"Unprincipled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frightened her back to her loathing. From her loathing, as soon as her sensations had quickened to realize it, she was hurled on her weakness. She was graceless, she was inconsistent, she was volatile, she was unprincipled, she was worse than a prey to wickedness—capable of it; she was only waiting to be misled. Nay, the idea of being misled suffused her with languor; for then the battle would be over and she a happy weed of the sea no longer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Adventure the Wonder Workers had undertaken; and Ben bitterly regretted that he could not also have been one of the brave knights who had so valorously risen in defense of the weak and distressed against the strong and unprincipled. ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... he was staring vacantly out of the Bantam coffee-room window, between the gilt labels, 'Hot Soups' and 'Dinners,' he was suddenly seized with a fit of virtuous indignation at the disreputable frauds practised by unprincipled adventurers on the unwary public, in the way of betting offices, and resolved that he would be the St. George to slay this great dragon of abuse. Accordingly, after due consultation with Lucy, he invested his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... his many complaints and requests, the English had failed to punish unprincipled white men who had done wrong to ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... civilization, through a wider space than any nation has yet filled with a like beneficent influence? And are we prepared to barter these hopes, this sublime moral empire, for conquests by force? Are we prepared to sink to the level of unprincipled nations, to content ourselves with a vulgar, guilty greatness, to adopt in our youth maxims and ends which must brand our future with sordidness, aggression, and shame? This country cannot, without peculiar infamy, run the common race of national rapacity. Our ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... hard-headed, shrewd, skeptical, grasping, unprincipled, aggressive, fighting men in professions where they did not belong; in professions requiring sympathy, credulity, kindness, tact, generosity, unselfishness, and other such qualities. We have not, in this chapter, outlined all of the different ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... disposition at the North, encouraged by the few Union men at the South, to regard secession as the work of a few ambitious and unprincipled leaders, who, by their threats, their violence, and their overbearing manner, forced the mass of the people of their respective States into secession against their convictions and their will. No doubt there ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... to a neighbouring attorney, the shrewdest, and, I may add, the most unprincipled man in that part of the country. As my brother generally came home every Saturday, to astonish my mother by exhibiting his attainments, he gradually assumed a right of directing the whole family, not excepting my father. He seemed to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... irritation, caused by the offences of many, burst forth on one, perhaps the most innocent of all. Little girl, you have been studying the history of France; do you remember its Louises?—Louis the Fourteenth was a profligate, unprincipled, selfish king. Louis the Fifteenth, another God-defying, self-adoring sensualist. Louis the Sixteenth one of the most amiable, just, Christian monarchs the world ever saw. Yet the accumulated wrongs under which the nation had been groaning during the reign of his predecessors, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... it on the right man, my dear fellow; mark me, 'tis his doing; whatever may be his present reason, he is now, as, then, thoroughly unprincipled, and ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Reformation was a "progressive" movement at all: whether it did not in reality delay progression. For it is well known to-day that it was really managed by the machinations of one of the most selfish and unprincipled of kings [Footnote: Whose conduct at this time largely hinged on the refusal of the Pope to grant him his wished-for divorce from Katherine.]—who was only progressive in the matter of wives—and by his ministers, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... handsome friend of ours, who a few weeks ago was poked out of a comfortable office up the river, has taken himself to Bangor for a time to recover from the wound inflicted upon his feelings by our "unprincipled and ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Sienna. Had Venice shown more cordiality towards Philip, and more disposition to sustain his policy, it is probable that the Republic would have secured the prize which thus fell to the share of Cosmo. That astute and unprincipled potentate, who could throw his net so well in troubled water, had successfully duped all parties, Spain, France, and Rome. The man who had not only not participated in the contest, but who had kept all parties and all warfare away from his borders, was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... will be no exceptions. All that are making a desperate stand for honesty to-day will be overwhelmed by the unprincipled element—" ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the whole history of his foolish boyish love for the fascinating and unprincipled widow who had so nearly effected ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his interest was utterly unselfish. That she was nothing to him but a friend and never would be, and that while it might be hard to see her belong to some fine man and know he never might be more than a passing friend, still it would not be like seeing her tied to a rotten unprincipled fellow like Wainwright. The queer part of it was that the word "rotten" in connection with his enemy played a great part ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... be 'fashions' in marble, but of course it was fashion. Nothing else than the blindest of all blind guides could have led people into anything so hopelessly silly and unprincipled. I shall never enjoy this room again," she continued, "knowing, as well I know, that yonder stately piece of sculpture is a whited sepulchre, a delusion and a snare. I shall feel that I ought to unmask it the moment a visitor comes in, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... living, and to whom he communicated his own selfish Epicureanism. To him in a great measure may be attributed the corruption of the Florentine aristocracy in the sixteenth century. In his public action he was no less vacillating than unprincipled in private life. After prevailing upon Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici to leave Florence in 1527, he failed to execute his trust of getting Pisa from their grasp (moved, it is said, by a guilty fondness for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... kinspeople in the female line, not his agnati, are allowed to live in Kandy, suffering only the slight restriction of confinement to one street out of five, which compose this ancient metropolis. Meantime, it is most instructive to hear the secret account of those causes which set in motion this unprincipled rebellion. For it will thus be seen how hopeless it is, under the present idolatrous superstition of Ceylon, to think of any attachment in the people, by means of good government, just laws, agriculture promoted, or commerce created. More stress will be laid, by the Ceylonese, on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... zeal and military preparation that he has everywhere witnessed; that it was entirely unlooked for, and that he has no doubt that his friend, General Dearborn, will share his fate, if he has the imprudence to follow his example. Hull seems cunning and unprincipled: how much reliance is to be placed on ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... States, that "we do not believe that such oppression is to be found in any other part of the world, civilized or uncivilized. We do not believe that such oppression ever existed before." Yet even this unprincipled writer has, in the very article containing this declaration, shown that he knows better. He has shown that he knows that the African has been elevated and improved by his servitude in the United States. We shall proceed to convict him out of his ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... poverty—the bondmen of ignorance—who had no money with which to corrupt, no art with which to beguile, and no power with which to overawe these representatives of authority. For the first time in the history of mankind, the corrupt and unprincipled agents of undefined power became the servants, friends, protectors, agents, and promoters of the poor and weak and the oppressors of the rich, the strong, the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... antagonists; till we have that vague but most melancholy notion which pervades the life of all elaborate civilization, that goodness and greatness, as we call them, are not to be looked for together, till we expect to see and so do see a feeble and narrow conscientiousness on the one hand, and a bad, unprincipled intelligence on the other, dividing ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... this, these same unprincipled agents, with their hired accomplices and subsidised press, in order to hide the enormity of their crimes, and to divert attention from themselves and their crookedness, systematically and incessantly misrepresent ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... meantime he was leaving aside the most powerful of all his motives, and one which demanded closest scrutiny. Not ambition, in any ordinary sense; not desire of material luxury; no incentive recognised by unprincipled schemers first suggested his dishonour. This edifice of subtle untruth had for its foundation a mere ideal of sexual love. For the winning of some chosen woman, men have wrought vehemently, have ruined ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... in their desire to do what they could for the soldier, had planned the establishment of a Home at Washington, where the private soldier could go and remain for a few days while awaiting orders, without being the prey of the unprincipled villains who neglected no opportunity of fleecing every man connected with the army, whom they could entice into their dens; where those who were recovering from serious illness or wounds could receive the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... can't do as well as he cud. I'm that way. But I wasn't always so. No, sir. They was a time whin I'd fight at th' dhrop iv a hat, f'r money or marbles or pool checks, f'r th' good name iv women or th' revarse, f'r political principles or unprincipled politics, f'r th' gate receipts, f'r me relligion, f'r th' look iv th' thing, because th' barkeeper heard what he said, because he whispered to her, f'r th' sacred theery that th' buildin's is higher in Chicago thin in New York, f'r th' ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... expenses attending the "consignment" of the three Miss Revels to India, Mrs Revel had consented to borrow money, insuring her life as a security to the parties who provided it. Her unprincipled husband took this opportunity of obtaining a sum which amounted to more than half her marriage settlement, as Mrs Revel signed the papers laid before her without examining their purport. When her dividends were become due, this treachery was discovered; and Mrs Revel found herself reduced to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... seemed as if every man of his own party had turned his hand against him. With all his severity, Claverhouse had a just mind, and he offended Queensberry by protesting against the severity of the law; while the Duke of Perth, an unprincipled vagabond, ready to play traitor to either king or religion, hated Claverhouse because he was an honorable man. Claverhouse thought it necessary to write to the Duke of York, explaining the circumstances of his marriage and assuring him of his continued loyalty, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... wine, as usual, and the ordinary wine, but wanted some of good quality and high price. The slave replied in his simplicity, as he was speaking to an old acquaintance, that his master was entertaining Marcus Antonius, who was concealed at his house. The wine-dealer, a faithless and unprincipled wretch, as soon as the slave left him, hurried off to Marius, who was at supper, and having gained admission, told him that he would betray Marcus Antonius to him. On hearing this, Marius is said to have uttered a loud shout and to have clapped his hands with delight; and he was near getting ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Earl of Bellamont and the unprincipled nobleman who has been introduced in the earlier pages of this tale, had not escaped the imputation of conniving at acts on the sea, far more flagrant than any of an unlawful trade; and it will therefore ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... They are better paid, too. Many an olden-time author received very scant remuneration for his labor; sometimes he received none at all. Many had to beg the patronage of the rich in order to get their works printed; contracts were unfair and publishers unprincipled. The unfortunate author was the prey of vultures who cheated him at every turn. Many died in extreme poverty, only to become famous when it was too late. In our day the law has revolutionized most of these injustices, and ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... to go to the fair with things, and to imagine the very worst. Why, for instance, should not some very kind people have found the children? Why must they, as a matter of course, have fallen into the hands of cruel and unprincipled folk? Some of the very sharpest detectives in Scotland Yard are on their track. For my part, I have not the slightest doubt that they will ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... if there has been one point on which mother and I have been agreed, it has been on the subject of the unprincipled way men prepare themselves for marriage, and the sort of marriages that are the result. We have watched the course of it, mother and I, for many years; and we had come to one and the same conclusion, that it is before marriage that a marriage is marred. But when, the other day, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Plots and conspiracies without number were formed against the tyrant's life, and in his later years he lived in continual apprehension and distress. His fate, however, was still more striking as an illustration of the manner in which the old age of ambitious and unprincipled men is often embittered by the ingratitude and wickedness of their children. Agathocles had a grandson named Archagathus, who, if all the accounts are true, brought the old king's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The story is too shocking to be fully believed, but it is said ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of men who rule society(?) in the mines are the gamblers, who, for the most part, are reckless, bad men, although, no doubt, there are many among them whose only vice is that fatal love of play. The rest of the people are afraid of these daring, unprincipled persons, and when they commit the most glaring injustice against the Spaniards, it is ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... more insignificant than Being.' But if Hegel's central thought is easy to catch, his abominable habits of speech make his application of it to details exceedingly difficult to follow. His passion for the slipshod in the way of sentences, his unprincipled playing fast and loose with terms; his dreadful vocabulary, calling what completes a thing its 'negation,' for example; his systematic refusal to let you know whether he is talking logic or physics or psychology, his whole deliberately ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... as some—the unprincipled jade!" he retorted. "But that's another thing I've heard about you, Mr. O'Mara, if you will pardon a garrulous old gossip's personalities. They tell me that you ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... gone into the kitchen and surprised them while thus employed; and sometimes, to avoid detection, the obnoxious party has been hurried into a closet, or butler's pantry, where there has been much plate. Few are aware of the losses that have attended the conduct of unprincipled servants in this, as in other respects. It may be hoped that few families would knowingly look over conduct so improper, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... and living in accord, do not immediately pronounce anything upon their friendship, though they should affirm it with an oath, though they should declare, "For us to live apart in a thing impossible!" For the heart of a bad man is faithless, unprincipled, inconstant: now overpowered by one impression, now by another. Ask not the usual questions, Were they born of the same parents, reared together, and under the same tutor; but ask this only, in what they place their real interest—whether in outward things or in the Will. ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... I have observed that Presbyterian clocks are apt to be more reliable than any other kind, although the truest clock I have ever come across is on a little Dutch Reformed Church in Orange County. One of the most unprincipled clocks I can think of is just outside my window. I use unprincipled with intention, for this clock is not vicious, but giddy. If it were consistently late or consistently early, one might get used to it. But to look out of the window at 9:30 and find this clock pointing ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... gambling, and devoted to the pleasant vices that were rampant in the Court of France, finely educated, able in the conduct of affairs, and fertile in expedients to accomplish his ends. Francois Bigot might have saved New France, had he been honest as he was clever; but he was unprincipled and corrupt: no conscience checked his ambition or his love of pleasure. He ruined New France for the sake of himself and his patroness and the crowd of courtiers and frail beauties who surrounded the King, whose ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Col. Ferguson, of the British 71st, had undertaken to visit the tory settlements in the upper country, and train up the young men to arms. Among these several unprincipled people had joined him, and acted with their usual propensity for rapine and murder. Many Americans, fleeing before them, passed over into the state of Tennessee, then beginning to be settled. By their warm representations, they roused the spirit of ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... are not dramatists. We still await Mr. Henniker Heaton's tragic fourth act about the failure of the negotiations for a penny post with France. Brieux is too violent a reformer ever to be a serious dramatist. Violent reformers are unprincipled, and the reformer in Brieux forces the dramatist in him to prostitution. The dramatist in him is not strong enough to resist the odious demands of the reformer: which fact alone shows how far he is from being a first-rate dramatist. As a dramatist Brieux is no stronger, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... pleasure, she had hoped from them. Her first youthful passion, her friendship for Fanny, had encountered many disappointments, and, in fine, a melancholy and premature catastrophe. Soon after these accumulated mortifications, she was engaged in a contest with a near relation, whom she regarded as unprincipled, respecting the wreck of her father's fortune. In this affair she suffered the double pain, which arises from moral indignation, and disappointed benevolence. Her exertions to assist almost every member of her family, were great and unremitted. Finally, when ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... tales, and carried away a strange impression from them. She conceived the shrewdest enemies of the people, those who deceived them most frequently and most cruelly, as little, big-bellied, red-faced creatures, unprincipled and greedy, cunning and heartless. When life was hard for them under the domination of the czars, they would incite the common people against the ruler; and when the people arose and wrested the power from him, these little creatures ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... and, knowing her friendship for the young engineer, guessed her aunt's motive. The explanation, in any case, would not have improved the position much, for if the woman were utterly unprincipled, which she could well believe, why should the man who had, of his own will, pledged himself to her?—but she flushed again as she refused to follow that line of thought further. Nevertheless, she clenched a little hand in ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... into deeply rooted rancor, sharp differences of opinion led to controversy in his parish. Invited to preach on political occasions and in some cases to the public through the press, he discussed political affairs with such keenness and sarcasm that unprincipled parasites in his community were much disturbed. In one of his discourses he used the following expression: "A dissembler is one proud of applause—will advertise himself for office—dazzling the public man with high pretext, like aspiring Absolom, 'Oh that I were made ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... John, alias Master Murray, was about eleven when I came: a fine, stout, healthy boy, frank and good-natured in the main, and might have been a decent lad had he been properly educated; but now he was as rough as a young bear, boisterous, unruly, unprincipled, untaught, unteachable—at least, for a governess under his mother's eye. His masters at school might be able to manage him better—for to school he was sent, greatly to my relief, in the course of a year; in a state, it is true, of scandalous ignorance as to Latin, as well as the more useful ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... while he was almost reckless in his munificent charities. But in his present irreligious state I hear that he has grown bitter and sour and illiberal. Yet, however repulsive his manner may be, I can not believe that his nature is utterly perverted. He is dissipated but not unprincipled. Let him rest, my child, in the hands of his God, who alone can judge him. We can but pray and hope. Go ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... unhappy men are treated with derision and contempt by all classes; and the New Zealanders, being perfectly aware of their state of degradation, refuse all intercourse with them. They are idle, unprincipled, and vicious in the extreme, and are much feared in the Bay of Islands; for when by any means they obtain liquor, they prove themselves ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... may compare the following extract from a letter, addressed in May 1544 to Titian, by one of the most unprincipled of literary bandits who have ever disgraced humanity, but who nevertheless was solemnised to the spirit of true poetry by the grandiose aspect of nature as it appeared to him in Venice. That Pietro Aretino should have so deeply felt the charm of natural ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... however, he realized that his father's anger was much more estimable and respectable, and although he was censured by his father, he was at bottom quite in agreement with him, whereas he found the cheerful indifference of his mother a trifle unprincipled. At times his thoughts would run about thus: "It is bad enough that I am as I am, and will not and cannot alter myself, negligent, refractory, and intent on things that nobody else thinks of. At least ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... this Hall of Independence that meetings of infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues have been held to counsel a bloody resistance to the laws of the land. It is not in this city that conventions are held denouncing the Constitution, the Laws, and the Bible. It is not ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... is an entertaining novel; the struggle between the high-spirited, generous, half-savage heroine, and her specious, handsome, unprincipled, soi-disant father, is exciting; and the sympathy of the reader is cleverly enlisted for the heroine, Lucia, from the first moment. The personages have all of them a certain look of reality, and there is a notion of likeness which insures ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... that Jezebel!" came the ringing denunciation. "The tricky, shameless, penurious, graspin' unprincipled little she-devil! She's after you, my boy, after you hard. An', you poor miserable blind worm of a fool, you ain't got the sense to see it! Everybody knows it; the whole country's talkin' about it; how Temple's baitin' his trap with ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... determined to fulfil the last injunction of his father Amphiaraus, who had desired him to be revenged on his mother Eriphyle for her perfidy in accepting a bribe to betray him. This resolution was further strengthened by the discovery that his unprincipled mother had urged him also to join the expedition {278} in return for the much-coveted veil of Harmonia. He therefore put her to death; and taking with him the ill-fated necklace and veil, abandoned for ever the home of ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the year was lost; nor had greater results been brought about in Italy or on the Rhine. The spirits of the allies were only sustained by the romantic exploits of Lord Peterborough in Spain. Profligate, unprincipled, flighty as he was, Peterborough had a genius for war, and his seizure of Barcelona with a handful of men, a step followed by his recognition of the old liberties of Aragon, roused that province to support the cause of the second son of the Emperor, who had been acknowledged as King of ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... from the Lords at Edinburgh with the offer of the throne of his ancestors, that with my father and my brother Robin, together with many of our neighbours, I did sign the Remonstrance against making a prince of such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. But in that we only delivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; for it was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation to arm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of the spirit in which it was conceived and understood. For when ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... did, like a beaver; there wasn't a miner in my neighborhood that I didn't treat, and a miner's baby that I didn't kiss, and often their wives, as some unprincipled scoundrel one day told Mrs. Hudson, to the great injury of my ears and shins for almost a week, and the upshot of the business was, that my township turned a political somerset. Friends of Simon's, in disguise, went to Harrisburg, ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... murdered men had been torn from their beds at night, and hanged in their own door-yards, in the presence of their well-nigh distracted wives and children. There can be no question that these two unprincipled assassins richly merited their fate, and hence it was impossible to entertain for them any feeling of sympathy. Nevertheless, I stand by my original proposition, that to see any man strung up like a dog, and hanged in cold blood, is a ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... the way it looks from our standpoint: There is born in us a passion for getting that which belongs to others, or that which others are trying to get. In some of us this instinct is developed more than in others, and some are unprincipled enough to indulge it unjustly; but let me ask you if it is wrong to follow the leadings of such a desire if we are strictly ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... pity. They had been villainously imposed upon. And the Young England League to which they had all subscribed so handsomely—where were its funds? Was it safe to leave them at the disposal of so unprincipled a fellow? Then germs of stories crept in from the studios and the stage and grew perversely in the overheated atmosphere. Paul's reputation began to assume a pretty colour. On the other hand, there were those who, while deploring the deception, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... vicious prodigality. They bring with them the vices of their caste, whatever that caste may be. Youth is imitative, and seldom a clumsy copyist, of the faults of its elders, provided those faults are fashionable faults, however unprincipled. However this may be, I must protest against the universities being made answerable for these doings. Attempts have been made, and failed, in respect to manners and to credit; and have failed clearly because they were impracticable, and, more than that, better left alone. The university ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Barlasch, who, like many unprincipled persons, had soon found that a lie is much simpler ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... being thus honoured to suffer in the cause of righteousness, and at the hands of sinful men; and, as soon as I was alone, I betook myself to prayer, deprecating the long-suffering of God towards such horrid sinners. My jailer came to me, and insulted me. He was a rude unprincipled fellow, partaking of the loose and carnal manners of the age; but I remembered of having read, in the Cloud of Witnesses, of such men formerly having been converted by the imprisoned saints; so I set myself, with all my heart, to bring about this ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... presents himself as a candidate for fame, by the humour or the fashion of the times; the taste of the public, more likely to be erroneous than right at any time; and the incompetence, or personal malevolence of some unprincipled critic, who may take upon himself to guide the public opinion, and who if he feels in his own heart that the fame of the man whom he hates is invulnerable, lays in wait for that reason the more vigilantly to wound him in his ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... his confinement, and the unprincipled society, which he is obliged to endure, is peculiarly disagreeable to a ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... qualified to become the arbiter of India; but Dowlut Rao, though deficient neither in military capacity nor talent for government, was only fourteen at the death of his predecessor; and his inexperience made him a tool in the hands of an unprincipled minister, Shirzee Rao Ghatka, who directed all his efforts to undermine, by force or intrigue, the ascendency of the upright and patriotic Nana Furnavees at Poonah. The young Peshwah, Madhoo Rao, had perished in 1795 by a fall from the roof of his palace; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... dear, exquisitely hypocritical reader, will at once cry, "Shame! Could a man be so wicked as to attempt to force on a duel, so that he might make himself known through the medium of a legal murder?" You will tell your friends of this horribly unprincipled young man, and they will, of course, instantly want to ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... could bring you to see how unlikely it is that a sensible, superior woman could really attach herself to a mere lad. An unprincipled person might pretend it for the sake of your property—a silly one might like you because you are good-looking and well-mannered; but neither ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this young man. But I have known others—members of the same family—and have a good reason for hating his name. He comes of a false, unprincipled race. I am ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of Seleucia Pieria, the seaport of the capital, fell into his hands, in the neighbourhood of which he was still further gratified with the apprehension of the cruel Laodice, at whose instigation his sister and nephew lost their lives. The punishment of this unprincipled woman seems, however, to have completely satiated his resentment; for, instead of securing his conquests in Syria, and achieving the entire humiliation of Seleucus, he led his army on a plundering expedition into the remote provinces of Asia, whence, on the news of domestic troubles, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... see. (Takes up the paper and stands by the table reading it.) What!—"cannot pronounce too emphatic a warning against unprincipled deserters." (Looks at her.) They call me ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... will excite more in her heart. We do not appreciate the worth of a prize more than when we are on the point of losing it. Some regulation in matters of love are indispensable for the happiness of both parties. I think I am even justified in advising you on certain occasions to be a trifle unprincipled. On all other occasions, though, it is better to be a dupe than a knave; but in affairs of gallantry, it is only the fools who are the dupes, and knaves always have the laugh on their ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... money magnates had grown so unprincipled, sunk so low, that they would steal a mouse ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad enough. But Little Frank was a girl—a sick girl, without a penny. And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness knows how much wealth—wealth of which we, the uncivilized, unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed her parents and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he—she, I mean—was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a nightmare. And I was on ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Christendom, from the unscrupulousness of the private associations that now control the monetary affairs, and regulate the transit of persons and property, in almost every civilized country. More than one American State is literally governed by unprincipled corporations, which not only defy the legislative power, but have, too often, corrupted even the administration of justice. The tremendous power of these associations is due not merely to pecuniary corruption, but partly to an old legal superstition—fostered by the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... yet not wholly unlovable; he may be unsound or even unprincipled, he may be deficient in qualities that go to make men respected and satisfied with the world in general, but he possesses, I think, certain citizen-virtues unintelligible to the self-centred, rustic type of mind. He could be stirred ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... assurance, because, in addition to being unprincipled, he was in a manner ordained by election and birthright to rule over Kensington. His father had been one of those strong-willed, clear-visioned, intelligent young Eastern divinity students who brought to a place of ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... fisheries in that sea. Vessels have likewise been employed in cruising along the Atlantic coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, and in the neighboring seas. In the latter many piracies have been committed on our commerce, and so extensive was becoming the range of those unprincipled adventurers that there was cause to apprehend, without a timely and decisive effort to suppress them, the worst consequences would ensue. Fortunately, a considerable check has been given to that spirit by our ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... They looked on the struggle as one for the restoration of monarchy. The King on 9th February wrote to Grenville that he hoped the war would be the "means of restoring some degree of order to that unprincipled country," and Burke flung into an unquotable phrase his anger that the war should turn on the question of the Scheldt.[198] For the present the aggressive conduct of France welded together these two wings of the royalist party; but events were ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... I cannot free myself from the oppression of spirits occasioned by seeing everything in the lamentable state in which all must continue in Greece, unless some effectual steps are taken to put an end to the intrigues and rivalships headed by unprincipled chiefs and backed by their savage followers. Believe me, that there is nothing I will leave undone to serve the cause. But it is essential that more time shall not be wasted in endeavouring to accomplish objects of vital importance by ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf; and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter library of St. Bertrand to form this priceless scrapbook. On the first of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly recognizable ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... of greedy and unprincipled adventurers" in England succeeded in having an agent of their own appointed deputy governor. This was Samuel Argall. Lord Delaware, the Governor, dying in 1618, Argall became virtual dictator, and under ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... in spite of many shocking and unprincipled deeds, at one time of violence, at another of weakness, displayed, during his reign of thirty-three years, an inclination towards moderation and peace, in striking contrast with the measureless pretensions and outrageous conduct of the other Frankish kings ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... utterly worthless purposes. This social duel—that's just what it is—between you and Mrs. Allistair, besides being nonsense, will be absolutely ruinous if you keep it up. Mrs. Allistair is as unprincipled in a social way as her husband has been in a business way; her ambition will hesitate to use no means, you know that—and, don't forget this, she can spend fifty dollars ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... Scylla of calling everything by one name, and recognising no individual existences of any kind, by falling into the Charybdis of having a name for everything, or by some piece of intellectual sharp practice like that of the shrewd but unprincipled Ulysses. If we were consistent honourable gentlemen, into Charybdis or on to Scylla we should go like lambs; every subterfuge by the help of which we escape our difficulty is but an arbitrary high-handed act ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... absent from her more frequently—spoke of the necessity of attending to his duty—his duty! oh, the ready excuse man finds to do evil. Better far for that poor girl would it have been to have been buried in the deepest recesses of the cloister, than to have attracted the notice of that vile unprincipled nobleman. It was about this time the old Earl died, and he quitted the service. There was no bar now for his acknowledging her as his wife—but he was satiated—his fleeting passion had evaporated. He had visited England in the interval, and seen ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... fulfilled. Aye, and for this very reason I deserve to receive praise—that I always adopted such political measures as brought with them accessions of glory and honour and power to the city. No measure of mine is malicious, harsh, or unprincipled; none is degrading or unworthy of the city. The same spirit will be seen both in my domestic and my international policy. {109} For just as in home affairs I did not set the favour of the rich above the rights of the many, so in ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... said anything of the kind; don't be so frightened: I only said I have formed, from something I know, an ill opinion of her; and an unprincipled person, under temptation, is capable of a great deal. But no matter how wicked she may be, you may defy her, simply by assuming her to be so, and acting with caution; she is cunning and selfish, and she'll do nothing desperate. But I would ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... hae a lang-shafted spune that sups kail wi' the deil. He should be well guarded and well protected that has to do with cunning and unprincipled men. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... out a band of economic missionaries, who were not long in discovering how hardly an old class interest dies. In many districts neither law nor equity gave them protection. The members of the league were described in the London Press as unprincipled schemers, as commercial and political swindlers, and as revolutionary emissaries, whom all well-disposed persons ought to assist the authorities in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Eutychians. Of all passages of history, since history has been, who would have thought of going to the sayings and doings of old Eutyches, that delirus senex, as (I think) Petavius calls him, and to the enormities of the unprincipled Dioscorus, in order ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... to write about she should have written to ME. I am the oldest. Charlotte had no business to get a letter from Jane Roberts without consulting me. It's just like her underhanded ways. She got married the same way. Never said a word to me about it, but just sneaked off with that unprincipled Jacob Wheeler—" ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Conkling, had quarrelled with the President over certain appointments unacceptable to the New York senator; Guiteau pretended to think the removal of Mr. Garfield necessary to the unity of the party and the salvation of the country. The prosecution showed that Guiteau had long been an unprincipled adventurer, greedy for notoriety; that he first conceived of killing the President after his hopes of office were finally destroyed; and that he had planned the murder several weeks in advance. Guiteau was found guilty, and executed at Washington ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... advantage, it was agreed that the wood around Tillycot lake should be left intact, save the breadth of a road to the main highway. Then they fell to discussing Rawdon, a man plainly of extensive reading, of scientific attainments, of taste in architecture and house-furnishing, and yet an utterly unprincipled and unscrupulous villain. "One would think," said Miss Carmichael, "that the natural beauties of a place like this would be a check upon evil passions and the baser part of one's nature." But the colonel answered, "In the wahah, Miss Cahmichael, I have seen soldiehs, even owah own soldiehs, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... a matter of practice, and the adoption of which as a matter of bargain, were intelligently and clearly understood by the contracting parties. The truth is the misnamed 'Liberty party' is under the control of as ambitious, unprincipled, and crafty leaders as is either the Whig or Democratic party; and no other proof of this assertion is needed than their unblushing denial of the great object of the national compact, namely, union at the sacrifice of the colored population of ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... is set off to great advantage by the fringe of green boulevard along the river bank,—a fine enough setting for an architectural monument of whatever rank, be it new or old, consistent or conglomerate. As for the classification of the architectural style of the cathedral itself, it is an unprincipled mixture of components, but little related to each other. The southern influence is apparent, alike in the scanty remains of the Romanesque, and the restored Renaissance portions, while Gothic peeps out ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... reproof for insulting the inhabitants or trespassing on their property. When the complaint was brought to Greene that some of his men had been stealing watermelons, he promptly issued an order that such practices must be punished. "A few unprincipled rascals," he said, "may ruin the reputation of a whole corps of virtuous men;" and on another occasion he called upon the soldiers to behave themselves "with that decency and respect that became the character of ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... supposed by most Englishmen, who have been accustomed to look upon this act of the Dutch with vague horror, as something utterly unprincipled and barbarous, that the native population suffered grievously by this destruction of such valuable property. But it is certain that this was not the case. The Sultans kept this lucrative trade entirely in their own hands as a rigid monopoly, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... master under false pretences—should have held out as qualifications for the post his respectable connections, when he knew perfectly well all the time that he was going to marry somebody who was not in Society—it was really quite too awfully wicked and deceptive and unprincipled of him! A very bad, dishonest young man, she was very much afraid; a young man with no sense of truth or honour about him, though, of course, she wouldn't say so for the world before any of the parents, or do anything to injure the poor young ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying, afterward, the very engine which had lifted them ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... interest, contracted when both were mere children. He was the same Essex who afterwards figured in the civil war—a grave, conscientious, earnest man, who could have had little sympathy with a woman so giddy and unprincipled. She suited better with the profligate Somerset; but had it not been that the king's favourite demanded it to be dissolved, the original union would have ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... in September, 1875, from a furlough of two months, an incident occurred which, explained, will give some idea of the low, unprincipled manner in which some of the cadets have acted toward me. It was at cavalry drill. I was riding a horse that was by no means a favorite with us. He happened to fall to my lot that day, and I rather ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to be reckoned about the most unlucky throughout the year, and in former times no one who could possibly avoid it began any work, or entered on any undertaking on this anniversary. To marry on Childermas Day was specially inauspicious. It is said of the equally superstitious and unprincipled monarch, Louis XV., that he would never perform any business or enter into any discussion about his affairs on this day, and to make to him then any proposal of the kind was certain to exasperate him to the utmost. We are informed, too, that ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... you unprincipled beggars," growled the musician. "You imagine that mankind are to have no other thought but that of supplying you with luxuries! And if you were asked, in a competitive examination, to define ME, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Of unprincipled fools, yes—of men who care for appearance more than sympathy. But you are not such a man! It is not as if we had been friends; it is not as if we had ever spoken. It is wicked to call such a foolish fancy by the name of ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall |
