"Useless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mean time, the storm came on apace. The rising and roughening sea made the oars useless, and the wind howled frightfully through the cordage and the rigging. The galleys soon began to be forced away from their moorings. Some were driven upon the beach and dashed to pieces by the waves. Some were wrecked on the rocks at one or the other of the projecting points which bounded ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and working with fine and delicate patience at the rigid fingers of soldiers, some of whom had lost their other arms, so that unless they could use their last remaining fingers, three or four to a hand, they would be useless for any work in the world. But most pitiable of all were the long rows of the paralysed and the blind, who lay in the hospital ward, motionless and sightless, with smashed faces. In the Palace of Fine Arts this statuary might have made the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... night Dave Brainerd and I held one of our long, and, in the past, ofttimes useless and mistaken, symposiums. But this time we were in perfect accord. We had spread upon the table before us our old memoranda from the very beginning of our campaign, and also some few letters and other documents. It had been a long 'session,' according to Dave, but the conclusion was so satisfactory ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... His presence from the provoking of men, and hiding thee privately in His tabernacle from the spite of tongues; when thou wilt discover that thou hast been learning precious lessons for thy immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely tossing with clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt find that God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed to have left thee ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... is its use?' Dr. Franklin says to such, 'What is the use of an infant?' The answer of the experimentalist is, 'Endeavour to make it useful.' When Scheele discovered this substance, it appeared to have no use; it was in its infancy and useless state, but having grown up to maturity, witness its powers, and see what endeavours to make it ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... of a figure in the shape of a cross; another universal dial showed the hours by a globe and by several gnomons. These universal dials required adjusting before use, and for this a mariner's compass and a spirit-level were necessary. But it would be tedious and useless to enumerate the various forms designed, and, as a rule, the more ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... one of them attached. Since that time, numerous other decisions of a like nature have been rendered in various parts of the country. Thus the unions have been assailed in a vital place, their treasuries. It is manifestly foolish and quite useless for the members of a union to strike against an employer for any purpose whatever, if the employer is to be able to recover damages from the union. Taff Vale judge-made law renders the labor union hors de ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... or should not be, useless, especially when commented on by one who has very much of it ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Prale, as well as I. I can see that it is useless to talk to you. I am sorry that I had a moment's compassion and made the attempt. Please stop the cab ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... the heels of his decision Sam Bolton had a long talk with May-may-gwan, then departed carrying a little pack. It was useless to think now of the canoe, and in any case the time of year favoured cross-country travel. The distances, thus measured, were not excessive, and from the Indian's descriptions, Sam's slow-brooding memory had etched into his mind an ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were saying in the city. They were spied upon continuously. On the roads, in the orchard, along the river, there were people constantly on the watch for something new ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was the one who could invent entertainment for them, these street lads who had nothing. Out of that nothing he could create what excited them, and give them something to fill empty, useless, often cold or wet or foggy, hours. That made him their captain and ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... without defense; sent headless to Charon, and was obliged, on that account, to make a ventriloquial request for a passage across the Styx; so that, in the morning, it was with genuine relief he returned the jewel to its owner and resumed his wonted meagerness of visage and useless deprivations. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... Dissenter," said Ursula, somewhat sullenly, "we put up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all very disagreeable! I don't want to know any new people whatever they are; I find the old ones bad enough. Reginald hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one as if one were ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... as I will, I cannot recall a case of man or woman who ever occupied any considerable part of my thoughts and did not contribute largely towards my moral or physical welfare. In other words, and in very colloquial language, I never had useless friends hanging about me. From this crude statement of a signal fact, the thoughtless reader will at once judge me rapacious, egotistical, false, fawning, mendacious. Well, I may be all this and more, but not because all who have known me have rendered me eminent services. I can say that no one ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... visited since my last budget to you was Port Essington, a military post which has been an object of much attention for some time past in connection with the steam navigation between Sydney and India. It is about the most useless, miserable, ill-managed hole in Her Majesty's dominions. Placed fifteen miles inland on the swampy banks of an estuary out of reach of the sea breezes, it is the most insufferably hot and enervating place ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... hearing something of my pocket-book, hung about it all next day till towards the evening, when the sergeant, of whom I have before spoken, came up to me as I was sauntering about the gate, and told me that it was useless my hanging on any longer about the office; that all would be done in my case that could be done; but that, in the meantime, I had better go home, leaving my address; and that if anything occurred, I would instantly be informed of it. "But I think it but right ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... communications have come from the astral world, and to it we are indebted for some useful books with interesting accounts of the life in the unseen regions. Here, of course, as elsewhere, discrimination must be used, for the wise and foolish, the useful and useless are to be found side by side. In accepting or rejecting, one must use his common sense just as he does on this plane in separating the valuable from the worthless. In such matters we should not lose sight ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... damage the paths and bridges. He came again at daylight, and expostulated further; but finding it of no use, he volunteered to accompany me, officiously offering me the choice of two roads. I asked for the coolest, knowing full well that it was useless to try and out-wit him in such matters. At the first stream the bridge was destroyed, but seeing the planks peeping through the bushes in which they had been concealed, I desired the Lama to repair it, which he did without hesitation. So it was at every point: ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... dog,' replied Martin, pointing to his new possession. Whereupon his mother became very angry, and abused him roundly. He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful of meal in the house, to have spent the money on a useless brute like that. On the following day she sent him back to the town, saying, 'Here, take our last hundred florins, and buy provisions with them. I have just emptied the last grains of meal out of the chest, and baked a bannock; but it ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Still, in every way the frog and the toad are underesteemed—as though such a thing as a worthy family frog or an honourable toad of business were in Nature impossible. It is not as though they were useless. The frog's hind legs make an excellent dish for those who like it, as well as a joke for those who don't. Powdered toad held in the palm is a fine thing to stop the nose bleeding—or, at any rate, it was a couple of hundred years ago, according to ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... advantage of the Electro-micro Scolding Machine is, that after it has been in use a short time the girls will all have been shamed into good behaviour; but the Machine will not become useless, as it can, without a farthing outlay, be turned into a Praising Machine, for it can be made to praise in a gentle voice as well as scold in a harsh one. In fact, as said above it will repeat in exact tones, anything ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... of capricious moods as well. She loved her son, and was very proud of him. She selected this girl and that, but no, it was useless. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fingers, and drew her to his knee. "What do you want me to say, dear discontent? Do?—you were never meant to do anything in this world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so! Look at them! Most white and most useless!" ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... period not longer than six weeks. He also said that the people were very indifferent as to the necessity of schoolhouses and churches. Quite a few who cleared a little money the previous year had spent it all in buying whisky, in gambling, in buying cheap jewelry, and for other useless articles. After spending two hours in such talk I retired for the evening. Thus ended the first day of my search for ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... him to compose himself. It was useless. Round and round the burning house he went, blowing his horn, and calling on the workers to stop their ungodly labour, for the Lord had told him to blow down the walls of Jericho, and he had ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... rights and, at any rate, there was a desire to maintain some show of decency in legislating the matter. So a more moderate Statute was enacted in 1902. I was the only person who voted against it in either House. It was, of course, clear that resistance was useless. It was not worth while, it seemed to me, to undertake to express my objections at length. I contented myself with the following ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... are the branches' is the one side of that sharpening and making definite of the truth in its personal application, and the other side is, 'Thou art the man.' All preaching and religious teaching is toothless generality, utterly useless, unless we can manage somehow or other to force it through the wall of indifference and vague assent to a general proposition, with which 'Gospel-hardened hearers' surround themselves, and make them feel that the thing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... execute them he would, to the letter, whatever might be the consequence."18 This answer, and the peremptory tone in which it was delivered, promptly adjourned the debate; for the judges saw that debate was useless with one who seemed to consider all remonstrance as an attempt to turn him from his duty, and whose ideas of duty precluded all discretionary exercise of authority, even where the public ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... time he denied his identity with the utmost coolness; then, seeing that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels. It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... clouds; the radiance of the star benefits the rose; no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the path of the molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who, then, understands the reciprocal flow and ebb ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the State of Missouri. Letters were written by the Gentiles around Far West to all parts of the State, and elsewhere, giving the most fearful accounts of Mormon atrocities. Some of the writers said it was useless to send less than three or four men for each Mormon, because the Mormons felt sure of heaven if they fell fighting, hence they did not fear death; that they fought with the ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... customary. You refuse me the company and obedience of my daughter, which Nature herself indicates. You refuse me the beef and mutton, without pretence that it is a fast of the Church. You now forbid me the promenade, a thing necessary to a person of my age. It is useless to tell me that you do all this by law. Law rests upon the social contract. If the citizen finds himself despoiled of such pleasures and powers as he would have had even in the savage state, the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... could distinguish all kinds of animals in the dark by their footsteps. It now began to thunder, and our position was getting very uncomfortable. Daniel had not seen anything of the other Indians, and thought it was useless waiting any longer for Tracajas; we therefore sent him to call in the whole party, and made off ourselves, as quickly as we could, for the canoe. The rest of the night was passed most miserably; as indeed were very many of my nights on the Solimoens. A furious squall ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... "'Tis useless to cover the truth wi' saft words, shuriff," Douglas interrupted glumly. "'Tis stolen cattle we are tracing, and 'tis here we wad look for the hides of them. I hae ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... duties, or decadence of mental powers, or physical disability, he made up his mind that he was about to die. Closing his telescopes, putting his achromatic glasses in their several grooves, locking the doors of his laboratories, destroying the papers he deemed useless, and arranging those corrected for publication, he ascended to his sleeping-apartment and rang his ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... any tenderness, his mother having always treated him unkindly, and caring scarcely at all for him; for in country places the useless are obnoxious, and the peasants would be glad, like hens, to kill the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... "The boats are useless," he said, sadly. "There will be the same suicidal folly at every one, even if they have time to lower any more. Come aft. That part will sink last, and there will be less suction there when the ship goes down. We may find something that ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... to London, I was still as uneasy as I was before; I had no relish for the place, no employment in it, nothing to do but to saunter about like an idle person, of whom it may be said he is perfectly useless in God's creation, and it is not one farthing's matter to the rest of his kind whether he be dead or alive. This also was the thing which, of all circumstances of life, was the most my aversion, who had been all my days used to an active life; and I would often ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... It is useless minutely to trace his wanderings from Florence to Rome, from Rome to Mantua, and back again to Rome and Naples. At the latter place he dwelt in the palace of the Prince of Conca, where he composed a great ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses of fine ladies ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... accompanied her when Mrs. Ogilvie went up to London; but, in her wilful way, she had decided to-day that maids were useless, and that her present maid had round eyes that stared at her from the opposite side of the carriage when they travelled together. In short, Mrs. Ogilvie intended to go ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... organize clubs throughout the United States for playing the game; prizes were to be given. Experts would take it up. He foresaw a department in every newspaper devoted to the game and its problems, instead of to chess and whist and other useless diversions. He wrote to Orion, and set him to work gathering facts and dates by the bushel. He wrote to Webster, sent him a plan, and ordered him to apply for the patent without delay. Patents must also be applied for abroad. With all nations playing this great game, very likely it would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... when, in spite of the men using it, the scurvy appeared among them, he found that it was some common acid, of no use whatever. How horribly wicked were the manufacturers who could thus, in their greed for grain, knowingly destroy the health and lives of seamen who depended on their useless mixtures for preserving them from one of the most terrible maladies to which those who make long voyages are subject! Whether or not the owners of the Grand Turk had paid less for this mixture than they would have done for good ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... from her friend, the place of superintendent of the queen's household was revived for her. Some cavilers were disposed to grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified the queen's choice by the proof it afforded of the princess's unalterable fidelity ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... actualised, opportunity is as needful for its exercise as is the stimulus of a proportionate reward. That economic opportunity ought, therefore, to be equalised, so far as possible, is, as an abstract principle, too obvious to need demonstration. But abstract principles are useless till we apply them to a concrete world; and when we apply our abstract doctrine of opportunity to the complex facts of society and human nature, a principle so simple in theory will undergo as many modifications as a film of level water will ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... then explained his plan, which was approved by all but Maitland; and he forbore to urge any further opposition, which, he felt, would now be useless. A temperate meal was partaken of, and a hymn sung by the undaunted little company; and pipes and tobacco having been plentifully placed in the hut, the sides of which were decorated with pieces of ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... that a large share of the unfortunate persons who are shut up in insane asylums are brought there by alcohol. Is it not a dreadful thing that one's mind should be thus ruined by a useless and harmful practice? ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... in a conference of European Powers which the French Emperor desired to convene to settle the Roman question, declaring that this question was one with which England should in no way meddle, and that a conference would be useless and dangerous unless a basis were laid down before. He refused to interfere in any way with the Cretan rebellion, and with the impending disputes between Turkey and Greece. His abstention on this question was blamed by some, but it met with the full approbation ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... all this charity is, as you say, so useless; if it touches but the fringe; if it makes the evil worse, what would ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... measure, of an affront to their species in treating after this manner the "human face divine," and turning that part of us, which has so great an image impressed upon it, into the image of a monkey; whether the raising such silly competitions among the ignorant, proposing prizes for such useless accomplishments, filling the common people's heads with such senseless ambitions, and inspiring them with such absurd ideas of superiority and pre-eminence, has not in it something immoral as ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... over his life and reviewing, with a wiser ken now, the steps by which he had come. He compared the selfish disgust with which he had cast off the world with the very different spirit of little Fleda's look upon it that morning, the useless, self-pleasing, vain life he was leading, with her wish to be like the beloved disciple and do something to heal the troubles of those less happy than herself. He did not very well comprehend the grounds of her feeling or reasoning, but he began ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... subject under investigation. With a stereotyped people like the Chinese, it does not do to ignore these trifles of form and custom; on the contrary, the witness should rather be allowed to wander at will through such useless details until he has collected his scattered thoughts, and may be safely coaxed on to divulge something which partakes more of the nature of evidence. Under proper treatment, a Chinese witness is by no means doggedly stubborn or doltishly stupid; he may be either or both if ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... part. Save for an occasional day of desultory work, he spent his time in the mountains, killing game for which they had no use, trapping animals whose pelts were worthless during the summer months. He seemed to kill for the pleasure he found in killing. Protests from Bruce were useless, and this wanton slaughter added day by day to the dislike he felt for his partner, to the resentment which now was ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... argument should range conclusively around it. Judging so, we should find, I think, that not at the polls, where the last utterance of a people's voice is given—where the results of character, and conscience, and intelligence are shown—is her best and rightful work: on the contrary, that it is useless here, unless first done elsewhere. But where little children learn to think and speak—where men love and listen, and the word is forming—is the office she has to fill, the errand she has to do. The question is, can ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own ... I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalising useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.' Johnson's Works, v. 31. 'If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our style, which I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... its message comes into such an account, distils and sublimates into such a quintessential judgement on the present, History remains but 'a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. It is in the profoundest sense useless to us unless in the end we can say 'De nobis fabula narratur'—it is our history to which ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... and being still,—perhaps by female contact,—somewhat sentimental, he fell to musing on his past. It was hardly worthy to be proud of. All its morning was reddened with mad frolic, and far toward the meridian it was marred with elegant rioting. Pride had kept him well-nigh useless, and despised the honors won by valor; gaming had dimmed prosperity; death had taken his heavenly wife; voluptuous ease had mortgaged his lands; and yet his house still stood, his sweet-smelling fields were still fruitful, his name was fame enough; and ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... was their life—abundant leisure, elegant display, exuberant merrymaking. Just such a life, by all the rules, as would produce a useless race devoid of any solidity of mind or of character. Just such a life as in fact produced a race of high-minded, intelligent, and capable men; a race that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and the scarcely lesser names on down the long list of those wonderful ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... lives, will bring us nearer to death. Death is sure to overtake every creature having a corporeal existence. Therefore, we should strive for the possession of our kingdom before we die. He that faileth to achieve fame, by failing to chastise his foes, is like an unclean thing. He is a useless burden on the earth like an incapacitated bull and perisheth ingloriously. The man who, destitute of strength, and courage, chastiseth not his foes, liveth in vain, I regard such a one as low-born. Thy hand can rain gold; thy fame spreadeth over the whole earth; slaying thy foes, therefore, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... her shoulder at the long mirror, and Celia was smitten with sudden envy. A great-grandmother called Saint Cecilia was not half so interesting as a beautiful great-aunt with a romantic love story; and an old and useless spinet not to be compared to a ring like Patricia's. That the ring was to be Genevieve's she ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... should feel the influence of the Preface, which recommended a search for actuality. But that was twenty years ago, and although I do not feel the need of attacking myself in this connection, I cannot but regard all that pottering with stage properties as useless." ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... do not; but I do intend to carry the law out beyond the firing line. The thief strains the law to get away with the goods; I am going to strain the law to get them back. The murderer strains the law to protect his damned useless neck; I'm going to strain the law to break his neck. Unless," he added, "I break ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... with which the organ was originally endowed; for example, we suppose that it still can detect and appreciate, repulse and define odours. But as a sign-post showing the path to glory, as an index of force of character or intellect, it is practically useless. The new nose is modest, retiring, seeketh not its own, is never puffed up. You would know it for a nose, certainly, but its ample and aristocratic proportions are wanting; it lacks a bridge, is spineless, immature, unfinished. Yet ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... up too. We found some of them on the banks along and some floated in the lake. We recovered over half of them. We built a boom just where Stillwater is today, in still water. Joe Brown had a little house about a mile from there. There were the logs, and the mill at St. Croix was useless. McCusick made a canal from a lake in back and built a mill. The lumbermen came and soon there was a straggling little village. I moved there ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... he had often a passionate longing to resign his parish, and go like his curate for a chaplain at the Front. It seemed to him that people must think his life idle and sheltered and useless. Even in times of peace he had been sensitive enough to feel the cold draughty blasts which the Church encounters in a material age. He knew that nine people out of ten looked on him as something of a parasite, with no real work in the world. And since he was nothing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... some understanding about interests in the mine, should Rosendo find it. The mine will be useless to us unless we work it, for there is no one to buy it from us. To work it, we must have a stamp-mill, or arrastras. The Antioquanians are skilled in the making of wooden stamp-mills; but one would cost perhaps two thousand pesos ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... impulse, it has little more claim to dignity than the experience of the brute, who receives, with like passiveness, sensations from abroad through his waking hours. Such thought, if thought it may be called, having no aim, is as useless as the vision of an eye which rests on nothing, which flies without pause over earth and sky, and of consequence receives no distinct image. Thought, in its true sense, is an energy of intellect. In thought, the mind not only receives impressions or suggestions from without or within, but ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... magician had informed himself of his brother's fate, he lost no time in useless regret, which could not restore him to life; but resolving immediately to revenge his death, departed for China; where, after crossing plains, rivers, mountains, deserts, and a long tract of country without delay, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... which, to the end, was so active and so happily constituted as to be able to take an interest in everything around him, and, even when more than seventy years old, to make new friends to replace those who had dropped off, he passed a long, a happy, and far from an useless life. When he was seventy-four he succeeded to his father's peerage, on the death of his elder brother; but he did not long enjoy the title, by which, indeed, he was not very careful to be distinguished, and in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... huge responsibility rested was Grant. Lincoln had summoned him from the West and placed him at the head of all the armies of the Republic. As to Halleck who had long since proved himself perfectly useless, he was allowed ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... for the destruction of the city; the latter placing their hopes of deliverance in nothing else but in persevering in such inventions in opposition to the other, as might demonstrate the enemy's engines were useless to them. And this siege they endured for eighteen months, until they were destroyed by the famine, and by the darts which the enemy threw at ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... not fall asleep at the helm, but the wind gradually died away, and the sail hung limp and useless. Jim got out the oars without stepping on anybody, and rowed slowly on. In a little while they came to the end of the shallow lagoon into which the swell had so unexpectedly cast them. A sand-bank stretched from the ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to the late bailiff as the instigator of the outrage that Grevin, his wife, Violette, and Madame Marion declared that they had recognized among the five masked men one who exactly resembled Michu. The color of the hair and whiskers and the thick-set figure of the man made the mask he wore useless. Besides, who but Michu could have opened the iron gates of the park with a key? The present bailiff and his wife, now returned from the masquerade, deposed to have locked both gates before leaving the pavilion. The gates ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... for further orders. I then slept there: in the course of the night, the Chief of the village where I was ordered to go and stop for further orders, sent a messenger to his son here, where I was, desiring him to stop me here. Next morning his son came to me, and said it was useless for me to go any farther; that his father had sent to him and desired he would furnish me with whatever I wanted and keep me here. I told him, if I staid where I was, I should die with all my family, of hunger and thirst; and that I would ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... offered—from the apparatus in a gymnasium to rubber shirts, get off fat—nor do I doubt the efficacy of exercise and its accompaniments in the way of sweating and baths and all that; but when a person has a living to make these methods are useless, not through any demerit of their own but because the man who is fat hasn't the time or opportunity and, more than all, soon fails in the ...
— The Fun of Getting Thin • Samuel G. Blythe
... fishing-boat was seen in great distress, making for the shore—there were a father and two sons in it. The danger became imminent, as they neared the rocky promontory of the fisher—and the boat upset. Women and boys were screaming and gesticulating from the beach, in all the wild and useless energy of despair, but assistance was nowhere to be seen. The father and one of the lads disappeared for ever; but the younger boy clung, with extraordinary resolution, to the inverted vessel. By accident, the Warlock Fisher came to the door of his hovel, saw the drowning lad, and plunged instantaneously ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... bees of the Paris Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis the shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive. Besides, they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and love of useless fighting with which many writers so readily endow animals. The sentries which guard the entrance to the hive pitilessly put to death the robbing bees which attempt entering the hive; but those stranger bees which come to the hive by mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... understood and wrongly employed arose the bloody frenzy of revolutions, the grim party-rage, the useless slaughtering and disputing and the fatal dissipation of thinking and working powers. In their blind faith in reason and the True Word men destroyed their own and each other's joy and happiness, not realizing that they all wanted one and the same thing, for ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... to the backwoodsman; "our companions and their guide will soon be here. As to your cow, you can hardly have so little common sense as to suppose that five travellers would shoot a beast that must be perfectly useless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... to have to write what will grieve you, but it would be wrong and useless to hide it from you—I was taken ill suddenly yesterday.... What I bear least well is the thought of you. I did so hope that after all your political troubles you might be spared anxieties of a worse kind; but ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... doctor had been found. The wound had been cleansed. It was a cruel one, for the bullet had torn its way through flesh and sinew, and for many a week the fighting arm of Jack Landis would be useless. It had, moreover, carried a quantity of cloth into the wound, and it was almost impossible to cleanse the hole satisfactorily. As for the bullet itself, it had whipped cleanly through, at that short distance ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... a deceiver of those who had shed their best blood in his cause, and the author of the misfortunes of Scotland. Indemnification, redress, and revenge were demanded by every mouth, and each hand was ready to vouch for the claim. Never had just such a feeling existed in Scotland. It became a useless possession to the king, for he could not wring one penny from that kingdom for the public service, and, what was more important to him, he could not induce one recruit for his continental wars. William continued to remain indifferent to all ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... waited a moment, and then held out his hand to Mademoiselle Brun. All three seemed to move and speak under a sort of oppression. It was one of those moments that impress themselves indelibly on the memory—a moment when words are suddenly useless—when the memory of an attitude and of a silence remains all ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... regiments on board, were prepared at Portsmouth for this expedition. But their departure was postponed by unaccountable delays, until the season was judged too far advanced to risk the great ships on the boisterous coast of North America. That the armament, however, might not be wholly useless to the nation, it was employed in making a descent upon the coast of Bretagne, on the supposition that Port L'Orient, the repository of all the stores and ships belonging to the French East India company, might be surprised; or, that this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... that General Howe had taken Philadelphia, corrected his informant very justly. "Say, rather," said the acute philosopher, "that Philadelphia has taken General Howe." The capture of Philadelphia, as we have already taken occasion to remark, was perfectly useless—in fact, worse than useless—to the British arms. It only provided winter quarters to an army which would have been more comfortable and secure in New York; and it held them beleaguered at a remote point when their services were greatly needed to aid Burgoyne and ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... about it," replied Nebsecht. "Whether my observations seem good or evil, right or heinous, useful or useless, I want to know how things ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of Avondale was that the rank and file of the station were always treated with fatherly benevolence, and were never discharged. They gradually got useless by reason of mere antiquity, and, without actually dying, slowly mummified, and were duly interred in ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... they scattered through the chateau, seeking everywhere the money they knew they would find here. One of them was engaged in breaking open this trunk, when the others, below, found the money; they called him; he hastened down, and thinking all further search useless, he left the ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... be said as an exhortation, that men may learn, first of all, to esteem prayer as something great and precious, and to make a proper distinction between babbling and praying for something. For we by no means reject prayer, but the bare, useless howling and murmuring we reject, as Christ Himself also rejects and prohibits long palavers. Now we shall most briefly and clearly treat of the Lord's Prayer. Here there is comprehended in seven successive articles, ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... This was accordingly done, as will be seen by the copy of the accompanying dispatch from the Secretary of State to the United States envoy at Mexico. Mexico has no right to jeopard the peace of the world by urging any longer a useless and fruitless contest. Such a condition of things would not be tolerated on the European continent. Why should it be on this? A war of desolation, such as is now threatened by Mexico, can not be waged without ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... could scarcely support the fainting spirits of Julia; he ran to the door, which he endeavoured to open, but the lock was so constructed that it could be moved only on the other side, and all his efforts were useless. He was constrained, therefore, to seek for another door, but could find none. Their situation was the most deplorable that can be imagined; for they were now inclosed in a vault strewn with the dead bodies of the murdered, and must there ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... accompany the diligence upon mules, as probably a couple of these animals might be procured. The captain observed, that though entirely at our disposal, two men could be of no manner of use, as, in case of attack, resistance, except with a large escort, was worse than useless. Nevertheless it was remarked by some ingenious person, that the robbers seeing two, might imagine that there were more behind. In short there were various opinions. One proposed that they should go on the coach, another that they should go in it. Here I ventured to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... speech or act, and never failed to detect and expose one on the other side. He was sincere and earnest in his opinions, uncompromising, frank and fearless in the expression of them. He never attempted to make a display of himself, or indulged in useless declamation; but spoke earnestly and for the purpose of producing an immediate effect. I heard that when he was in England in 1823 (I think that was the year), the ministry had under consideration introducing him through ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... card, and after Gallegher had read it, and had discovered who the visitor was, he became so demoralized that he was absolutely useless. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... result. I have heard that these poor blinded birds sometimes fell down exhausted with singing, and kept on calling the absent female till they died, not being willing to yield to a rival, who on his side was also keeping up his equally useless appeals. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... wholly exempt from the performance of any public duty. But except at such times there seems to be nothing in the nature of the sexual relation constituting a reason why a married woman should lead a more secluded and useless life than a man. In this matter of the place of women under the new order, you must understand that it was the women themselves, rather than the men, who insisted that they must share in full the duties as well as the privileges of citizenship. The men would ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the company, and one sham-languid person said to a sham-aristocratic person, "Who is that?" "Ah, he's a species of over-educated savage!" Now the gentleman who propounded this pleasant piece of criticism was, according to trustworthy history, the meanest, most useless, and most despicable man of his set; yet he could venture to assume haughty airs towards a man whose shoes he was not fit to black, and he could assume those airs on the strength of his slangy impassivity—his "good form." When we remember that this same fictitious indifference characterized ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... completely and laboriously sawed through, and the whole thing had been wedged back into place so that nothing would be detected at a cursory glance. He was regarding the lock on the window. Apparently it was all right; actually it had been sprung so that it was useless. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... through the welter of his broken face, and rushed, and Roger's straight left stopped him. Again the left flashed into the battered face, and again. Roger was fighting with the desperation of his last remnants of strength. One hand was useless, his leg was stiffening rapidly, but his left worked ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the story he was asked if he knew these songs. He replied that he did, but on being requested to sing one he made some excuse and was silent. After some further efforts the interpreter said it would be useless to press the matter then as there were several other Indians present, but that to-morrow we should have him alone with us and could then ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... there is in woman! She comes in contact with a genius without portfolio, an exceptionally useless implement like me, and then, without any preaching on her part, he feels himself in duty bound to do all sorts of things he never ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... bright, sharp, and full of vitality, with a strong bent for mischief. He is high-tempered, quarrelsome, and disobedient, and yet in the hands of one who understands his mental peculiarities plastic as dough. It is the aim of the author to show how utterly useless it is to treat such boys—and our schools are full of them—in exactly the same manner as those of different character and temperament, and to demand that teachers have the right to adapt their methods according ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... thought was the Lord's, and not mine. Oh, if we but knew how far charity, instead of wasting or lessening the substance of the donor, blessed, increased and multiplied it profusely. How much is there in the world of useless dissipation, which, if properly applied, might amply serve for the subsistence of the poor, and would abundantly be restored, and amply rewarded to the families of those who ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... were so much as plastered. Nor did he ever buy a slave for above fifteen hundred drachmas; as he did not seek for effeminate and handsome ones, but able, sturdy workmen, horse-keepers and cow-herds: and these he thought ought to be sold again, when they grew old, and no useless servants fed in a house. In short, he reckoned nothing a good bargain, which was superfluous; but whatever it was, though sold for a farthing, he would think it a great price, if you had no need of it; and was for the purchase of lands for ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... think I may. To make a man laugh is a very insignificant and useless thing. It is far better to make him weep. Such thoughts and such conversation as makes us serious, thoughtful, and sad, and even moves us to tears, are the most ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... in persuading him that the chase was useless and that it would be better for him to get into our billet and start out next morning, early. We dragged him up the rue des Augustins, to the rue Amiral Courbet. Outside the iron gates I ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... It is useless to assert that the subject is worn threadbare. Threadbare it may be to you, enervated and blas man of pleasure, worn and hardened man of the world; but it is not for you I write. The fountain which leaps up fresh and living ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... most unpropitious; no day had passed without some untoward circumstance, and the sailors were not slow in attributing the whole to the influence of the black cat on board. This came to Lord Cochrane's ears, and knowing that any attempt to reason his men out of so absurd a notion was perfectly useless, he offered to sacrifice this object of his regard, and have her thrown overboard. This, however, far from creating any satisfaction, only alarmed the men still more; they were sure that the tempests she would then raise would be ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... newsfac in his prosthetic left hand, which was indistinguishable in appearance and in ordinary usage from the flesh, bone, and blood that it had replaced. Indeed, the right hand, with its stiff little finger, often appeared to be more useless than the left. The hand, holding the glass of rye-and-ginger, gave an impression of over-daintiness ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I have seen I now can see no more." That was the line. "The things which used to appeal to me now appeal no more—or rather not quite in the same way. I think I used to be very sentimental. It is stupid and useless to be sentimental. People must grow old. There's nothing sad in that. It is natural. It is life. It is life and one must accept life. The unnatural thing, the foolish and wrong thing, is to remain a sentimental ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... always filthy; in one corner lay a heap of useless scraps covered by a sheet of zinc; one could make out grimy cloths, decayed planks, debris, bricks, tiles, baskets: an infernal jumble. Every afternoon some of the women would do their washing in the patio, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... have now became fathers, and are often reproached by their sons for the practical impossibility of the ideal for which they vainly expended their strength, and, as a result of which, they are worn out and useless. Veressayev and Chirikov have written most ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the people to persist in the belief that Anne of Cleves would regain Katharine's strangely coveted place. Where the reputation of a whole class was so bad as to make the above kind of declaration impossible, virtue, such as that attributed to the Lady Anne, was at a premium, and as it was useless to think of a suitable foreign alliance in the state of Henry's religious opinions, justice and necessity had alike seemed to point to the reinstatement of the discarded queen. But Henry was exceedingly annoyed at these repeated ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the work so dear to his heart, but a silence had fallen between them. Then softly and almost hesitatingly Helen said "Mr. Selwyn, I cannot help in this grand evangel, except with money and prayers. May I offer you L300? It is entirely my own, and it lies useless in my ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... letter of Mr. Philip Burr," Sogrange replied, "which letter, by the bye, was dated from 15, 100th Street, New York. An ordinary visit there would have been useless to me. Something ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... consented to this result from no distrust of them; but, feeling that valour and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain there until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... instinctive horror of Androvsky had never been so great as it was to-day. In vain he had striven to conquer it, to draw near to this man who roused all the repulsion of his nature. His efforts had been useless. He had prayed to be given the sympathy for this man that the true Christian ought to feel towards every human being, even the most degraded. But he felt that his prayers had not been answered. With every day his antipathy for Androvsky increased. Yet he was entirely ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... ladies, acting on their mother's suggestion, took their sunshades, which, it must be confessed, were not altogether useless, although their cousins did very ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... but we hear it as the echo of something from another age long past and fundamentally strange to us. The strife of colours, the sense of balance we have lost, tottering principles, unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and contradictions, these make up our harmony. The composition arising from this harmony is a mingling of colour and form each with its separate existence, but each blended into a common life which is called a picture by the force ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... be married to-morrow evening at early candle-lighting—'early mosquito-biting,' Bev calls it. Rex has loved Mat since the day when he joined our little wagon-train out of a foolish sort of notion that he could protect us children, otherwise his life was useless to him. But something in his own boyhood made him pity all orphan children. I think it was through neglect in childhood he became an invalid at nineteen. He doesn't show the marks ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... bestowed to gratify an aged relative, he thought it not worth while to go through a long red-tape process to correct the error. There was another Cadet Grant, and their comrades distinguished this one by sundry nicknames, of which "Uncle Sam" was one and "Useless" another. ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... bein' so deep, I don't wonder she wants to roam a bit now she can git 'round. Land sakes, I wish't I could roam a bit, 'stead er sittin', sittin', an' knittin', knittin', mornin', noon an' night, all along of these 'ere useless old legs of mine!" ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that 'the engines having broken down, an officer extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails.' Oh, yes! he says that some of them looked like 'bonnets in a needlecase,' ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... without expence. We debated therefore in full council what were the easiest methods of raising money, or, more properly speaking, what we could most conveniently sell. The deliberation was soon finished, it was found that our remaining horse was utterly useless for the plow, without his companion, and equally unfit for the road, as wanting an eye, it was therefore determined that we should dispose of him for the purposes above-mentioned, at the neighbouring fair, and, to prevent imposition, that I should go with him myself. Though ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... where some mackerel had already been seen, when a sharp wind from the south drove us from our course; then, seeing that it was useless to struggle against it, we let it drive us. It then became necessary, not to lose our fish, which were good, to go and sell them at the nearest English port, and that was Newcastle. We were told the opportunity was good, as there was an increase of population ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... gone through our costly civil war; and, instead of being exhausted as friends and enemies predicted, the machinery of business appeared to have been set in motion with a new and overwhelming impetus. Every thing was wanted; everybody had work or money; and the most useless commodity found a purchaser: as if our anguish had crazed us, and we went into a delirium of mental opium, and dreamed wild, exhilarating dreams ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas |
