"Dilatoriness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he made, and which probably caused his apparent dilatoriness, was that of advancing some distance after he found that the firing, which would be at first directly to his front and then off to the left, had fallen back until it had got very much in rear of the position of his advance. This falling back had ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... waited for us in the yard to draw us to the gallows tree. There was no cowardly feeling, but perhaps a little dilatoriness in getting into the first sledge. Five minutes might bring a reprieve for any of us, and to be in the first sledge might mean the difference ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... traitor took a decisive step. His dilatoriness had made many of the Pretender's friends uneasy, and showed too plainly that he had been playing a double game. He was urged by some emissaries of Charles Edward "to throw off the mask," upon which he pulled off his hat and exclaimed "there it is!" He then, in the midst of his assembled ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... exceedingly sarcastic, and no writer was more so than Benjamin, young as he was. This was the real cause of the action of the Assembly. A letter appeared in the Courant, justly rebuking the government for dilatoriness in looking after a piratical craft off Block Island. The letter purported to come from Newport, and represented that the Colony were fitting out two vessels to ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... to do, namely, make issues without Treasury sanction. If the old Committee had been a reasonable and expeditious body this argument would have had great weight. But, in view of its caprices and dilatoriness, there was a good deal of excuse for those who decided to do without Treasury sanction and take the consequence of being unable to market their securities on the Stock Exchange. To propose to add a new penalty and cause the cancelling of all the financial arrangements made in connexion with such ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... of the President which I have not approved. Of those under him, and of some very near him, there have been many acts of which we have all disapproved, and he more than we. We have at times dissented from the measures, and lamented the dilatoriness of Congress. I recollect an instance the first winter of the war, when, from sloth of proceedings, an embargo was permitted to run through the winter, while the enemy could not cruise, nor consequently restrain the exportation of our whole produce, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the village, were employed in trades on the other side of the ferry, and therefore could risk offending Mr. Rosewarne; but their independence had not yet translated itself into steady payment of the fees, and Mr. Toy (for example) notoriously practised dilatoriness of payment as part of his scheme ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not finish the rustic bench that day. When a neighboring camper, who stopped in to call toward the end of the afternoon, expressed surprise at his apparent dilatoriness, and asked for an explanation, the father simply said, "I did mean to finish it to- day, but I had to do something for my ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... operations mean an army growing old, wealth being expended, an empty exchequer and distress among the people; true cleverness insures against the occurrence of such calamities." Chang Yu says: "So long as victory can be attained, stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness." Now Sun Tzu says nothing whatever, except possibly by implication, about ill-considered haste being better than ingenious but lengthy operations. What he does say is something much more guarded, namely that, while speed may sometimes be injudicious, tardiness can never be anything ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu |
