"Nugatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as pertinaciously excused by the Spaniards, who complain that the British plundered the city, and committed many other excesses, contrary to the express conditions of their engagements, by which they were virtually rendered nugatory. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... substituted similar to what I have mentioned in this work as being the scheme of Dr. Lang. One of the first acts of the new government was to sweep away the trite and cumbersome machinery of the old system, by making nugatory the existing law of the parent colony, and to pass an act which, for liberality, perhaps stands unequalled. Its main features are—for pastoral purposes—occupation and settlement, with right of tenure, subject to a rental of one farthing per acre per annum; and for agricultural lands—free ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... ordering him to quit the camp; but afterwards, on his suppliant entreaties, and throwing himself at his feet, he admitted him to an audience. The purport of his discourse, at first, was, an offer of implicit submission to the will of the Romans; but this availed nothing, being considered as nugatory and indecisive. The business was, at length, brought to this issue, that a truce should be made on the conditions delivered in writing a few days before, and the money and hostages were accordingly received. ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... to make this matter ahsolute1y certain is, that unless the prohibition that "no bailiff, &c;., of ours shall hold pleas of our crown," apply to all officers of the king, justices as well as others, it would be wholly nugatory for any practical or useful purpose, because the prohibition could be evaded by the king, at any time, by simply changing the titles of his officers. Instead of calling them "sheriffs, coroners, constables and bailiffs," he could call them "justices," or ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... was owing to the great prosperity of Prussia at large, after the Seven-Years War; to the manifold industries awakening, which have gone on progressive ever since. Dohm declares farther, that the very object was in a sort fanciful, nugatory; arguing that nobody did attack Friedrich;—but omitting to prove that nobody would have done so, had Friedrich NOT stood ready to receive him. We will remark only, what is very indisputable, that Friedrich, owing to the Regie, or to other ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... completed within certain specified times, the lands unsold or unpatented should revert to the United States. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States practically made these provisions nugatory, and indirectly legalized the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... seen that if this act of limitations is to remain on the statute books the portion of the adjustment act referred to would be rendered nugatory. Indeed, there would be but little use in continuing the adjustment of many of the land grants, inasmuch as ascertained rights of the United States or of settlers could not ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... King, which I thought at the time a particularly nugatory and even schoolboy step, and only consented to because I had held the reins so tight over my little band before, has raised a deuce of a row—new proclamation, no one is to interview the sacred puppet without consuls' permission, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... abound with the most luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity "anemone-words;" for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant, only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the daisy; a flower indeed common enough, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... might seem as if this arrangement rendered nugatory the attempt to take advantage of the rise and fall of the buoy; but it is not so when the relations of the four buoys to one another are considered. Although the frame is free to move up and down upon the uprising shaft, still ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and final causes; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate opinion, that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out essential forms or true differences; of which opinion we will take this hold, that the invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... seen out of doors in this or any country; and an ocean of sand, yellower than up to that time had been attained in art or nature; and that once, when the audience, late in the evening, had suddenly demanded a popular song from Mr. Nokes, he (Triplet), seeing the orchestra thinned by desertion, and nugatory by intoxication, had started from the pit, resuscitated with the whole contents of his snuff-box the bass fiddle, snatched the leader's violin, and carried Mr. Nokes triumphantly through; that thunders of applause had followed, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... had now opened the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the title, "Testimonies of Authors," some straggle of real documents, which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and sequence:—and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the scheme of the mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend, and his own scheme of reformation, (if he has any,) are all equally needless. There are, and must be, abuses in all governments. It amounts to no more than a nugatory proposition. But before I consider of what nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks so very lightly, permit me to recall to your recollection the map of the country which this abused chartered right affects. This I shall do, that you may ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... had become a law unto itself. And England found it necessary in retaliation to issue orders in council which made nugatory many of the provisions of the maritime code. The protests of the American Government and those of other neutrals were treated with the greatest consideration, and every endeavor was made that no real injustice should be done. When America ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... more than a voluntary Committee. When the Confederation was completed, which was only, be it remembered, on March 1, 1781, it was still, as Washington wrote in 1785, 'little more than a shadow without a substance, and the Congress a nugatory body;' or, as it was described by a late writer, 'powerless for government, and a rope ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... Lord Brougham's counsel to the Glasgow students is not only bad counsel,—and bad counsel for the result, as well as for the grounds, which are either capricious or nugatory,—but also that, in the exact proportion in which the range of thought expands, it is an impossible counsel, an impracticable counsel—a counsel having for its purpose to embarrass and lay the mind in ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the Executive veto should, according to the doctrine maintained, be rendered nugatory, and be practically expunged from the Constitution, this power of the court should also be rendered nugatory and be expunged, because it restrains the legislative and Executive will, and because the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... his many efforts in this matter. A fact to be noted. Long poring in those mournful imbroglios of Dryasdust, where the fraction of living and important welters overwhelmed by wildernesses of the dead and nugatory, one at length disengages this fact; and readers may take it along with them, for it proves illuminative of Friedrich's procedures now and afterwards. A fixed notion of Friedrich's, this of German Princes "uniting," when the common dangers become flagrant; a very lively notion with him at present. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in many respects; especially, we regretted that now we did not have an enlightened public sentiment at the North to help the best part of the Southern people in effecting reformations and improving the laws and regulations. Now, the Northern influence is wholly nugatory, or positively adverse. The opinions and feelings of calm and candid neighbors and friends have great influence. This the South does not enjoy. The North is her passionate reprover; she is held to be, by many, her avowed enemy. In resistance, and in retaliation, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... dangerous to infer the affirmative of this mooted point, as it would be cutting off the future and its consequences from those whose real hopes and fears ought to be mainly concentrated in the life that is to come, it would seem to be presuming to suppose that principles like these ever can be nugatory in the control even of ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... This teaching was accompanied by a spirit of cold-blooded egotism which extinguished every spark of Confucian altruism. Even the pretended disciples of Confucius confused the precepts of the Master, and by stripping them of their narrow significance rendered them nugatory. It was at this point that Mang-tsze, "Mang the philosopher," arose. He was sturdy in bodily frame, vigorous in mind, profound in political sagacity and utterly fearless in denouncing the errors of his countrymen. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... of the victorious party generally. The American commissioners would only agree that there should be no further confiscations and prosecutions, and that congress should recommend the several states to revise their laws concerning them. These articles were nugatory. Nothing short of a renewal of the war could have induced the Americans to forego their revenge, and if the war had gone on longer, the loyalists' fate would have been no better. Everywhere, with the exception of South Carolina, they were treated ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... was dressing for dinner, it occurred to him—it was not for the first time—that, after all, it would take very little to render Rainham's bungling devotion, and his own meritorious aberrations from the path of truth, worse than nugatory. For what if Kitty should split?—so he elegantly expressed his fears—what if the girl, of whom he had heard nothing since the day of that deplorable scene, should break loose, and throw up the part which she had undertaken ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Saxe has made the following remarks on the necessary qualifications to form a good general. The most indispensable one, according to his idea, is valor, without which all the rest will prove nugatory. The next is a sound understanding with some genius: for he must not only be courageous, but be extremely fertile in expedients. The third is health and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... rendered inert. Sheridan with his ten thousand troopers was held idle and inactive while Warren, Sedgwick and Burnside were given the task of defeating Lee's veteran army without Sheridan's help. All his plans were rendered nugatory. He became satisfied that his efforts were useless. About noon he went to Meade's headquarters and they had an interview which is one of the famous historical episodes of the civil war. He told Meade that, inasmuch as his ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... paralyzed, and the right of franchise was rendered nugatory by the order that oaths must be taken with the hand on the Bible—a "popish" ceremony which the Puritans would not undergo. The town meetings, which were the essence of New Englandism, were forbidden except for the election of local officers, and ballot voting was stopped: "There is no such ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the improvement in the varnish had been made only after it had been mixed with opaque color, it does not appear why the idea of so mixing it should have presented itself to Van Eyck more than to any other painter of the day, and Vasari's story of the split panel becomes nugatory. But we apprehend, from a previous passage (p. 258), that Mr. Eastlake would not have us so interpret him. We rather suppose that we are expressing his real opinion in stating our own, that Van Eyck, seeking for a varnish which would dry in the shade, first perfected the methods of dissolving ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... and Jacqueline contains the plain statement that "the reader ... may probably regard it [Lara] as a sequel to the Corsair"—an admission on the author's part which forestalls and renders nugatory any prolonged discussion on the subject. It is evident that Lara is Conrad, and that Kaled, the "darkly delicate" and mysterious page, whose "hand is femininely white," is Gulnare in a transparent and ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... animals that had bona fide died a natural death, the permission to eat it was nugatory, for it was generally eaten by some other animal before man got hold of it; or failing this it was often poisonous, so that practically people were forced to evade the law by some of the means above spoken of, or to become vegetarians. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... capital with all despatch; and in the tripos next spring, you will, by carrying the prize, be able to do justice to the proficiency you can boast of. As regards the travelling expenses and the other items, the provision of everything necessary for you by my own self will again not render nugatory your mean acquaintance ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Gibbon's attempt was rendered nugatory by the bridge over the second canal being commanded from the heights, the guns on which opened upon our columns with shrapnel, while the gunners were completely protected by their epaulements. And a further ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... and a desire to do all in his power to alleviate their condition. He has accomplished much in improving the morale of the town; but deep-seated, inexorable economic conditions, apparently beyond present control, render nugatory any attempts to better the financial ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... leading doctrines of his religion. The Catholic asks you to abolish some oaths which oppress him; your answer is, that he does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... acknowledgment that the sovereignty vests in the French people as the French state; but the imperial constitution, which is the constitution of the government, not of the state, studies, while acknowledging the sovereignty of the people, to render it nugatory, by transferring it, under various subtle disguises, to the government, and practically to the emperor as chief of the government. The senate, the council of state, the legislative body, and the emperor, are all creatures of the French state, and have properly no political ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... great anxiety lest the account of the gale we encountered may reach England before that of our safety shall arrive, and give you some uneasiness; but the experience you have had how nugatory all such fears are, will, I hope, make you banish them ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... appears to me," Washington wrote to James Warren, in October, 1785, "to be little more than a shadow without the substance, and Congress a nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended to. To me it is a solecism in politics, indeed, it is one of the most extraordinary things in nature, that we should confederate as a nation, and yet be afraid to give the rulers of that nation (who are the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Egmont's withdrawal. The latter possessed the hearts of the people and the confidence of the army, without which it was utterly impossible to undertake anything effective. The rest had reckoned with so much certainty upon him that his unexpected defection rendered the whole meeting nugatory. They therefore separated without coming to a determination. All who had met in Dendermonde were expected in the council of state in Brussels; but Egmont alone repaired thither. The regent wished to sift him on the subject of this conference, but she could extract nothing further from him than ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... impossibility for a treaty-making power to impose a permanent disability on the government for all coming time, which, in the very nature and necessity of the case, may not be outgrown and set aside by the laws of national progression, which all unaided will render nugatory and vain all the plans and intentions of men. In the language of Honorable Edward Everett, in his famous diplomatic correspondence with the Compte De Sartiges in relation to the Island of Cuba, in 1852, when asked to join England and France in a tripartite treaty, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... utilized as a practical element of the negotiations, the Bulgarian Cabinet had applied for and received an advance of 150 million francs from the two Central empires on conditions which, in the judgment of the Greek Premier, rendered further dealings with that State nugatory. ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... him to believe as they believed.' Toleration is of all ideas the most modern, because the notion that the bad religion of A cannot impair, here or hereafter, the welfare of B, is, strange to say, a modern idea. And the help of 'science,' at that stage of thought, is still more nugatory. Physical science, as we conceive it—that is, the systematic investigation of external nature in detail—did not then exist. A few isolated observations on surface things—a half-correct calendar, ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... wisdom, namely, the element of time, indefinite time as a factor in the work of reconstruction. But it is impossible to speak positively on this point. His scheme was rejected and all discussion of it becomes therefore nugatory. ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... State, and eventually obtained the edicts in spite of Bismarck's opposition. Bismarck, however, secretly continued his opposition, and tried to persuade Switzerland to persevere with its idea of an International Labour Conference. The attempt was rendered nugatory by the loyal attitude of the Swiss Minister in Berlin, Roth. At the very same time Bismarck was trying to influence the diplomatists against ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... two eyes like the ordinary man, he could still see though one be put out. That this purpose be accomplished, he must somehow be shorn of his physical strength; finally any resistance which might come from the rest of the Cyclops outside must be rendered nugatory. Such are the three chief points of the impending problem, which Ulysses has to meet and does meet with astonishing skill and foresight; the Cyclops is blinded, is made helpless by drink, and is befooled ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... referred to as "frankly admitting that the doctrine of the evolution of species is accepted by three-fourths of the scientific men," and that this doctrine has, in their minds, "rendered nugatory the hypothesis of a vital immaterial principle as a causal factor in the phenomena of life and mind." Allowing this statement its full force, it is still true that none but Atheists can possibly be included in the "three-fourths." So much the worse for them. But it is an Atheistic ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... may convince himself if he will turn to the account which I have given of them in the Foundation of Morality, Sec. 17, and in my chief work, bk. i., Sec. 62. But at the sound of certain words, like Right, Freedom, the Good, Being—this nugatory infinitive of the cupola—and many others of the same sort, the German's head begins to swim, and falling straightway into a kind of delirium he launches forth into high-flown phrases which have no meaning whatever. He takes the most remote ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... friends and acquaintances to drive a good bargain; nor does their career of debauchery finish with their unmarried state; the vows of fidelity which they make at the altar, are like the vows and oaths made upon too many other occasions, only considered as nugatory forms, which law has obliged them to take, but custom absolved them from performing. They even claim and enjoy greater liberties after marriage than before; every married woman has a cicisbey, or gallant, who attends her to all public places, hands her ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... language, and to substitute that which is applied to his own party. In writing to a friend, that "after the inflammatory character of the oratory of the Carlton Club, it is quite supererogatory for me to state (it being notorious) that all conciliatory measures will be rendered nugatory," he thus expressed himself:—"After the inflammawhig character of the orawhig of the nominees of the Carlton Club, it is quite supererogawhig for me to state (it being nowhigous) that all conciliawhig ...
— Punch, Volume 101, Jubilee Issue, July 18, 1891 • Various
... a most fortunate blow in the cause of freedom to secure so, thriving and conspicuous a town, situated thus in the heart of what seemed the natural territory of the United States; and, by so doing, to render nugatory the mighty preparations of Parma against Antwerp. Moreover, it was known that there was no Spanish or other garrison within its walls, so that there was no opposition to be feared, except from the warlike nature of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
