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Politic   Listen
adjective
Politic  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to polity, or civil government; political; as, the body politic. See under Body. "He with his people made all but one politic body."
2.
Pertaining to, or promoting, a policy, especially a national policy; well-devised; adapted to its end, whether right or wrong; said of things; as, a politic treaty. "Enrich'd with politic grave counsel."
3.
Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and advancing a system of management; devoted to a scheme or system rather than to a principle; hence, in a good sense, wise; prudent; sagacious; and in a bad sense, artful; unscrupulous; cunning; said of persons. "Politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy."
Synonyms: Wise; prudent; sagacious; discreet; provident; wary; artful; cunning.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Politic" Quotes from Famous Books



... allay party strife, and make for the peace, prosperity, and unity of the nation. Our political safety has called for a wise and vigorous effort to educate the masses and to assimilate the heterogeneous elements into our body politic. The public schools and colleges, with their interdependence, have in a great measure met the demand, and given us a legacy of peace, prosperity, and intelligence enjoyed ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... on the fact that there are tremendous evils that need resistance, that there are sacred causes which need assistance. He can afford, as never again, to close with the truth that there is a corporate life, a public virtue, a humanity of the body politic, with laws, responsibilities, and duties. In social life he can refuse to bow to an arbitrary and often empty fashion, or to immolate himself on the altar of mammon. He can be a living protest against the tyranny and lust of money, which ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... Stood the state so? No, no, good friends, God wot; For then this land was famously enrich'd With politic grave counsel; then the king Had virtuous uncles to ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... The period of the greatest literary activity in the monasteries now began, and large claustral libraries were soon formed. The monks then had plenty of books; wealthy clergy also had small collections. An ecclesiastic or a layman who had done a monastery some service, or whose favour it was politic to cultivate, could borrow books from the monastic library, under certain strict conditions. Some people availed themselves of this privilege; but not at any time during the manuscript ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... imports, this History will primarily deal with politics, with the History of England and, after the date of the union with Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon it, notices of religious matters and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... encouraging genuine merit, there was none more relentless in scourging incompetency, pretentious commonplace, and the blind conservatism which rests all its faith in what has been. Our composer made more than one powerful enemy by this recklessness in telling the truth, where a more politic man would have gained friends strong to help in time of need. But Berlioz was too bitter and reckless, as well as too proud, to ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... had been taken up by the Treasury, and Sydney had asked an intimate friend, who was also a friend of the Attorney-General, to give the latter a hint. Now Sir James was, above all things, a suave and politic man of the world, who thought that persons of position and influence got on best in the intricate game of life by deftly playing into each other's hands. When one gentleman could do something for another gentleman, to oblige ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... same token he is sickeningly fearful of slipping back, and out of the second fact, as we shall see, spring some of his most characteristic traits. He is a man vexed, at one and the same time, by delusions of grandeur and an inferiority complex; he is both egotistical and subservient, assertive and politic, blatant and shy. Most of the errors about him are made by seeing one side of him and being blind ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... monarch did was to proclaim a general amnesty. He not only pardoned the rebel nobles, but raised some of them to posts of honor and confidence. This was not only politic but just, since their offences were mainly due to fear of the usurper. Under the circumstances he could safely ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... murder of two men. They buried them, as they state, about one-half mile apart, strip ping the clothes off from one, which they took along with them in the buggy, and made their way to the Maumee river. Not thinking it politic to cross at the toll-bridge, they went up to the ford, near Fort Meigs, and found the river not in a fording state. They tied stones to the clothes and threw them in the river, where they were afterward found, and crossed the bridge to the north side of the river, went below Toledo, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... One would make a stand at the phrase, [in our callings,] as if some politic mystery were therein involved, and would have it changed, [according to our callings, or so far forth as they extend.] There is an identity in the phrase, an action enjoined to be done in such a place, every corner, ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... upon the record that any of these men—of either the restless and ambitious, or of the better class—were literally sent away. But such has been the politic practice of this church for many ages; and we may safely believe, that when she was engaged in an unscrupulous and desperate contest for the recovery, by fair means or foul, of her immense losses, there might be many in the ranks of her pious priesthood whom it would be inconvenient ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... years ago, gave him a rather artful, waggish appearance. The whole physiognomy was that of a man of strong intuition, with the ability to force his point when necessary, and the shrewd common sense to yield when desiring to be politic. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... originates from the primary family differentiation. Men and women very early respectively form the two political classes of rulers and ruled. The slave class acquires separateness only as fast as there arrives some restrictions on the powers of the owners; slaves begin to form a division of the body politic when their personal claims begin to be distinguished as limiting the claims of their masters. Where men have passed into the agricultural or settled state it becomes possible for one community to take possession bodily of another community, along with the territory ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... politic to part with his secret for so small a premium, had a better prospect in view; and his apparent disinterestedness and hesitation served only to sound an over-curious public, to allure more victims ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... being a little heady, and not standing in much awe of his mother, was ready to sacrifice the whole dignity of the Tibbetses to his passion. He had lately, however, had a violent quarrel with his mistress, in consequence of some coquetry on her part, and at present stood aloof. The politic mother was exerting all her ingenuity to widen this accidental breach; but, as is most commonly the case, the more she meddled with this perverse inclination of her son, the stronger it grew. In the meantime ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... is guarded by constitutional barriers. Here the innovation assumes formidable proportions, which may easily grow to such an extent as to make the white population a subordinate element in the body politic. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... generation. They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern frontiers of the empire, "taking part like other barbarians in its disturbances and alliances." Emperors paid them tribute, and Roman generals kept up a politic or a questionable correspondence with them. Stilicho had detachments of Huns in the armies which fought against Alaric, King of the Goths, the greatest Roman soldier after Stilicho—and, like Stilicho, of barbarian parentage—Aetius, who was to be their most formidable ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... this Fanny slipped out of the room, and ran down into the kitchen to see what Tom and the cook were doing. The Molletts, father and son, were rather more than ordinary good customers at the Kanturk Hotel, and it was politic therefore to treat them well. Mr. Mollett junior, moreover, was almost more than a customer; and for the sake of the son Fanny was anxious that the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... times, we do not learn that the very Rishis, from whose lore and practice we gain the knowledge of Occultism, ever interdicted the Kshetriya (military) caste from hunting or a carnivorous diet. Filling, as they did, a certain place in the body politic in the actual condition of the world, the Rishis as little thought of interfering with them, as of restraining the tigers of the jungle from their habits. That did not affect ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... men for undergoing those employments, which ought rather to be trusted to the wise. These laws, I say, might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate; they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another, and that which removes the one ill symptom ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... in West Africa than the grossest abuse yet written. Its tactic is to set black against white, to pander for the public love of scandal, and systematically to abuse all the employes of Government. And the sole object of this vile politic, loudly proclaimed to be philanthropic and negrophile, has been low lucre—in fact, an attempt to butter its bread with ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... against the prohibition of it as an act of persecution. Of this no person was better aware than Defoe himself, and it is a curious circumstance that, in his first pamphlet on the bill for putting down occasional conformity, he ridiculed the idea of its being persecution to suppress politic or state Dissenters, and maintained that the bill did not concern true Dissenters at all. To this, however, we must refer again in connexion with his celebrated tract, ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... has fortified the country for them. He is foolishly oversanguine who predicts an easy victory over such a people, intrenched amidst mountains and hills. I believe the war will run into a war of emancipation, and when it ends African slavery will have ended also. It would not, perhaps, be politic to say so, but if I had the army in my own hands, I would take a short cut to what I am sure will be the end—commence the work of emancipation at once, and leave every foot of ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... were, however, comparatively little disturbed by these perpetual disorders. The mayors and corporations as a rule guided their cities through difficult times with politic shrewdness. Town life developed through flourishing trade and an increasing sense of municipal unity, ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson

... there? I am glad to see Jabaster politic. Hear me, my friend. What my feelings be unto this royal lady, but little matters. Let them pass, and let us view this question by the light wherein you have placed it, the flame of policy and not of passion. I am no traitor to the God of Israel, in whose name I have conquered, and in whose ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... Laboured at proofs and got them sent off, per Mr. Freeling's cover. So there's an end of the Chronicles.[165] James rejoices in the conclusion, where there is battle and homicide of all kinds. Always politic to keep a trot for the avenue, like the Irish postilions. J.B. always calls to the boys to flog before the carriage gets out of the inn-yard. How we have driven the stage I know not and care not—except with a view to extricating my difficulties. I have lost no ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... observance of such laws as ours, I cannot but suppose that all men would admire them on a reflection upon the frequent changes they had therein been themselves subject to; and this while those that have attempted to write somewhat of the same kind for politic government, and for laws, are accused as composing monstrous things, and are said to have undertaken an impossible task upon them. And here I will say nothing of those other philosophers who have undertaken any thing of this nature in their writings. ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... endurance, the sagacity that was without impatience, and the craft that was never at fault. With the ruddy face and unwieldy frame of the Normans other gifts had come to him; he had their sense of strong government and their wisdom; he was laborious, patient, industrious, politic. He never forgot a face he had once seen, nor anything that he heard which he deemed worthy of remembering; where he once loved he never turned to hate, and where he once hated he was never brought to love. Sparing in diet, wasting ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... nations. The most bitter enmity animates the bosoms of all against the Government and people of the United States, from whom, according to their own showing, they have to record injury upon injury; whereas from us they have received but benefits. I repeat, this is at once politic and just. What could Canada have hoped to accomplish in the approaching struggle, had the conduct of the American Government been such as to have neutralized the interest we had excited in, and for ourselves? She must have succumbed; ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... to Dicky Donovan, even if it were the more politic thing to do, even if it were better for England's name. Sowerby was his friend, as men of the same race are friends together in a foreign country. Dicky had a poor opinion of Sowerby's sense or ability, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... died ten months after his election, and the cardinals chose as his successor Cardinal Cossa, who took the name of John XXIII. The Church remained as much divided as before. In 1412 Pope John, who was a shrewd and politic man, opened at Rome a council for the reformation of the Church, but there seems to have been little serious purpose either on the part of John himself or of the ecclesiastics who assembled; and practically nothing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... heaven, nor in hell; partially fallen, capricious, wayward; noble or crafty, benevolent or malicious, as the case might be. These beings gave a sort of inspiration or intelligence to races, nations, and classes of men. Hence the action of bodies politic and associations, which is often so different from that of the individuals who compose them. Hence the character and the instinct of states and governments, of religious communities and communions. I thought these assemblages had their life in certain ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... In that service he came to such consideration that we hear of him as playing a match of chess with the king, and by this game we know that he was still a boy in his mind however mightily his limbs were spreading. Able as he was in sports and huntings, he was yet too young to be politic, but he remained impolitic to the end of his days, for whatever he was able to do he would do, no matter who was offended thereat; and whatever he was not able to do he would ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... central unity of his life-energy is able to rush the white corpuscles to any part that is wounded or poisoned, so the general will, the community-self of the social democratic state, is beginning to direct all the healing agencies in the body politic to the rescue of the unfortunate. Such beneficence and benevolence, systematized and alert, is more than civilization. It is Christianity, it is the doing unto the least of one's fellow-men what self-interest prompts ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit

... supply bills. He took and maintained his position with entire manliness and honesty, and stated his principles with perfect clearness, neither shading nor abating nor coloring by any conciliatory or politic phrase. It was a question of conscience, and he met it point-blank. Many of his critics remained dissatisfied, and it is believed that his course cost the next Whig candidate in the district votes which he could not afford to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... preferment, nor of the great banded provisions forcible whereunto ye be assembled {p.009} and prepared, by whom and to what end God and you know; and nature can fear some evil. But be it that some consideration politic, or whatsoever thing else, hath moved you thereunto; yet doubt ye not, my lords, but we can take all these your doings in gracious part, being also right ready to remit and also pardon the same, with that freely to eschew ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... evidently trying to avoid you this morning; and if a young man has the misfortune to be born your nephew, and also to have expectations from you, it is easy to understand that he would prefer to keep out of your way as long as possible.' But that would have been neither polite nor politic. Moreover, I reflected that I had no particular reason for wishing to do Mr. Harold a bad turn; and that it would be kinder to him, as well as to her, to conceal the reasons on which I based my instinctive inference. So I took ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... Articles do not admit of his recognising the orders of his nonconformist brethren as equal to his own, and this has been set down to pride. Altogether, the Anglican clergyman has been put in a false position, to extricate him from which is taxing all the tact of so politic a prelate ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... sent by Pilate to Herod as a kind of peace-offering. The two had been squabbling about some question of jurisdiction; and so, partly to escape from the embarrassment of having to deal with this enigmatical Prisoner, and partly out of a piece of politic politeness, Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, because He was in his jurisdiction. Think of the Lord of men and angels being handed about from one to the other of these two scoundrels, as a piece ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... well-ordered land wherein each one receives the well-merited reward of toil. Justice was not in the body politic. Tyranny, extravagance and bankruptcy on the part of the ruling class had wiped out the margin of plenty. Black ruin seemed to impend for all. It was a case of starve—or unite against the rulers and oppressors of society. Danton, the thunderer of mighty speech, dominated these gatherings, ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... and go back! his politic Holiness Hath all but climb'd the Roman perch again, And we shall hear him presently with clapt wing Crow over Barbarossa—at last tongue-free To blast my realms with excommunication And interdict. I must patch up a peace— A piece in this long-tugged ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... little grave, surrounded by a picket fence marked by the figure of a kneeling child carved in rough sand stone. As the guest of the Mission School, I made the mistake of asking the mother, herself, whose grave that was. Women, who are neither politicians nor politic, have a plain way of uttering harsh facts. She did not speak about the author of her boy's death in soft words, that little white haired mother. She used a term oftener heard in the purlieus of criminal courts. "To think," she exclaimed bitterly, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... intervals, and one after the other, the now trimly-dressed slaves of this or that plantation—all devoutly bent on the place of meeting. Some of the whites carried their double-barrelled guns, some their rifles—it being deemed politic, at that time, to prepare for all contingencies, for the Indian or for the buck, as well as for the more direct object of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... and it was evident that the war could not last much longer. The danger past, the Colonial aversion to pay Union expenses and to obey the orders of Congress became daily stronger. The want of a "Crisis," as a corrective medicine for the body politic, was so much felt, that Robert Morris, with the knowledge and approbation of Washington, requested Paine to take pen in hand again, offering him, if his private affairs made it necessary, a salary for his services. Paine consented. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... Still, it was not politic to be too quick on the trigger—they could just continue to hang around and be ready to pounce down on their intended prey after the fashion of a hungry eagle striking a fat duck that had been selected out of the flock on ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... beginning to produce the result that the politic chief had intended they should. Better feeling was springing up. The spirit of discontent that had been rife was disappearing. Every day good-fellowship grew more and more between the Willamettes and their allies. Every day Snoqualmie ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... Italian arts; Tudor architecture, in particular, exhibited the originality and splendor of an energetic and self-confident age. Further, both Henries, though perhaps as essentially selfish and tyrannical as almost any of their predecessors, were politic and far-sighted, and they took a genuine pride in the prosperity of their kingdom. They encouraged trade; and in the peace which was their best gift the well-being of the nation as a whole increased ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... might only be indulg'd to inrich, and adorn their palaces with tapestry, damask, velvet, and Persian furniture; whilst by some wholesome sumptuary laws, the universal excess of those costly and luxurious moveables, were prohibited meaner men, for divers politic considerations and reasons, which it were easie to produce; but by a less influence than severer laws, it will be very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to recover our selves from a softness and vanity, which will in time not only effeminate, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... these presents for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, will, ordain and grant, that the said Governors, Principal and Fellows, and their Successors, forever shall be one distinct and separate body politic and corporate in deed and in word, by the name and style of 'The Governors, Principal and Fellows of McGill College, at Montreal, in the said Province of Lower Canada,' and that by the same name they shall have perpetual succession, and a common seal, ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... government is apparent. A horn does not signify a horn, but some great power, such as a dynasty of kings or rulers; and what the horn is to the animal in manifesting its desolating disposition, kings and rulers are to an empire in executing the persecuting or oppressive principles of the body politic. A pure, chaste virgin is used to symbolize the true church of God; whereas a corrupt harlot is chosen to represent an apostate church, and fornication ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... compromise it, and might by any indiscretion on his part easily be made to annoy and vex the ministers. It therefore behooved him to make himself as little as possible conspicuous in any official or public way. A rebuke, a cold reception, might do serious harm; nor was it politic to bring perplexities to those whose friendship he sought. He could not avoid, nor had he any reason to do so, the social eclat with which he was greeted; but he must shun the ostentation of any relationship with men in office. This would be more easily accomplished by living ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... Mrs. Judson's politic mind seeing the probable importance to the mission of making friends in high places, she procured an introduction to the wife of the viceroy, and, while visiting her, met the viceroy also. After giving an interesting account of the visit, she adds: ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... Sacramento Street, and like himself had been thrown out of work when the firm had "smashed." Since that affair Hamar had studiously avoided them. It was true he had once been as friendly with them as he deemed it politic to be friendly with any one; but now—they were out of employment, and in danger of starvation. That made all the difference. He did not believe in poverty encouraging poverty, any more than he believed in charity among beggars. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... the hand that held his cigar airily towards the ceiling. "Just inbreeding, sir, inbreeding. That's what did it. We Americans, are profiting by the experience of the centuries and are going to take in fresh blood just as fast as it can attain to an arterial circulation in the body politic, sir; an arterial circulation, I say—" the Colonel was apt to roll a fine phrase more than once under his tongue when the sound thereof pleased him,—"and in the course of nature—I agree perfectly with the late Judge Champney ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... to have taken possession of our public men, that the people wanted doctors of the body-politic to rule over them, and, if those were not to be had, would put up with the next best thing,—quacks. Every one who was willing to be an Eminent Statesman issued his circulars, like the Retired Physician, on all public occasions, offering to send his recipe in return for a vote. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... considerable power, and the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan, Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the cause of liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious projects, judged it more politic, after sowing the seed of discord at Campo Formio, to withdraw a while, in order to await the ripening of the plot and to return to reap the result. He, accordingly, went meantime, A.D. 1798, with a small but well-picked army to Egypt, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... because I think that, from political as well as moral considerations, she is unfit for, indeed incapacitated from, the performance of most of the duties which are now performed by men as members of the body politic; but there are many avocations and professions now exclusively occupied by men which women are as well, perhaps better fitted to fill. I hope these will soon be thrown open to an ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... representative of the Queen. This was bad—very bad. Coming solely from the Ottomans, it might have signified only Ottoman hatred of Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to genteel methods of expressing it; but coming from the Christianized, educated, politic British legation, it simply intimated that we were a sort of gentlemen and ladies who would bear watching! So the party regarded it, and were incensed accordingly. The truth doubtless was, that the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a selfish and politic standpoint, it is to our interest to make the best of everybody. We cannot always pick and choose our associates in the school of life, and must frequently be thrown with people whom we do not "take ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... out the wine; you 'aven't got the brass in times like these. I dare say you've noticed, sir, that the times is favourable for bringing out the spots on the body politic. 'Ere's 'ealth!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Scott," said Mr. Dwyer, who was too excited to be polite or politic. "You know our being here isn't a matter of choice. We came here on business, as you did, and you've no right to ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Ahithophel from the conspiracy certainly would do. As the time went on, too, it became increasingly obvious that the leaders of the rebellion were "infirm of purpose," and that every day of respite from actual fighting diminished their chances of success, as that politic adviser saw so plainly. Whatever may have been the reason, it is clear that by the time David had reached Mahanaim he had resolved not to yield without a struggle. He girds on his sword once more with some of the animation of early days, and the light of trustful valour ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... rule itself that a majority of votes shall prevail can only be established by agreement, that is, by compact, Mr. Adams controverts, maintaining in opposition to it that the social compact constituting the body-politic is, and by the law of nature must be, a compact not merely of individuals, but of families. On this view of the subject he largely animadverts. The philosophical examination of the foundations of civil society, of human governments, and of the rights and duties of man, he ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... was to be entrusted to the High Constable. The men had been carefully chosen. They were armed with rifles and revolvers, and their orders were to shoot Morrison, if, when accosted, he should refuse to surrender. Major Dugas' plan was eminently politic. He first wanted to conciliate the people, and then induce them to bring such pressure upon Donald as would induce him to surrender upon being promised a fair trial. "This," said the Major to the leading men of the place, ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... tyrant's invitation to return for the week-end and his sister's birthday with no hesitation whatever; and his letter of acceptance was so politic ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... performed, the Senate was convened, and Nero appeared before them to make his inaugural address. This address also, was of course prepared for him by Seneca, under directions from Agrippina, who, after revolving the subject fully in her mind, had determined what it would be most politic to say. She knew very well that until the power of her son became consolidated and settled, it became him to be modest in his pretensions and claims, and to profess great deference and respect for the powers ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... "The body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals; it is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen and each citizen with the whole people that all shall be governed by certain laws for the ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... dishes, while his wife washes them, there is no better time for friendly confidences, and for the arrangement of difficulties. Diplomatists win their greatest battles for peace at the dinner-table, because the dinner-table gives abundant opportunity for the "interruption politic." When the argument reaches the fatal climax, and the final ultimatum is delivered, a boiled potato may still avert war: "Now, me lud, I ask you finally, will your government, or won't it? That is the question," and from the opposing diplomat come the words, "Beg pardon, your ludship, but ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... we know you are politic, Master Richard," was the sneering reply, "but you need not fear my quarrelling with your citizen friends. I would not be the man to face Prince Edward if I had made too free with any of ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Dutch families, on a fine bend of the Thames, we passed in the woods a dead horse, and found some friends at Chatham, who told us that it had dropped down from the intense heat. Those scavengers of Canada, the pigs, were like certain politic worms already busily at work on the carcase, in which indeed ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... feelings towards the union, than those with which he had first proposed the measure to Raymond Berenger. It was then a mere match of interest and convenience, which had occurred to the mind of a proud and politic feudal lord, as the best mode of consolidating the power and perpetuating the line of his family. Nor did even the splendour of Eveline's beauty make that impression upon De Lacy, which it was calculated to do on the fiery and impassioned chivalry of the age. He was past that period ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... larger army they could have done nothing more. They might have made more frequent and more sanguinary forays into the country, but the result of the campaign would have been the same. It was neither possible nor politic for the Americans in the Revolution to assemble large bodies of troops; therefore, the presence of twenty, or even fifty, thousand men, would not have been a matter of great ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... the hideous contradiction of slavery, which ate like a black ulcer into a part of our body politic, the Democratic ideal not only prevailed, but came to be taken for granted as a heaven-revealed truth, which only fools would question or dispute. In Europe, the monarchs of the Old Regime made a desperate rally and put down Napoleon, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... passion. We revolt from the red aphides upon the plant, the caterpillar upon the tree, the vermin upon bird or beast. How much more do we revolt from those human vermin whose business it is to propagate parasites upon the body politic! The condemnation of life is that a man consumes more than he produces, taking out of society's granary that which other hands have put in. The praise of life is that one is self-sufficing, taking less out than he put ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... which have been written, I applied myself for a space to the worship of the Mother Isis, and to the further study of the outward forms of those mysteries to which I now held the key. Moreover, I was instructed in matters politic, for many great men of our following came secretly to see me from all quarters of Egypt, and told me much of the hatred of the people towards Cleopatra, the Queen, and of other things. At last the hour drew nigh; it was three months and ten days from the night when, for a while, I left ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... wrong. It's the cant of the day to underrate the House of Commons, and the work which it performs; don't you suffer yourself to join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be better employed than in endeavouring to improve the body politic.' ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... giving the financial body a little griping in its gold-lined tummy, which is only the salutary effect of purging, a surgical operation will be required. It will be something like one they performed on the body politic of France not so long ago. Old Dr. Guillotine officiated. It was quite a successful operation, though the patient failed ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... views, by his apparent abilities and successes; others had felt the suddenness and unexpected severity of his midnight blows, and thought the step of uniting with him would be the most prudent or politic. From the operation of both sentiments, the people of that tract of country, on a line, stretching from Camden across to the mouth of Black creek, on Pedee, including generally both banks of the Wateree, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... by his assurances, but it was thought politic to pretend to believe them. The Marquis of Wellesley's term of office had expired, and a successor had come out, with orders to carry out a policy differing widely from that which he had followed. The latter had enormously ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... country resumed with astonishing celerity the interrupted process of economic expansion. The germs of a severe disease, to which the Fathers of the Republic had given a place in the national Constitution, and which had been allowed to flourish, because of the lack of wholesome cohesion in the body politic—this alien growth had been cut out by a drastic surgical operation, and the robust patient soon recovered something like his normal health. Indeed, being in his own opinion even more robust than he was before the crisis, he was more eager than ever to convert ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... discussion and action to rectify. He did not abolish from the courts the use of Persian, the language of the old Mussulman invaders, now foreign to all parties; and he excluded from all offices above L30 a year the natives of the country, contrary to their fair and politic practice. Bengal and its millions, in truth, were nominally governed in detail by three hundred white and upright civilians, with the inevitable result in abuses which they could not prevent, and ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... in stone and metal and color to the future." "In her throes of agony she kept always within her that love of the ideal, impersonal, consecrate, void of greed, which is the purification of the individual life and the regeneration of the body politic." "Her great men drew their inspiration from the very air they breathed, and the men who knew they were not great had the patience and unselfishness to do their minor work for her zealously and perfectly." The workmen who chiseled the stones and the boys who ground ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... Cairo, ready to embark up the Tennessee River by the 20th or 30th of April at the very furthest. I wish it could be done quicker; but the promise of those thirty-days furloughs in the States of enlistment, though politic, is very unmilitary. It deprives us of our ability to calculate as to time; but do the best you can. Hurlbut can do nothing till A. J. Smith returns from Red River. I will then order him to occupy ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... plantations, and provinces of North America." The Commissioners were to be five in number, and were invested with extensive powers; they were to raise no difficulties as to the rank or title of the leaders on either side, but were left at liberty to treat, consult, and agree with any body or bodies politic, or any person or persons whatsoever; they might proclaim a cessation of hostilities on the part of the King's forces by sea or land, for any time, or under any conditions or restrictions; they might suspend any Act of Parliament relating to America ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... the law into either natural persons, or artificial. Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us: artificial are such as created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government; which are called corporations or bodies politic. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... the state of degradation to which centuries of Brahman domination have condemned them, the reforms may prove to have been perhaps as important a landmark in the moral regeneration of Hindu society as in the development of the Indian body politic. For, though it would be unfair to forget that the rigidity of the great caste system probably alone saved Hindu society from complete disintegration during centuries of internal anarchy and foreign invasions, its survival would be fatal now to the advancement of India on ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... passengers and see that no boat receives a greater number than the law allows her to carry. This conveniently-blind representative saw the scow receive a number which was far in excess of its privilege, and winked a politic wink and said nothing. The passengers bore with meekness the cheat which had been put upon them, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the emblem of politic revenge, for it biteth first, and barketh afterwards; the bullet being at the mark before the report is heard, so that it maketh a noise, not by way of warning, ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... in riot and rebellion. The insurrection of Daniel Shays and his followers in Massachusetts, the disturbances in western North Carolina and other outbreaks in various parts of the country were but symptoms of radical weakness in the body politic, and of the complete failure of the loose-jointed confederation to command the confidence of the people and maintain the credit of the nation. It became evident that union was as vitally important in peace as in war; ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... is very usual with the human mind to substitute forwardness and fervency in a particular cause for the merit of general and regular morality; and it is natural, and politic also, in the leader of a sect or party, to encourage such a disposition in his followers. Christ did not overlook this turn of thought; yet, though avowedly placing himself at the head of a new institution, he notices it only ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... of revolution. For that we should have to go to some one less unwilling to "disturb the system of life." But for ordinary times, and in the vast majority of matters all times are ordinary, Johnson is the man. The Prime Minister is not the whole of the body politic, of course: and there are purposes for which we need people with more turn than Johnson for starting and pressing new ideas: but these will come best from below the gangway; and they will be none the worse in the end for having had to undergo ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... the right of property* by appropriating to public uses such portions of it as are needed for the maintenance, convenience, and well-being of the body politic. This is done, in the first place, by taxation, which—in order to be just—must be equitable in its mode of assessment, and not excessive in amount. As to the modes of assessment, it is obvious that a system which lightens the burden ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... that sacred water. The inhabitants of rivulets and brooks not within my boundary are beyond the pale of Fawley civilization, to be snared and slaughtered like Caifres, red men, or any other savages, for whom we bait with a missionary and whom we impale on a bayonet. But I regard my lake as a politic community, under the protection of the law, and leave its denizens to devour each other, as Europeans, fishes, and other cold-blooded creatures wisely do, in order to check the overgrowth of population. To fatten one pike ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... EAST INDIES.[75] By which stile, or legal denomination, George Earl of Cumberland, Sir John Hart, Sir John Spencer, and Sir Edward Mitchelburne, knights, with 212 others, whose names are all inserted in the patent, were erected into a body corporate and politic, for trading to and from all parts of the East Indies, with all Asia, Africa, and America, and all the islands, ports, havens, cities, creeks, towns, and places of the same, or any of them, beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan, for fifteen years, from and after Christmas 1600; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... that a change was coming over Hempel. The model employee was a shade less prompt than heretofore to fly at his word, and once or twice seemed actually to be studying his own convenience. Without knowing what the matter was, Mahony felt it politic not to be over-exacting—even mildly to conciliate his assistant. It would put him in an awkward fix, now that he was on the verge of winding up affairs, should Hempel take it in his head to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... similarly, a man who possesses arbitrary power is soon corrupted, and grows hateful to his dearest friends. In order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, ...
— Laws • Plato

... nature, as well as the ravages of time. I shall not enquire at present, whether it is just and honest to impose in this manner on mankind: if it is not honest, it may be allowed to be artful and politic, and shews, at least, a desire of being agreeable. But to lay it on as the fashion in France prescribes to all the ladies of condition, who indeed cannot appear without this badge of distinction, is to disguise themselves in such a manner, as to render them odious and detestable to every ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... instinctive good sense had broken down a barrier which men thrice their age and repute would probably have felt it imperative to maintain. But perhaps this was premature: the omnipotent Miss Power's character—practical or ideal, politic or impulsive—he as yet knew nothing of; and giving over reasoning from insufficient data ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... condition that he played at no concert before he played in New York. And in order to reach New York in time for the first concert, it was imperative that he should catch the Touraine at Havre. I was to follow in a few days by a Hamburg-American liner. Diaz had judged it more politic that we should not travel together. In this he ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... dramatic form a compendium of my indictments of the present from a purely political standpoint, the old play of Snt George occurred to me as having exactly the framework I needed. In the person of the Turkish Knight I could embody that howling chaos which does duty among us for a body-politic. The English Knight would accordingly be the Liberal Party, whose efforts (whenever it is in favor with the electorate) to reduce chaos to order by emulating in foreign politics the blackguardism of a Metternich or Bismarck, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... who, having left the bench to become a corporation lawyer, seeks to aid his clients by denouncing as enemies of property all those who seek to stop the abuses of the criminal rich; such a man performs an even worse service to the body politic than the Legislator or Executive who goes wrong. In no way can respect for the courts be so quickly undermined as by teaching the public through the action of a judge himself that there is reason for the loss of such respect. The judge who ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... mercy of Bonaparte, who advanced as far as Tolentino, thirty miles south of Ancona. Here the Pope tendered his submission. If the Roman Court had never appeared to be in a more desperate condition, it had never found a more moderate or a more politic conqueror. Bonaparte was as free from any sentiment of Christian piety as Nero or Diocletian; but he respected the power of the Papacy over men's minds, and he understood the immense advantage which any Government of France supported by the priesthood would ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... very politic with a man who was so surly, and too powerful to make an enemy of. What if he made up his mind to imitate the redoubtable Mirambo, King of Uyoweh! The effect of my munificent liberality was soon seen in the abundance of provender which came to my ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... believes that any government not founded on these principles is illegitimate, resting merely on force and not on right. A nation thus wrongly governed is but an aggregation, not an association. It is without public weal or body politic. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... barbarians had been more or less transmuted before their actual irruption into the Empire. If they treated all the rest of mankind as their prey, this was the international law of heathendom, modified only by a politic humanity in the case of the Imperial Roman, who preferred enduring dominion to blood and booty. With Christianity came the idea, even now imperfectly realized, of the brotherhood of man. The Northmen were a memorable race, and English character, especially its maritime element, received in them ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... in Miss Tresilyan's apartments. Mr. Fullarton represented the male element there, and was in great force. The late accession to his flock had decidedly raised his spirits: he knew how materially it would strengthen his hands; but, independently of all politic consideration, Cecil's grace and beauty exercised a powerful influence over him. Do not misconstrue this. I believe a thought had never crossed his mind relating to any living woman that his own wife might not have known ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... assertion were not strictly true, it was, at all events, politic, for the cool indifference of the tradesman increased the baron's confidence in him tenfold. The following day he went to town, and had a consultation with his lawyer, who strongly advised him to give up the idea of ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... so—' she was about to say 'objectionable,' but she recollected her official position and that she was bound to be politic—'so odd and unusual,' observed Mrs Greatorex to Mrs Tubbs afterwards, 'is not that Miss Hopgood should have radical views. Mrs Barker, I know, is a radical like her husband, but then she never puts herself forward, nor makes speeches. I never saw anything ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... Gustavus, all hearts are opened by his gracious manner, his winning words, his sunny smile. To the people accustomed to a war of massacre and persecution he came as from a better world a spirit of humanity and toleration. His toleration was politic no doubt but it was also sincere. So novel was it that a monk finding himself not butchered or tortured thought the king's faith must be weak and attempted his conversion. His zeal was repaid with a gracious ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... course, is the chief object of the Church—that the clergy are always distressed by a failure on such occasions. In July, 1829, such a failure was aggravated by the spirit of party which envenomed every detail in the life of the body politic. The liberal party rejoiced in the expectation that the priest-party (a term invented by Montlosier, a royalist who went over to the constitutionals, and was dragged by them far beyond his wishes),—that the priests would fail ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... insight. He possessed a febrile energy and an earnest desire to serve the common weal. Such was the physician chosen by the British government to cure the cankers of misrule and disaffection in the body politic of Canada. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... teachers of the churches they delated and accused before magistrates, as if they alone did continually perturb the church's peace and tranquillity, and did only labour that the divided churches might never again piously grow together, and by this calumny they persuaded politic and civil men (who did not well enough understand this business), that the godly teachers of the churches should be cast forth into exile, and the Arian wolves should be sent into the sheepfolds of Christ." Now, forasmuch as God hath said, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... beloved than the feeble, monk-ridden monarch he had deposed; and if it came to be a question of abstract right, none could dispute the superiority of the claim of the House of York. Edward was the descendant of the elder branch of the family of Edward the Third. It was only the politic reign of the fourth Henry, and the brilliant reign of the fifth, which had given to the House of Lancaster its kingly title. Men would probably never have thought of disputing the sixth Henry's sway had he held the sceptre firmly ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... not stand up for the cause they had been fighting for. A feeble; attenuated old man, who wore the Rebel uniform, if such it could be called, stood by without showing any sign of intelligence. It was cutting very close to the bone to carve such a shred of humanity from the body politic ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... which he would have wished very much in order to discover much more land, and says that it is all full of very beautiful islands, much populated, and very high lands and valleys and plains, and all are very large. The people are much more politic than those of Espanola and warlike, and there are handsome houses. If the Admiral had seen the kingdom of Xaragua as did his brother the Adelantado and the court of the King Behechio[345-1] he would not have made so absolute ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... be made and preserved truly republican in form by the enfranchisement of woman, the great reforms which her ballot would accomplish may never be; the demoralization and disintegration now proceeding in the body politic are not likely soon to be arrested. Corruption of the male suffrage is already a well-nigh fatal disease; intemperance has no sufficient foe in the law-making power; a republican form of government can ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... was standing in the courtyard with a cigar between his teeth, examining a pair of horses which had been sent him on approbation. He did not like his wife's friend, and he usually avoided her. But precisely because he was acquainted with the General's crime and Pascal's plans, he thought it politic to seem amiable. So, on recognizing Madame de Fondege through the carriage window, he hastened forward with outstretched hand to assist her in alighting. "Did you come to take breakfast with us?" he asked. "That would ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... attentions, just dealings, and active aid in war; but they got them in scant measure. Their treatment by the province was short-sighted, if not ungrateful. New York was a mixture of races and religions not yet fused into a harmonious body politic, divided in interests and torn with intestine disputes. Its Assembly was made up in large part of men unfitted to pursue a consistent scheme of policy, or spend the little money at their disposal on any objects but those of present and visible interest. The royal governors, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... title-page; it would be suicide and madness. Treat with General Tom Thumb, Mr. Hood, for the use of his name on any terms. If the gallant general should decline to treat with you, get Mr. Barnum's name, which is the next best in the market. And when, through this politic course, you shall have received, in presents, a richly jewelled set of tablets from Buckingham Palace, and a gold watch and appendages from Marlborough House; and when those valuable trinkets shall be left under a glass case at your publisher's ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... the fence, refrain from expressing their opinions, deal in glittering generalities, because of their cowardly fears. How they turn their sails to catch every breath of popular favor. How cautious, politic, wary, they are, and how fears worry and besiege them, whenever they accidentally or incidentally say something that can be interpreted as a positive conviction. And yet men really love a brave man in political life; one who has definite convictions and fearlessly ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... unless there is something singular or fine in their appearance. The common parts are unobserved, yet as important as the small words used in the common construction of language, the vehicle of thought. As the apostle says of the body politic, "those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary;" so the words least understood by grammarians are most necessary in the ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... the individual person of each contracting party, this deed of association produces a moral and collective body, consisting of as many members as there are votes in the Assembly. This public personality is usually called the body politic, which is called by its members the State when it is passive, and the Sovereign when it is active, and a Power when compared with its equals. With regard to the members themselves, collectively they ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... but with senates and princes less; and more, ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action, than soon after; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body—men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out. Nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made the people believe ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... winked at Corny to intimate that this disposition of the matter was not satisfactory; but, as they were expecting a fine sail in the schooner, they had been politic enough to keep silence. Now they looked from one to another, for they did not like to say just ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic

... that, from a eugenic point of view, the essential element in segregation is not so much isolation from society, but separation of the two sexes. Properly operated, segregation increases the happiness of the individuals segregated, as well as working to the advantage of the body politic. In most cases the only objection to it is the expense, and this, as we have shown, need not be an insuperable difficulty. For these reasons, we believe that segregation is the best way in which to restrict the reproduction ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... either of himself think it politic to keep me out of office so long, or he may be satisfied with such slight reasons, or so many accidents may make him think my re-admission at that time improper, that ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... suited to one great market. Her commerce, instead of running in a great number of small channels, has been taught to run principally in one great channel. But the whole system of her industry and commerce has thereby been rendered less secure, the whole state of her body politic less healthful than it otherwise would have been. In her present condition, Great Britain resembles one of those unwholesome bodies in which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and which, upon that account, are liable to many dangerous ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... Second Wrangler, Cambridge; Dean of Ely. A very politic bishop. In one of his sermons he used words to the effect that "he was as high as the church was high, as low as the church was low, and as broad as the church was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley

... an adequate basis for government. Here, as elsewhere, Johnson hated all speculation which raised the fundamental questions. What he did not see was the important truth that in no age are fundamental questions raised save where the body politic is diseased. Rousseau and Voltaire, even Priestley and Price, require something more for answer than unreasoned prejudice. Johnson's attitude would have been admirable where there were no questions ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... artfulness surprising in one of his type. At no time did he openly denounce the "government." He was very careful about that. A jesting word here, a derisive smile there, a shrug of the shoulders,—and in good time others less politic than himself began to do the talking. Others began to complain of the high-handed, dictatorial manner in which Percival and his friends ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... was in a minute since!" said the politic Rob, who knew very well that my grandfather had climbed into the bark storage loft, and was at that moment sitting on a bundle, with a book in his hand and content in his heart at having escaped the last injunctions of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... that speculations upon these things have ever done harm or become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not the speculations, but the folly and the tyranny of checking them. You must lay the blame on those who would not permit men having their own speculations ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... ceased to be known under any other denomination than that of Dyppe, a Norman word, expressive of the depth of water in its harbor. Under Rollo, we are told that Dieppe became the principal port in the duchy. That politic sovereign was too well versed in nautical affairs, not to be aware of the importance of such a station; and he had the interest of his newly-acquired territory too much at heart, not to labor at the improving of ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... hastened to pay his meed of respect to Marianne when he met her. There was no necessity to stand on ceremony with him. He knew all her secrets. Such a man, more-ever, must be treated prudently, as he can make himself useful. Never had Jouvenet spoken to her of Vaudrey, he was too politic in matters of state. But as a man who knows that everything in this world is transient, he skilfully maintained his place in the ranks, considering that a Prefect of Police might not be at all unlikely to succeed a President ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... life than what the mimic images in playhouses present us with. Even those types have waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We are superannuated. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction, we contract politic alliances with shadows. It is good to have friends at court. The abstracted media of dreams seem no ill introduction to that spiritual presence, upon which, in no long time, we expect to be thrown. We are trying to know a little of the usages of that colony; to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... that the men felt repaid for the tiresome wait of months. The civic commander-in-chief watched the movements with affable scrutiny, surrounded by a profusely uniformed staff, to whom he expressed the most politic approval. He was heard to remark that no such soldiers had been seen on this continent since Scott ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... beginning to despair. He may have scanned the meager forces at his disposal and felt that he was asking the gods for more than they could grant. A few minutes earlier he had put forth the suave suggestion that Hozier should be given the speediest chance of securing the girl's safety. That was politic; perhaps his stanch nerve was yielding to the strain, now that the two islanders were gone on their doubtful quest. Be that as it may, his attitude did not encourage light conversation. Even Coke withheld some jibe at the unfortunate mate's ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... are perished." Religion were nothing but a number of empty words of show, preaching were a vanity and imposture, faith were a mere fancy, if this be not laid down as the ground stone,—Christ raised, not as a natural person, but as a common politic person, as the first-fruits of them that sleep, ver. 17-20, where he alludes to the ceremony of offering the first-fruits of their harvest, Lev. xxiii. 10. For under the law they might not eat of the fruits of the land ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... with it; we must do something about it, whether we will or not. We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot avoid considering; we can no more avoid it than a man can live without eating. It is upon us; it attaches to the body politic as much and closely as the natural wants attach to our natural bodies. Now I think it important that this matter should be taken up in earnest, and really settled: And one way to bring about a true settlement of the question is ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... Macedonia's madman to the Swede; The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make, an enemy of all mankind? Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes; Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat; 'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great: Who wickedly is wise, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... time in thought, when I joined the staff of the Daily Gazette, I really was essentially of it. Even my obscure work as reporter very soon brought me into close contact with some of the dreadful sores which disfigured the body social and politic at that time. But do you think they taught me anything? No more than they taught the blindest racer after money in all London. They moved me, moved me deeply; they stirred the very foundations of my being; for ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... overcoat with its multitude of capes, the sour expression of his face, something abrupt and at the same time indifferent in his behaviour, his way of speaking through his teeth, his sudden wooden laugh, the absence of smiles, his exclusively political or politic-economical conversation, his passion for roast beef and port wine—everything about him breathed, so to speak, of Great Britain. But, marvelous to relate, while he had been transformed into an Anglomaniac, Ivan Petrovitch had at the same time become a patriot, at least he called himself a patriot, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... sat at the head of a table on which were scattered maps and papers; nor in countenance and mien did that great and politic monarch seem unworthy of the brilliant chivalry by which he was surrounded. His black hair, richly perfumed and anointed, fell in long locks on either side of a high imperial brow, upon whose calm, though not unfurrowed surface, the physiognomist would in vain have sought to read the inscrutable ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... confidential tone, addressed to a clique of his friends, the jobbers, whom he joined at the lower end of the room, "you are all aware that my fellows are staunch Orangemen, every one of them, and the government itself feels, for I have reason to know it, that it is neither politic or prudent to check the spirit which is now abroad among them; so far from that, I can tell you it is expected that we should stimulate and increase it, until the times change. The bills against these men must, therefore, be ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... There can be no doubt in any mind, even in the minds of those with whom the hon. member now at the bar usually acts, that of all methods of argument which could be employed in this House, he has selected the least politic. Sir, may I be permitted, with great deference, to say a word upon a remark that fell from the Chair, and which might be misunderstood? Solitary and anomalous instances of this kind could never be legitimately ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... Louis, was the best, and one of the most vigorous rulers, since the time of Charlemagne. Both these princesses ruled in a manner hardly equalled by any prince among their contemporaries. The emperor Charles the Fifth, the most politic prince of his time, who had as great a number of able men in his service as a ruler ever had, and was one of the least likely of all sovereigns to sacrifice his interest to personal feelings, made two princesses of his family successively Governors of the Netherlands, ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... tell the politic arts To take and keep men's hearts; The letters, embassies, and spies, The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries, The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, Numberless, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... is not the dialect of my soul. It is a sort of postponement of life; nothing quite is, but something different is to be; we are to keep our eyes upon the indirect from the cradle to the grave. We are to regulate our conduct not by desire, but by a politic eye upon the future; and to value acts as they will bring us money or good opinion; as they will bring us, in one word, profit. We must be what is called respectable, and offend no one by our carriage; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, flustered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... (who was fully aware of the importance of maintaining the peace of Europe, which must necessarily be endangered by a renewal of the intestine troubles in France) would both readily facilitate by every means in their power so politic and so desirable ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... majority. The very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to restrain the majority. Constitutions, therefore, according to their theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty. None ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority. This theory is a remorseless despotism. In resisting it, as applicable to ourselves, we are vindicating the great ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... Holiness, of Temperance, and of Chastity. Those published in 1596, contain the legends of Friendship, of Justice, and of Courtesy. The posthumous cantos are entitled, Of Mutability, and are said to be apparently parcel of a legend of Constancy. The poem which was to treat of the "politic" virtues was never approached. Thus we have but a fourth part of the whole of the projected work. It is very doubtful whether the remaining six books were completed. But it is probable that a portion of ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... Vy should we lif here in captivity? Vy we shall not have our own state—and our own President, a man who combine deep politic vid knowledge of Hebrew literature and de pen of a poet. No, let us fight to get back our country—ve vill not hang our harps on the villows of Babylon and veep—ve vill take our swords vid Ezra ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... are famous for travels, Will Sherwood for sporting and fun, Old Ridgway the science unravels How politic ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... the evil passions of the outlaw to the highest pitch, he judged it prudent to moderate them again; an explosion at that moment would not have been politic on his part. A murder committed before his face, even though he had not ordered it either by word or gesture, would at least exhibit a certain complicity with the assassin, and deprive him of that authority which he ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... inconsistency almost their first act, while it secured to one-half the people of the body politic the right to tax and govern themselves, subjected the other half to the very oppression which had culminated in the rebellion of the colonies, "taxation without representation," and the inflictions of an authority to which they had not given their consent. The constitutional provision ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... you, Inspector," said I, persuasively, "is it politic of you to allow it to be said that you refused an authorised representative of the family facilities for verifying any statements that you may ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... conditions under which it must prove a survivor. The conditions which Spain created here to mould Filipino character were mediaeval, monarchical, and reactionary. The aristocracy is a land-holding one, untrained in the responsibilities of land-holders who grow up a legitimate part of the body politic of their country. Previous to American occupation the aristocracy was excluded from any share in the government, and the Spaniards were exceedingly jealous of any pretensions to knowledge or culture on its part. The aristocracy ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... churches, asylums, charities, and the beginnings of literature, science, and art. In one of the schools he found them debating "whether Congress was right in ordering Major Andre to be executed." Lest some might think Carleton lacking in love to "Our Old Home," we quote, "It is neither politic, wise, nor honest to instill into the youthful mind animosity towards England or any other nation, especially for acts committed nearly ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... His father was a pioneer. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" reveal clearly his conception that democracy should have an agricultural basis, and that manufacturing development and city life were dangerous to the purity of the body politic. Simplicity and economy in government, the right of revolution, the freedom of the individual, the belief that those who win the vacant lands are entitled to shape their own government in their own way,—these are all parts of the platform of political ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... home. All the generals and a yoke of oxen couldn't 'a' kept him in camp, he was so homesick—lovesick too, I guess. Powerful compliment to you, Miss Susie," added the politic cobbler, feeling his way, "that you could draw a man straight from his duty like one of these ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... now absolved from all such responsibility; and the more so, that the conviction of the importance of the object is come upon them with such a new and cogent force? When they say, reproachfully, that the nation, as a body politic, concentrating its powers in its government, disowns or neglects a most important duty, is it to be understood that this accusatory testimony is their share, or something equivalent in substitution for their share, of that very duty? Does a collective ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster



Words linked to "Politic" :   diplomatical, bland, sagacious, smooth, suave



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