United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His own prudence and firmness had been conspicuously displayed, and yet had done less for him than the folly and pusillanimity of others. And now, at the moment when it seemed that his plans were about to be crowned with entire success, they were disconcerted by one of those strange incidents which so often confound the most exquisite devices of human policy.
But so it always happens in revolutions: the most violent put themselves forward; their vigilance and activity seem to multiply their number; and the daring of the few wins the ascendancy over the indolence or the pusillanimity of the many.
I wished to know whether the general spirit of indolence and pusillanimity had infected the hardy inhabitants of Lebanon; but from the generous enthusiasm which animates your countenance at the recital of noble actions, as well as from what I have experienced you are capable of attempting, I trust that these solitary scenes are uninfected with the vices that have deluged the rest of Asia, and bent its inhabitants to the yoke'"
To Prudence, if you adde the use of unjust, or dishonest means, such as usually are prompted to men by Feare, or Want; you have that Crooked Wisdome, which is called CRAFT; which is a signe of Pusillanimity. For Magnanimity is contempt of unjust, or dishonest helps. Acquired Wit
The fugitives only set fire to the four quarters of the globe against their country. It was natural enough that the servants whom they had left behind to keep their places should take advantage of their masters' pusillanimity, and make laws to exclude those who had, uncalled for, resigned the sway into bolder and more active hands.
Granvelle did not cease to censure them for their pusillanimity, and wrote almost daily letters, accusing the magistrates of being themselves the cause of the tumults by which they were appalled. The popular commotion was, however, not lightly to be braved.
Encouraged by his pusillanimity, and more secure than ever of the support of the citizens who had been thrown into consternation by his demand of a second loan, nearly six times as large as the first, it became more audacious and defiant than ever, D'Orléans openly placing himself at the head of the malcontents.
To have abandoned hope is a terrible misfortune despair. This must not be confounded with an involuntary perturbation, a mere instinctive dread, a phantasmagoric illusion that involves no part of the will. It is not even an excessive fear that goes by the name of pusillanimity. It is a cool judgment like that of Cain: "My sin is too great that I should expect forgiveness."
It was not only from Spain that bitter invective was hurled upon him; British journalism poured scorn and rage upon his incompetence, French journalism held his pusillanimity up to the ridicule of the world. His own officers took shame in their general, and expressed it. Parliament demanded to know how long British honour was to be imperilled by such a man.
It proclaimed the House of Commons to be "the Supreme Authority of England," and declared that it was for this principle, and nothing short of this, that England had fought and struggled for six years; and, after a severe lecture to the House for its pusillanimity in never yet having risen to the full height of this principle, it enumerated twenty-seven things which were expected from it when it should do so.
Word Of The Day