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More "Impolitic" Quotes from Famous Books



... Minister intervened angrily. He had been ill, he said. Redmond was in no way inclined to accept the reason as sufficient, and again Mr. Lloyd George rose to say that it was "not merely unfair, but a trifle impolitic" not to give him a couple of days to consult with the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... English had taken the natives under their protection, and that the war was caused entirely by the taking over of Elmina by the English and by their breach of faith to the natives there, this treatment of the Fantis was as unjust as it was impolitic. ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... had a strong prejudice against any possible disturbance to the lace trade; but winter would soon come and her sale was uncertain; her best profit was so dependent on Homestead agency that it was impolitic to offend Miss Curtis; and, moreover, Lovedy was so excited by the idea of learning to make pictures to books that she forgot all the lace dexterity she had ever learnt, and spoilt more than she made, so that Mrs. Kelland was reduced to accept the kind proposal that ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... companies of artillery and one company of sappers and miners were accordingly brought to Washington. This movement gave offense to the Southern men who still remained in Congress, and Mr. Branch of North Carolina offered a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on the table by a vote of 125 to 35. Ex-President ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... boy, frequently involved in controversies with the teachers, and sometimes punished in the old-fashioned way with the ferule and the switch, which habit I then regarded as tyrannical and now regard as impolitic. I do not believe that the policy of punishment adopted in the schools of those times would be expedient to-day. It tended to foster a constant irritation between the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... "To an impolitic act of the Dauphine herself may be in part ascribed the unwonted virulence of the jealousy and resentment of Du Barry. The old dotard, Louis XV., was so indelicate as to have her present at the first ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... has been committed by the American steamer, in my opinion, whether it was legal or not, was both impolitic and bad. That is my opinion. I think it may turn out, almost certainly, that, so far as the taking of those men from that ship was concerned, it was an act wholly unknown to, and unauthorized by, the American Government. And if the American Government believe, on ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... had the active assistance of her uncle, William Feilding, who may have been present at the ceremony; and the full sympathy of her brother, Lord Kingston, who, however, did not accompany her, perhaps deeming it impolitic to quarrel ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... themselves and their immediate constituents. Any one else may quite blamelessly break the law, and resist any privilege thereby created, though he must, of course, be prepared, in case of detection, to take the legal consequences of his disobedience. For example, protective duties, however impolitic, if imposed because a majority of the nation were of opinion that a certain branch of domestic industry had better be fostered by protection, could not be evaded without injustice to those engaged in the protected industry, though there would be no injustice ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... however, time has effaced, or greatly weakened, the remembrance of many reverses, whilst slight and dubious successes, carefully treasured up, have swollen by the keeping into mighty victories; and at the present day, foreigners who should be so uncourteous and impolitic as to express, in the hearing of Spaniards, a doubt that Spanish valour was the main agent in driving the French from the Peninsula, might reckon, not on a stab—knifeing being less in vogue beyond the Bay of Biscay than is often imagined—but certainly on a scowl, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Christianity. His daughter, Whispering Winds, exhibited the same intense fervor in religion as has been manifested by all our converts. It may be that we have not appealed in vain to Wingenund and his daughter; but their high position in the Delaware tribe makes it impolitic for them to reveal a change of heart. If we could win over those two we'd have every chance to convert the whole tribe. Well, as it is we must be thankful for Wingenund's friendship. We have two powerful allies now. Tarhe, the Wyandot chieftain, remains neutral, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... telegraph, and that he should himself proceed to London on the following day. "But you must see Lady Lufton first, of course," said Fanny, as soon as all this was settled. Mark would have avoided this if he could have decently done so, but he felt that it would be impolitic, as well as indecent. And why should he be afraid to tell Lady Lufton that he hoped to receive this piece of promotion from the present Government? There was nothing disgraceful in a clergyman becoming ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... to represent this as a piece of impolitic narrowness, and to say that its surly bigotry was rightly punished by the evils that it brought down on the returning exiles. The temper of much flaccid Christianity at present delights to expand in a lazy and foolish 'liberality,' which ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... stood committed to a course of continued offence upon the imperial interests; since in that quarter his injuries and insults were already past forgiveness. The interest of Holkerstein, then, ran in the same channel with that of the Landgrave. It was impolitic to weaken him. It was doubly impolitic to weaken him by a measure which must also weaken the Landgrave; for any deduction from his own military force, or from the means of recruiting it, was in that proportion a voluntary sacrifice of the weight he should obtain with the Swedes on making ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... Yuen-nan was infested with brigands we had expected some opposition to our plans for traveling in the interior, but none was forthcoming, and with the exception of an offer of a guard of soldiers for our trip to Ta-li Fu which we knew it would be impolitic to refuse, we left the Foreign Office with all the ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... sitting up for half an hour at her window, under the feeling that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. She has indeed been asked why she did not reconnoitre the rustling trees upon the spot. She considers that would have been an exceedingly poor stroke of policy, and of an impolitic thing Keturah is not capable. She sees far and plans deep. Supposing she had gone and been shot through the head, where would have been the fun of her burglars? To yield a life-long aspiration at the very moment that ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... burden of the administration, he could delegate his authority to those of his own kin in whom he reposed implicit confidence. There was, therefore, no necessity for establishing a regency, still less for assembling the States General—an impolitic step even in the most quiet times, but fraught with special peril when ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... not trespass on the bounds of courteous license, but cannot believe that your gentle temper approves of proceedings at once severe and impolitic." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... and asked us to dances, the week we arrived; the indifferent knocked at our door in the first month; and even before the end of the second, we were on the visiting lists of the good. We knew enough of society to be aware that it is impolitic to rush into the embraces of all the arms that are extended to receive strangers; but feeling no wish to affront any one in return for an intended civility, we gave card for card; and the doors of good, bad, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... then be confounded with the enemies of my country and ought the patriots inconsiderately to sacrifice a general who has not been useless to the Republic? Ought the representatives to reduce the Government to the necessity of being unjust and impolitic? ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... the circle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a good thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it appears as impolitic as unnecessary." ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... feasted the wonderful strangers, and invited them to join him on a raid against his rival, Potanou. Laudonniere had promised to join Satouriona against Outina, and Vasseur now promised to join Outina against Potanon, the hope of finding gold being in both cases the source of this impolitic compliance. Vasseur went back to Fort Caroline with five of the men, and left Arlac with the remaining five to fight the battles ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... content to be ruined with her, let us shoot him, if we can, but allow him an honorable burial in the soil he fights for. [Footnote: We do not thoroughly comprehend the author's drift in the foregoing paragraph, but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible, and its tendency impolitic in the present stage of our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... discovered; and, after an obstinate conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced, by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude: the multitude suddenly disappeared; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... apprehend conscience is no farther concerned, than by directing a submission to the penalty, in case of our breach of those laws: for otherwise the multitude of penal laws in a state would not only be looked upon as an impolitic, but would also be a very wicked thing; if every such law were a snare for the conscience of the subject. But in these cases the alternative is offered to every man; "either abstain from this, or submit to such a penalty;" and his conscience will be clear, whichever side of the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... had never actually told his love. At first there had been a disinclination to marry an Englishwoman because of the unbending, resolute policy he had identified himself with in the Union Parliament. No one spoke of anti-British and anti-Dutch nowadays. It was impolitic. But whereas certain men genuinely tried to ease the forced situation and meet with fairness and justice upon common ground, others still kept the flag of discord in their hands, though they hid it under the table, so to speak, and only produced it when, as they chose ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... the scene of fierce contests between Whigs and Tories. As early as May 31, 1775, the patriots of Mecklenburg county had adopted resolutions pointing toward independence and forwarded them to their delegates in Congress, who deemed it impolitic, however, to lay them before that body. Josiah Martin, royal governor of North Carolina, was obliged to flee on board ship in July. He busied himself with plans for the complete subjugation of the southern colonies, and corresponded with the government in London, as well as with his Tory ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... were the States. In order that there might be no room for dispute he proposed that the platform should specifically say "the States as they were before 1865." To this however some of the members objected as impolitic and calculated to raise distrust, and it was accordingly dropped. General Hampton then proposed to insert the declaration that the "Reconstruction Acts are unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void;" and the manner in which this suggestion was received is ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... could lay at his door, that it would have required a far bolder monarch than Philip the Third to have braved the voice of a whole nation for the sake of a disgraced minister. The prince himself was soon induced, by new favourites, to consider any further interference on his part equally impolitic and vain; and the Duke d'Uzeda and Don Gaspar de Guzman were minions quite as supple, while they ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... more hardened and corrupt than when he left England. The horrible scenes of depravity he has witnessed in the barracks whence he has emerged, must have produced their natural effect on his mind. I cannot help thinking that this system of concentration is extremely impolitic. We all know what a detrimental influence the associating of men, punished for an offence comparatively trifling, with others convicted of the most flagrant outrages upon society, exerts upon the former. The experience of our prisons testifies to the fact. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... proceeding upon the consent of the people. In December, 1831, the committee on the District, Mr. Doddridge of Virginia, Chairman, reported, "That until the adjoining states act on the subject (slavery) it would be (not unconstitutional but) unwise and impolitic, if not unjust, for Congress to interfere." In April, 1836, a special committee on abolition memorials reported the following resolutions by their Chairman, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina: "Resolved, that ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... he realized that he had said what, of all things, was the most impolitic. It was nothing less than a bid for a "canvass," and he fully expected to be confronted with the necessary order blanks without delay. But, strangely enough, the book lady made no such move. She looked at him, it is true, but with an expression ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... among the blacks. He draws a moving picture of the wretched condition of these forlorn islanders, under the indolent and yet oppressive government of the court of Lisbon. Mr G.F. be it known, was peculiarly sharp-sighted in discovering, and vehement in inveighing against, every impolitic violation of human liberty. In the judgments of some persons, he had imbibed too readily the intoxicating beverage of revolutionary France. Many strong heads, it is certain, were not ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... threatened with inevitable death, all his care is tenderly directed to save his son, who performs his first deeds of arms under his eye. After Talbot has in vain sacrificed himself, and the Maid of Orleans has fallen into the hands of the English, the French provinces are completely lost by an impolitic marriage; and with this the piece ends. The conversation between the aged Mortimer in prison, and Richard Plantagenet, afterwards Duke of York, contains an exposition of the claims of the latter to the throne: considered by itself it is a ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... frequently by means of their deposits than of their issues. Says Mr. Tooke: "Supposing all the deposits received by a banker to be in coin, is he not, just as much as the issuing banker, exposed to the importunity of customers, whom it may be impolitic to refuse, for loans or discounts, or to be tempted by a high interest; and may he not be induced to encroach so much upon his deposits as to leave him, under not improbable circumstances, unable to meet the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Borneo settlement which will require wise handling. I mean the slaves which are the possession of every petty chief and every Malay family in the country. All pirates bring home fresh slaves from every expedition. This can be put an end to at once. But it will be as impolitic as impossible to put a sudden end to the state of slavery in which so large a proportion of the inhabitants will be found. In this respect I hope the North Borneo Company will take a leaf out of Sarawak experience. Sir James Brooke, as long ago as 1841, appealed ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... part of Mr Harding had not been unopposed. Mr Chadwick had mildly but seriously dissuaded him from it; and his strong-minded son-in-law, the archdeacon, the man of whom alone Mr Harding stood in awe, had urgently, nay, vehemently, opposed so impolitic a concession: but the warden had made known his intention to the hospital before the archdeacon had been able to interfere, and the ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... portentous books, title "Poor," pp. 1200, the inquisitive may find a code unrivalled by the most malignant ingenuity of former or contemporary nations: a code wherein, by gradual accretion, has been framed a system of relief to poverty and distress so impolitic, so unprincipled, that none but the driest, mustiest, most petrified parish official could be expected to lift up his voice to defend it; so complicated that no man under heaven knows its length or breadth or height or depth; yet it stands to this hour ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... and he took great pains to please them—though in spite of the importunities of Marie de Medicis, the long friendship with Henrietta Maria, his early flirtation with the lovely Spaniard, his earnest and impolitic championship of the notorious Lady Purbeck—Romish convert and adventuress—Venetia, it seems, remained his only love. He was never the mere gallant. He treated women as his intellectual equals, but as equals who had to be splendidly entertained and amused. His conversation was "ingeniose and ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... territory is a new country. If its extensive and fertile fields shall be opened as a market for slaves, the government will seem to become a party to a traffic, which in so many acts, through so many years, it has denounced as impolitic, unchristian, and inhuman.... The laws of the United States have denounced heavy penalties against the traffic in slaves, because such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman. We appeal to the spirit of these laws; we appeal to this justice and humanity; we ask whether they ought not to ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... do you?" The ex-Sadaijin now entered. He said, "Often have I thought of coming to have a talk with you, but you see my health has been very bad of late, and I seldom appear at Court, having resigned my office. It would be impolitic to give cause to be talked about, and for it to be said that I stretch my old bones when private matters please me. Of course, I have no particular reason to fear the world; still, if there is anything dreadful, it ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various

... door, and prepared to leave it, when he saw his friend with the axe advancing towards him from the distant end of the gallery, half whistling, a Gaelic tune. To have shown any want of confidence, would have been at once impolitic, and unbecoming his military character; so the Captain, putting the best face upon his situation he could, whistled a Swedish retreat, in a tone still louder than the notes of his sentinel; and retreating pace by ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... caution, and their success must often depend on secrecy; and even when brought to a conclusion a full disclosure of all the measures, demands, or eventual concessions which may have been proposed or contemplated would be extremely impolitic; for this might have a pernicious influence on future negotiations, or produce immediate inconveniences, perhaps danger and mischief, in relation to other powers. The necessity of such caution and secrecy was one cogent reason ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... imminent, immobile, immure, immutable, impalpable, impeccable, impecunious, imperturbable, impervious, implacable, implicit, impolitic, imponderable, importunate, imprecation, impromptu, improvise, imputation, inadvertent, inamorata, inanity, incarcerate, inchoate, incidence, incision, incongruent, inconsequential, incontinent, incorporeal, incorrigible, incredulity, incumbent, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... previously to the discussion of the question in France. While others maintained, that as England had done nothing, after having had it so long under consideration, it was fair to presume, that she judged it impolitic to abandon the Slave-trade; but if France were to give it up, and England to continue it, how ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... among us would very likely have erred with him; and I am not sure that, taking all his plans together, and taking for granted, as he did then, that his influence at court was to last, his suggestion about the negroes was an impolitic one. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Governor," broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for thus freeing us of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... by the Chinese and Portuguese: the houses of the former are very numerous, but they are low and dirty. The number of Chinese resident in and about Batavia in 1788, was 200,000: it is these people who are the support of this important settlement; and if they were obliged to abandon it by any impolitic measure, it would soon lose its splendor. The Chinese carry on every trade and occupation; the better sort are very rich, but they are subject to great exactions from the company, or their servants. They are suffered ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... further remarks. It would have been easy, not only to indicate what letters or portions of letters are new, but also to state the sources whence they are derived. But, in the circumstances, such a course, at all events for the present, is so impolitic as to be impossible. On the other hand, anxiety has been expressed as to the authority for the text which is adopted in these volumes. To satisfy this anxiety, so far as circumstances allow, the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... he would not have felt any insuperable objection to undertake the task. But such a piece of work was disagreeable to him in many ways. He hated the idea of a row at his club. He was most desirous that his cousin's name should not be made public. He wished to avoid anything that might be impolitic. A wicked thing had been done, and he was quite ready to hate Crosbie as Crosbie ought to be hated; but as regarded himself, it made him unhappy to think that the world might probably expect him to punish the man who had ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... succeed, and if Pitman is staunch, there's nothing to do but find a venal doctor; and that ought to be simple enough in a place like London. By all accounts the town's alive with them. It wouldn't do, of course, to advertise for a corrupt physician; that would be impolitic. No, I suppose a fellow has simply to spot along the streets for a red lamp and herbs in the window, and then you go in and—and—and put it to him plainly; though it seems ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... perniciously improvident and injudicious than this submission of the will of the majority to the most trifling minority? Have not experience and practice actually manifested this theoretical inconvenience to be extremely impolitic? Let me mention one fact, which I conceive must carry conviction to the mind of any one,—the smallest State in the Union has obstructed every attempt to reform the government; that little member has repeatedly disobeyed and counteracted the general authority; nay, has even supplied ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... Georgia yet; but it is supposed there is intelligence of an important character in the city, which it would be impolitic to ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... idol and plaything of the whole crew. He had always been accustomed to remain on board with his father, and there was not a man in the ship who would not have risked his life to have saved that of the child. The effect of this impolitic and cruel order was decisive. The marines, with the sergeant at their head, and little Willy placed in security in the centre, their bayonets directed on the defensive, towards the captain and officers, retreated to the mutineers, whom they joined with three ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and another statute was then made, 'for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec,' &c. All which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... exceedingly." When the Italian violinist, a week later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of the French violinists, so the public indulgently ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... Equally impolitic was the attitude of the President toward questions of public policy in his first message to Congress. Just when the opposition was in a fluid state and the winds of conflicting doctrines were ruffling the surface of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... occasioned serious riots at Corinth. All the Spartans in the town were seized, and even the Roman commissioners narrowly escaped violence. On their return to Rome a fresh embassy was dispatched to demand satisfaction for these outrages. But the violent and impolitic conduct of Critolaues, then Strategus of the League, rendered all attempts at accommodation fruitless, and, after the return of the embassadors, the Senate declared war against the League. The cowardice and incompetence ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... of front, improbable at first, and evidently impolitic, is the true cause of the disastrous conflict in which the movement of 1789 came to ruin. Had there been no ecclesiastical establishment to deal with, it may be that the development of Jacobin theory, or the logic ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... when things go wrong with him in business affairs, of venting his bitter feelings of disappointment and despair in the presence of his wife and family,—feelings which, while abroad, he finds it practicable to restrain. It is as unjust as it is impolitic to indulge in such ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... news have agreed that there will be some serious insurrection on the part of the soldiers, to defend the Emperor from some indefinite oppression of the Assembly. I believe it is true that the Assembly itself, being convinced that their vote concerning the veto is impolitic and unjust, have determined to cancel it; and it is equally true, that there have been some military clubs, whose language has been rather violent on the subject. But that there are the slightest grounds for expecting any serious ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... along the northern shore of the Mediterranean, gathering up all the American merchantmen, and convoying them to sea. The "President" and the "Enterprise" made sail for Algiers, to convince the ruler of that country that it would be impolitic for him to declare war against the United States at that time. The desired effect was produced; for the sight of an American frigate did more to tone down the harshness of the Dey's utterances, than could the most ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... circumstances of the case, it should appear impolitic to check our agriculture; and so desirable to secure an independent supply of corn, as to justify the continued interference of the legislature for this purpose, the next question ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus

... enlighten the minds of my fellow citizens, and strenuously to oppose every measure which I am convinced is unjust in principle or injurious in its effects, and believing Slavery to be both iniquitous and impolitic, I conceive myself bound, both as a citizen and as an officer, to do all in my power to prevent its introduction into this State. I will therefore cheerfully render you assistance in distributing any publications you may forward, or give you ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... great waste. Better abolish your tariffs, stop your factories and buy at our shops. We're the boys to give you thirteen pence for every shilling." I cannot say how this affected others, but to me it seemed hardly more ill-mannered than impolitic. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... safety, than of the water-cure, their physician and the life and health of a poor destitute fellow-creature. They all left him—part of them came to Florence—and long before he had cured his small-pox patient, he had not one of his old patients left to witness the cure! However impolitic it may appear, I cannot but express my admiration of Dr. S.'s noble conduct on the occasion, who proved himself not only an honest adherer to our excellent mode of treatment, but also a kind and generous man, worthy of more encouragement than he ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... Parton devotes a chapter to the refutation of this charge, but does not succeed in making a very strong argument. The evidence of Burr's treachery, is as positive as from the nature of the case it can be. Of course, he made no open pledges; it was unnecessary, and it would have been impolitic to do so. The main fact cannot be denied, that for several weeks before and after the election went to the House of Representatives, Burr was openly supported by the Federalists in opposition to Jefferson. Burr knew it; everybody knew it. Why was this support given? It will require ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... Gertrude, alone at last, looked at each other. The former was very solemn. Gertrude, quite aware of the solemnity, but not aware of its principal cause—her father's impolitic disclosure of his apprehensions concerning herself—was nervous and ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... his attempt to reopen diplomatic intercourse with France, was accused of seeking to reconcile his political opponents of the Republican party, and thus secure by unworthy and impolitic concessions, his own re-election as president. The opposition to Van Murray's nomination prevailed so far that he received two colleagues, Ellsworth of Connecticut and Davies of North Carolina; but the president would not authorize the departure of Ellsworth or Davies ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... XVIII. My dynasty had been recognised by France and by Europe; it had been consecrated by the Pope. They ought to have respected it. By abusing the rights of victory, it was in their power to deprive me of the throne: but it was unjust, odious, impolitic, to punish the son on account of the wrongs of his father, and to deprive him of his inheritance. I was not an usurper: they may say so as long as they like; nobody will believe them. The English, the Italians, the Germans, are now too enlightened to allow ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... and Lancaster, materially increasing the interest which an earlier perusal of the history of England and France had created, concerning scenes trodden by the brave, the great, and the good. However mistaken might have been their notions, however impolitic their actions, we cannot contemplate the characters of the Paladins, who have made Rouen famous, without feelings of respect. The murder of Joan of Arc formed the sole blot on the escutcheon of John Duke of Bedford, and the faults and vices of his companions in ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... themselves. Francois acted the part of mediator, but not without great difficulty; he had made promises to the Huguenots, and could not offend them without offending at the same time all Flanders. On the other hand, to offend the Catholics sent by the king to aid him would be most impolitic. The arrival of this re-enforcement, on which the duke himself had not reckoned, filled the Spaniards and the Guises with rage. However, all these different opinions interfered sadly with the discipline of the ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... your Majesty that he has always been aware that it would be impolitic to confer upon the officers and soldiers who served in the Peninsula the wished-for distinction without the concurrence of your ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... little legislation by this Church concerning this subject. In 1874 the General Assembly declared the practice of a responsive service in the public worship of the sanctuary to be without warrant in the New Testament, and to be unwise and impolitic in view of its inevitable tendency to destroy uniformity in the form already accepted. It further urged upon sessions of Churches to preserve in act and spirit the simplicity indicated in the Directory. This judgment of the American Church with regard to the influence of a liturgy in public ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... knew that Rieseneck was aware of the fact from his knowledge of the locality. Moreover it was probable that although the application for pardon had been refused, no attempt would be made to arrest the fugitive. He would be allowed to leave the country unmolested, as it would be considered impolitic to increase the scandal by consigning him again to the fortress whence he had escaped so many years before. Greifenstein had nothing to fear for himself, and he cared nothing what became of his brother, provided that he were not caught. Nevertheless, he suffered extremely while he waited, for ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... rounded an abrupt corner of the creek, and there we were full in front of the schooners, who, with the felucca in advance, were lying in line of battle, with springs on their cables. The horrible black pennant was, in the present instance, nowhere to be seen; indeed, why such an impolitic step as ever to have shown it at all was taken in the first attack, I never could understand; for the force was too small to have created any serious fear of being captured, (unless indeed it had been ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... our duty to protect the inferior princes against the usurpation of this islander; but he answers me ever with cold respects of their relations together as suzerain and vassal, and that it were impolitic in him to make an open breach at this time ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... by me.' They thought her case a good one, and resolved to stand by her. Such was the state of things and such the case as reported to me by several members of the Whig party yesterday morning, and my impression was that Peel had been unreasonable in his demands and impolitic in breaking off the negotiation on such grounds. Nevertheless I had some misgivings, because I thought the Duke of Wellington unlikely to concur in any proceeding harsh towards the Queen, or ill-considered in a political sense; but the assertion was at the same time so positive, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... long before the effects of this impolitic breach with Corinth were sensibly felt by Athens. In the course of the following summer, Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, situated on the borders of Macedon, and included in the Athenian alliance, openly raised the standard of revolt, encouraged by promises ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... have only the choice between a miracle or an imposture. Mr. Pinkerton plausibly argues, from the caution against incontinence, that the Queen was privy to the scheme of those who had recourse to this expedient, to deter King James from his impolitic war.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... to Bohemia in state, and tried to draw the other Protestant princes to his help. But he was a Calvinist, so the Lutherans refused to join him. His new subjects were mainly Lutherans also, and his impolitic effort to enforce his religious views upon Prague soon roused the citizens to a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... friends had so ably and so zealously opposed for nearly twenty years; that system which they had invariably condemned and exposed, as the greatest curse that could befal a nation; and for having persisted in which infamous, impolitic, and ruinous course so long, they had predicted the downfall ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... is no particular news. The Dutch are got back to the Texel. Lord Howe still off there, but nothing likely to come of it. Sir G. Rodney, notwithstanding his victory, is to be recalled, and Pigott is sailed. This I think very magnanimous in the Ministers or very impolitic; events must justify, but it is putting themselves too much in ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... it occurred to me, that it might not be impolitic to find the way to their habitation even now. My purposes of general curiosity would equally be served whichever way my steps were bent; and to trace the path to their dwelling would save me the trouble of inquiries and ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... observable too in the address with which the Agrarian law of Rullus,[240] and the accusation of Rabirius,[241] both popular measures, are represented to be hostile to public liberty; with which Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching incident;[242] and Cato's attack upon the crowd of clients which accompanied the candidate for office, a tyrannical disregard for the feelings of the poor.[243] So great indeed is his talent, that he ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... Dan Hoolan's, I had no difficulty in understanding the state of the case. The wretched man would not give up his own sins, and, therefore, tried to keep the chief in heathen darkness. It would, however, be impolitic to quarrel with him, or, rather, wrong, because the so doing would have increased the difficulty of bringing him round. I should explain that the term lotu means becoming ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... ravines, and that the houses had rained down afterward. Over all there was dust impossible to conceive. The bombardment has done little injury. People have returned and resumed business. A gentleman asked H. if he knew of a nice girl for sale. I asked if he did not think it impolitic to buy ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... assembled his people to hear the word which the messengers were to carry to their master, but unfortunately King Halfdan gave way to his waggish humour, and made scoffing reference to the advanced age of the royal suitor. These impolitic words were reported to King Ring, and so offended him that he immediately collected an army and prepared to march against the Kings of Sogn to avenge the insult with his sword. When the rumour of his approach reached ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... myself the friend to a very free system of commerce and to hold it as a truth that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic; it is also a truth that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... independent of the political bias, which till then had so often and unworthily controlled naval appointments. Jervis belonged to the small remnant of Whigs who still followed Fox and inveighed against the current war, as unnecessary and impolitic. It was a pure service choice, as such creditable alike to ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... meritorious, the instant they ceased to be appropriated. Nature, propriety, and custom have prescribed certain bounds to each; bounds which the prudent and the candid will never attempt to break down; and indeed it would be highly impolitic to annihilate distinctions from which each acquires excellence, and to attempt innovations, by ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... and generous nature, Beorn, that he would be the last person to suspect another of dishonourable motives. Moreover, it is not because he is apparently well content here that we must judge him to be without uneasiness. Whatever he felt it would be impolitic to show it, and we see but little of him now save when in company of the Normans. He cannot but know that his ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... was John Dickenson of Pennsylvania, whose powerful arguments in a series of Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer, published eight years before, had contributed greatly toward arousing the colonies to resistance. He did not regard the measure as impolitic at all times, but as premature and impracticable at that time. He urged the want of money, munitions of war, of a well-organized and disciplined army; the seeming apathy of several colonies, manifested by their tardiness in declaring their wishes on the subject; the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... all. The spirit of party, roused by impolitic provocation from its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the spirit of national animosity. The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled with the grudge of Englishman against Scot. The two sections of the great British ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... attempted to make the Straits, were headed off by the British, and gained Messina on 5 August. Evading the British Fleet under circumstances which were held to cast no reflection on the British commander, and with assistance which it was deemed impolitic to make public, they pursued their flight eastward, gallantly assaulted by the smaller and slower Gloucester off Cape Matapan, until they reached the Dardanelles and took the Turkish Government under their charge. Out in the Atlantic the swift Karlsruhe caused some anxiety till she was ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... opinion expressed by Woodrow Wilson, "President," as he stated, "of Harvard University." His opponent, of course, might have held this statement up to ridicule, but such an exposure would have been impolitic, in that it would have in no wise impaired the value of Mr. Wilson's opinion as evidence. Another debater, not so wise, once spent considerable time in correcting an opponent who had said that the Steel Trust was formed in 1891 instead ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... to suppose after what had passed, that I was not on as good and safe footing in France, as they or any other gentleman could be. However, his uneasiness made him write to the Count what he had advised, who returned for answer, that such a step was both unnecessary and impolitic, as it would only strengthen suspicions by giving every thing an air of mystery, while there was not the least occasion ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... Louisiana by France to Spain in 1763, was not only, as we have seen, a cause of violent discontent to the inhabitants of that province, but was considered in all the maritime and commercial cities of France, as impolitic and injurious; and a general wish prevailed to recover the colony. This did not escape Bonaparte, who did not delay to renew with the court of Madrid, a negotiation on the subject; having also in ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast numbers [281] had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it impolitic [282] to appear to share the cause of citizens ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... the consideration of the laws making gambling a penal offence, and particularly referred to the act of Assembly passed by the last legislature, which he denounced as unjust and impolitic. He did not appear for the purpose of defending gambling, but to speak a word in favour of those who had been represented to be the worst members of society, and against whom the voice of proscription ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... palpable then as it is now; and it was as good for preserving the five duties as for retaining the sixth. Besides, the minister will recollect that the repeal of the Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal; and the ill policy of that measure, (had it been so impolitic as it has been represented,) and the mischiefs it produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of the honorable gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the minister has nothing at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... armed forces would be an issue in the next national election. Recalling the changes forced on the Army as a result of political pressures applied before the 1940 election, Gibson predicted that actions that might now seem impolitic to the Army and the White House might not seem so during the next campaign when the black vote could influence the outcome in several important states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. Already the Chicago Tribune and other anti-administration groups ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... had got down, they pressed around me until I could scarce breathe, crying congratulations, Comyn embracing me openly. Mr. Fox vowed he had never seen so fine a sight, and said many impolitic things which the duke must have overheard . . . . Lady Carlisle sent me a red rose for my buttonhole by his Lordship. Mr. Warner, the lively parson with my Lord March, desired to press my hand, declaring that he had won a dozen of port upon me, which he had set his best cassock against. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and Lord Sinclair endeavoured so to dispose of them as to prevent their becoming the property of the Crown. It was necessary, on this account, that Lord Sinclair should disinherit his eldest son; and "as it would," says Sir Walter Scott, "have been highly impolitic to have alleged his forfeiture for treason as a cause of the deed, the slaughter of the Schaws was given as a reason for his exheredation." The following is a clause of the deed by which the end was to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... province could have been housed in one of the larger cities of the present time. But when the province had increased in numbers to 300,000, partially schooled in English legislation, the exercise of despotism was only as impolitic as it was obviously unjust. It was feared by the officers of the civil government of Canada, when this despotism was practised, that the legislature might have the power, which has since been conceded, of dispensing with the services of merely imperial officers, and of ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... stern Spartan self-denial of the man and his followers. There is a hedonistic test, but the higher hedonism prevails against the lower: ignoble and impolitic to sit here feasting while they are fighting, and we don't even know how it fares with them, our allies. The style rises and is at times Pauline. St. Paul, of course, is moving on a higher ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... the tangle of barbed wire—barbed wire from Switzerland to Belgium—to welcome visitors from that direction, which, to say the least, would be an impolitic direction ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... men, in obedience to the popular will, but he persistently refused, and Lyon was continued in prison until liberated by the success of the Republican party, and the repeal of the offensive and impolitic laws soon after. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... the Constitution and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its provisions, in relation to loyal citizens South, is in the highest degree impolitic and suicidal. It is the constant aim of the enemies now in armed rebellion against the Union, to misrepresent the North upon this very point. By systematic lying, they have induced thousands South to believe that the election of Lincoln was designed as an ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... the 19th October, 1844, Dr. Ryerson was appointed Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. Of his appointment, Rev. Dr. Bethune, Editor of The Church, on the 25th October, said:—It was an impolitic and a heartless step, as regards the Church of England in this colony, to raise to the office of Superintendent an individual who has thriven upon his political obliquities, and who owes his fame, or rather his notoriety, to his unquenchable ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... between the United States and England. The suggestion was promptly acted upon, but with no directly fortunate results. The American (p. 075) government acceded at once to the proposition, and at the risk of an impolitic display of readiness dispatched Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to act as Commissioners jointly with Mr. Adams in the negotiations. These gentlemen, however, arrived in St. Petersburg only to find themselves in a very awkward position. Their official character ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... consequences as rather advantageous than injurious. If England, say they, can raise iron and cotton goods cheaper than Poland, and Poland and Russia grain cheaper than England, then the interest of each require that they should follow out these branches of industry, and it is impolitic to strive against it. Let, then, England admit foreign grain on a nominal duty, and this will in the end induce Russia and Prussia to admit English manufactured goods on equally favourable terms; and thus the real interests of both ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... a few barristers to go over to the settlement, who have not met with success adequate to their wishes in the mother country, but who are, notwithstanding, persons of unimpeached moral character (for nothing could be more impolitic in any case than to import persons of doubtful characters into a colony of this description), and whose legal knowledge would be amply sufficient for every purpose in New South Wales; such an importation would be attended with very great advantages to the ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann

... raise it to the same degree as in England will require more than a Century. I perfectly agree with your Lordship too that to Crush the Industry of so great and so fine a Province of the Empire in order to favour the monopoly of some particular Towns in Scotland or England is equally injurious and impolitic. The general opulence and improvement of Ireland must certainly, under proper management, afford much greater Resources to Government than can ever be drawn from a few mercantile or ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... that no sentiment, no opinion ever took a firmer hold of the Northern mind—ever struck more deeply into it—ever became more pervading, or was ever adopted after maturer consideration, than this: That it is impolitic and wrong to convert free territory into slave territory. With such convictions the North will never consent to such ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... usually accounted the most impolitic step in the reign of George I., had its rise in his anxiety for his continental ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... towns with horse-soldiers; then again he turned some hundreds of infantry into cavalry at a minute's notice. He obtained his political intelligence chiefly by means of love affairs, and filled his despatches with epigrams. The ministers thought that it would be highly impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to so volatile and romantic a person. They therefore gave the command to Lord Galway, an experienced veteran, a man who was in war what Moliere's doctors were ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... landward part of the Roman State. Better, surely, no right beyond what the sword could give, than such a transparent semblance of right. No wonder that Victor Emmanuel's best friends condemned such an impolitic and ridiculous proceeding. None could be so simple as to believe that there were only forty-six voters against him, when all the numerous officials, both civil and military, protested against his aggression ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... sobered Lucien. His first thought was that he had some extremely dangerous friends; his second, that it would be impolitic to break with them; for if Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Chatelet should fail to keep their word with him, he might need their terrible power yet. By this time Etienne and Lucien had reached Barbet's miserable bookshop on the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... cognizant of the real causes of Irish discontent. He was aware of the grievances of Ulster, and his description of the conditions of the Munster peasantry in the Whiteboy debates of 1787 is classical. If pressed, he would have answered, we may suppose, that it was impolitic to cure evils which were at once the consequence of ascendancy and the condition of its maintenance. That other strange lapse in 1798, when he described the unparalleled prosperity of Ireland since 1782 under a Constitution which, in the Union debates of 1800, he afterwards covered with ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... was begun and carried on with fury and madness, and obtruded on people with threatenings, tearing of clothes, and drawing of blood." Resistance to the king—if need were, armed resistance—was necessary, was laudable, but the terms of the Covenant were, in the highest degree impolitic and unstatesmanlike. The country was handed over to the preachers; the Scots, as their great leader Argyll was to discover, were "distracted men in ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... cruelly sentenced to death without the simplest forms of justice and perished in the presence of an indignant multitude, whilst he called heaven to witness his innocence and direct its vengeance against his interested accusers. This iniquitous and impolitic proceeding had such an effect upon the minds of the people that all of any property or repute forsook the place, execrating the government of the Portuguese. The consequences of this general odium reduced them to extreme difficulties ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... being the stool of repentance,—and considered the situation more calmly. He was in a profuse perspiration from the energy of his useless exertions. Perhaps he was conscious that he had made a fool of himself, and that his violence was as impolitic as it was useless. In a few moments he was as quiet as a lamb, and remained so for half an hour, though his bondage was ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... the Queen's sentries who guarded the Palais-Royal, without heeding the effect such an excess of insolence and scandal produced. With every kind of talent fitting to dominate party spirit, he failed to acquire the confidence of anyone. He regarded all alliance with the foreigner as odious and impolitic; and notwithstanding, when his embarrassments increased, he lent an ear to the Archduke's envoy, and even to that of Cromwell. At the same time, full of admiration for the Marquis of Montrose, whom he called a hero worthy of Plutarch, he contracted the closest ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... despotic, they had for a long time past established the following inhuman and impolitic custom, that when any of them died, a great number of their subjects, both men and women, should likewise be put to death. A proportionable number of subjects were likewise killed upon the death of any of the inferior Suns; and the people on the other hand had imbibed ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... whose character was deeply tainted with religious fanaticism, the pagans and heretics were delivered from the impolitic proscription which excluded them from the dignities of the State. The brave Gennerid, a soldier of Barbarian origin, who still adhered to the worship of his ancestors, had been obliged to lay aside the military belt; and though ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... many to merit a higher reward, from a government, in whose defence he had sacrificed every prospect; but the warmth of his temper, and his violence in dispute, were such as rendered his promotion to a higher dignity in the church impolitic in the opinion of the ministers. He died May 8, 1662, and was interred in Westminster-abbey, under his own stall. A list of his numerous publications, as well as a character of him, may be found in Wood's Athenae ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... but it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions where the desired concessions cannot be obtained; for our restrictions would not be the less prejudicial to our capital and industry, because other governments persisted in preserving impolitic regulations." ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... but stipulated for the retention of part of the army in the Milanese under the command of Kellermann. Thereupon Bonaparte replied (May 14th) that, as the Austrians had been reinforced, it was highly impolitic to divide the command. Each general had his own way of making war. Kellermann, having more experience, would doubtless do it better: but both together would do it ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... contemplate in that peaceful Sunday morning—the windless trees and fields, the shaking sunlight, the pause in human stir. Yet neither of them heeded, and thus they drew near to the dairy. His first expressed intention had been to go indoors with her, but this he abandoned as impolitic ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... a friendly light; and, if he can be pacified, the other French gentlemen will of course be satisfied, as they look up to him as their head. The marquis grounds his complaint upon a general order of the 24th of August, the latter part of which is certainly very impolitic, especially considering the universal clamour that prevailed ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were "bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... When his mother found that he wished to take up his abode in his own house, she by no means opposed him, and suggested that, as such was his intention, he himself should farm his own land. He was very ready to do this, and had she not represented that such a step was in every way impolitic, he would willingly have requested Mr. Greenwood of the Old Farm to look elsewhere, and have spread himself and his energies over the whole domain. As it was he contented himself with desiring that Mr. Dockwrath ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... fortunately we have evidence which cannot be gainsaid of the justice of its sentiments and the wisdom of its predictions. Governor Ford, himself a Democratic leader as able as he was honest, writing seven years after these proceedings, condemns them as wrong and impolitic, and adds, "Ever since this reforming measure the Judiciary has been unpopular with the Democratic majorities. Many and most of the judges have had great personal popularity—so much so as to create complaint of so many of them being elected or appointed to other offices. But the Bench itself ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... that his conduct of the day previous had been highly impolitic, the chieftain, at the dawn of day, sent for Barron, and said that he desired a further interview, declaring that he had no intention of attacking the Governor on the day before, and that he had been advised to pursue the course he did on the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... soon as Spain should form an offensive alliance with France. This event, which, from the moment that Spain had been compelled to make peace, was clearly foreseen, had now taken place; and orders for the evacuation of the island were immediately sent out. It was impolitic to annex this island to the British dominions; but having done so, it was disgraceful thus to abandon it. The disgrace would have been spared, and every advantage which could have been derived ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... that he protests against the publication or any circulation of it, in its present shape, and must point out to you that it may, if circulated, entail a serious legal responsibility." To this strangely impolitic and utterly futile attempt to intimidate me in the defence of my own reputation, I chose to offer not the slightest resistance. The protest only facilitated that defence. How could a libeller more conspicuously put himself in the wrong, or more effectually ruin his own evil cause in all ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... the first, had no great chance. Captain Reud had determined he should not be invalided. The two other captains cared nothing at all about the matter, but, of course, would not be so impolitic as to differ from their superior officer—an officer, too, of large interest, and the Amphytrion of the day; for when they had performed those duties for which they were so well fitted, their medical ones, they were to dine on the scene of their ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... commanding promontory had been dismantled. With the instinct of a strategist and with no other thought than that of his duties as inspector, he sat down, and on January fourth, 1794, wrote a most impolitic recommendation that the fortification should be restored in such a way as to "command the town." These words almost certainly referred both to the possible renewal by the conquered French royalists and other malcontents of their efforts to secure Marseilles, and to a conceivable effort ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... opinion that no railroad official, however disobliging, would hesitate a moment about which way he would swing after reading an epistle after this pattern. Few, indeed, are the men who would be impolitic enough to incur the displeasure of such a paper as I have artfully represented "The Squeal" ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... King John; succeeded to the throne at the age of nine; during his minority the kingdom was wisely and faithfully served by the Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh; when he came to years he proved himself a weak ruler, and, according to Stubbs, his administration was "one long series of impolitic and unprincipled acts"; with the elevation of Peter des Roches, a native of Anjou, to the post of chief adviser, French interlopers soon became predominant at the Court, and the recipients of large estates and pensions, an injustice further stimulated by the king's ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... How impolitic, Lucy, was it in them, not to gratify her impatience to see him! She would, most probably, have been quieted in her mind, if she had been obliged by one ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... pass general bankrupt laws to be applied in presenti. Now, it is not contended that such laws are unjust, and ought not to be passed by any legislature. It is not said that they are unwise or impolitic. On the contrary, we know the general practice to be, that, when bankrupt laws are established, they make no distinction between present and future debts. While all agree that special acts, made for individual cases, are unjust, all admit that a general law, made for all cases, may ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... natives barter their produce, and sell their prisoners of war, who are carried to Batavia as slaves, and the natives of Java sent from Batavia to this place in return. As they hold their tenure more from policy than strength, it would be impolitic to irritate them, by exposing their countrymen, subjugated to the ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... Cromwell, "alike ungrateful and impolitic—wouldst thou have destroyed our decoy-duck? This doctor is but like a well, a shallow one indeed, but something deeper than the springs which discharge their secret tribute into his keeping; then come I with a pump, and suck it all up to the open air. Enlarge ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... spoke of the Regent's conduct to the Princess as very impolitic, as it shocked the bienseances, by which his father ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... manifested a desire to have their own salaries—six hundred pounds a year—augmented proportionately to the increased cost of living; but in view of the headstrong current of popular opinion against parliamentarism the government deemed it impolitic to raise the point ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... account of a reporter who unfortunately was not present gave my critics the chance for which they were looking. It was at a time when any criticism whatever of a country that was responding so generously to the homeland's call for help would have been impolitic, even if true. It subsequently proved one factor, however, in obtaining the commission of inquiry from the Government, and so far was really a blessing to our work. In retrospect it is easy to see that ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... No. 2, entitled On the Jacobinism of the English at sea, was written when the English made their insolent and impolitic expedition to Denmark, and is also an auxiliary to the politic of No. I. I shewed it to a friend [Bonneville] who had it translated into french, and printed in the form of a Pamphlet, and distributed gratis among the foreign Ministers, and persons in the Government. It was immediately ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... report, Hamilton took strong grounds against this idea, as being unjust, dishonest, and impolitic. In the latter point of view, he justly argued that public credit was essential to the new federal government, and without it sudden emergencies, to which all governments as well as individuals are exposed, could not be met promptly and efficiently. Public credit, he said, could ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... she worked out the main lines of the story during the night; but it was not until she had done so that its full significance appeared to her. Having grasped that, she could scarcely wait for daylight in order to go to Evie, and yet when morning came she abandoned that course as impolitic. Reflection showed her that her struggle must be less with Evie than with Ford, while she judged that he himself would lose no time in putting the battle in array. He must see as plainly as she did that she stood like an army ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... passion repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object good ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... procuring, who can be so mean as to be proud: that even I would sooner forget pride in a low degree than in a high; for it may be a security in the first against doing a base thing: but in the rich, it is a base thing itself, and an impolitic one too; for the more distinction a proud mind grasps at, the less it will have; and every poor despised person can whisper such a one in the ear, when surrounded with, and adorned by, all his glittering splendours, that he was born, and must die, in the same manner ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... destroyed by destiny, by your own understanding, and by Kesava. Vasava's dart is lost, having effected the slaughter of Ghatotkacha who was as insignificant as straw. Karna, and my sons, as all the other kings, through his highly impolitic act, have already entered the abode of Yama. Tell me now how the battle once more raged between the Kurus and the Pandavas after the fall of Hidimva's son. How did they that rushed against Drona, arrayed in order of battle and well-skilled in smiting, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... your petitioners have long beheld with grief our fellow-men doomed to perpetual bondage in a country which boasts of her freedom. Your petitioners are fully of opinion that calm reflection will at last convince the world that the whole system of American slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles, and in its consequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole

... may be, the day of retribution must at length come. According to my feelings, then, it would not only be unjust in the sovereigns to gratify the French people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the French nation a ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... within the limits of the empire. He invited the aged Athanaric to his capital and table, who was astonished by his riches and glory. Peace was favored by the death of Fritagern, and forty thousand Goths were received as soldiers of the empire,—an impolitic act. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... his own hand, he had frankly stated the impossibility he was under of complying with his wishes, and repeated his protestations of attachment to his former sovereign, but that the latter never deigned to give him any reply. This impolitic silence (if the fact be true,) can only be attributed to the pride of Napoleon, which was piqued at Bernadotte's refusals. No doubt he considered his protestations as too false ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... the natives took advantage of this impolitic weakness; and so eagerly did they purchase the coveted firearms of their rivals, that Morton sent to England for a fresh supply of the dangerous merchandise. Such conduct was quite sufficient to arouse the fears and the vigilance ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... once united in the same object & it was accidentally their mutual Interest to fight Side by Side? If the Cincinnati had a Right to erect themselves into an order for the national Purposes of their Institution, had they a Right to call in foreign Aid for those Purposes? It appears to me as impolitic, preposterous & dangerous as it would be for the United States to invite & admit a Delegation from that ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... the principles of constitutional government, but who at this time seems to have been animated by no other feeling than that of hatred for the existing ministers, even went the length of affirming that there was "something not only impolitic but immoral in the idea of any palace belonging to a queen of France.[2]" But when the arrangements had once been made, Marie Antoinette not unnaturally thought her honor concerned in not abandoning it in deference to clamor ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... future navigators of this ocean, with whom it cannot but be a principal object of curiosity to trace the future fortunes of our traveller. At present, I can only conjecture that his greatest danger will arise from the very impolitic declarations of his antipathy to the inhabitants of Bolabola. For these people, from a principle of jealousy, will, no doubt, endeavour to render him obnoxious to those of Huaheine; as they are at peace with that island at present, and may easily effect ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... in common; or, in other words, the social equality they claim is not a right, and ought not to and cannot exist under present circumstances, and any law that overreaches the moral reason to the contrary must be admitted as unjust if not impolitic. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

... organization, and to whatsoever might draw Israel into the paths of other nations, they were the true authors of the religious preeminence of the Jewish people. Very early they announced unlimited hopes, and when the people, in part the victims of their impolitic counsels, had been crushed by the Assyrian power, they proclaimed that a kingdom without bounds was reserved for them, that one day Jerusalem would be the capital of the whole world, and the human race become Jews. Jerusalem and its temples appeared to them as a city placed on the summit of ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... calculating as was Napoleon III., it drove him out of his, for in every respect such a marriage was an unwise and an impolitic one. It lent to his new-founded throne neither the lustre of an alliance with royalty nor the popularity that might have been gained by the selection of a Frenchwoman as the partner of his fortunes. The Spanish blood ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... miserable." From this speech of Dan Hoolan's, I had no difficulty in understanding the state of the case. The wretched man would not give up his own sins, and, therefore, tried to keep the chief in heathen darkness. It would, however, be impolitic to quarrel with him, or, rather, wrong, because the so doing would have increased the difficulty of bringing him round. I should explain that the term lotu means ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... ground. "And is it really so, Friend Iwan? To be poor, to be wretched, to be a slave, are hard indeed; existence is not worth enjoying on those terms. I am afraid thy country can never flourish under such impolitic government." I am very much of your opinion, Mr. Bertram, though I am in hopes that the present reign, illustrious by so many acts of the soundest policy, will not expire without this salutary, this necessary emancipation; which would fill the Russian empire with tears of gratitude. "How long ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... being my golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. C.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir," said Mr. Vholes, bringing his hand flat down upon his desk ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... and prudently in peace, trusting only in their mother-wit; who consider not justly that civility, prudence, love of the public good more than of money or vain honor, are to this soil in a manner outlandish,—grow not here, but in minds well implanted with solid and elaborate breeding; too impolitic else and rude, if not headstrong and intractable to the industry and virtue either of executing or understanding true civil government. Valiant indeed, and prosperous to win a field; but to know the end and reason of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... is the passion repressed by repressing the volition, but the repression of the passion is also the repression of the volition. A man then who did his best to repress all movements of passion indiscriminately, would lay fetters on his will, lamentable and cruel and impolitic fetters, where his will was bent on any object ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... all his care is tenderly directed to save his son, who performs his first deeds of arms under his eye. After Talbot has in vain sacrificed himself, and the Maid of Orleans has fallen into the hands of the English, the French provinces are completely lost by an impolitic marriage; and with this the piece ends. The conversation between the aged Mortimer in prison, and Richard Plantagenet, afterwards Duke of York, contains an exposition of the claims of the latter to the throne: considered by itself it is a beautiful ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... Economist that it seems to be as ungenerous as impolitic to throw on the poor's rates a burthen which ought to be borne by those who profit from the labour thus inadequately remunerated. It could not, and ought not, to be difficult to fix a minimum (not a maximum) on twelve hours' labour per day, such as should be sufficient to support an average-sized ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... animadversion. Because she is not fond of society, it revenges itself by circulating reports detrimental to the owner of a house which is elegantly furnished, not for popular praise, but solely for her own comfort and gratification. While I regard her course as very deplorable, and particularly impolitic for one so young and unprotected, I am totally unacquainted with the reasons that control her; and, in this hour of grief and bitterness, I earnestly desire to shield her from intrusion ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... enjoyment of all our fellow-citizens, exempt from the payment of tolls or any imposition of that character. The practice of thus mingling the concerns of the Government with those of the States or of individuals is inconsistent with the object of its institution and highly impolitic. The successful operation of the federal system can only be preserved by confining it to the few and simple, but yet important, objects for which it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... against him there were only forty-six. Something similar was done in the landward part of the Roman State. Better, surely, no right beyond what the sword could give, than such a transparent semblance of right. No wonder that Victor Emmanuel's best friends condemned such an impolitic and ridiculous proceeding. None could be so simple as to believe that there were only forty-six voters against him, when all the numerous officials, both civil and military, protested against his aggression by resigning their offices. It is bad enough when men ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... sappers and miners were accordingly brought to Washington. This movement gave offense to the Southern men who still remained in Congress, and Mr. Branch of North Carolina offered a resolution declaring that "the quartering of troops around the capital was impolitic and offensive," and that, "if permitted, it would be destructive of civil liberty, and therefore the troops should be forthwith removed." The House laid the resolution on the table by a vote of 125 to 35. Ex-President Tyler had ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... specified limits of age, are physically able to do military service. But, as a class, it would have been cruel and impolitic to have forced men into a service which would have wrecked health and happiness for life, or, by a short and swift passage through the military hospitals, have shuffled them into premature graves. Few men under twenty-five have the power of endurance necessary for a long and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic. It is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who MAY reason calmly, it is ridiculous. The ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... Wilding had said, and bethought him that it were impolitic in him to repeat it. At the same time, not having looked for this cross-questioning, he was all unprepared with any likely answer. He hesitated, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... realized that he had said what, of all things, was the most impolitic. It was nothing less than a bid for a "canvass," and he fully expected to be confronted with the necessary order blanks without delay. But, strangely enough, the book lady made no such move. She looked at him, it is true, but with an expression of surprise and what seemed ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... by destiny, by your own understanding, and by Kesava. Vasava's dart is lost, having effected the slaughter of Ghatotkacha who was as insignificant as straw. Karna, and my sons, as all the other kings, through his highly impolitic act, have already entered the abode of Yama. Tell me now how the battle once more raged between the Kurus and the Pandavas after the fall of Hidimva's son. How did they that rushed against Drona, arrayed in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... hypocrite ought not to reign over us; that we ought to treat with Cromwell and give him security not to trouble England with a king; and whoever marred this treaty, the blood of the slain in this quarrel should be on their heads.' Strange words if true."—Letters, vol. ii. p. 363. The ungrateful, impolitic, and barbarous treatment which his Scottish subjects received from Charles II. after the Restoration, must be held to be a proof of the sagacity at least of Binning, and a justification of the suspicion with which he and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has effectively ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies, the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene of war and tumult was instantly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... 19th October, 1844, Dr. Ryerson was appointed Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada. Of his appointment, Rev. Dr. Bethune, Editor of The Church, on the 25th October, said:—It was an impolitic and a heartless step, as regards the Church of England in this colony, to raise to the office of Superintendent an individual who has thriven upon his political obliquities, and who owes his fame, or rather his notoriety, to his unquenchable dislike to the National Church. In a moment of danger ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... we are given the text of a despatch to the Kaiser in which General Baron von Fuechter assured his Imperial master that any interference with The Citizens and their meetings would be gratuitous and impolitic: ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... there is a large body of men in this country, as in France and Italy, who condemn the demand for these precautions as un-Christian and impolitic. Such laxness is the soil in which thrives the upas tree whose shade has so long darkened the organs of our empire and now threatens ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... a mistake. We treat the invader as very poor and simple people do a pompous visitor. For this incommoding guest of a day, they pillage their garden, bully their children and servants, and neglect their work. Such conduct is not only wrong, it is impolitic. One should have the courage to remain what he is, in the face of ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... in New Holland, from Batavia directly. The prudence shown in the conduct of this affair deserves the highest praise. To have attempted heretofore, or even now, the establishing colonies in those countries, would be impolitic, because it would be grasping more than the East India Company, or than even the republic of Holland, could manage; for, in the first place, to reduce a continent between three and four thousand miles broad is a prodigious undertaking, and to settle it by degrees ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... fashionable world; but they said that it was not their object to dispose of their daughters, as it is called, to the best advantage. The arts which are commonly practised for this purpose they thought not only indelicate, but ultimately impolitic and absurd; for men in general are now so well aware of them, that they avoid the snares, and ridicule and detest those by whom they are contrived. If, now and then, a dupe be found, still the chance is, that the match so made turns out unhappily; at ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... obvious, that if in such situations parents were to attempt to educate their children at home, they would harass themselves, and probably spoil their pupils irrecoverably. It would, therefore, be in every respect impolitic and cruel to disgust those with public schools, who have no other resource for the education of their families. There is another reason which has perhaps operated upon many in the middle ranks of life ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... overtaking Julian, and his deep concern in the matter. This hypocrisy was so transparent and so offensive that there were moments when it stank in the doctor's nostrils, and he could scarcely repress his horror and disgust. Yet to show them would be not only impolitic, but would only add fuel to the flames of Valentine's pyre of triumph. So the doctor, too, sought to play his part, and never wearied in seeking Julian, although his quest was in vain. From Valentine he gathered that Julian was now dropped even by the gay world; that his clubs looked askance at ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... broke in the most impolitic Patem, "we did think the Dominie Curtius and his school were part. And so we have brought to you this salmagundi as our Thanksgiving offering to you for thus freeing us of a ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... said Cromwell, "alike ungrateful and impolitic—wouldst thou have destroyed our decoy-duck? This doctor is but like a well, a shallow one indeed, but something deeper than the springs which discharge their secret tribute into his keeping; then come I with a pump, and suck it all up to the open air. Enlarge him, and let him have money ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears irons."—Kingston to Cromwell. Later writers have assured themselves that Smeton's confession was extorted from him by promises of pardon. Why, then, was the government so impolitic as to treat him with especial harshness so early in the transaction? When he found himself "ironed," he must have been assured that faith would not be kept with him; and he had abundant time to withdraw ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... Ajumba have a horror of cannibalism, and I honestly believe never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were "bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... extension of useful manufactures, more especially in the general application to household fabrics, we behold a rapid diminution of our dependence on foreign supplies. Nor is it unworthy of reflection that this revolution in our pursuits and habits is in no slight degree a consequence of those impolitic and arbitrary edicts by which the contending nations, in endeavoring each of them to obstruct our trade with the other, have so far abridged our means of procuring the productions and manufactures of which our own are ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... confounded with the enemies of my country and ought the patriots inconsiderately to sacrifice a general who has not been useless to the Republic? Ought the representatives to reduce the Government to the necessity of being unjust and impolitic? ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... reliance on military display—was almost destitute of troops. As an illustration of this it is related that during this war the Sultan of Deli elected to pay a visit to Batavia. As only two battalions of troops were left it was considered impolitic that he should know it, therefore the men were marched past him first when he was dining in the capital, and then despatched by train to represent other battalions, and march past him once again on the occasion of his visit to Buitenzorg ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser

... comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Italian violinist, a week later, gave a concert at La Scala, Lafont was in the audience, and the very next day he proposed that Paganini and himself should play together at the same concert. "I excused myself," said Paganini, "alleging that such experiments were impolitic, as the public invariably looked upon these matters as duels, in which there must be a victim, and that it would be so in this case; for, as he was acknowledged to be the best of the French violinists, so the public indulgently considered me to be the best player in Italy. Lafont not looking ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... very wisely decided upon surrender. It would have been very impolitic and cruel to do otherwise. He having thus given his word, the Indians placed implicit confidence in it. They were also perfectly faithful to their own promises. Boone was allowed to approach his men, and represent the necessity of a surrender, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... in the first place to confinements, of which his book was always full; and secondly, to outlying bush-cases, the journey to and from which wasted many a precious hour. And where it would have been impolitic to refuse a new and influential patient, some one on his list—a doubtful payer or a valetudinarian—was gently to be let drop. And it was Mary who arranged who this should be. Some umbrage was bound to be given in the process; but with her help it was reduced to a minimum. For Mary knew ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... Canale Grande, and you shall pay no more for them. Follow me, sir, and pardon me that you were not at once worthily served. I did not know you were a Prussiano, and it would have been most dangerous and impolitic to have received a stranger who might have been a Teresiano; it might have deprived me of all the Prussian custom. Have the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Lordships to advise his Majesty to take every method to check the progress of these settlements, and not to make such grants of the land as will have an immediate tendency to encourage them; a measure which we conceive is altogether as unnecessary as it is impolitic, as we see nothing to hinder the government of Virginia from extending the laws and constitution of that colony to such persons as may have already ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade

... America; nor, therefore, what can be the object of a fleet stationed in the western ocean, to intercept that intercourse. Experience, however, has taught us to infer that the fact is probable, because it is impolitic. On the supposition that this interruption will take place, you suggest Ostend as a convenient entrepot for the commerce between America and Ireland. Here, too, I find myself, on account of the same ignorance of your ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and the life and health of a poor destitute fellow-creature. They all left him—part of them came to Florence—and long before he had cured his small-pox patient, he had not one of his old patients left to witness the cure! However impolitic it may appear, I cannot but express my admiration of Dr. S.'s noble conduct on the occasion, who proved himself not only an honest adherer to our excellent mode of treatment, but also a kind and generous man, worthy of more encouragement than ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and another statute was then made, 'for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec,' &c. All which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... for the last two or three years, and the statute in question was enacted with, a hope that it might unite the people in a kind of legal confederacy against a system so destructive of industry and morals. The act, however ill-judged, and impolitic at best, was not merely imperative,—but fraught with ruin and bloodshed. It immediately became the engine of malice and revenge between individual enemies—often between rival factions, and not unfrequently between ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... spirit of party, roused by impolitic provocation from its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the spirit of national animosity. The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled with the grudge of Englishman against Scot. The two sections of the great ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... have already made reference. Nevertheless, it is certainly no wish of ours that there should remain any distance between us and any true followers of Christ by whatever name they may be called. And so we keep firmly, even where it may seem difficult or impolitic to do so, to our original attitude of entire friendliness with all those who name the ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... confined rigidly to your own circle of acquaintances. The chief advantage of such a work is that you will continue to write while the notes are being dictated. To throw your pen down with an air of finality and begin reading some congenial work of fiction would be a gallant action, but impolitic. No, writing of some sort is essential, and as it is out of the question to take down the notes, what better substitute than an unofficial journal could be found? To one whose contributions to the School magazine are constantly being cut down ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... to death without the simplest forms of justice and perished in the presence of an indignant multitude, whilst he called heaven to witness his innocence and direct its vengeance against his interested accusers. This iniquitous and impolitic proceeding had such an effect upon the minds of the people that all of any property or repute forsook the place, execrating the government of the Portuguese. The consequences of this general odium reduced them to extreme difficulties for provisions, which the neighbouring ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... Government of New South Wales to land a native chief named Philip at New Zealand, whom he subjected to a cruel and impolitic punishment. This man, smarting from his stripes, and burning with a desire to revenge his dishonourable treatment, excited all his friends to the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... seldom speak at hazard; if I do not speak more distinctly now, it is because I will never magnify suspicions into certainties, which we must do even if we mention them. But I suspect, greatly suspect. An open rupture would be disagreeable, would be unwarrantable, would be impolitic. The season draws to a close. Quit town somewhat earlier than usual, and, in the meantime, receive her, if necessary; but, if possible, never alone. You have many friends; and, if no other, Lady Caroline St. Maurice ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... Conscious how impolitic it would be to press this matter further, the captain casually remarked that he should have supposed that all the elements of Nerina had been calculated long since by astronomers on the earth. It was about as unlucky a speech as he could possibly have made. The professor glared ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... order" was the expression he wished to avoid. To his mind Ann was the only known antidote for Ogden, but he felt it would be impolitic to say so."—look after him on the boat," he concluded. "You know you are a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... ill success of his predecessors, proposed the establishment of a colony at Bolae, a town in the country of the Volscians, which had been recently conquered. The patricians[28] opposed this by the same method which they had adopted in the preceding case, the veto by tribunes. Livy criticises the impolitic opposition of the patricians in these words: "This was a most seasonable time, after the punishment of the mutiny, that the division of the territory of Bolae should be presented as a soother to their minds; by which proceeding they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian law, ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson

... pleasure and doubtless be altogether proper as a matter of abstract justice; but I fear rather impolitic. Best ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... you, yet more. If I should write to you "often," what would be the condition of us both? I very empty, and you with a great clatter in your ears. Think of a hopper, with very little grain in it, to keep shaking! It would be a very impolitic hopper. ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... acquired so much glory, and which our ancestors thought so important to the safety and independence of Athens. Philip's power was but beginning, and supported itself more by craft than force. I saw, and I warned my countrymen in due time, how impolitic it would be to suffer his machinations to be carried on with success, and his strength to increase by continual acquisitions, without resistance. I exposed the weakness of that narrow, that short-sighted policy, which looked ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... superior to Hannibal was not to fall before Spartacus, or even to have its course stayed materially by his victories. He marched to the foot of Italy, on the shore of the strait, where he expected to find his supposed naval allies. He was disappointed. They, impolitic no less than faithless, broke their engagement after they had pocketed the sum agreed upon for their services. It was impossible for Spartacus to carry out his design; for not only had he no vessels, but his followers were, it is altogether probable, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... much liking for the Fine Arts, some time since expressed an intimation to display his ability in sketching landscape from nature. The Royal Academicians immediately assembled en masse; and as they wisely imagined that it would be impolitic in them to let an opportunity slip of not being the very foremost in the direction of matters connected with royalty and their profession, offered, or rather thrust forward, their services to arrange the landscape according to the established rules of art laid down by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... the fullest life compatible with the fullest life of fellow-citizens." All beyond this, all interference with this life of the individual, whether by way of assistance, restraint, or education, proves in the end both unjust and impolitic. The remaining parts of the Ethics will treat of Negative ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... part of the winter of 1860-'61. When he told me of the work that had been done, or was doing, at Fort Moultrie—that is, the elevation of its parapet by crowning it with barrels of sand—I pointed out to him the impolicy as well as inefficiency of the measure. It seemed to me impolitic to make ostensible preparations for defense, when no attack was threatened; and the means adopted were inefficient, because any ordinary field-piece would knock the barrels off the parapet, and thus to render them only hurtful to the defenders. He inquired ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... "an old slab" as Whaling anything more impolitic than the conduct of these two cavalry subalterns could hardly have been imagined. Warner never told the colonel what Ray said; but, of course, had to say that Ray expressed no desire to see him. By the following morning the colonel was chafing ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... availing ties: They who proceed on certainties advance, These are not times when men prevail by chance; But still he tries, till, after years of pain, He finds, with anguish, he has tried in vain. Debtors are these on whom 'tis hard to press, 'Tis base, impolitic, and merciless. To these we add a miscellaneous kind, By pleasure, pride, and indolence confined; Those whom no calls, no warnings could divert, The unexperienced, and the inexpert; The builder, idler, schemer, gamester, sot, - The follies different, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... count Vergennes, to suppose after what had passed, that I was not on as good and safe footing in France, as they or any other gentleman could be. However, his uneasiness made him write to the Count what he had advised, who returned for answer, that such a step was both unnecessary and impolitic, as it would only strengthen suspicions by giving every thing an air of mystery, while there was not the least ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... troublesome boy, frequently involved in controversies with the teachers, and sometimes punished in the old-fashioned way with the ferule and the switch, which habit I then regarded as tyrannical and now regard as impolitic. I do not believe that the policy of punishment adopted in the schools of those times would be expedient to-day. It tended to foster a constant irritation between the teacher and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... in an automobile, denotes that you will be restless under pleasant conditions, and will make a change in your affairs. There is grave danger of impolitic conduct intimated through a dream ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... he left England. The horrible scenes of depravity he has witnessed in the barracks whence he has emerged, must have produced their natural effect on his mind. I cannot help thinking that this system of concentration is extremely impolitic. We all know what a detrimental influence the associating of men, punished for an offence comparatively trifling, with others convicted of the most flagrant outrages upon society, exerts upon the former. The experience of our prisons testifies to the fact. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... not have expected that his overtures of peace would be accepted by Austria. The rough, impolitic response made by England, helped him by ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... greatly weakened, the remembrance of many reverses, whilst slight and dubious successes, carefully treasured up, have swollen by the keeping into mighty victories; and at the present day, foreigners who should be so uncourteous and impolitic as to express, in the hearing of Spaniards, a doubt that Spanish valour was the main agent in driving the French from the Peninsula, might reckon, not on a stab—knifeing being less in vogue beyond the Bay of Biscay than is often imagined—but certainly on a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... brief civilization has not quenched the "red fire" of race; and his hint regarding the judicious disposal of the king in the event of annexation, was felt by many of the more sober whites to be highly impolitic. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... indeed, wise checks upon power in favor of the people. But power vested in some rulers can brook no check. To assert the most undoubted rights of human nature, and of the British Constitution, they term faction; and having embarrassed a free government by their own impolitic measures, they fly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... but determined change of front, improbable at first, and evidently impolitic, is the true cause of the disastrous conflict in which the movement of 1789 came to ruin. Had there been no ecclesiastical establishment to deal with, it may be that the development of Jacobin theory, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... the shop hands and everybody." Mrs. Munger explained the point fully. She repeated some things that Annie had said in ridicule of Mr. Peck's position regarding it. "If you do think that part would be bad or impolitic," Mrs. Munger concluded, "we could drop the invited supper and the dance, and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... got down, they pressed around me until I could scarce breathe, crying congratulations, Comyn embracing me openly. Mr. Fox vowed he had never seen so fine a sight, and said many impolitic things which the duke must have overheard . . . . Lady Carlisle sent me a red rose for my buttonhole by his Lordship. Mr. Warner, the lively parson with my Lord March, desired to press my hand, declaring that he had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... which cannot be gainsaid of the justice of its sentiments and the wisdom of its predictions. Governor Ford, himself a Democratic leader as able as he was honest, writing seven years after these proceedings, condemns them as wrong and impolitic, and adds, "Ever since this reforming measure the Judiciary has been unpopular with the Democratic majorities. Many and most of the judges have had great personal popularity—so much so as to create complaint of so many of them being elected or appointed ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... centralized control of that industry was associated with a practical monopoly of some mineral, land, or water rights, the government might be confronted by another instance of a natural monopoly, which it would be impolitic and dangerous to leave in private hands. In all such cases some system of public ownership and private operation should, if possible, be introduced. On the other hand, in case the tendency to combination was strengthened in an industry, ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... ordered to cruise along the northern shore of the Mediterranean, gathering up all the American merchantmen, and convoying them to sea. The "President" and the "Enterprise" made sail for Algiers, to convince the ruler of that country that it would be impolitic for him to declare war against the United States at that time. The desired effect was produced; for the sight of an American frigate did more to tone down the harshness of the Dey's utterances, than ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... are taken from among the blacks. He draws a moving picture of the wretched condition of these forlorn islanders, under the indolent and yet oppressive government of the court of Lisbon. Mr G.F. be it known, was peculiarly sharp-sighted in discovering, and vehement in inveighing against, every impolitic violation of human liberty. In the judgments of some persons, he had imbibed too readily the intoxicating beverage of revolutionary France. Many strong heads, it is certain, were not proof against ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... be difficult to imagine any thing more unconstitutional, more crude, or more glaringly impolitic than the mode of reconstruction indicated by the various executive proclamations that have been issued, bearing on the subject, or even by the bill for guaranteeing the States republican governments, that passed ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... girls should have definite ideas of the impression which they wish to create. The natural girl is always either impolite or impolitic. I am quite willing to allow that a girl who appears artificial is equally detestable. To be unnatural, and to appear natural, is the end at which the young girl should aim. Much, then, will depend on the choice of a pose. It should be suitable; there should be something in your appearance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... short space, in order to punish the miscreants who enervate and disgrace the government." Mr. Jefferson's opinion of the treaty is well known from his rhetorical letter to Rutledge, which, in two or three lines, contains the adjectives, unnecessary, impolitic, dangerous, dishonorable, disadvantageous, humiliating, disgraceful, improper, monarchical, impeachable. The Mazzei letter, written not long after the ratification, displays ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... that, my dear colleague, I am responsible. You know the view I take of that order. I am not alone. Several of my brother Prefects agree with me. It is impolitic, and worse, offensive. The Emperor is reasonable, and does not expect a blind obedience which would really ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... the cause of Jacobinism in Spain, I allow myself to hope that things there are going on well. I am entirely of opinion that the war is a most unadvised step on the part of France, and that nothing could be more impolitic, except our having the folly to mix ourselves in the squabble either way by ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes; "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Of necessity in these Christian tales there would be more of sameness than in those heathen; because it would be improper and impolitic, with such theses, to enter much into the lower human passions and the common events of life. But my intentions of further proceeding in this matter have, as at present, very sensibly subsided; for many wise and many good might reasonably object to making those holy last dying ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas? From these, four States have been carved, and ample territory for four more is to be added in due time, if you, by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope, and, perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation which may reasonably ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... gentleman whose intelligence revolts at usurpations must abstain from discussing the principles and policies of your Federal government, or receive the kicks of crossroad sputterers and press reporters; must either lie or be silent. They know only how to brawl and scrawl 'hot-head' and 'impolitic maniac.' Why, my free negroes know more than all your bosses. Now, damn it, put ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... on to prove it is also impolitic in us to discourage foreigners; since it is easy to make it appear that the multitudes of foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here, have been the greatest additions to the wealth and strength of the nation; the essential whereof is the ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... circle more interested in politics than in individuals. "It is a good thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it appears as impolitic as unnecessary." ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... one of these agreements could be kept without grossly violating the rest."(261) The war in which the Bombay Government had engaged with the Mahrattas had been as unsuccessful in its prosecution as it was impolitic in its commencement, until, early in 1780, a force under General Goddard was dispatched from Bengal to co-operate with the Bombay troops. Goddard's arrival turned the tide of events. The province of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." But the thing was far from being so simple as that. Denouncing the Constitution as Garrison did could not but affront patriotic hearts. It was impolitic, to say the least, to import English co-agitators, who could not understand the intricacies of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... an editorial, published March 10, "the theoretic justice of the proposed amendment to the constitution conferring suffrage upon women," but hoping it would be rejected because "whatever may be said for it, the measure has the fatal defect of being premature and impolitic." The opposition of the Telegram was more aggressive and even of a scurrilous type. To offset this hostility if possible the suffrage association hired a column of space in the Journal and half a column in the Telegram and kept this daily filled with suffrage arguments; toward the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... an act is, that an act implies a choice, and that it is felt to be impolitic and unjust to make a man answerable for harm, unless he might have chosen otherwise. But the choice must be made with a chance of contemplating the consequence complained of, or else it has no bearing on ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... shortly to find one,[280] if his accomplices at Rome should succeed in their objects. Slaves, meanwhile, of whom vast numbers [281] had at first flocked to him, he continued to reject, not only as depending on the strength of the conspiracy, but as thinking it impolitic [282] to appear to share the cause ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... would be informed once and for all that the Prime Minister was in confidential communication with the Jew- proprietor of a stock-jobbing newspaper! And that would never do! It would, at the least, be impolitic. Inwardly chafing with annoyance, he assumed an ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... hand, wished everything done in strict accordance with the laws; as a bold and wise statesman, he urged that nothing was more impolitic than lawless violence on the part of the rulers. Cicero was the timid magistrate; Cato, the injudicious reformer; but Caesar, with his keener knowledge and stronger hand, was the ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... tell you volumes, but I have not time, and it would, perhaps, be impolitic in the present state of affairs. I only wish that among the infatuated party men I may not find my father, and I hope that he will be neutral rather than oppose the war measure, for (if he will believe ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... complete. He was perfectly cognizant of the real causes of Irish discontent. He was aware of the grievances of Ulster, and his description of the conditions of the Munster peasantry in the Whiteboy debates of 1787 is classical. If pressed, he would have answered, we may suppose, that it was impolitic to cure evils which were at once the consequence of ascendancy and the condition of its maintenance. That other strange lapse in 1798, when he described the unparalleled prosperity of Ireland since 1782 under a Constitution which, in ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... of nine; during his minority the kingdom was wisely and faithfully served by the Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh; when he came to years he proved himself a weak ruler, and, according to Stubbs, his administration was "one long series of impolitic and unprincipled acts"; with the elevation of Peter des Roches, a native of Anjou, to the post of chief adviser, French interlopers soon became predominant at the Court, and the recipients of large estates and pensions, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... to the consideration of the laws making gambling a penal offence, and particularly referred to the act of Assembly passed by the last legislature, which he denounced as unjust and impolitic. He did not appear for the purpose of defending gambling, but to speak a word in favour of those who had been represented to be the worst members of society, and against whom the voice of proscription had been raised. He contended ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... worked out the main lines of the story during the night; but it was not until she had done so that its full significance appeared to her. Having grasped that, she could scarcely wait for daylight in order to go to Evie, and yet when morning came she abandoned that course as impolitic. Reflection showed her that her struggle must be less with Evie than with Ford, while she judged that he himself would lose no time in putting the battle in array. He must see as plainly as she did that she stood like an army across his path, and that he must either ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... must thus remain a mystery, an isolated deed of blood unlike anything else in William's life. It seems to have been impolitic; it led to no revolt, but it called forth a new burst of English feeling. Waltheof was deemed the martyr of his people; he received the same popular canonization as more than one English patriot. Signs and wonders were ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... destroyed themselves. Francois acted the part of mediator, but not without great difficulty; he had made promises to the Huguenots, and could not offend them without offending at the same time all Flanders. On the other hand, to offend the Catholics sent by the king to aid him would be most impolitic. The arrival of this re-enforcement, on which the duke himself had not reckoned, filled the Spaniards and the Guises with rage. However, all these different opinions interfered sadly with the discipline of the duke's army. Joyeuse, who we ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... Missionary Society, visited India, remained there three years at the various missionary stations, and was firmly convinced that to interfere with the social customs of the native Christians would be at once unjust and impolitic. As regards the exact action of the Roman Catholics at present, I have no information to lay before the reader, but I know that they always had the wisdom to interfere as little as possible with the prejudices of the people, as long as they ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... easy to represent this as a piece of impolitic narrowness, and to say that its surly bigotry was rightly punished by the evils that it brought down on the returning exiles. The temper of much flaccid Christianity at present delights to expand in a lazy and foolish 'liberality,' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... asked how it was that he could praise a certain poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebris imbribus ac nebulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the stirring of the gastric juices. And such a revival by any of us would be impolitic, were it a possible attempt, before our systems shall have been fortified by philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply to relate, and we can copy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... government agreed to their stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country, in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... whites regarded the emancipation of the negro simply as an arbitrary exercise of power, intended as a punishment for the act of attempted secession—which act, while many believed it to have been impolitic, few believed to be in conflict with the true theory of our government. They considered the freeing of the slave merely a piece of wanton spite, inspired, in great measure, by sheer envy of Southern superiority, in part by angry hate because of the troubles, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... His first thought was that he had some extremely dangerous friends; his second, that it would be impolitic to break with them; for if Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Chatelet should fail to keep their word with him, he might need their terrible power yet. By this time Etienne and Lucien had reached Barbet's miserable bookshop on ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... superiors is both impolitic and impertinent, but there are three who cannot be omitted—two of them live in England and may never see this book, and the third—well, he has expressed his opinion of me quite ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... population was liable to render compulsory labour to the crown; but wisely reflecting that it was not only derogatory to the sacredness of the object, but impolitic to exact any avoidable sacrifices from a people so recently suffering from internal warfare, Dutugaimunu came to the resolution of employing hired workmen only, and according to the Mahawanso vast numbers ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... class of proprietors, and a class of labourers, but by no means infers that the present great inequality of property is either necessary or useful to society. On the contrary, it must certainly be considered as an evil, and every institution that promotes it is essentially bad and impolitic. But whether a government could with advantage to society actively interfere to repress inequality of fortunes may be a matter of doubt. Perhaps the generous system of perfect liberty adopted by Dr Adam Smith and the French ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... weather, to a little innocent trifling with Irish stews, meat pies, and toads in holes. Another drawback on the Whitechapel establishment, is the absence of beer. Regarded merely as a question of policy, it is very impolitic, as having a tendency to send the working men to the public-house, where gin is reported to be sold. But, there is a much higher ground on which this absence of beer is objectionable. It expresses distrust of the working man. It is a fragment of that ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... out of earshot she beckoned Edgar with her whip. It was impolitic, but she was too deeply moved to make accurate calculations. "Dear Edgar, do not be offended with me," she said in her noblest, most sisterly manner. "Of course I do not wish to interfere, and it is no business of mine, but is it right to fool that unhappy girl as you are doing? I put ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... that the wisest among us would very likely have erred with him; and I am not sure that, taking all his plans together, and taking for granted, as he did then, that his influence at court was to last, his suggestion about the negroes was an impolitic one. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... be time enough to consider the question as one of military necessity when our armies advance. To proclaim freedom from the banks of the Potomac to an unarmed, subject, and dispirited race, when the whole white population is in arms, would be as futile as impolitic. Till we can equip our own army, it is idle to talk of arming the slaves; and to incite them to insurrection without arms, and without the certainty of support at first and protection afterward, would be merely sacrificing them to no good end. It is true, the war may lack ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... immaculate, immanent, imminent, immobile, immure, immutable, impalpable, impeccable, impecunious, imperturbable, impervious, implacable, implicit, impolitic, imponderable, importunate, imprecation, impromptu, improvise, imputation, inadvertent, inamorata, inanity, incarcerate, inchoate, incidence, incision, incongruent, inconsequential, incontinent, incorporeal, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... objection was as palpable then as it is now; and it was as good for preserving the five duties as for retaining the sixth. Besides, the minister will recollect that the repeal of the Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal; and the ill policy of that measure, (had it been so impolitic as it has been represented,) and the mischiefs it produced, were quite recent. Upon the principles, therefore, of the honorable gentleman, upon the principles of the minister himself, the minister has nothing at all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the corporals. To employ any newly subjected race or tribe as soldiers or in any responsible capacity is unwise, for ties of blood are liable to lead to treachery; to trust to the idiosyncrasies and personal values of any native interpreter is equally impolitic. Zu Pfeiffer and his party were as unaware of the meaning of the phrases exchanged as they were of the message in the throbbing of that distant drum. Between the conqueror and the subjected tribe was a wall denser than any steel; ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... temporary and partial advantages over one or more of the powers of Europe may be, the day of retribution must at length come. According to my feelings, then, it would not only be unjust in the sovereigns to gratify the French people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the French nation a ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... generally, and only three per cent, upon manufactures. Now wine certainly falls properly under the head of agricultural productions. Upon this ground it might justly claim exemption from taxation. The wine-growers of California allege that the tax is oppressive and impolitic: oppressive, because it is equal to one-fourth of the original value of the wine, and because no other article of production or manufacture is taxed in anything like this proportion; impolitic, because the business is now in its infancy, struggling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... were filled with apprehension for the future of the state under such guidance. The noted misanthrope Timon gave expression to this feeling when, after Alcibiades had secured the assent of the popular assembly to one of his impolitic measures, he said to him: "Go on, my brave boy, and prosper; for your prosperity will bring on the ruin of all this crowd." And it ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers









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