"Unfair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she took unfair advantage of me," answered the bird sadly. "Had I been awake, I could easily have ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... conspiracy is the only means by which masters retain any power at all. Wheresoever there are reciprocal rights, for one of the two antagonist interests to combine in defence of their own, presupposes in very many cases an unfair disturbance of the legal equilibrium. Society, as being an inert body in relation to any separate interests of its own, and chiefly from the obscurity of these interests, cannot be supposed to combine; and therefore cannot combine even to prevent combinations. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the lack of opposition is assigned as the natural cause. In a district in my State, in which an opposition speech has not been heard in ten years and the polling places are miles apart—under the unfair reasoning of which my section has been a constant victim—the small vote is charged to be proof of forcible suppression. In Virginia an average majority of 12,000, under hopeless division of the minority, was raised to 42,000; in Iowa, in the same election, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... a rough-and-ready conception of justice with which the politician has always to reckon, but that all the Protestants should get a concession, of which it is impossible for the Catholics to avail themselves, would be manifestly unfair. Political expediency and justice seem to be alike against the claims of the Protestant party, unless it be resolved to grant aid to Roman Catholics and Jews only, which is a possible, though not very consistent, solution ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... upon one occasion. No man has a right to complain when, under any form of government, the people withhold their indorsement, but every citizen has a right to complain if the downfall of an aspirant is accomplished by foul and unfair means," (this last statement was made while looking toward Freeman). "I have passed practically all of my life in your midst. A man should be honest, with a courage to face the great truths ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... there is a negotiation with Sweden and Denmark pending about the cessation of their tribute to Morocco, likewise that Prince Metternich has sent a despatch condemning as unfair the understanding come to between us and France about the Spanish marriage;[2] that there is a notion of exchanging Hong Kong ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... "nations"—four groups, that is, or families of scholars—each of these having in academical affairs a single collective vote. These nations were the Bavarian, the Saxon, the Polish, and the Bohemian. This does not appear at first an unfair division—two German and two Slavonic; but in practical working the Polish was so largely recruited from Silesia and other German or half-German lands that its vote ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... responsible for it. You will find in it the aria I wrote for Madlle. Weber. You can have no idea of the effect of that aria with instruments; you may not think so when you see it, but it ought to be sung by a Madlle. Weber! Pray, give it to no one, for that would be most unfair, as it was written solely for her, and fits her ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... lot of men here who don't agree wi' your humbuggin' notions about temperance an' tee-totalism—more of 'em, maybe, than you think. These want to have the drink, an' I've come to give it 'em. I see nothin' unfair in that." ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... utterly senseless, brought about as it had been by a laughably trivial occurrence; and, moreover, it was in the highest degree unfair, despite the fact that both duellists would face each other under similar conditions, with similar weapons, and with the same sun and the same wind. It was unfair, because the stakes were of such ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... followed, I trust, by more. And though, as a humble disciple of Bacon, I cannot but think that the method both of Kant and Fichte possesses somewhat of the same inherent defect as the method of the Neoplatonist school, yet I should be most unfair did I not express my deep obligations to them, and advise all those to study them carefully, who wish to gain a clear conception either of the old Alexandrian schools, or of those intellectual movements which are agitating the modern mind, and which will, I doubt not, issue ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... congratulations offered to them. The next day, however, when he was talking to Ralph Harcourt, he remarked, "From what I hear, Harcourt, D'Aubusson praised young Tresham very highly. It seems to me that there was nothing at all out of the way in what he did, and it was very unfair that he should be selected for higher ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... corner he swerved and crossed, still possessed of his devil of inspiration. It would be unfair to him to say that he did not struggle to resist it, for he did, because it was fairly and egregiously asinine; yet struggling, his feet trod the path to which it ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... be faced if the issue is to be argued at all. Unless, then, the defender of the occasional tariff system contends that that system will rectify trade conditions by keeping out goods which are made at an artificial advantage, amounting to what is called "unfair competition," and letting in only the goods not so produced, he is not facing the true fiscal problem at all. Either he admits that exports and freight charges and other credit claims must be balanced by imports or he denies it. If he denies it, the discussion ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... industry was National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp.,[454] decided April 12, 1937. Here the statute involved was the National Labor Relations Act of July 5, 1935,[455] which forbids "any unfair labor practice affecting interstate commerce" and lists among these "the denial by employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of collective ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the more eagerly apprehend and welcome the advent of the Deliverer. He tells us each our state, in order that we may the more long for, and the more closely grasp, the great mercy which reverses the state. And so how shallow and how unfair it is to talk about evangelical Christianity as being gloomy, stern, or misanthropical! You do not call a doctor unkind because he tells an unsuspecting patient that his disease is far advanced, and that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... man did not speak again till supper-time, when he began asking his son an endless number of hypothetical questions on what might induce Miss Aldclyffe to listen to kinder terms; speaking of her now not as an unfair woman, but as a Lachesis or Fate whose course it behoved nobody to condemn. In his earnestness he once turned his eyes on Edward's face: their expression was woful: the pupils were ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... disagreeable about Syria, the Italians about Fiume, and every one about the Russian invasion, or evacuation, or whatever it was, which even Percy's press joined in condemning. And coal was exorbitant, and food prices going up, and the reviews of Audrey against the World most ignorant and unfair. I believe that that spiteful article of Mr. Gideon's about me did a good deal of harm among ignorant and careless reviewers, who took their opinions from others, without troubling to read my books for themselves. So many reviewers are like that—stupid and prejudiced ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... Is it unfair to argue that the writer is a person of somewhat delicate sensibility, to whom a strong smell ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... It is unfair to suppose that the arrival of a real vicomte and of a young, good-looking, and successful member of the New York Stock Exchange were responsible for Honora's appearance, an hour later, in the embroidered linen gown which Cousin Eleanor had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a lady's probable selection; but in this latter case neither of the parties interested is at liberty to express any opinion, directly or indirectly, as to the merits or demerits of the different dishes from which the lady has to choose. Any member of the unfair sex may make sure of winning from her antagonist—who will naturally have marked a certain number of dishes—by simply abstaining from food throughout the dinner; though the lady of the house might think this impolite. Menu-betting is in any case an agreeable pastime ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... who govern Thought take unfair advantage of that agreement, for they know well that when the simple folk have said, "German militarism," they have said all. They stop there. They amalgamate the two words and confuse militarism with Germany—once Germany is thrown down there's no more to say. In that way, they ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... had so small a chance for itself. There is something in all of us struggling against oblivion, striving vainly to make some real impress on the current of time, and a child, dying, can only clutch the hands about it and go down—forever. It seems so merciless, so unfair. Perhaps that is why, all over the world, the little graves are cared for best. It is to the little graves that we turn in our keenest anguish and not to the larger mounds; to the little graves that our hearts are drawn in our hours of triumph. And so the child, ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... this point, which is a very important one in the solution of this question: both are free, the one to sell, the other to buy. Henceforth their respective pretensions go for nothing; and the estimate, whether fair or unfair, that they place, the one upon his verse, the other upon his liberality, can have no influence upon the conditions of the contract. We must no longer, in making our bargains, weigh talent; we must ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... books with pictures outside that are so badly printed; and you get them for fourpence-halfpenny at the bookstall when the corners of them are beginning to curl up and get dirty, with people looking to see how the story ends when they are waiting for trains. I think this is most unfair to the boy at the bookstall. The books are written by a gentleman named Gaboriau, and Albert's uncle says they are the worst translations in the world—and written in vile English. Of course they're not like ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... war is in a sense unfair, because it's usually a question of the greater force. At any rate, Dick, we won't harm Colonel ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... has rather indisposed you towards English poetry as well as criticism. But you must not regard our critics, who are at bottom good-natured fellows, considering their two professions,—taking up the law in court, and laying it down out of it. No one can more lament their hasty and unfair judgment, in your particular, than I do; and I so expressed myself to your friend Schlegel, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... fault,' said Home. 'I had no right to pitch into you. Only you're such a cool beggar! But, by Jove! I didn't think Forest would have been so unfair. If you ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... sterling qualities which came upon you as a surprise because he loved to make himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The curate perceived this and did not like to be eclipsed—as a matter of fact, nobody does. It seemed to him a little unfair that he, who had hitherto been made much of, should be called to play second fiddle to this rich Polish fellow who had never done anything for Muddleton or the neighbourhood. And then, too, Sigismund Zaluski had a way ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... while we know of men who committed murder in the belief that they were directed so to do by special revelation of God. Thus at St. Gall one brother cut another's throat, while one of the saints trampled his wife to death under the influence of the spirit. But it is unfair to judge the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... I fought my way very fairly.[30] I think I lost but one battle out of seven; and that was to H——;—and the rascal did not win it, but by the unfair treatment of his own boarding-house, where we boxed—I had not even a second. I never forgave him, and I should be sorry to meet him now, as I am sure we should quarrel. My most memorable combats were with Morgan, Rice, Rainsford, and Lord Jocelyn,—but we were always friendly ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... not complain, only one subject I must touch upon as really very unfair. That your Ministers should take a line unfavourable to this country may be explained by their political position, but why should they press so much on the French Government? I really see no cause for it. England is in an excellent position for a mediator, and for all parties ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... Tolentino for the Venetians and Florentines. They met near Imola, where a battle ensued, in which the Florentines and Venetians were routed, and Niccolo da Tolentino was sent prisoner to Milan where, either through grief for his loss or by some unfair means, he died ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... that which breaks thy quiet, and keeps thee out of thy bed at midnight, I will make the matter easy. Thou shalt not lose the advantage offered thee. I have fought a score of duels—far, far too many. Thou hast, I think, only encountered with thy wooden soldan: it were unjust—unfair—unkind—in me to abuse thy friendly offer. So go home, good fellow, and let not the fear of losing honour disturb thy slumbers. Rest assured that thou shalt answer the challenge, as good right thou hast, having had injury from this ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... coming to see her; she now imagined that if she made an appeal to him he would bring some enormous sum; and her thoughts dwelt on the happiness she should feel in giving it to Joseph, whose judgment of his brother, like that of Madame Descoings, was so unfair. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... be fair, old fellow, to try to catch Peter now. It wouldn't be fair at all, and we never want to do anything unfair, do we?" said he. Perhaps Bowser didn't agree, but he wagged his tail as if he did, and sat down beside his ...
— The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver • Thornton W. Burgess
... come to the conclusion that Stella Ballantyne did what she was accused of doing we, in spite of all the verdicts in the world, are bound to resist this marriage. I grant it. Because of that conviction I dismiss the plea that we are unfair to the woman in reviewing the trial. There are ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... at the same time unfair and untrue to the art, because clouds cannot be represented in the regular mode of practice. If they appear, as they do sometimes by accident, it is well to leave them; but in no art is any trick so easily detected as in photography, and it cannot add to any operator's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... our moving up so close to the town has alarmed the people, and may have prevented their visiting us as heretofore; at all events, it is very unfair in our friends, the Chiefs, neither to let the people come on board, nor to allow us to go on shore to ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... conformity with the intentions of its authors, there was an obvious difficulty in framing any system of taxation. A law which should exempt from the burden two thirds of the property of the country would be as unfair to the owners of the remaining third as it would be inadequate to meet the requirements of the public service. The urgency of the need, however, was such that, after great embarrassment, the law of April 24, 1863, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... unconventional and foolish. I respect the conventions. They're so sensible. And because it would be unfair to you, and to ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... "Karyl," she said plaintively, "if you only wanted to marry me for State reasons—it would be different. It wouldn't hurt me then to hurt you. You mean so much as a friend, but I can never be in love with you. You are being unfair with yourself—if you go on. I must ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... of Buckingham has given you a very troublesome commission in offering me as a companion in your promenade. Your heart is elsewhere, and it is with the greatest difficulty you can be charitable enough to lend me your attention. Confess truly; it would be unfair on your part, vicomte, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... "This is unfair," remonstrated August, feeling that he was at the mercy of his enemy, and anxious to gain time, for night was fast falling, and with it the peddler and ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... desolation, or who thinks that stained glass and an organ are sinful. I grant you that there is a certain fairness in trying the blackguard and the religionist by different standards. Where the pretension is higher, the test may justly be more severe. But I say it is unfair to puzzle out with diligence the one or two good things in the character of a reckless scamp, and to refuse moderate attention to the many good points about a weak, narrow-minded, and uncharitable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... little open to doubt that, in matters slightly less susceptible of tangible demonstration, metaphysical conceptions still hold sway; and as regards the average minds of our time, it is perhaps not an unfair estimate to say they surely have not advanced a jot beyond the Aristotelian stand-point. Untrained through actual experience in any field of inductive science, they remain easy victims of metaphysical reasoning. Indeed, since the conditions of civilization throw a protecting influence ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... unfair arrangement Rachel had been unable to conceive, ever since the fatally reckless moment in which she had acquiesced in this one. The worst that could be known about her was known to her husband before her marriage; she had nothing else ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... of his enthusiasm, for example, was expended on Church disestablishment in Wales—that is to say, the separation of the English Church from state support and state endowment, in view of the fact that the majority of the people were Nonconformists, and that it was unfair to impose upon them an unwanted and costly church which they had to help support even though they were Nonconformist enthusiasts. There is nothing like a religious controversy to stir feelings strongly, and the conflicts in the campaign for disestablishment were very bitter. Lloyd ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... answer to this is, that the Scotch have never asked for home-rule, for the very good reason that they never had to complain of unfair treatment at the hands of the English Government; their special wants and desires having been always duly considered from the moment of their union with England. But the union of Ireland with England is not yet a century old, was ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... appointed us to be the lords of the earth! Can any one compare us with the animals over whom we rule? Nothing has been denied us except what could not have been granted. In like manner, thou that takest an unfair view of the lot of mankind, think what blessings our Father has bestowed upon us, how far more powerful animals than ourselves we have broken to harness, how we catch those which are far swifter, how nothing that has life is placed ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... read the paper while Madame played solitaire. When she turned the queen of hearts, she remembered the red-haired woman whom she had seen in the crystal ball. And they were not going away, after all! Madame felt that she had in some way gained an unfair advantage over the red-haired woman. There would be no one, now, to take her boy ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... "I call it unfair," continued Maisie, stroking the white and grey kittens with her little brown hand, "to drown them just because they're not pretty. It's not as ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... Church is insincere. It is an exceptional case for a minister to take a stand on the side of the workers, even when the issue between the employers and employees is a clear case of the former trying to enforce conditions upon the latter which are unfair and inhuman." ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... then the brothers had not met. On the other hand, they never had openly quarrelled; Joseph (by Morris's orders) was prepared to waive the advantage of his juniority; Masterman had enjoyed all through life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor unfair. Here, then, were all the elements of compromise assembled; and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven thousand eight hundred pounds restored to him, and himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the leather trade, hastened the next morning to the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... derisively given to it for its smallness, on the lucus a non lucendo principle that miscalls the lengthy "brief" of the barrister, the "living" - not-sufficient-to-support-life - of the poor vicar, the uncertain "certain age," the unfair "fare" and ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... on some distance in silence. Then Scarfe said, "Miss Atherton, you are unfair to me now. You think I acted out of spite, instead ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... from Timoleon reached them, together with ambassadors from the Syracusans, who besought them to take upon them the care of this their poor city, and once again become the founders of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by greed to take unfair advantages and seize the city for themselves, but first sent heralds to all the games held in honour of the gods throughout Greece, and to all places where people assembled, to proclaim that the Corinthians, having abolished despotism ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... you to marry me to-day! I should think that I was taking an unfair advantage, if I did, since I could easily carry you off just now. The car will run sixty miles at a stretch without any trouble at all, and I don't suppose you would risk your neck to jump, merely for the sake of getting away from me, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... fit in on this planet, in which case she should by all means go back to Earth. It's cruel and unfair to keep an intelligent—loosely speaking—life-form anywhere against her ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... to deliberate upon this message, the general opinion was that no propositions ought to be listened to from an enemy who had returned in greater force than ever, under the idea that any terms they might propose would necessarily be treacherous and unfair. Old Colocolo observed, however, that no injury could arise from listening to the proposals of the Spanish governor; and that they even had now a favourable opportunity for obtaining a knowledge of the amount ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... people of the show, and the big grizzlies are the walking delegates who control the amalgamated association of working bears, and the occupants of the other cages have got to cater to Uncle Ephraim, the walking delegate, or be placed on the unfair list and slugged. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... tribunal. I make these comments because the trials took place at a period of intense excitement, and persons unacquainted with the facts may be led to believe that the court was "organized to convict," and was unfair in its decisions. ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... thing in this life was treating him in a most brutal manner. I do not for an instant mean to assert that these dogs were not, many of them, great rascals and rank imposters; but Just as slavery produces certain vices in the slave which it would be unfair to hold him accountable for, so does this perversion of the dog from his true use to that of a beast of burthen produce in endless variety traits of cunning and deception in the hauling-dog. To be a thorough expert in dog-training ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... is not only the physical loss they suffer, but the thought that no longer are they of use, that they are a care, that in the scheme of things—even in their own little circles of family and friends—there is for them no place. It is not unfair to the poilu to say that the officer who is blinded suffers more than the private. As a rule, he is more highly strung, more widely educated; he has seen more; his experience of the world is broader; he has more to lose. Before the war he may have been a ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... the idea of a rough word of the description commonly called swearing, will not even have a twinge of conscience after a whole morning of ill tempered sullenness, capricious scolding, villainously unfair animadversion, or surly cross grained treatment generally of wife and children! Such a man will omit neither family worship nor a sneer at his neighbour. He will neither milk his cow on the first day of the week without a Sabbath ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... show that the Cross of Christ, and the imitation of His life on earth, have their due prominence in Tauler's teaching. It is, of course, true that for him, as for all mystics, Christ in us is more than Christ for us. But it is unfair to put it in this way, as if the German mystics wished to contrast the two views of redemption, and to exalt one at the expense of the other. Tauler's wish is to give the historical redemption its true significance, by showing ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the place very much for him, you see," she ended. "But of course I do not wish to be unfair to any one who may want it, and deserve it more. If there is any one who really is in greater need of it, I suppose ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among the newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... echoed, "you call it beautiful that so many poor men should work hard so long, and then have to see the lazy ones who came in late be paid as much as they for one-tenth as much work? I do not know what you mean by beautiful; it was certainly very unfair." ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... give up all this? Why should prejudice and bigotry spoil my whole life?" she thought, beginning to pace up and down the room with quick, agitated steps. "Why should we suffer because that wretch has gone bankrupt? It is unfair, unjust, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... little hurried pants and leaned upon him almost in collapse. Gale ground his teeth in helpless rage at the girl's fate. If she had not been beautiful she might still have been free and happy in her home. What a strange world to live in—how unfair was fate! ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... goods, it is still more evidently true of honour and services. In like manner, in the matter of distributive justice, the emoluments which a subject has a claim to, the rewards which he has merited of the State, does not become his till he actually gets them into his hands. It may be unfair and immoral that they are withheld from him, and in that case, so long as the circumstances remain the same, the obligation rest with and presses upon the State, and those who represent it, to satisfy his claim: still the State is not keeping the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... said, his good-natured face darkening. "It seems unfair that he should have caused our people to suffer so much and we have never had the chance to pay back. Whatever made the Government give his son ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... and Church music generally it is difficult to speak critically without seeming unfair. We have seen how he explained what must be called the almost secular style of these works. But while it is true that Haydn's masses have kept their place in the Catholic churches of Germany and elsewhere, it is impossible, to Englishmen, at any rate, not to feel a certain incongruity, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... his tongue, but he felt that he would be taking an unfair advantage and restrained himself. Besides, he wished to win Mrs. Groome completely to his side, to say nothing of the still more alarming because more worldly Mrs. Abbott. She was a ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... dog, which seemed to have no bearing upon the case, but which, as it afterwards turned out, incidentally pointed to a fact which identified the really guilty parties. He thinks that the interrogation of the prisoner might be introduced under such restrictions as would prevent any unfair bullying, and yet tend both to help an innocent man and to put difficulties in the way of sham or false defences of the guilty. This question, I believe, is still unsettled. I will not dwell upon other suggestions. I will only observe that he is in favour ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... don't stand for no nonsense," and Mrs. Dr. Rusk often had her for dinner.... Miss McDonald, fat and slow-spoken and kind, prone to use the word "dearie," to read Longfellow, and to have buttons off her shirt-waists, used on Carl a feminine weapon more unfair than the robust sarcasm of Miss Muzzy. For after irritating a self-respecting boy into rudeness by pawing his soul with damp, puffy hands, she would weep. She was a kind, honest, and reverent bovine. Carl sat ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... to his friend, the Governor, who was complaining that he had given up his home and friends to spend five years penal servitude amongst those ignorant Australian savages. A few days after, therefore, the Honourable—it would be unfair to give his name—presented himself to Hilda, and was about to offer her his hand and heart, when he was stopped midway with the remark—"I am really very busy to-day. If it is a situation on one of my stations that you want, I will be pleased to mention your ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... calendar years, beginning in 1963 with a cut of some $6 billion at annual rates; second, that these reductions be coupled with selected structural changes, beginning in 1964, which will broaden the tax base, end unfair or unnecessary preferences, remove or lighten certain hardships, and in the net offset some $3.5 billion of the revenue loss; and third, that budgetary receipts at the outset be increased by $1.5 billion a year, without any change in tax liabilities, by gradually shifting the tax payments ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... guilty during the past few months. He disliked her form of religious worship, and she strongly suspected this was the reason he so openly opposed the alliance with the French. She regarded this prejudice as a sad misfortune in a man of authority. His judgments were liable to be clouded and unfair. ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... labour headquarters first. 'Unfair to labour'—that's what they are going to claim it is—to allow women to do what they're doing here. They're going to try to have a boycott declared, so that no union man will handle Spencer bearings, the teamsters won't truck them, the railways won't ship them, the metal workers and mechanics ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... he got up silently and crept along the river bank to the clump of bushes where Sam lay soundly sleeping. His first impulse was to jump upon the sleeper and fight him with an unfair advantage, but he was not yet free from the restraining influence of Sam's eye and voice so recently ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... really a widow? Why was she so sad? I certainly had no right to ask her any of these questions, and yet she interested me. How I wished the sun would rise. In the daytime one may talk freely, but in the pitch darkness one feels a certain oppression, it seems like taking an unfair advantage. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... mature piece of legislation than the Dunkin Act. Its framers, having been active participants in several temperance campaigns where the latter has been on trial, have embodied in the new bill what they have learned by experience and observation; even not failing to learn something from the rabid and unfair criticisms of their opponents. We, who have wrought and toiled to drive the liquor curse out of the country, lose nothing in a pecuniary sense by your victory—we had a higher purpose in view than our own gain. It is the poor, miserable inebriates, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... "the more you think of it the more puzzles you introduce. Undoubtedly the young woman is a girl playing outside her legitimate preserves. She's taking an unfair advantage. They always do. Presuming on sex and social position. Unless the girl is an outlaw, she'll confine her antics to the safe ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... appears to confound knowledge with power, in another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as follows, "Adeo, signanter Deus opera potentiae et sapientiae diseriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... knew that in this last mighty effort to die game the Englishman was narrowing the slight margin of hours ahead of him. Keith had loved but one man, his father. In this fight he learned to love another, Conniston. And once he cried out bitterly that it was unfair, that Conniston should live and he should die. The dying Englishman smiled and laid a hand on his, and Keith felt that the hand was damp with a ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... rate," said Lady Lysle, looking significantly as she spoke at the distant part of the grounds, where Maggie, with Cicely at one side of her and Merry at the other, was talking eagerly. "Oh yes, she seems a nice child," continued the great lady, "and it would be unfair to judge a girl because her mother ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... but I think I have a plan that won't be unfair to anybody and will still keep the birthday intact. We couldn't have the birthday hurt you know, Chicken Little. It's such a little young birthday—it might cry!" Dick Harding smiled down at her whimsically ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... and mother had died almost at the same time. M. Ballet had left to each of his sons a fortune of some 260,000 francs. Though called to the bar, both Auguste and Hippolyte Ballet were now men of independent means. After the death of their parents, whatever jealousy Auguste may have felt at the unfair preference which his mother had shown for her younger son, had died down. At the time of Hippolyte's death the brothers were on good terms, though the more prudent Hippolyte disapproved of ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... right, and certainly if there had been no more good in his rival than he himself had seen on the surface, he would not have been far wrong; but as it was he was unconsciously very far wrong indeed. He ran into the almost excusable extreme of condemning Griffith upon circumstantial evidence. Unfair advantage had been taken of Dolly, he told himself. She had engaged herself before she knew her own heart, and was true to her lover because it was not in her nature to be false. Besides, what right has a man with a hundred a year ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... above this, Charles enjoyed from this estate and from what Lord Saltire (Satire?) willed him, no less than fourteen thousand pounds; his settlement on William was therefore by no means one half of the income, consequently unfair to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... youth, or Mr. WELLS, companion of my riper years, read like the peaceful annals of a country rectory. To quote again from the publishers, "only the man who created Tarzan could write such stories." If Tarzan were in any way comparable with the present volume, it would perhaps not be unfair to add the corollary that only those readers who appreciated the one could swallow the other. Mercifully, Mr. BURROUGHS writes so continually at the top of his voice that after a time the clatter comes to have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... will do well to be on their guard against unfair statements in reference to "Dr. Webster's" principle of pronunciation by accents. The old system of pronunciation by mis-spelling words has become obsolete, and Dr. Webster's method ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... identities and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called material senses" (page 505). Comment is not only difficult but impossible in the face of a method like this. If such an interpretation were an exception it might seem the unfair use of a hypercritical temper to quote this particular expression of Mrs. Eddy's mind. But her whole treatment of Scripture suffers from the ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... pointed out that the Saarkkad sun was just as far from Karn as it was from Earth, that it was only a few million miles from a planet which was allied with Earth, and that it was unfair for Earth to take so much time in preparing for an armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared? Did they intend to fight to the utter destruction ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... we are to trust the representations of satirists and comic writers, many reputations lost. The building was destroyed in the fire of London; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants and shopkeepers, and the pride, prodigality and luxury of the purchasers and idlers by whom it was frequented ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... throwing my whole Work into a different Form, to comply with this Proposal, was not the slightest Labour: and so no little Time was unavoidably lost. While the Publication of my Remarks was thus respited, my Enemies took an unfair Occasion to suggest, that I was extorting Money from my Subscribers, without ever designing to give them any Thing for it: an Insinuation levell'd at once to wound me Reputation and Interest. Conscious, ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... renders it all the more important that when offices become unnecessary they should be abolished. In the public printing also a large saving of public money can be made. There is a constantly growing tendency to publish masses of unimportant information. It is probably not unfair to say that many tens of thousands of volumes are published at which no human being ever looks and for which there ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... interview, I do not see what good it would do either of us. You are white, and you have given me to understand that I am black. I accept the classification, however unfair, and the consequences, however unjust, one of which is that we cannot meet in the same parlor, in the same church, at the same table, or anywhere, in social intercourse; upon a steamboat we would not sit at the same table; we could not walk together on the street, or meet publicly anywhere ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... that in view of these considerations the court has repeatedly stated that "profit sharing could not be taken as a basis of awards, on the ground that it would involve the necessity of fixing differential rates of wages, which would lead to confusion, would be unfair to many employers, and ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... a mere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... companions, his father, his uncle, and all the upper classes did at times? What did the minister mean when he talked of immorality? They were more savage than the spoilt children of the wealthy, but that was because they were more fully alive. It was unfair to blame them for missing marriage certificates. True, his father had never committed a theft, but there was no necessity for a man to steal if he had an income of six thousand crowns and could please himself. The act would be absurd or abnormal ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... business, and we stand ready to supply it. All that is needed is the conceding of certain conditions, and we are ready to pass our checks for all the money you need. My associates and myself ask for nothing that is unfair. Now, will you take our money into your business, or will you go on ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... lower; and this and 21 may be taken as nearly perfect types, the one of the steep, the other of the expansive basic profiles. The characters of all, however, are so dependent upon their place and expression, that it is unfair to judge them thus separately; and the precision of curvature is a matter of so small consequence in general effect, that we need not ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... and moderate our party contentions. Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice. A party success that is achieved by unfair methods 5 or by practices that partake of revolution is hurtful and evanescent, even from a party standpoint. We should hold our different opinions in mutual respect; and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... cost them no trifle. At last, owing to the failure of the house by which he was employed, the dreaded event came. He was out of a situation, and found it impossible to obtain one. the failure had been a very bad one, and there was a strong suspicion of unfair dealing. The prejudice against the house, extended even to the clerks, and several of them, finding it very difficult to get other places that suited them, left New York for other cities. One of them, a friend to Wilmer, came to ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... prophetic ken cannot foresee. Yet, although the philanthropist must weep over their unfortunate situation, and the patriot shudder in anticipation of a calamity which it may defy human wisdom to avert; still it would be unfair to charge the existence of slavery among us to the policy of the United States, or to brand their present owners as the instruments of an evil which they cannot remove. And while others boast that they are free from this dark spot, let them remember, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the house another day, but she had not the heart to insist on its banishment, the children were so fond of it. I do not know why they were fond of it, for it never showed them the least affection, but was always taking the most unfair advantages of them, and it would butt them over whenever it got the chance. It would try to butt them into the well when they leaned down to pull up the bucket from the curb; and if it came out of the house, and saw a boy cracking nuts at the low flat stone the children had in the back-yard to ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... breaking up after four years of endurance, for the greater part in silence. As the months of the past year had rolled their deliberate way, Linda had begun to realize that the course her elder sister had taken was wholly unfair to her, and slowly a tumult of revolt was growing in her soul. Without a doubt the culmination had resulted from her few minutes' talk with Donald Whiting in the hall that morning. It had started Linda to thinking deeply, and the more deeply she ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... days she watched over him, and all the time the storm continued. On the third day he became delirious, and that was the night of her torture. Despite a feeling that she was taking an unfair advantage of him, the Girl strained her ears to catch a name which, in his delirium, was constantly on his lips; but she could not make it out. All that she knew was that it was not her name that he spoke, and it pained her. She had given him absolute faith and trust and, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... modes. It had its origin in the existence of Slavery, and Slavery here existed in the worst form ever known among men. Until Slavery shall be found elsewhere in combination with Constitutionalism or Democracy, it would be unfair to quote our contest as a warning to other liberally governed lands. We were a nation with a snake in its bosom; and as no other nation is similarly afflicted, our misfortune cannot be cited in the case of any other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... appealed, and that the wide land was the better for the crying of his voice no candid person who knew the result of his labours could deny. He that had two coats had imparted to him that had none; the extortioner had returned his unfair gains, and some rough men had become gentle. But in the assembly from which Finney had just come the larger numbers and the greater power of rhetoric had been on that side which appeared to show least faith in ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the spirit, the aim and the effect of political society.—At the start, according to Rousseau, it consisted of an unfair bargain, made by an adroit rich man with a poor dupe, "providing new fetters for the weak and fresh power for the rich," and, under the title of legitimate property, consecrating the usurpation of the soil.—To day the contract is still more unjust "by means of which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... exit, though he had twice attempted to leave before the arrival of Mr. Lambert. Mr. Macauley asked the Major why he could not accept his given word, as correct. But impartial Major Anthony assured him that to put a man in the guard house without a hearing, would be unfair. He said he would give Mr. Lambert a trial. Mr. Macauley grew furious, and told the Major that if he wanted to take Lambert's word for this occurrence, instead of his, that he would go, and he arose to leave the room, but Major Anthony restrained him. Major Anthony said: "Now, Mr. Macauley, ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... chiefly by Sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Birch. The catalogue of 1734 (which is now rare) was compiled by David Casley: that of 1782, by Samuel Ascough. Of the catalogue of Printed Books, it would be unfair to dwell upon its imperfections, since a new, and greatly enlarged and improved, impression of it is about going to press, under the editorial care and inspection of Messrs. H. Ellis and Baber, the gentlemen to whom the printed books ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... with; and that the other fellow's loss makes him and his as miserable as would robbery to the same amount. Yet she realises that she must get back those millions stolen from her father and is willing to smother her conscience to attempt it, provided she takes no unfair advantage of the other players. The other day she said to me, 'I have decided, because of my duty to my father, to put away my prejudice against gambling, but no duty to him or to any one can justify me in playing with ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson |
