do a public service, because no one else in the ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... person, to the European Company of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps which it was the earnest ambition of Ross-Ellison to raise and train and consolidate into a real and genuine defence organization, with a maxim-gun, a motor-cycle and car section, and a mounted troop, and with, above all, a living and sturdy esprit-de-corps. Such a Company appeared to him to be the one and only hope of regeneration for the ludicrous corps which Colonel Dearman commanded, and to change the metaphor, the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... about that," said Mr. Ringgan; "that depends upon the way you take things. 'Tain't always the men that make the most noise that are the most good in the world. Humdrum affairs needn't be humdrum in the doing of 'em. It is my maxim," said the old gentleman, looking at his companion with a singularly open, pleasant smile, "that a man may be great about a'most anything chopping wood, if he happens to be in that line. I used to go upon that plan, Sir. Whatever I have ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... of the servant who looked after the door is a farther illustration of the same maxim. A merchant said to his foolish servant, "Take care of the door of my shop; I am going home for a short time." After his master was gone, the fool took the shop-door on his shoulder and went off to see ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... and in all points of outward manners and appearance, put himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily bread. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter's mind always to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here, perhaps, pushed beyond reasonable bounds. And his abode and occupations in Holland formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and navigation, and especially the construction ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... much longer. At that moment the insane jealousy of the leaders led to dissensions that soon caused the utter failure, not only of the siege but of the Crusade. A modern cookery-book, in giving a recipe for cooking a hare, says, "first catch your hare, and then kill it"—a maxim of indisputable wisdom. The Christian chiefs, on this occasion, had not so much sagacity, for they began a violent dispute among themselves for the possession of a city which was still unconquered. There being already a prince of Antioch and a prince of Tripoli, twenty ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... via Unix] A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. Items from this lexicon have often been used as ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... and moral obligations out of view (as probably he did), Napoleon himself said truly, that "if Marius had fallen on his sword amidst the marches of Minturnae, he would never have enjoyed his 7th consulate." No man ever more heartily than Napoleon approved the old maxim, that while there is life there is hope; and, far from thinking seriously at any time of putting an end to his own days, we must doubt if, between his abdication at the Elysee and the time wherein he ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... eyes. At all events, wherever it is let it be pointed out to us. It is useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who most need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is presented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to believe in its existence. 'No simplicity of mind,' says Professor Clifford, 'no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... and surprise are the life and soul of the strategical offensive." That maxim reads well but, in practice, it is important to provide against being surprised by the other fellow before you spring your ...
— A Battery at Close Quarters - A Paper Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion, - October 6, 1909 • Henry M. Neil

... and shook the hand with much emphasis. Irish had once created a sensation in Dry Lake by being taken for Weary; Weary wondered if, in the guise of Irish, there might not be some diversion for him here in Sleepy Trail. He remembered the maxim "Turn about is fair play," and immediately ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... which scientific engineers have so long been trying to produce, will probably be quite independent of balloons, and will depend for its ascensive powers on the action of air on oblique surfaces. Sir Hiram Maxim's experimental air-ship embodied the principles shown by Fig. 171. On a deck was mounted an engine, E, extremely powerful for its weight. This drove large propellers, S S. Large aeroplanes, of canvas stretched over light ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... been making preparation for war, Walpole contended; and were it not for the maintenance of this otherwise superfluous body of troops, the Emperor of Austria would probably never have accepted the terms of peace. "If you desire peace, {293} prepare for war," may be an excellent maxim, but its value lies a good deal in its practical application. It is a remarkably elastic maxim, and in times nearer to our own than those of Walpole has been made to expand into a justification of the most extravagant and unnecessary military armaments and of schemes of fortification ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... many pupils, and his teaching led to the foundation of the Medical School of the Methodists. His most important maxim was that a cure should be effected "tuto, celeriter, ac jucunde," and he believed that what the physician could do was of primary importance, and vis medicatrix naturae only secondary. He was thus directly opposed to the teaching of Hippocrates. He had little or no faith in drugs, and relied ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott

... liable even to generous acts, after being severe and having his own way. But if any body ever got the better of him by lies, and not fair bettering, that man had wiser not begin to laugh inside the Riding. Stephen Anerley was slow but sure; not so very keen, perhaps, but grained with kerns of maxim'd thought, to meet his uses as they came, and to make a rogue uneasy. To move him from such thoughts was hard; but to move him from a spoken word had never ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... should be practised upon. Finally, words should be pronounced simply as words, giving attention solely to the articulation. Not that the first steps are expected to be perfect before the succeeding ones are attempted, but that attention should be given to only one thing at a time, a grand maxim in education, when rightly understood. These exercises should be commenced with the first steps in reading, and continued until the articulation is perfected, and the student has acquired facility as well as precision, grace as well as force, and distinctness and ease have ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... necessarily the parent of the book of to-morrow, just as it is itself not necessarily the child of the book of yesterday. The relation is apt to be one of succession and influence rather than anything suggesting biological evolution. Nature, according to Linnaeus's famous maxim, never goes by leaps, but the book is a human product, and human nature takes its chief pride in its leaps, calling them inventions and discoveries. Such a leap in book production was the substitution of parchment for papyrus, ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... Cavaliere Salvestro became the champion of the people. All round his popularity was established, for people said, "He was born for the safety of the Republic." He was tactful enough to conceal the personal bent of his policy, and acted upon the maxim, which he was never tired of repeating: "Never make a show before the people!" As Gonfaloniere he summoned a Parliament of representatives of all parties and classes at the Palazzo Vecchio, with a view ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... self, but as, on the one side, some have done me the honor to ask what I think of certain problems,—while, on the other side, I have been more than once accused of busying myself, in a rather unscientific way, with certain vague investigations,—I will begin by acknowledging that the maxim contained in the two verses of my motto has been the conviction of my whole life; and if, from my callow youth until this very day, I have been interested in the study of phenomena pertaining to the domain ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... we must be kind. What says the Book?—"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Your dear father acted upon that maxim—so noble and so awful—and I strive to do so. Alas! dear Austin, longo intervalle, far behind! and you are removed—my example and my help; you are gone to your rest, and I remain beneath my burden, still marching ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... however, are definitely the opposite. They are quite conscious of the limited reserve of energy at their command. Also that they need plenty of refreshing sleep. Early to bed and late to rise remains the leading maxim of health for them. In addition they find it necessary to sleep during the day. Forty winks or more in the afternoon makes a good deal of difference to them. Taciturn, inarticulate, lazy, slow, tired, are the adjectives applied to them by their ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... them all soldiers. The desire of glory has ever characterized the nation, and the state of tyranny and oppression in which they were kept under his government, had no effect in diminishing this passion. The French people under Napoleon furnish a striking exception to the maxim of Montesquieu, when he says, [22]"On peut poser pour maxime, que dans chaque etat le desir de la gloire existe avec la liberte de sujets, et diminue avec elle; la gloire n'est jamais compagne ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... met in their own strain, they are generally worsted. It is interesting to see the snares of the wicked defeated by the discreet management of the innocent. "Answer a fool according to his folly," is an old maxim. ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... plant pears Grow fruit for their heirs Is a maxim our grandfathers knew; But folks have learnt since, If you graft on the quince The ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum

... tariff should be admitted into this country on payment of the duties, and with the stipulations stated in the treaty. In moving these resolutions Pitt entered into an eloquent vindication of the measure, enforcing its object, spirit, and provisions. He expressed his abhorrence of the maxim, that any nation was destined to be the natural and unalterable enemy of the other; it was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed the existence of infernal malignity in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not only of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but also of the Jews, was very early recognised by the Christians, and soon found among them numerous patrons—namely, that those who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting the ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... consider further at this time the interesting questions which will arise in the revision and amendment of the constitution. Convinced of the soundness of the maxim that "that government is best which governs least," I would resist the tendency common to all systems to enlarge the functions of government. The law should touch the rights, the business, and the feelings of the ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard

... our children, but to be liberal to the poor?.... I cannot deny, then, but the fault lies at my door, and that I am deservedly thus neglected by my children.... The only comfort I have left me in all my afflictions, is, that others will learn at my cost this clear maxim: not to leave to others a matter of such near concern as the ease and repose of their own souls; but to provide for them carefully themselves. O God! how dearly have I bought this experience; to see my fault irreparable, and my misery ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... referring to Adam?" inquired his partner. "Anyhow, come to think of it, the maxim is not that 'Necessity is the first law of Nature,' but that 'Necessity ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... algebra, to say nothing of higher mathematics; but it is a legal maxim that ignorance of the law excuses no one, and this dictum is equally applicable to natural and to human statutes. Pierre assumed very naturally that five dollars plus five dollars equals ten dollars, and dollars ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... them with approbation, it is distressing when one is obliged to put on a most angry countenance and demeanour; but from such culpable negligence as you have shown there is no avoiding it. I hold it as a fixed maxim that, when a man or a family put on a slovenly appearance in their houses, stairs, and lanterns, I always find their reflectors, burners, windows, and light in general, ill attended to; and, therefore, I must insist on cleanliness throughout.' 'I find you very deficient in the duty ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... this mischance, insisted upon her drinking a large glass of canary, to quiet the perturbation of her spirits. This is a season, which of all others is most propitious to the attempts of an artful lover; and justifies the metaphorical maxim of fishing in troubled waters. There is an affinity and short transition betwixt all the violent passions that agitate the human mind. They are all false perspectives, which, though they magnify, yet perplex and render indistinct every object which they represent. And flattery ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... other consideration is allowed in abatement of the claims of patriotic loyalty, and that such loyalty will be allowed to cover any multitude of sins. When the ancient philosopher described Man as a "political animal," this, in effect, was what he affirmed; and today the ancient maxim is as good as new. The patriotic spirit is at cross purposes with modern life, but in any test case it is found that the claims of life yield before those of patriotism; and any voice that dissents from this order of things is as a ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... more about Halifax from his own elaborate study of Charles II. It is a prolonged analysis by a man of clear vision, and perfect balance of judgement, and no prepossessions; who was, moreover, master of the easy pellucid style that tends to maxim and epigram. A more impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected. In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so much a character in the accepted sense of the word as a scientific investigation of a personality. Others try to make ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... said Fleming, laughing; "hold on to something. If it give way don't you let go, at all events, and the chances are you are brought up somewhere. My maxim is, Never let go of one rope till you have got hold ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... amour propre more deeply than it ought to have done, considering the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very lenient reply, and that the critic affords another illustration of the old maxim, that there are none so implacable as those who ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... two thousand two hundred years ago (and that is not yesterday, you must own!) since one of the greatest minds of the world—Socrates—never forget that name—taught his disciples, as a foundation precept, this apparently simple maxim, "Know thyself." He meant this, it is true, in a much higher sense than we are aiming at in these conversations of ours, but his rule is so practical, that although you have only as yet taken a mere peep into one small corner of self-knowledge, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... 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 ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... gun. Absorbed in his explanation he lost the drowsy incertitude of his speech and the dreaminess of his eyes. He spoke with rapidity, sureness, and a note of enthusiasm rang oddly in his voice. On the margins he sketched illustrations of the Gatling, the Maxim, and the Hotchkiss and other guns, and demonstrated the superior delicate deadliness of his own. It could fire more rounds per minute than any other piece of artillery known to man. It could feed itself automatically from a magazine. The ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... engaged in some earnest struggle, certain outward aspects of which may possibly be a spectacle for the amusement of idlers, but which in itself is for the study and the sympathy of those who are struggling themselves. A Drama, he feels, should not aim at the inculcation of any definite maxim; the moral of it lies in the action and the character. It must be drawn out of them by the heart and experience of the reader, not forced upon him by the author. The men and women whom he presents are not to be his spokesmen; they ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... peremptorily refused to comply. I told him, and I told him truly, that, had I been possessed of the Indies at our first marriage, he might have commanded it all; for it had been a constant maxim with me, that where a woman disposes of her heart, she should always deposit her fortune; but, as he had been so kind, long ago, to restore the former into my possession, I was resolved likewise to retain what ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Lord Chesterfield in his Letters stated that it was very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so; most of my young friends impress me with the fact that they have learned that maxim too well. But you on the contrary——" He waved his umbrella and did not finish ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... recalled—tried to break away from him for all time, with a result in no way to Johnson's credit. Two had never been seen again, which pointed grimly to the fact that Johnson lived up to his favorite maxim, which was that dead men tell no tales. Another was the case of that poor luckless devil who, through some mysterious workings of the law, having broken with Johnson, had been arrested and convicted of a crime long forgotten. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... posset. Non enim id alio, qum isto cognosci exact posse modo existimarim, cum nulli dubium sit, qum semper nautarum vel rectissimus, vt illis videtur, cursus aberret. Quare varias authorum de situ Islandi sententias subiungam, vt inde quiuis de distantia id colligat, quod maxim verisimile videbitur, donec fort aliquando propria edoctus experientia, meam quoque sententiam si non ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... perhaps—at least in part—that the maxim has obtained currency, that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterward. The comparison has probably been made between the quiet and darksome hours of evening and those which followed daybreak, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... "The maxim is assuredly generous," said the princess, becoming more and more agitated; "it is only a pity that you do not possess the mines of El Dorado to make ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... thereof consisted, first in holding a firm union in itself, deeming (as it is most true) that England is a mighty animal, which can never die except it kill itself. She grounded this fundamental maxim, to banish thence the exercise of the Roman religion, as the only means to break all the plots of the Spaniards, who under this pretext, did there foment rebellion." Alluding to some other particulars of that reign he adds:—"By all these maxims, this wise princess ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... to "Omnipotency" in such matters is more convenient than philosophical; it is a dodging of the question, instead of an attempt to solve it. Divine ordination—"[Greek: Doz d' etelevto Bonlae]"—is a maxim which settles all difficulties. But it also precludes all inquiry. Why speculate at all, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... seventy-five,—"from the constant topic of the present conversation, every child unborn will be impressed with the notion—it is slavery to be bound at the will of another 'in all things whatsoever.' Every mother's milk will convey a detestation of this maxim. Were your lordship in America, you might see little ones acquainted with the word of command before they can distinctly speak, and shouldering of a gun before they are ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... 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 worst ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... had 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 the reward of his arduous and protracted ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... This resolution brings in no question, no ism. It merely makes the assertion that in a true democracy, in a genuine republic, every citizen who lives under the government must have the right of representation. You remember the maxim, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This is the fundamental principle of democracy; and before our Government can be a true democracy—before our republic can be placed upon lasting and enduring foundations—the civil ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... himself from all impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or good nature.... He had but one maxim, to which he adhered firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny himself in nothing that might maintain his greatness. He was unhappily made for drunkenness, for he had drunk all his friends dead, and was able to subdue two or three sets of drunkards ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... "there is no error in the record." This was in the nature of a demurrer,[6] and referred the whole record—and, be it observed, nothing but THE RECORD—to the judgment of the House of Lords, as constituting the High Court of Parliament. It is a cardinal maxim, that upon a writ of error the court cannot travel out of the record; they can take judicial notice of nothing but what appears upon the face of the record, sent up to them for the purpose of being "inspected," to see if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... immortal poet, with which, in deference to an ancient usage in the literature of the language, we have prefaced the incidents to be related in this chapter, are in perfect conformity with that governing maxim of a vessel, which is commonly found embodied in its standing orders, and which prescribes the necessity of exertion and activity in the least of its operations. A strongly-manned ship, like a strong-armed man, is fond of showing its physical power, for it is one of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... not of tame ones. It seems likely that the hare may have been considered capable of foretelling the future on account of its long ears. The omen of the donkey was considered the most important of all, whether it threatened evil or promised good. It was a maxim of augury that the ass was equal to a hundred birds, and it was also more important than all other quadrupeds. If they heard its bray on the left on the opening of an expedition and it was soon after repeated on the right, they believed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... which you have participated. In congratulating you, my fellow citizens, upon an event so auspicious to the dearest interests of man-kind I do no more than respond to the voice of my country, without transcending in the slightest degree that salutary maxim of the illustrious Washington which enjoins an abstinence from all interference with the internal affairs of other nations. From a people exercising in the most unlimited degree the right of self-government, and enjoying, as derived from ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... the East," she answered. "But we in the West favor the Persian maxim—to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth. With those three qualities even a tenderfoot can ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin



Words linked to "Maxim" :   moralism, locution, Maxim gun, artificer, apophthegm, inventor, saying, discoverer, aphorism, expression, gnome, apothegm, axiom



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