"Prudential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should be assailed and murdered on their way to protect the capital of the nation. In Maryland, where the secession party was strong, there was also great excitement, and the Governor of the State and the Mayor of Baltimore united in urging, for prudential reasons, that no more troops should be brought through that city." In answer to the remonstrances of Governor Hicks and a committee from Maryland, who presented their petition in person, Lincoln, intent on avoiding every cause of offense, and with a forbearance that now seems incredible, replied: ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the tyrant, he had given their towns and villages to the flames, and put the whole country, thus resisting, under military execution.—Setting aside all natural sympathy with the Portugueze and Spanish nations, and all prudential considerations of regard or respect for their feelings towards these men, and for their expectations concerning the manner in which they ought to be dealt with, it is plain that the French had forfeited by their crimes all right to those privileges, or to those modes of intercourse, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... state one very recent occurrence, because it seems to us, that it alone is almost decisive of the controversy. A counsellor of Quebec—his name is omitted merely from delicacy and prudential considerations—has been in New York since the publication of the "Awful Disclosures" His mind was so much influenced by the perusal of that volume, that he sought out the Authoress, and most closely ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... been growing desperate for some time, had now actually become so to poor Somers. He placed his hand upon his revolver, in the breast-pocket of his coat; but some prudential considerations interposed to prevent him from using it. The house was on a line of rebel sentinels. Whole divisions of Confederate infantry, artillery and cavalry, were encamped around him, and any violent movement on his part would ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... direction to its improvement which the governments of Massachusetts and Maine, respectively, may see fit to give to their agents. The rights of soil and jurisdiction over it are in the States, and forbearance to the exercise of these rights for a season, from mere prudential considerations, a respectful regard to the wishes of the General Government, or amity toward a foreign nation is not to be construed into a readiness to surrender them upon the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden; so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude—the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of its extinction; for its life was but a feverish existence, and its florid complexion carried with it the seeds of its dissolution. Stuart at length quarrelled with his coadjutor, Smellie, for altering his reviews. Smellie's prudential dexterity was such, that, in an article designed to level Lord Kaimes with Lord Monboddo, the whole libel was completely metamorphosed into a panegyric. They were involved in a lawsuit about "a blasphemous paper." And now the enraged Zoilus ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... forgiveness of injuries. So the younger boy concluded that his leader was afraid of Jasper. But here he did him wrong. Thorne had learned to respect his adversary's strength and skill, but he would have hazarded a second encounter but for the prudential reasons already suggested. For the present he thought it ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... a little of your soul in his. What grievances can he have against me? I can imagine but two. Sunday last, near three o'clock, we were both at the window. He commenced a very animated speech by signs, and prolonged it far beyond the prudential limits which I have prescribed to him. He spoke, I believe, about Soliman, and of a walk which he had refused to take with Ivan. I did not pay close attention, for I was occupied in looking round to see that no one was watching us. Suddenly I saw on the slope of the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... names; and conducted himself, in short, like a model of caution and tact. Prince N—— was in general a man of lively manners, sociable and genial by inclination, and in this case incidentally from prudential motives also; he could not fail to be a complete ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... street, while they were supposed to be in the shop, or the show-room. He then went on to say that he had only this morning heard that the intimacy between Mrs. Woffington and a Colonel Murthwaite, although publicly broken off for prudential reasons, was still clandestinely carried on. She had, doubtless, slipped away to meet ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... nothing was resolved on. To the quiet and respectful silence of expectation, now succeeded a low and half subdued muttering of discontent; groups of five or six together were seen along the deck, talking with eagerness and animation, and it was easy to see that whatever prudential or cautious reasons dictated to the leaders, their arguments found little sympathy with the soldiers of the expedition. I almost began to fear that if a determination to abandon the exploit were come to, a mutiny might break out, when my attention was drawn off by an order to accompany Colonel ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... they show that prudential or party motives led some at least of the Girondins, formerly friends of England, to desire an extension ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... past. It might have been something quite inconceivable in the present state of their being; but their souls remembered the animosity and manifested an instinctive antagonism. He developed his theme jocularly. Yet the affair was so absurd from the worldly, the military, the honourable, or the prudential point of view, that this weird explanation seemed rather more reasonable ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Creator, and it is reasonable that all His gifts should be used to His glory, that all our faculties should co-operate in His worship; but they are to co-operate according to the will of Him that gave them, according to the order which His wisdom has established. As ceremonies prudential or convenient are less obligatory than positive ordinances, as bodily worship is only the token to others or ourselves of mental adoration, so Fancy is always to act in subordination to Reason. We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... a man for snatching a little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms; for in this case there can be no artificial increase of food, and no prudential restraint from marriage. Although some species may be now increasing, more or less rapidly, in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... life, and upon the working wheels of daily business. The glory of the achievement is lost in the magnificence of its success. Practical preaching, when it means, as it often does, a mere prosaic recommendation of ordinary duties, a sort of Poor Richard's prudential [361] maxims, is a shallow and nearly useless thing. It is a kind of social and moral agriculture with the plough and the spade, but with little regard to the enrichment of the soil, or drainage from the depths or irrigation ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... first pages of this little idyl were quietly turned. The book might have been closed or laid aside even then. But it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet; and presently it actually became a prudential necessity for her to have a masculine escort when she walked out. For a growing state of lawlessness and crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the Vigilance Committee, and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... all events, have been afterwards pardoned. But this view of the matter depends on the supposition that Essex was guilty only of a rash outbreak.[5] That this was not the case was well known to the queen and her council. Unfortunately, prudential motives hindered the publication of the whole evidence; the people, consequently, were still ignorant of the magnitude of the crime, and, till recently, biographers of Bacon have been in a like ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Richie; "mickle better not. We are a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases. And for me—even myself—I have always observed myself to be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own interest—whilk last, I have, indeed, always postponed, as in ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... strength to strength, for it struggled vigorously, and with some difficulty succeeded in freeing itself from Anna's hold. No sooner was it at liberty, than it made for the door with as much speed as its various encumbrances would allow; and Anna, now completely roused, and forgetting all prudential considerations in the excitement of the moment, hastily put on a few articles of clothing, and, throwing her cloak around her, seized her lantern and followed. The ghost had, however, gained so much ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... stool of repentance. From a prudential penitence he had arrived at a genuine one. Something must be done. There was something to be conquered. There was a harder battle before him than any he had yet fought. He was master of the boats, of the horses, of the servants, and even of his companions at Whitestone; but there was one ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... the Twenty-Fourth Infantry, who subsequently perished at Lutzen, leaving behind him an only son. Madame Descoings, who only saw her grandson secretly, gave out that he was the son of the first wife of her first husband. The revelation was partly a prudential act; for this grandson was being educated with Madame Bridau's sons at the Imperial Lyceum, where he had a half-scholarship. The lad, who was clever and shrewd at school, soon after made himself a great reputation as draughtsman and designer, ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... touching and almost amusing in Agassiz's efforts to give a prudential aspect to his large scientific schemes. He was perfectly sincere in this, but to the end of his life he skirted the edge of the precipice, daring all, and finding in himself the power to justify his risks by his successes. ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... answered Crellius, he says in another letter[694], it was for prudential reasons, and even by the advice of the Protestants of France, who think that the questions being unknown in this country, ought not to be made public by a confutation. It is easy to refute them with glory, though every one is not capable of it: but, it is still better that they should ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... toleration, and indeed conceded something in words to the effect that in cases of "known heresy, or blasphemy, or idolatry," offenders would have to be "obnoxious to the Civil Power;" but I rather think that the concession was prudential, and that his heart did not go with it. I will retain him therefore among the Unlimited Tolerationists. Far outshining him in this class, however, was John Goodwin.—Well, but were the advocates of unlimited toleration in connexion with an Established ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... policy, one way or other, to concern myself in this affair: that my business was, by all possible means to conceal myself from them, and not to leave the least sign for them to guess by that there were any living creatures upon the island - I mean of human shape. Religion joined in with this prudential resolution; and I was convinced now, many ways, that I was perfectly out of my duty when I was laying all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent creatures - I mean innocent as to me. As to the crimes they were guilty of towards ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... Assurance Company, to which I am one of those graceful and useless appendages, called Directors Extraordinary—an extraordinary director I should prove had they elected me an ordinary one. There were there moneyers and great oneyers[72], men of metal—discounters and counters—sharp, grave, prudential faces—eyes weak with ciphering by lamplight—men who say to gold, Be thou paper, and to paper, Be thou turned into fine gold. Many a bustling, sharp-faced, keen-eyed writer too—some perhaps speculating with ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... feather-beds and winter fires for the aged; nay, it may advance to some economical form of teeth-brushes, and still demand no more sacrifice from its people than is constantly demanded of us to maintain our poor in a humbler way. Then there are certain prudential considerations—certain, I might almost say, moral considerations—which are to be taken into account. It will never do, in a town like ours, to make pauperism attractive—to make our pauper establishments comfortable asylums for idleness. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... harmonize with my own. But you don't know her, and never will. You have only learned external facts about the Jocelyns, and out of your prejudices have created a family of underbred people that does not exist. Their crime of comparative poverty I cannot dispute. I have not made the prudential inquiries which you and father have gone into so carefully. But your logic is inexorable. As you suggest, I could not earn enough myself to provide a wife with hairpins. The slight considerations of happiness, and the fact that Miss Jocelyn might aid me in becoming ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Valentine," Nineteenth Century and After, May, 1906. It may be mentioned that nearly thirty years ago, Miss J.H. Clapperton, in her Scientific Meliorism (1885, Ch. XVII), pointed out that the voluntary restraint of procreation by Neo-Malthusian methods, apart from merely prudential motives, there clearly recognized, is "a new key to the social position," and a necessary condition for "national regeneration." Professor Karl Pearson's Groundwork of Eugenics, (1909) is, perhaps, the best brief ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he had means to procure; and, if young and able, that he should dance at the ring, or figure among the morrice dancers, who, in the city of Perth, as elsewhere, wore a peculiarly fantastic garb, and distinguished themselves by their address and activity. All this gaiety took place under the prudential consideration that the long term of Lent, now approaching, with its fasts and deprivations, rendered it wise for mortals to cram as much idle and sensual indulgence as they could into the brief space which ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... pocket his own well-filled flask, with which from prudential motives he had provided himself before undertaking his journey, he handed it to Mr. Gardner of Wellsville and made ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... a conscience—that sort of prudential conscience which must be considered as a most valuable acquisition. He certainly was not so unreasonable as to expect a spirited nobleman to lead the life of a sequestered monk, nor could he object to his master's intrigues, but he nevertheless ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed, and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a share of the provisions, commenced to follow the shore of Aotea Bay. From prudential motives they did not allow themselves to straggle, and by instinct they kept a look-out over the undulating plains to the eastward, ready with their loaded carbines. Paganel, map in hand, took a professional pleasure in verifying ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... interstate commerce, thereby logically establishing their immunity from discriminatory State taxation, Congress passed the McCarran Act[765] authorizing State regulation and taxation of the insurance business; and in Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin,[766] a statute of South Carolina which imposed on foreign insurance companies, as a condition of their doing business in the State, an annual tax of three per cent of premiums from ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Jack threw himself upon me, and squeezed out of breath the prudential demur that ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alteration, he, as well as Virginia, was beginning faintly to be aware. Comfort was almost imperceptibly taking the place of conviction, and the passionate altruism of youth would yield before many years to the prudential philosophy of middle-age. Life had defeated him. His best had been thrown back at him, and his nature, embittered by failure, was adjusting itself gradually to a different and a lower standard of values. Though he could not be successful, it was still possible, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... various reasons (apparently prudential at the time) this reply was never published in the Christian Guardian, as were ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... communicated to the Lord Bolingbroke, Dr Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper years; but was, partly through ill health, partly through discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... its total body and practical results, it is a priceless monument of human righteousness, sagacity, and mercy, and though it lags behind opinion, as it must, and postpones to a new age the moral and prudential convictions of the present, it is in its treasury that these ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... motives of humanity, others of a prudential nature were added; that we were in want of water and other refreshments; that our foremast would require six or eight days work before it could be stepped; that the spring was advancing apace; and that the speedy prosecution of our next northern expedition ought now to be our sole object; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... he could not but see that what would be feasible in case of his death must be equally feasible now; but he had two reasons for not attempting it. The first was definite and prudential. He was unwilling to risk anything that could connect him ever so indirectly with the life of Norrie Ford. Secondly, he was conscious of a vague shrinking from the payment of this debt otherwise than face to face. Apart from considerations of safety, he ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... more and more to pour itself, is the peaceful one of the pursuit of gain. This is preeminently the case with the two great commercial nations of the earth, England and America;—and in either England or the Northern States of America, the prudential and practical views of life prevail so far, that instances of men sacrificing their money interests at the instigation of rage, revenge, and hatred, will certainly not abound. But the Southern slaveholders ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... this—our Constitution is a proscriptive Constitution; it is a Constitution whose sole authority is, that it has existed time out of mind. It is settled in these two portions against one, legislatively; and in the whole of the judicature, the whole of the federal capacity, of the executive, the prudential and the financial administration, in one alone. Nor were your House of Lords and the prerogatives of the Crown settled on any adjudication in favour of natural rights, for they could never be so portioned. Your king, your lords, your judges, your juries, grand ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... abroad the administration was charged with sharp practice for its Panama coup, and the case made out by critics was prima facie strong—less, indeed, on its legal than on its ethical and prudential side. We had allowed ourselves to profit by Colombia's distress, encouraged secession in federal republics like our own, and rendered ourselves and our Monroe doctrine objects of dread throughout Central and South America. Still, Colombia ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... therefore I abided steadily by her first agreement to my absenting myself from all public places, and only gently joined in her regret, which I forcibly enough felt in this instance, Without venturing any offer of relinquishing the prudential plan previously arranged. She gave me tickets for Charles for every day that the hall was opened, and I collected what I could of information from him for her ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... remove their caps or turbans when they prayed or prophesied in public, while women, on the contrary, were to remain with their heads covered; that is, to keep veiled when they prayed or prophesied in public. The latter, it is evident, was simply a prudential or local arrangement. Throughout the East, and more especially in heathen countries, it was the custom for women to be veiled when they made their appearance in public; but immodest women not unfrequently violated the usage, appearing in public unveiled. In the state of society then ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... a native of the South of France, had become a Councilor General in his own neighborhood. Frank in his manners, he spoke briskly and without any circumspection telling all his thoughts with sheer indifference to prudential considerations. He was a Republican, of that race of good-natured Republicans who make their own ease the law of their existence, and who carry freedom of speech ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of Cyrene advised men to grasp the pleasure of the moment rather than to await the more uncertain pleasure of the future; but he also counselled, for prudential reasons, the avoidance of a conflict with the laws. Such advice takes cognizance of the self-love of the individual, and is not self-love reasonable? Nevertheless, such advice might be given by a discouraged criminal of a reflective turn of mind, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... only; they merely suggest that man should secure the advantage offered or avoid the pain which may befall him here and now, or some time subsequently to his contemplated action. Hence there is no obligatory force in this ethic. Prudential motives, suggestions of expediency, abundance of counsel, if you will; but we miss the note of authority, the commanding voice, the categorical imperative, the solemn injunction, "Thou canst, therefore thou must". Indeed, it seems difficult to see how one could convince a man ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... language: "It is worthy of consideration, that the Board is not confined in its operations to any part of the world, but may direct its attention to Africa, North or South America, or the Isles of the Sea, as well as to Asia." At the Annual Meeting in 1813, it was voted: "That the Prudential Committee be directed to make inquiry respecting the settlement of a mission at San Salvador, in Brazil, at Port Louis, in the Isle of France, or on the island of Madagascar." In the latter part of 1818, it was resolved to commence a mission in Western Asia. The Prudential Committee said, in ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... of his chair, and prevent the distance between them being increased. Perhaps he might have carried his point even at that moment, had not Miss Wodehouse, who had heard enough to alarm her, come forward hastily in a fright on the prudential side. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... troops was only "adding insult to injury, and that the people of Arkansas would defend, to the last extremity, their honor and their property against Northern mendacity and usurpation." Governor Hicks for prudential reasons excused Maryland at the time from responding to the President's call, and when a month afterwards he notified the War Department of his readiness to comply with the request of the Government, he was informed that three-months' men were ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... always disinclined for speech; and it was only after things had arranged themselves in my mind, or I had mastered my indignation, that I would begin to feel communicative. But something prudential inside warned me that I could not afford to lose any friend I had; and although I was not prepared to confide my wrongs to Mr Coningham, I felt I might some day be ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... story can only be understood by a delicate tenderness, and through a sympathy with the beliefs that dwell in simple hearts; beliefs which would seem absurd to the sophisticated people who make use in their own lives of the prudential maxims of worldly wisdom that only apply to the government of states. To you I shall speak openly and without reserve, as a man who does not seek to apologize for his life with the good and evil done in the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... such as, once beginning to revolve, could not afterwards be suspended or checked. It is by no means improbable that this may have been the theory of Judas. Nor is it at all necessary to seek for the justification of such a theory, considered as a matter of prudential policy, in Jewish fanaticism. The Jews of thai day were distracted by internal schisms. Else, and with any benefit from national unity, the headlong rapture of Jewish zeal, when combined in vindication of their insulted temple ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... the principal buildings are the Federal building, erected at a cost of $2,000,000; the city and county hall, costing $1,500,000, with a clock tower 245 ft. high; the city convention hall, the chamber of commerce, the builders' exchange, the Masonic temple, two state armouries, the Prudential, Fidelity Trust, White and Mutual Life buildings, the Teck, Star and Shea's Park theatres, and the Ellicott Square building, one of the largest office structures in the world; and, in Delaware Park, the Albright art gallery, and the Buffalo Historical Society ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the corner, and in full view of our companions. He was perhaps six feet and an inch in height, cast in a most powerful model, and evidently possessing herculean ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... style, or be pushed aside and forgotten. The choice for them lies between very expensive society or none at all—that is to say, none at all amongst the rising members of the legal profession, and the sort of people with whom young barristers, from prudential motives, wish to form acquaintance. Doubtless many a fair reader of this page is already smiling at the writer's simplicity, and is saying to herself, "Here is one of the advocates of marriage on three hundred ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... picturesque glowing Likeness to Life, of the Characters. I know, hear, see, and live among 'em All: and, if I cou'd paint, cou'd return you their Faces. I admire, in it, the noble Simplicity, Force, Aptness, and Truth, of so many modest, oeconomical, moral, prudential, religious, satirical, and cautionary, Lessons; which are introduc'd with such seasonable Dexterity, and with so polish'd and exquisite a Delicacy, of Expression and Sentiment, that I am only apprehensive, for the Interests of Virtue, lest some of the finest, and most touching, of those ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... Philistine whose silks and satins and purple and fine raiment fit like Dolly's do?" So it went on, and the two adored each other with mutual simplicity, and, having their little quarrels, always made them up again with much affectionate remorse, and, scorning the prudential advice of outsiders, believed in each other and the better day which was to come, when one or the other gained worldly goods enough to admit of a marriage in which they were to be happy in their own way,—which, I may add, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Decatur, Bainbridge, Perry, Somers, and the rest—the list is a long one—were volunteers in the cause, fighting more for glory than for pay. Such spirits were not to be hired—theirs was no mercenary service. It was limited by no prudential considerations. They went forth singly or united, the commissioned champions of the nation, with their lives in their hands, ready to sacrifice themselves in that cause. Punctilious on all points ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... Major-Generals. Secondly, the people were fickle as usual, and the return of the King had novelty in it, and was therefore popular. The side of the Puritans was also deserted at this period by a numerous class of more thinking and prudential persons, who never forsook them till they became unfortunate. These sagacious personages were called in that age the Waiters upon Providence, and deemed it a high delinquency towards Heaven if they afforded countenance to any cause longer than it ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... religious liberty to the nobles. The people of the Netherlands, sickened with slaughter in the name of the faith, took a longer step in the direction of toleration in the Union of Utrecht. [Sidenote: 1579] The government of Elizabeth, acting from prudential motives only, created and maintained an extra-legal tolerance of Catholics, again and again refusing to molest those who were peaceable and quiet. The papists even hoped to obtain legal recognition when Francis Bacon proposed to tolerate all Christians except those who refused to fight a foreign ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Cock-eye Flinks chanced to be at Selwoode were a task of magnitude. That gentleman travelled very quietly; and for the most part, he journeyed incognito under a variety of aliases suggested partly by a fertile imagination and in part by prudential motives. For his notions of proprietary rights were deplorably vague, and his acquaintance with the police, in consequence, extensive. And finally, that he was now at Selwoode was not in the least his fault, but all the doing of an N. & O. brakesman, who had in uncultured argument, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... always true. It was here, on this spot, that I gave him back his troth to me, and told him that I would have none of his love, because he was poor. That is barely two years ago. Now he is poor no longer. Now, had I been true to him, a marriage with him would have been, in a prudential point of view, all that any woman could desire. I gave up the dearest heart, the sweetest temper, ay, and the truest man that, that— Well, you have won him instead, and he has been the gainer. I doubt whether I ever should ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... communicating. "I could not believe that the commander of that vessel could be guilty of so disgraceful an act as taking our prisoners, and therefore took no means to prevent it." Without this trust in chivalry, Captain Winslow might have arrested the yacht in her flight, if only as a prudential motive, reserving final action as to the seizure of the passengers when time had been ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... with Providence. We are beyond that now, and have become capable of recognising that Providence works through the common sense of individual brains. We limit population just as much by deferring marriage from prudential motives as by any action that may be taken after it.... Apart from certain methods of limitation, the morality of which is gravely questioned by many, there are certain easily-understood physiological laws of the subject, the failure to know and to observe ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... making surveys,) was there with a young Scotchman and a negro woman. Kelly with great prudence, directly sent his family to Greenbrier, under the care of a younger brother. But Capt. Field, considering the apprehension as groundless, determined on remaining with Kelly, who from prudential motives did not wish to subject himself to observation by mingling with others.[1] Left with no persons but the Scotchman and negro, they were not long permitted to doubt the reality of those dangers, of which they had been forewarned by ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... lowly the place which the youth might hold in the favour of the Knight of Avenel, still to make an evil report of him would make an enemy of the Lady, without securing the favour of her husband. With these prudential considerations, and doubtless not without an eye to his own ease and convenience, he taught the boy as much, and only as much, as he chose to learn, readily admitting whatever apology it pleased his pupil to allege in excuse for idleness or ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... stoutly to Cassy, still sallied forth from the house with a degree of misgiving which was not common with him. His dreams of the past night, mingled with Cassy's prudential suggestions, considerably affected his mind. He resolved that nobody should be witness of his encounter with Tom; and determined, if he could not subdue him by bullying, to defer his vengeance, to be wreaked in a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... checking the numerical progress of a race. Amongst backward peoples unusual indulgence and consequent disease may lead to the diminution or even extinction of the stock; amongst civilised peoples the motives which attain this result are rather prudential, and are concerned with an ideal of life which perhaps increases the efficiency of the individual, but builds up his healthy and pleasurable environment at the expense of the perpetuity of the race. The fact that the Roman and Italian physique was not degenerating is abundantly ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... various prudential considerations must determine for us how far up we will endeavour to trace the course of its history. There are those who may seek to trace our language to the forests of Germany and Scandinavia, to investigate its relation to all the kindred tongues that were there spoken; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... in "Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast" (i. p. 180), it will bear repetition. Joseph Dupuis justly remarks: "I am satisfied, from my own experience, that many fall victims from the adoption of a course of training improperly termed prudential; viz. a sudden change of diet from ship's fare to a scanty sustenance of vegetable matter (rejecting even a moderate proportion of wine), and seclusion in their apartments from ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... requested an interview. We had an earnest conversation on the subject of these forts, and the best means of preventing a collision between the parties, for the purpose of sparing the effusion of blood. I suggested, for prudential reasons, that it would be best to put in writing what they said to me verbally. They did so accordingly, and on Monday morning, the 10th instant, three of them presented to me a paper signed by all the representatives from South Carolina, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Chatillon, in 1521), twenty-nine. These men, warriors and politicians at one and the same time, in a high social position and in the flower of their age, could not reconcile themselves to the Constable de Montmorency's system, defensive solely and prudential to the verge of inertness; they thought that, in order to repair the reverses of France and for the sake of their own fame, there was something else to be done, and they impatiently ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... supposed that a formal offer was to be made, and could not but think that so singular an exordium was never before made by a gentleman in a similar position. Mr Slope had annoyed her by the excess of his ardour. It was quiet clear that no such danger was to be feared from Mr Stanhope. Prudential motives alone actuated him. Not only was he about to make love because his sister told him, but he also took the precaution of explaining all this before he began. 'Twas thus, we may presume, that the matter presented itself to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of Mysie's prudential scheme. It was then drawing to dusk, and he saw her not again until the next morning, when the horses were brought to the door that they might prosecute ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... be allowed to breed discord between us,' Knight returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his true feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. 'I do see that your reticence towards me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential considerations.' He concluded artificially, 'It was a strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, at this distance of time; and it does not concern me now, though I don't mind hearing ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Hours of my youth! when, nurtur'd in my breast, To Love a stranger, Friendship made me blest,— Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth, When every artless bosom throbs with truth; Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign, And check each impulse with prudential rein; 60 When, all we feel, our honest souls disclose, In love to friends, in open hate to foes; No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat, No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit; Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years, Matured by age, the garb of Prudence ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... so, a nature becomes liable to the sharpest incursions of fear. It is of little use arguing such cases theoretically, because, as the proverb says, as the land lies the water flows,—and love makes very light of all prudential considerations. ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... also, a servant belonging to Sandoval wounded one of Estradas servants in a quarrel. The governor had him arrested, and sentenced him to have his right hand cut off, Cortes and Sandoval resided at this time in Quernavaca, partly on prudential considerations; and immediately posted off to Mexico, where he is said to have used such severe expressions to the governor as to put him in fear of his life. He called his friends about him to form a guard for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the same length, the older redaction will be found fuller of incident, the characters drawn with a bolder, more realistic touch, the presentment more vigorous and dramatic. Ferdiad is unwilling to go against Cuchulain not, apparently, solely for prudential reasons, and he has to be goaded and taunted into action by Medb, who displays to the full her wonted magnificently resourceful unscrupulousness, regardless of any and every consideration, so long as she can achieve her purpose. The action of Fergus is far more fully dwelt upon, and ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... skirmishing, the confidential physician of the Prudential Step Assurance Company agreed to consider that Mr. Halliday's constitution had been in no manner compromised by his early death, and to pass Charlotte's life. The motives for effecting the insurance were briefly ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Encyclopaedia, at home he was the ancestor of that whole school of polite moderate opinion which can unite liberal Christianity with mechanical science and with psychological idealism. He was invincibly rooted in a prudential morality, in a rationalised Protestantism, in respect for liberty and law: above all he was deeply convinced, as he puts it, "that the handsome conveniences of life are better than nasty penury". Locke still speaks, or spoke until lately, ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... uncles with a wife. The gentleman is a peer, but has hitherto been of disreputable life. The lady, though of good family and education, is above thirty, and her family have lost their estate. The match of convenience which Sir Charles patches up between them has obvious prudential recommendations; and of course it turns out admirably. But one is rather puzzled to know what special merits Sir Charles can claim for ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... and other business; this alone rendered the visit to Smedley tolerable: he frequently invited me to visit, with him, the surrounding neighbourhood, from the inhabitants of which places I had received pressing invitations; but all these I declined from prudential motives, and it was fortunate I did so, or my prosecutors would have found some pretence for the charge of conspiracy, of which, as it was, they could never bring the slightest shadow ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... who have not succeeded in loving, she wanted something, without herself knowing what. Strictly speaking, she wanted nothing; but it seemed to her that she wanted everything. She could hardly endure the late Odintsov (she had married him from prudential motives, though probably she would not have consented to become his wife if she had not considered him a good sort of man), and had conceived a secret repugnance for all men, whom she could only figure to herself as slovenly, heavy, drowsy, and feebly ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... he was not dead—only wounded. His behaviour, after receiving the shot, had not been like that of a man mortally wounded. I believed, and hoped, that he still lived:—not that I felt at all remorseful at what had happened, but from mere prudential considerations. If dead, his body by the prostrate tree would soon be discovered, and would tell the tale to those who came up. We should be captured all the same, and might ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... destroyed; and as to the moral, no safe conclusion for conduct can be drawn from any circumstances which have not frequently happened, and which are not likely often to recur. In proportion as events are extraordinary, they are useless or unsafe as foundations for prudential reasoning. ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... would not be understood to mean, the everlasting and invariable principles of moral and religious truth, from which no change of external circumstances can justify any deviation; but such directions as respect merely the prudential part of conduct, and which may he followed or neglected without any ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... more striking proof how far a noble impulse, communicated to the mind by a project of extensive Benevolence, may invigorate a frame not equal in health, strength, and stature, to the common standard of men. It is a prudential maxim of the celebrated Raleigh, that 'Whosoever will live altogether out of himself, and study other men's humours, shall never be unfortunate;' a maxim, which the example of Howard might almost teach us to convert into a medical aphorism by saying, ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... reply that one of the checks on over-population is prudential restraint, which Malthus himself recognised, and that this would come more extensively into operation with that progress of enlightenment which their theory assumed. [Footnote: This is urged by Hazlitt in his criticism of Malthus in the Spirit of the Age.] But ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... reasonings of equivocal morality, which would have required a more leisurely state and a consequently greater activity of mind;—no sophistry of self-delusion,—except only that previously to the dreadful act, Macbeth mistranslates the recoilings and ominous whispers of conscience into prudential and selfish reasonings, and, after the deed done, the terrors of remorse into fear from external dangers,—like delirious men who run away from the phantoms of their own brains, or, raised by terror to rage, stab the real object that is within their reach:—whilst ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Sunday paper. Millions of francs he'd stole. Like a novel, wasn't it? The author said it was, very, and begged for more. He said she ought to write them down. Mabel looked grave at this and said she had a fellow ... splendid education he had had. Was in the Prudential. Her voice grew low and hesitating. He was going to give it up! Give up the Prudential? But that was a job for life, wasn't it? Ah, but he had it in him.... It appeared that he had won five pounds for a story. It was wonderful the way he wrote them off. In his spare time. And poetry. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... life—a demand immediately conceded. This was a delightfully reassuring idea supposing that Lydgate died, but in the mean time not a self-supporting idea. However, it seemed to make everything comfortable about Rosamond's marriage; and the necessary purchases went on with much spirit. Not without prudential considerations, however. A bride (who is going to visit at a baronet's) must have a few first-rate pocket-handkerchiefs; but beyond the absolutely necessary half-dozen, Rosamond contented herself without the very highest style of embroidery and Valenciennes. Lydgate also, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... quoth Hereward (who had remounted his horse from prudential motives, and set him athwart the gateway, so that there was no chance of the doors being slammed behind him), "if either of you will lend me sixteen pence, I will pay it back to you and St. Peter before I die, with interest enough to satisfy ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Switzerland. Madame was in deep mourning, and Balzac, not to be outdone, had an absurdly large and very black band on his hat. With Madame was her daughter, a fine young woman of twenty, whom the mother always now kept close to her, for prudential reasons. The daughter must have been pretty good quality, for she called Balzac, "My Fat Papa," and Balzac threatens Madame that he will run away with the daughter if the marriage is not arranged, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... meantime, was the master of the house himself? Reader, he was one of those anomalous practitioners in lower departments of the law who—what shall I say?—who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of too delicate a conscience, (a periphrasis which might be abridged considerably, but that I leave to the reader's taste): in many walks of life ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... 'Most proper, prudential, and exemplary Maurice!' his sister laughed. 'Now I have an equally hearty belief in my children being somewhere, sure to turn up when wanted. Come, I want to get out from the trees to look for Colonel Bury's harvest moon, for I believe she is ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the Calvinistic sects of Protestantism. It also comes to light again, curiously enough, in such books as Combe's "Constitution of Man," the theory of which is exactly the same as that of the Buddhists; namely, that the aim of life is a prudential virtue, consisting in wise obedience to the natural laws of the universe. Both systems substitute prudence for Providence as the arbiter of human destiny. But, apart from these special tendencies in ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... with this prudential, and I was convinced now many ways that I was perfectly out of my duty, when I was laying all my bloody schemes for the destruction of innocent creatures, I mean innocent as to me; as to the crimes ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... anxious people were to save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and what board I could secure by going from house to house ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... setting our prisoners on shore, who were now very numerous, and made a greater consumption of our food than our remaining stock was capable of furnishing much longer. In all these lights, the attempt was most eligible, and to which our situation, our necessities, and every prudential consideration, strongly prompted. How it succeeded, and how far it answered our expectations, shall be the subject, of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... I answer the second part of your question:—What position for New Jersey will best accord with her interests, honor, and the patriotic instincts of her people? I say emphatically she would go with the South from every wise, prudential, and ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... last moment a complication arose. Scuffy, who until the moment of starting had for prudential reasons—that is, to avoid being eaten up—remained in obscurity, joined the hunters. Every one in turn tried to drive him back, but long practice had made him expert in dodging missiles and had rendered him insensible ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... in obscure lodgings in Paris for prudential reasons, the executioner having just burned, in the public street, all the copies of his last ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... and their tails in a way which seemed to render it perfectly marvellous how they kept upon their legs. All this was sufficiently irritating, even to the most good-natured of beings, and Bruin found it especially hard to bear; he was assisted, however, in his prudential resolution to abstain from any outward exhibition of wrath by a sound which was as new to his ear as it was exciting to his feelings. It came from the upper end of the street, where a crowd had ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... principium essendi; for then, I admit, many valid objections might be started against our theory; but an absolute principium cognoscendi. The result of both the sciences, or their equatorial point, would be the principle of a total and undivided philosophy, as, for prudential reasons, I have chosen to anticipate in the Scholium to Thesis VI and the note subjoined. In other words, philosophy would pass into religion, and religion become inclusive of philosophy. We begin with the I KNOW MYSELF, in order ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... divinely commands their obedience and love. The law of duty is the superior claim of truth and goodness. Virtue, yielding itself filially to this, finds in heaven not remuneration, but a sublimer theatre and an immortal career. Egotistic greed, all mere prudential considerations as determining conditions or forces in the award, are excluded as unclean and inadmissible by the very terms; and the doctrine stands justified on every ground as pure and wholesome before the holiest tribunal of ethics. Surely it is right that goodness should ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... take Edward's part," struck in the Baroness. "Charlotte was not altogether without fault—not altogether free from what we must call prudential considerations; and although she had a real, hearty love for Edward, and did in her secret soul intend to marry him, I can bear witness how sorely she often tried him; and it was through this that he was at last unluckily prevailed upon to leave her and go abroad, and try ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... command laid upon us by science to believe nothing not yet verified by the senses is a prudential rule intended to maximize our right thinking and minimize our errors in the long run. In the particular instance we must frequently lose truth by obeying it; but on the whole we are safer if we follow ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... but rapidly increased. The uprooting of peasants from their little plots of land which acted in medieval England and acts to-day in France as a check upon breeding, and their herding in crowded tenements, weakened both moral and prudential restraints in the towns; while in the country the well-meant but ill- considered action of the justices of the peace in supplementing the beggarly wages of the labourers by grants out of the rates proportioned to the number of ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... twice; then held it between her thumb and third finger, and debated the expediency of changing its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the first suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to "love-scrapes" finally strengthened her prudential inclination to crush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore the paper into shreds, which she tossed out of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... vow, was partly prudential as well as religious; for it occurred to him as very possible, that some matters of a difficult and delicate nature might be thrown into his hands at the present emergency, during the conduct of which it would ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... theatre are concerned you must, with a good grace, allow me to be as red as possible, for a very determined colour is the only one of use to us. This, I think, is my most prudent course to adopt, and he who advises it for prudential reasons as the most effective one is none other than your representative Belloni. He tells me that here I want money as much as M. or really more than M., or else I must make myself feared. Well, money I have not, but a tremendous desire to practice a little artistic terrorism. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... fruitless attempts to obtain a wife. He was rejected by all the young ladies to whom he made proposals. Marriages in that grade of society are almost always mere transactions of business, being governed altogether by political and prudential considerations. In all Charles's proposals he was aiming simply at strengthening his own position by means of the wealth or family influence of the bride, supposing as he did that the honor of being even nominally a queen would be a sufficient equivalent ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... age of instinctive action, rather than reflection—of poetry and feeling, rather than analytic thought. The rules of life were presented in maxims and proverbs, which do not rise above prudential counsels or empirical deductions. Morality was immediately associated with the religion of the state, and the will of the gods was the highest law for men. "Homer and Hesiod, and the Gnomic poets, constituted the educational course," to which ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... fable is related to the parable, but it differs from it in two respects. First, it moves in a worldly sphere, having to do with prudential maxims rather than spiritual truth. Secondly, it allows, in harmony with this its lower nature, irrational objects as speakers and actors, which would be contrary to the dignity of the parable. Our Lord ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... stating prudential rules for our government in society I must not omit the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... rallying, more especially as the escape to his frontier would be easy to one who had long forecast it. We can hardly doubt that Augustus meditated such schemes; that he laid them aside only as his power began to cement and to knit together after the battle of Actium; and that the memory and the prudential tradition of this plan survived in the imperial family so long as itself survived. Amongst other anecdotes of the same tendency, two are recorded of Nero, the emperor in whom expired the line of the original Caesars, which strengthen us in a belief of what is otherwise ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... up a day or two afterwards with a fever, and in considerable danger of my life. As soon as I could be removed, I was sent to my father's house. In the evening, as we ranged ourselves round the fire, the rest of the family, from prudential motives, removed themselves to a distance. My father drew my chair towards his own, asserting that in illness one ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... mortification to Kentuck—who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, [Footnote: Cuticle: outer skin.] which, like a snake's, only sloughed off through decay—to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons. [Footnote: Certain prudential reasons. What were they?] Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt, and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor were normal and social ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... had imbued himself with a high tone of loyalty, without any difficulty or constraint on his feelings; indeed, he was probably unaware that he had changed his party: he had an appetite for strong politics, was devotedly attached to his master, and had no prudential misgivings whatsoever. He had already been present at one or two affairs in which his party had been victorious, and war seemed to him twice more exciting, twice more delightful than the French Opera, or even ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... engagement, and his total inability to keep the angel who had ridden herself into his affections. However, like all untried men, he was strong in the confidence of his own ability, and the sight of his smiling charmer chased away all prudential considerations as quickly as they arose. He made no doubt there ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and delicate human affairs, should proceed in the matter with infinite patience and care. In January 1887 the Propaganda accordingly cabled thus to the Archbishop of New York,—Dr. M'Glynn persisting in his refusal to go to Rome—"for prudential reasons Propaganda has heretofore postponed action in the case of Dr. M'Glynn. The Sovereign Pontiff has now taken the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... room to become his friend; and with his friend in such a manner, that if he became his enemy, it should not be in his power to hurt him. The first part of this rule, which regards our behaviour towards an enemy, is indeed very reasonable, as well as prudential; but the latter part of it, which regards our behaviour towards a friend, favours more of cunning than of discretion, and would cut a man off from the greatest pleasures of life, which are the freedoms of conversation ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... slow arithmetical ratio; man himself increases in a quick geometrical ratio, unless want and vice stop him." In his second edition (1803), besides the positive check of vice and want, he gave more importance to the negative check of "self-restraint, moral and prudential." The whole theory was crudely stated at first; and it raised the cry that such a doctrine was inconsistent with the belief in a benevolent Creator. In its essence, the law of population is simply that a tendency and ability exist in mankind to increase its numbers faster than subsistence, and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... crosses the area of her vision, as she gazes upwards.' He even intimates that, from the stress laid upon immortality by 'modern divines,' they might seem to be 'incarnations of selfishness.' He says it tends to 'degrade religion into a prudential regard for our interests after death'; that 'conscience, the love of virtue, for its own sake, and much more the love of God, are ignored.' Many of the 'spiritual' school agree with him in this; and some even affirm that the hope of immortal felicity is but a ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... not struck any of the party till that moment. They had been so eager in pursuit of the foe that all prudential considerations had been thrown to the winds. They now lay down, therefore, to the very brief rest that was absolutely needful, not only without supper, but with the prospect of starting again without breakfast. However, each ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... example of this theory is the doctrine of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae ("liberty of indifference''), according to which the choice of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind nor by crystallized habit (character). (2) In painting, the term is used for the effect produced by accidental lights (Ruskin, Modern Painters, I. II. 4, iii. sec. 4, 287). (3) In medicine, it stands for the hypothesis that disease is only an accidental modification of the healthy ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it is not believed that the North American Indians followed the custom, although cannibalism may have prevailed to a limited extent. It is true that a few accounts are given by authors, but these are considered to be so apochryphal in character that for the present it is deemed prudential to omit them. That such a means of disposing of the dead was not in practice is somewhat remarkable when we take into consideration how many analogies have been found in comparing old and new world funeral observances, and the statements made by Bruhier, Lafitau, Muret, and others, who give a ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... under circumstances void of every onerous regulation, and they are to be seen in cheerful groups at work upon all sorts of garments, supervised by competent teachers of their own sex. Possessed of these prudential and educational appreciations, it is not surprising that Bergen has sent forth some eminent representatives in science, art, and literature. Among these we recall the names of Ole Bull, the famous musician; Ludwig ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... 'Lovell! you are a villain!'" "Oh," I replied, "you are quite mistaken. Lovell is an honest fellow, and is proud in the hope of having you for a brother-in-law. Rely on it he only wishes you from prudential motives to delay your union." In a few days I had the happiness of seeing them as sociable ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... said Anne politely, but with a fine, needle-like disdain in her voice that pierced even Judson Parker's none too sensitive consciousness. His face reddened and he twitched his reins angrily; but the next second prudential considerations checked him. He looked uneasily at Anne, as she walked steadily on, glancing neither to the right nor to the left. Had she heard Corcoran's unmistakable offer and his own too plain acceptance of it? Confound Corcoran! If he couldn't put his meaning into ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... example and influence, direct and indirect, has Christendom been raised up out of the accursed slough into which Europe and, indeed, the whole known world, had fallen during the early Roman Empire; and that to this influence, and therefore to the Holy Spirit of God alone, and not to any prudential calculations, combined experiences, or so-called philosophies of men, is owing all which keeps Europe from being a hell on earth. And we say, moreover, that those who deny this, and dream of a morality and a civilization without The Spirit of God, are unconsciously throwing down the ladder ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... village, each employing from one to three boys, varying in age from fifteen to nineteen. Why could he not form a private class, to meet in the evening, to be instructed in advanced arithmetic, or, if desired, in Latin and Greek? He broached the idea to Stephen Bates, the prudential committeeman. ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... precedes the Discourse may be transcribed because of its plain speaking about the indifference of Elizabeth and her ministers to the fortune of poets; though this, with curious inconsistency, is flatly contradicted, probably for prudential reasons, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... glorious than their rank and the occasion altogether demanded, so that no inferior luminary might appear to approach the orbit of royalty. But their personal charms, and the magnificence by which, under every prudential restraint, they were necessarily distinguished, exhibited them as the very flower of a realm so far famed for splendour and beauty. The magnificence of the courtiers, free from such restraints as prudence imposed on the ladies, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... taught, Image of Him whom Christians should adore, Stretch'd forth his hand, and brought me safe to shore.[184] Since, by good fortune into notice raised, And for some little merit largely praised, 120 Indulged in swerving from prudential rules, Hated by rogues, and not beloved by fools; Placed above want, shall abject thirst of wealth, So fiercely war 'gainst my soul's dearest health, That, as a boon, I should base shackles crave, And, born to freedom, make myself a slave? That I should in the train of those appear, Whom Honour ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... errors in the "Ordo Sponsalium" first occur; and how long were they continued? I allude to the husband's obligation, "to haue and to holde fro thys day wafor beter for wurs," &c., and to the wife's prudential promise, "to haue et to holde for thys day." (2.) Are there any vellum leaves in any copy in England of the folio impression very beautifully printed en rouge et noir "in alma Parisiorum academia," die ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... hand in her pocket and fingered a silver coin, but poverty is a grim, tyrannous stepmother to tender aestheticism, and prudential considerations prevailed. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... so often imagined, to condemn religion. To spurn the spurious is not to reject the true. A sneer at folly may be only a covert argument for wisdom. Satire is negative truth. The unfortunate thing is that most men, who begin with the prudential worldly-wise philosophy, end there. They never get past the sneer. Not so this wise book. In spite of its insight into the weakness of man, in spite of its frank denunciation of the common masquerade of friendship, it speaks ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... looking toward the establishment of amicable relations between the Ashantees and themselves. There had never been any unpleasant relations between the two governments, except in the instance named. The Ashantees rather felt very kindly toward England, and for prudential and commercial reasons desired to treat the authorities at the coast with great consideration. They knew that the English gave them a market for their gold, and an opportunity to purchase manufactured articles that they needed. But the Fantis, right under the English flag, receiving a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... after the general election they found on the Woolsack and on the Treasury Bench a Lord Chancellor and a Government with which they were not familiar. When their eyes fell upon those objects, there was a light in them which meant one thing—murder; murder tempered, no doubt, by those prudential considerations which always restrain persons from acts which are contrary to the general feeling of the society in which they live. But their attitude towards the present Government has from the beginning been to select the best and most ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Friends, the registered deaths actually exceed the births! The cause of this fact is to be found, not only in connection with the number who marry out of the Society, but also in the operation of that prudential check on entering into the married state, which will always prevail amongst a moral people, where the means of subsistence cannot easily and with certainty be obtained. But to whatever we may attribute the cause, the fact ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... in the relations of Egypt to her still remaining Asiatic dependencies accompanied this alteration in the footing upon which she stood with the Hittites. "The bonds of their subjection became much less strict than they had been under Thothmes III.; prudential motives constrained the Egyptians to be content with very much less—with such acknowledgments, in fact, as satisfied their vanity, rather than with the exercise of any real power." From and after the conclusion of peace ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... historians. This new history must show us what nations are at heart, what they desire, what they can do. Such an understanding of nations is, we say, the real beginning of internationalism. It is a necessary foundation for it, if internationalism is to be anything more than a merely practical, prudential or political arrangement among nations. In the school-room eventually, and indeed beginning now, there is demanded a readjustment of interest by which history takes a new and more central place. We must endeavor to give the new ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... emphasis, that he feared they made two days work of one," since, by sparing Macdonald, who was also a prisoner, and his apparent heir, they preserved the lives of those who might yet give them trouble. But Kenneth, though a lion in the field, could not, from any such prudential consideration, be induced to commit such a cowardly and inhuman act as was here inferred. He, however, had no great faith in the forbearance of his followers if an opportunity occurred to them, and he accordingly sent Macdonald, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... him will attract him, enslave him, bring him to her feet, make him propose, accept him as husband, give him all the sweets of engagement, regard herself and proclaim herself his affianced bride,—all with most prudential—it may be, most praise-worthy—motives. On a sudden, the man discovers that this was no real attachment, but a fictitious, almost an enforced, one; that the methods (so he thinks) were artificial, the results delusive. What happens? The man withdraws—politely—gallantly: ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... the preventive check of moral restraint does not, at present, largely prevail, yet it is becoming more prevalent, and if we consider only the general term, which implies principally a delay of marriage from prudential considerations, it may be considered as the most potent of the checks which in modern Europe keep down the population to the level of ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... iii. p. 68,) who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor. The private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal testament which prudential considerations might dictate in the last moments of his life. Note: Wagner thinks this sudden change of sentiment altogether a fiction of the attendant courtiers and chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been hostile to Julian. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... off, forgetting in her angry spirit the prudential motives which had induced her to begin the conversation with Souchey. But Souchey, though he was going to Madame Zamenoy's house to get his dinner, and was looking forward with much eagerness to the mess of hot cabbage and the cold sausage, had ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... taking as little heed as possible of the morrow. Most of my readers, no doubt, accept that philosophy of life on Sundays only; on week-days they swallow the usual contradictory economic platitudes about prudential forethought and the horrid improvidence of the lower classes. For myself, I am not built that way. I prefer to take life in a spirit of pure inquiry. I put on my hat: I saunter where I choose, so far as circumstances permit; and I wait to see what chance ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... half-holiday) at a shabby office up a court in Fleet Street, with a few saved-up shillings of pocket-money in his hand. His object was secretly to bribe a balloon agent to give him a seat in the basket on the next flight from Vauxhall: however as, either from prudential humanity or commercial greed, the clerk stated that five pounds was the fixed price for a place, and as the aforesaid little gentleman could only produce ten shillings, the negotiation came to nothing,—and ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... urged by his nearest intimates, formally recognized the son of James as king of England; and the English people, enraged at what they looked on as a threat and an insult, threw aside all merely prudential considerations. The House of Lords declared that "there could be no security till the usurper of the Spanish monarchy was brought to reason;" and the House of Commons voted fifty thousand soldiers and thirty-five thousand seamen, besides subsidies ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan |
