"Opportunist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... us in the end ask ourselves, here and there at least, a man who is of real account in the world of affairs, and who is—not simply a luke-warm Platonic friend or an opportunist advocate—but an impassioned promoter of the woman's suffrage movement? One knows quite well that there is. But then one suspects —one perhaps discerns by "the spirit sense"—that this impassioned promoter of woman's suffrage ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... gratifying his personal ambition, had a nobler source. I do not mean to imply that Roosevelt, who was a most adroit politician, did not employ with terrific effect the means accepted as honorable in political fighting. So did Abraham Lincoln, who also, as a great Opportunist, was both a powerful and a shrewd political fighter, but pledged to Righteousness. It seems now tragic, but inevitable, that Roosevelt, after beginning and carrying forward the war for the reconciliation between Capital ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... "western" and liberal element (with a tinge of the "red") in the school of the '40's, and Gontcharoff stood for the bourgeois and opportunist ideals of the St. Petersburg bureaucrats, Count Lyeff Nikolaevitch Tolstoy penetrated more profoundly into the depths of the spirit of the times than any other writer of the period in the matter of analysis ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... manners, affairs, and the soul of a stranger people, therefore, one must use what experience, knowledge, good-humor, and impartiality one has, without assumption of superiority, without making high demands, and without ceasing to be at least as opportunist as we are at home. Because things are different, they are not necessarily better or worse, and if certain things are not there, it is perhaps because they do not belong there. Above all, we should refrain from applying a stern logic to the life of another ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... "Opportunist is not so harsh a word," soothed the lawyer, thoroughly enjoying the baiting. He frowned with an abrupt change of manner. "You want brass tacks, do you? Here they are, then. That money is none of my business, none of the Government's business. Understand that clearly. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... hard-working man, possessed of considerable personal magnetism and a good political nose—a man who could scent how the pack was running, take a short-cut, and presently appear to be leading. In other words an opportunist. Though he has not much education, and though as a writer he is far from polished, it is said that he has written powerful editorials. "When his editorials have been good," said one gentleman, "it is because he has been stirred up over something, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... seen, I should say that you are my man, O'Mara. Mr. Elliott himself has informed me that your quite spectacular success in one or two vital campaigns has been entirely due to the fact that you are an—er—opportunist! I agree with Mr. Elliott, absolutely—that is, if my first premise ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... clear that the Old Czech Party, now led by Rieger, was inclined to be too conservative and too opportunist. In 1887 the Young Czechs left the national party and entered into opposition. Their party grew steadily, and during the elections in 1889 gained a decided victory in the country districts. The Old Czechs finally sealed ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... was twenty-five, he was on his way to Boston, and was entertained at the Philipse house, the Plaza not having then been built. Mary was twenty, pink and lissome. Immediately after supper, George, finding himself alone in the parlor with the girl, proposed. He was an opportunist. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... life, as, for instance, in foreign negotiations, he showed the same grip upon his subject, the same capacity and judgment as in his speeches, and a mingling of tact and dignity which proved the greatest fitness for the conduct of the gravest public affairs. As a statesman Mr. Webster was not an "opportunist," as it is the fashion to call those who live politically from day to day, dealing with each question as it arises, and exhibiting often the greatest skill and talent. Still less was he a statesman of the type of Charles Fox, who preached ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... length of time to test its effects. The enactment of new railroad legislation in 1909, largely shaped by Congressmen and Senators of very radical tendencies and hostile to the railroads, and acquiesced in by President Taft with ill-advised and opportunist complacency, established, for the first time in America, paternalistic control over the railroads. It was an unscientific and ill-devised statute, gravely defective in important respects and bearing ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... feet and ran lightly up-stairs; but, fast as she fled, thought outran her slender flying feet, and she came at last very leisurely into Celia's room, a subdued, demure opportunist, apparently with nothing on ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the young Emperor to issue twenty-seven edicts, disposing of twenty-seven difficult problems such as I have given above in about twice that many days, and it is this hot-headed and unstatesman-like young "Confucius" who now calls Yuan Shih-kai an opportunist and a traitor because he did not ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... his African party began to build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people to build himself ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom |
