"Utility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this power which is exerted in the application of the laws, it may be observed that much of it would be superseded. As laws, being but the expression of the general will, would be enacted only from an almost universal conviction of their utility, any resistance to such laws, any desire of eluding them, must proceed from a few refractory individuals. As far, then, as relates to the internal administration of the country, a Republic has a manifest advantage over a Monarchy, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the harvester, as a worker of vital utility to the country, enjoyed a degree of exemption accorded to few. Impress officers had particular instructions concerning him. They were to delete him from the category of those who might be taken. Armed with a certificate from the minister ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... disclosed that the new head had a mania for general information. He had doubts about the utility of examinations on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... fide painter is a rarity in the town I am describing, so Nicasio and I are comparatively alone in the fine art field. Our patrons are numerous, but we are expected by them to be as versatile as the 'general utility' of theatrical life. ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... in which the birth and rearing of children has not been the essential function of the family. From a sociological point of view the childless family is a failure. While the childless family may be of social utility to the individuals that form it, nevertheless from the point of view of society such a family has failed to perform its most important function and must be considered, ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... been truly said of Coalitions, considered abstractedly, that such a union of parties, when the public good requires it, is to be justified on the same grounds on which party itself is vindicated. But the more we feel inclined to acknowledge the utility of party, the more we must dread and deprecate any unnecessary compromise, by which a suspicion of unsoundness may be brought upon the agency of so useful a principle—the more we should discourage, as a matter of policy, any facility in surrendering ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... generally. The Banias are very good to their own caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars are very rare in the caste. Rich Marwaris are extremely generous in their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... taken heed to the counsel of his party leaders. At joint meetings, which offered the enemy his best opportunity for travesty and derision, he had left it in the background of debate, devoting himself to arguments of more immediate utility. In the literature of the campaign it glowed with prospective benefit, but vaguely, like a halo of Liberal conception and possible achievement, waiting for the word from overseas. The Express still approved ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... be noted that it is incorrect to translate amo, amatum, by "to love," since neither of these words is in the infinitive mood, which is amare. The indication of the Latin infinitive will be found of great utility, as it is the part by which a Latin verb is ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... prepared capes of black cambric, which they wore in connection, with the glazed caps commonly worn at the time. Colonel George P. Bissell, who was marshal, noticing the uniform, put the wearers in front, where the novelty of the rig and its double advantage of utility and show attracted much attention. It was at once proposed to form a campaign club of fifty torch-bearers with glazed caps and oil-cloth capes instead of cambric; the torch-bearing club to be "auxiliary to the Young Men's Republican Union." ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... cast or unconsciously copied by a very primitive people when similar articles are artificially produced in plastic material. In this way a utensil may acquire ornamental characters long before the workman has learned to take pleasure in such details or has conceived an idea beyond that of simple utility. This may be called unconscious embellishment. In this fortuitous fashion a ribbed variety of fruit shell would give rise to a ribbed vessel in clay; one covered with spines would suggest a noded vessel, etc. When taste came to be exercised ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... question. The fairer side of their conduct with regard to money is visible in their sensible encouragement of "business" in all the forms which it then knew. "Annual Mercantile Fairs," says Sir F. Palgrave, "were accustomed in Normandy. Established by usage and utility, ere recognized by the law, their origin bespake a healthy energy. Foreign manufacturers were welcomed as settlers in the Burghs,—the richer the better. No grudge was entertained against the Fleming; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... together the two railways, the East Indian and Eastern Bengal, an uninterrupted and continuous flow of an enormous amount of goods traffic from all parts of India direct to the docks and alongside vessels waiting for cargo. Its great importance and utility would have been further and greatly enhanced had Government carried into effect the proposed and long-talked-of scheme of a central station, the site of which, as far as I recollect, was to have been to the north-east of Bentinck Street taking ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... them, too. In many parts of Asia people, who but a decade or two ago were satisfied with the crudest appliances of primitive life, are now learning to use steam and electrical machinery, to like Oregon flour, Chicago beef, Pittsburg pickles and London jam, and to see the utility of foreign wire, nails, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Mr. Melville,—I am now in my twenty-fifth year. In looking back it seems only a few years ago that you called me to you, on the street of my native city, and offered to make me general utility boy in the telegraph office of Damietta. My mother and I were nearly starving at the time, and no kindness could have been more appropriate than yours, nor could anyone have shown greater tact and wisdom in cultivating the good instincts of a ragged urchin, who, ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... Paint him at his desk. The desk is a throne; interpret it. We are ruled by mobs. Who paints mobs? What is wrong is this, that art is in the bondage of literature—sentimentality. We must record what we experience. Ugliness has its utility, its magnetism; the ugliness of abject misery moves you to think, to readjust ideas. We must be rebels, we young men. Ah, if we could only burn the galleries, we should be forced to return ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... people were intelligent enough to comprehend the utility of these weapons at an emergency, and illustrated in expressive pantomime the powers they possessed against numbers of people armed only with spears and bows, by extending their arms with an imaginary gun and describing a clear circle. "Verily," said they, "the Wasungu ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... necessary is the subjection to this Napoleonic education of the sons of important and refractory families, everywhere numerous in the annexed countries. Already in 1802, Fourcroy had explained in a report to the legislative corps the political and social utility of the future University.[6126] Napoleon, at his discretion, may recruit and select scholars among his recent subjects; only, it is not in a lycee that he places them, but in a still more military school, at La Fleche, of which ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... belonging to Coligny's army, discovered a ford by which a part of the Germans crossed. The main body laid siege to the town of La Charite, which was soon reduced (on the twentieth of May), the Huguenots thus gaining a bridge and stronghold that proved of great utility for their future operations. Six days after the king had demonstrated the impossibility of the enterprise, Deux Ponts was on the western side of the Loire.[692] Meantime, Coligny and La Rochefoucauld were advancing to meet ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... picture of England's future had often been presented to me, and on nearly every occasion I had been assured that Russia had been saved from these terrible evils by the rural Commune—an institution which, in spite of its simplicity and incalculable utility, West Europeans seemed utterly incapable ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... neglect of both the rolling stock and the right-of-way have seriously reduced the capacity and utility of the system; a project to restore Nigeria's railways ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... be of general utility, are carried into execution with partial views, and upon interested motives, it is natural to attempt to confine, within some narrow circle, the advantages which might have been derived to the world at large, by an unreserved disclosure of all that had been effected. And, upon this principle, it ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... what can be gotten out of it. When two people appreciate each other because each has found the other convenient to have around, they are not friends, they are simply acquaintances with a business understanding. To seek friendship for its utility is as futile as to seek the end of a rainbow for its bag of gold. A true friend is always useful in the highest sense; but we should beware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a mutual-benefit association, with its periodical demands ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... superior. He probably over-estimated the average capacity for work of mankind, and condemned their indolence too unsparingly. Certainly his estimate of the quantity of good work got out of officials in a public office was not a high one. Nor, I am sure, did he take a sanguine view of the utility of such work as was done in the Colonial Office. 'Colonial Office being an Impotency' (as Carlyle puts it in his 'Reminiscences,' 'as Stephen inarticulately, though he never said or whispered it, well ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... prevail with those who were his contemporaries to accept these notions, but so firmly imprinted this faith in God upon all their posterity that it could never be removed. The reason why the constitution of our legislation was ever better directed than other legislations to the utility of all is this: that Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he ordained other virtues to be a part of religion—I mean justice, and fortitude, and temperance, and a universal agreement of the members of the community with one another. All our actions and studies have a ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... his death, Mr. Charles Darwin informed Sir Joseph Hooker that it was his intention to devote a considerable sum of money annually for some years in aid or furtherance of some work or works of practical utility to biological science, and to make provisions in his will in the event of these not being completed ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... carriage on her way to the episcopalian reception, extremely well pleased with herself, her dress, her position, and her social guardian angel. The elder lady was impressively gloomy in her usual black silk, fashioned after the early Victorian mode, when elegance invariably gave place to utility. Her headgear dated back to the later Georgian epoch. It consisted mainly of a gauze turban twinkling with jet ornaments. Her bosom was defended by a cuirass of cold-looking steel beads, finished off at the throat by a gigantic brooch, containing ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... consisted simply in the fact that Miss Macnulty was not present. Lizzie fully appreciated the pleasure, and utility, and general convenience of having a companion, but she had no scruple whatever in obtaining absolute freedom for herself when she desired it. "My dear," she would say, "the best friends in the world shouldn't always be together; should they? Wouldn't ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... "Always the argument of utility," the bishop returned, with mournful resignation. "But how have modern inventions added to the beauty or the dignity of human life? Man is mastered and slain by his own inventions, and a skyscraper reduces him to ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... meaning of which word is not free from obscurity; it seems probable that it indicates the clear story—the story which rises clear of the nave and aisles. In large buildings, they are important both for utility and beauty, but in small and early churches, they ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... kidneys have been differentiated widely, according as they were acute or chronic, parenchymatous or tubal, suppurative or not, with increased or shrunken kidney, etc. In a work like the present, however, utility will be consulted by classing all ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... teacher, but as a thinker and a writer, that he rendered his great service to the world. This consisted essentially in the contribution of two magnificent ideas to the common stock of thought: the idea of the utility of science, as able to subjugate the forces of nature to the use of man; and the idea of continued and boundless progress in the comfort and happiness of the individual life, and in the order and dignity of human society. It has been shown how, from early manhood, he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... claimed the common lands from the village communities. It was the same institution which only two generations before had eagerly helped to destroy, not merely things of popular sentiment like the monasteries, but all the things of popular utility like the guilds and parishes, the local governments of towns and trades. The work of the great lords may have had, indeed it certainly had, another more patriotic and creative side; but it was exclusively the work of the great lords that was done by Parliament. The House ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... through all my senses thrills; Each instance vile of human worthlessness, My soul with holy anger fills. This arrogant, this foolish age, Which feeds itself on empty hopes, Absorbed in trifles, virtue's enemy, Which idly clamors for utility, And has not sense enough to see How useless all life thenceforth must become, I feel beneath me, and its judgments laugh To scorn. The motley crew, The foes of every lofty thought, Who laugh at thee, I trample ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... conception, not so much of beauty of form (although that is a pleasing object to contemplate) as of that outline and proportion of parts with which utility is oftenest combined. Then carefully viewing his stock he will consider where they approach to, and how far they wander from, this utility of form; and he will be anxious to preserve or to increase the one and to supply the deficiency of the other. He will endeavor to select from his own stock those animals that excel in the most valuable points, and particularly ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... profit of one's self or other people with self. But it requires the outside world—means of satisfying itself—therefore means of subsistence, an individual of the other sex, books, convention, argument, activity, these means and matters of satisfaction are matters of utility and labor. Feuerbach's system of morality either predicates that these means and matters of satisfaction are given to every man per se, or, since it gives him only unpractical advice, is not worth a jot to the people who are without these means. And this Feuerbach himself shows clearly in forcible ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... in any art does not require a change in all its parts. It is sufficient that there shall be an improvement, either in some particular point, as a matter of utility, or some change in an artistic direction. A manufacturer in putting out a new chair, or a plow, or an automobile, adds some striking characteristic. This becomes his talking ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... useful to the great organization that owned him he received proportionately larger pay; but as he drank proportionately more, his family remained in much its usual straits. Presently Obloski fell off in utility, allowing choice newly landed men of his nationality to miss the polls. Then strange things happened. The great man (who was left-handed) spoke an order mingled with the awful names of gods. Then certain shares, underwritten by his right-hand man, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... law, were improved. To cure corruption in the Senate the ballot was introduced at elections to magistracies. The finances of the state were economically managed, and taxpayers were most carefully guarded from oppression. Trajan never lacked money to expend on great works of public utility; as a builder, he may fairly be compared with Augustus. His forum and its numerous appendages were constructed on a magnificent scale. Many regions of Italy and the provinces, besides the city itself, benefited by the care and munificence which the emperor bestowed on such public improvements. His ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... cover the top of a small plateau, or rather of a ridge of the mountain. Toward the centre of the village stands a great evergreen oak, and close beside it may be seen a granite trough, into which the water of a neighbouring spring is conveyed by a wooden pipe. This monument of public utility was constructed at the common expense of the della Rebbia and Barricini families. But the man who imagined this to be a sign of former friendship between the two families would be sorely mistaken. On the contrary, it is the outcome of their mutual jealousy. Once upon a time, Colonel della ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... of her. She finally spied her coming down the platform with a plainly-dressed girl whose pale face, under a brown sailor hat, bore the unmistakable stamp of the student. In one hand she carried a small black utility bag of very shiny material. The other hand grasped the handle of a large straw suitcase. Jerry carried the mate to it. Her plump face registered nothing but polite attention to what her companion was saying. She was marching her freshman along, however, at a fair rate of speed. Not ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... thus large in my encomiums on this island, in which, however, I conceive I have not done it justice, it is necessary I should speak of those circumstances in which it is defective, whether in point of beauty or utility." ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the old numbers of "Notes and Queries" hinting to me the desirability of a more systematic mode of treatment. To bibliographers and literary historians I conceived that such a work might prove of utility and interest, and possibly serve to others as an introduction and incentive to a branch of our literary history that is not without its fascination. But I must also own to a less unselfish motive, for I imagined that not without its reward of delight would be a temporary ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... nearly always succeeds. I took a packet of fine English letters and explained their use to her. She took them examined them attentively, and after a burst of laughter declared them to be scandalous, disgusting, horrible in which anathema her sister joined. In vain I tried to plead their utility in defence, but Clementine maintained that there was no trusting them, and pushed her finger into one so strongly that it burst with a loud crack. I had to give way, and put my specialties in my pocket, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Frederick the Great asked what should make him believe in God, he received in answer, 'the survival of the Jews.' Dr. Guttmann of Breslau not long since put forward a similar plea in vindication of the continued significance of Judaism. In nature all forms die when their utility is over; in history, peoples succumb when their work in and for the world is complete. Shall, he asks, we recognise Judaism as the solitary exception, as the unique instance of the survival of the ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... hopeless task to wade through the ridiculously lengthy terms of the seventeenth century. But it may be said, in their defence, that the method of verbose composition was not without some appearance of utility. The intelligence of the reader could not be relied upon to such an extent as now, and the eager eyes of so many opponents made it necessary to guard every word of importance with a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... pauper; but, at least he is an HONOURABLE pauper. Though tired and hungry, he still goes on working—working in his own peculiar fashion, yet still doing honest labour. Yes, many a decent fellow whose labour may be disproportionate to its utility pulls the forelock to no one, and begs his bread of no one. I myself resemble that organ-grinder. That is to say, though not exactly he, I resemble him in this respect, that I work according to my capabilities, and so far as in me lies. More could be asked of no one; nor ought ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... this world long enough to calculate their results. I am afraid we must often be content with that empty glory which lives only in the pages of history. A battle fought fifty years ago appears very often of no more utility than the splendid tomb of a Necropolis. Events and objects for which men by thousands were brought together in deadly combat assume, a few years afterwards, mighty small proportions; and those who have taken part in deadly struggles, at a later period marvel at the ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... call them by name is no doubt something of an accomplishment, but it should not be the chief aim of the teacher in conducting Nature Study lessons on plants. It is of much greater importance that the child should be led to love the flowers and to appreciate their beauty and their utility. Such appreciation will result in the desire to protect and to produce fine flowers and useful plants, and this end can be reached only through intelligent acquaintanceship. There can be no true appreciation without knowledge, and this the child gets chiefly by personal ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... wine." But we must beware lest, in view of the increasing and excessive dearness of living in France, the beggarly salaries of the poor schoolmasters of a former day, so little worthy of their labours and their social utility, appear even more disproportionately small than they actually were. What is more to the point, the teachers had no pension to hope for. They could only count on a perpetuity of labour, and when sickness or infirmity ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... we may often know the man. The cowboy's costume was harmonious with its surroundings. It was planned upon lines of such stern utility as to leave no possible thing which we may call dispensable. The typical cowboy costume could hardly be said to contain a coat and waistcoat. The heavy woolen shirt, loose and open at the neck, was the common ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... Commons. Also it holds that the queen is the executive. Neither is true. There is no authentic explicit information as to what the queen can do. The secrecy of the prerogative is an anomaly, but none the less essential to the utility of English royalty. Let us see how we should get on without a queen. We may suppose the House of Commons appointing the premier just as shareholders choose a director. If the predominant party were agreed as to its leader there would not be much difference at the beginning ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... the Princes, his brothers, determined to avail themselves of the advantages held out by inoculation, as a safeguard against the illness under which their grandfather had just fallen; but the utility of this new discovery not being then generally acknowledged in France, many persons were greatly alarmed at the step; those who blamed it openly threw all the responsibility of it upon the Queen, who alone, they said, could have ventured to ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... poets (alone in this respect among the greatest) who have not sung of Love. His only English love-poem, the sonnet To the Nightingale, is his earliest and poorest sonnet. He elected in his later poems to sing of Marriage, its foundation in reason, its utility, its respectability and antiquity as an institution, and, above all, its amazing dangers. He has thus lost the devotion of the young, who, while they read poetry by the ear and eye for its sonorous suggestions, and its processions of vague shapes, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... triumphed, not only is reason powerless to affect it, but it even finds motives which impel it to interpret and so justify the faith in question, and to strive to impose it upon others. There were probably as many theologians and orators in the time of Moloch, to prove the utility of human sacrifices, as there were at other periods to glorify the Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the hecatombs ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... speak, intellectualised. But this leaves out of the question a part of our entire mental being so important and so eminent, that if this part be suppressed, the intelligence would cease to work and would have no more utility than a machine without motive power. Our own motive power is the will, the feeling, or the tendency. Will is perhaps the most characteristic psychical function, since, as I have already had occasion to say, nothing analogous to it ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... military salute, whereas no one except a French journalist has probably ever seen, what I may be allowed to call, a foil for active service, the science of single-stick has some claim to practical utility even in the nineteenth century, the only sound objection to single-stick being that the sticks used are so light as not to properly ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... another, in the ships in which he served; among a crowd he had found himself desolate—and now, although no one dared treat him to his face with disrespect, he was only respected in the service from a knowledge of his utility and exemplary performance of his duties—he had no friends or even companions. For many years he had retired within himself, he had improved by reading and study, had felt all the philanthropy of a Christian, and extended ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of Public Instruction had the time to devote any attention to the importance of my project, to the utility of publishing such a work, and perhaps to the duty prescribed by the national honor, I would say to it that, after having for a long time reflected and meditated and determined upon the most feasible plan, finally after having seen amassed and prepared the most ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... second speed and was sweeping around a corner lined with farmers' teams, whose animals were behaving like circus horses. On his own driveway, where he arrived in incredibly brief time, he met his stenographer, farm superintendent, secretary, housekeeper, and general utility man, Mr. Raikes. Mr. Raikes was elderly, and showed signs ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this price is supplemented by the indirect incidence of a sort of tax upon many of the commodities he consumes. On the other hand, a great part of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after day, and servants and employers find one another by the same means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part of the news that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to attempt a work of this nature, its utility must first be fully appreciated; but, unfortunately, those whose need is the greatest, as being immediately present, would on that very account be incompetent to supply the need, while those who by dint of patient study have brought themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... useful occupations of life, he began to feel a more tender interest in the common concerns of his fellow-creatures. He now found, from his own experience, that Mr Barlow had not deceived him in the various representations he had made of the utility of the lower classes, and consequently of the humanity which is due to them when they discharge their duty. Nor did that gentleman abandon his little friend in this important trial; he visited him frequently, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... since confirmed the great utility and importance of a bank of the United States in its connection with the Treasury. The first great advantage derived from it consists in the safekeeping of the public moneys, securing in the first instance the immediate payment of those received ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... wall right before you, which at once gives light to the stair which leads from the second story to the third (where the nursery and servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men can give you a notion. They rest the coffins upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into docility and respect. Every hardship he endures, every step he advances, in his wide and laborious career of Beneficence, instead of impairing his strength, invigorates his frame; instead of diminishing his influence, increases the utility of his conduct, by making the world acquainted with the sanctity of his character. Witness, ye various regions of the earth! with what surprize, delight, and veneration, ye beheld an unarmed, and unassuming traveller instructing you in the sublime ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... The Play of Animals, p. 285. The utility of these antics is well explained by Professor Ziegler in a letter to Professor Groos: "Among all animals a highly excited condition of the nervous system is necessary for the act of pairing, and consequently we find an exciting playful prelude is ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... too conversant in the world to need the slightest hint from me, of what infinite utility the Speech[415] on the aweful day has been to me. I experience, every hour, some good effect from it. I am sure that effects still more salutary and important must follow from your kind and intended favour. I will labour—GOD being my helper,—to do justice to it from the pulpit. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... deal easier." Jem thanked him respectfully for the advice but neglected to follow it. His aunt also came to the front door occasionally to watch his progress, but shook her head as if doubtful of either the ornament or utility of his work. ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... next came in for his attention and he was puzzling over the utility of several wires that led from it through the engine room roof when a sudden thought flashed into his mind. With a cry of triumph he bent over a small lever marked "accelerator," beside which was a small gauge. He rapidly adjusted the gauge, so that it would not register ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... works must have been to the aspiring youth. He had abstained from reading fiction, doubting whether it was profitable, since the early days when with a thrill of boyish excitement he read "Sinbad the Sailor" and Marryatt's novels. After a while his views as to the utility of fiction changed. He found that his mind was suffering from the solid food to which it was restricted, and he began to make incursions into the realm of poetry and fiction with excellent results. He usually limited this kind of reading, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and opposition, especially from the patrician class, to which Fellenberg belonged. Even in republican Switzerland, these men held that their rank exonerated them from any occupation that savored much of utility; and it was with a feeling almost of dishonor to their order that they saw one of their number stoop (it was thus they phrased it) to the ignoble task of preceptor. It need hardly be said that Fellenberg held on his way, undisturbed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... which bear the name of domestic exchanges differ essentially in their nature, operation, and utility. One class of them consists of bills of exchange drawn for the purpose of transferring actual capital from one part of the country to another, or to anticipate the proceeds of property actually transmitted. Bills of this description are highly useful in the movements of trade ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... House that cannot &c."? Professor Bain, apparently admitting no exceptions to his useful rule, amends many sentences in a manner that seems to me intolerably harsh. Therefore, while laying due stress on the utility of the rule, I have endeavoured to point out and ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... stranger, often thrust out of doors from great houses, where grandeur and utility are commonly the idolls that's worshipped,—quid non mortalia pectora cogis?—has always found sanctuary in yours, which has ever been ane encouragement to the good, a terror to the bad, and free from ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... as its iniquity. They appear to have wholly overlooked the fact that until their mighty engines should be devoted to increasing human welfare they were and would continue mere curious scientific toys of no more real worth or utility to the race than so many particularly ingenious jumping-jacks. This craze for more and more and ever greater and wider inventions for economic purposes, coupled with apparent complete indifference as to whether mankind ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... sanatorium that my ankles were finally restored to a semblance of their former utility. They were there subjected to a course of heroic treatment; but as to-day they permit me to walk, run, dance, and play tennis and golf, as do those who have never been crippled, my hours of torture endured under my first attempts to walk are ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence and eternal solitude of the deep? Have hundreds of commodious harbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread in the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? No, generous philanthropists! Heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works of its hands. Heaven has not thus placed at irreconcilable strife ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... skill that there is in some other lines of agricultural enterprise. Skill means the capacity to do something difficult, and the more effort required to produce an object the more value it has, provided its utility is unlimited. The farming which requires the most skill pays the best if one has the skill to apply to it. This is because those who do not have the requisite ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... Utility has a nobler sense than a mere ministering to our physical wants, a mere catering to our sense of luxury. Geology is surely higher when refleshing the dry bones and revealing to us the mysteries of a lost creation, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... days—and, after seeing the library of your neighbour, I will throw down the gauntlet to Philemon, challenging him to answer certain questions which you may put to us, respecting the number, rarity, beauty, or utility of those works which relate to the literature and antiquities of our own country. We shall then see who is able to return the readiest answer." "Forgive," rejoined Philemon, "my bantering strain. I revoke my speech. You know that, with yourself, I heartily love books; more from their ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... about the great coalition war in 1863 was a "Yes" instead of a "No" from His Majesty the King in Gastein. Anybody but a German minister would perhaps have counseled affirmatively, from reasons of utility and opportunism in order to solve thereby our home difficulties. You see neither our own people nor foreigners really have a proper appreciation of the amount of national loyalty and high principles which guides ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... appointment to the Department of State seemed bent upon discrediting him and his policies. "I clearly perceive," he wrote to the President, "that my continuing a member of the present Administration is no longer of any public utility, invigorates the opposition against yourself, and must necessarily be attended with an increased loss of reputation by myself. Under those impressions, not without reluctance, and after perhaps hesitating too long in the hopes ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... I know what she means," returned Elizabeth thoughtfully. "Youth is so fond of mysteries, and all its castles have endless winding galleries, that lead to all sorts of curious nooks and corners. When we grow older our horizon widens—we care more for utility and less for subterranean passages. What could be better than a market, where one sells one's best and most durable goods ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was too surely fallen. To cling to him could do not good, but would only bring the Queen's anger upon himself also. And yet he had written: "It is friendship when a man can say to himself, I love this man without respect of utility. . . . I make him a portion of my ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... and sensual. God forbid that I should end my book by such social blasphemies! I would rather try to return by some pantagruelian subtlety to my herd of celibates and honest women, with many an attempt to discover some social utility in their passions and follies. Oh! if conjugal peace leads us to arguments so disillusionizing and so gloomy as these, I know a great many husbands who would prefer ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... no drift it was quicker and easier to slip on an overcoat, and for his own garment of this description Scott admits a sentimental attachment. 'I must confess,' he says, 'an affection for my veteran uniform overcoat, inspired by its persistent utility. I find that it is twenty-three years of age and can testify to its strenuous existence. It has been spared neither rain, wind, nor salt sea spray, tropic heat nor Arctic cold; it has outlived many sets of buttons, from their glittering gilded youth ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... of the Government officers, in the city of New York especially, bear decided testimony to the utility of open competitive examinations in their respective offices, showing that—These examinations and the excellent qualifications of those admitted to the service through them have had a marked incidental effect upon the persons ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... be able to take the field against him, and will need all his forces to defend Arcot, Vellore, and his smaller forts, and cavalry would be of no real use to him. Your troop would be of much greater utility to the battalions from Bengal, when they arrive. They will be here in three weeks or so, and as soon as they come, I will attach you to them. I will write to the Nabob, saying that you were about to join him, but that, in the interest of the general ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... receive the compensation due their however distinguished merit, either pecuniary or laudatory. The originators or first conceivers of the most momentous plans of utility and comfort are oftenest the most ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... enjoy writing to me more than any one else. The book you sent me of Dr. John Brown's on books, has been of extreme utility to me, and contains matter of the deepest interest. Did you read it yourself? If not I must lend it ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... useless if the day of judgment were at hand! He dared not speak against philosophy and it was a long time before Mathias guessed his trouble, but as soon as it dawned on him that Joseph was in doubt as to the utility of philosophy, his face assumed so stern an expression that Joseph began to feel that Mathias looked upon him as a fool. It may have been that Joseph's consternation, so apparent on his face, restored Mathias into a kindly humour. Be that as it may, Mathias pointed out, and with less contempt ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... time on Quin's status in the family became less anomalous. To be sure, he was still Mr. Randolph's private secretary, Madam's top sergeant, Miss Isobel's and Miss Enid's body-guard, and the household's general-utility man; but he was now something else in addition. Miss Isobel had discovered, quite by chance, that he was the grandson of Dr. Ezra Quinby, whose book "Christianizing China" had been one of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... then, under the rose; the old coachman, you know, likes to hear the whip. Indeed, at the present moment, I am thinking of starting a Review on an entirely new and original principle; and it just struck me that you might be of high utility in the undertaking—what do you think of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... qualm, as all our experiments show. This principle has a practical application which is not without its value in matters of domestic economy. It is as well that the wonders of entomology should sometimes give us a hint of commonplace utility. ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... fingers must have toiled at. Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes; for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... "The utility of a woman's help," observed the King, "was apparent very early in the world's history. Even ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... which costs but a dollar and a half or two dollars, will save its price in the utility of these scraps in ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... headquarters in the town, where I intended stopping for the night, I sent a courier to the front to bring me a report of the condition of affairs, and then took Colonel Alexander out on the heights about Winchester, in order that he might overlook the country, and make up his mind as to the utility of fortifying there. By the time we had completed our survey it was dark, and just as we reached Colonel Edwards's house on our return a courier came in from Cedar Creek bringing word that everything ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a transshipment point for illicit drugs moving from Latin America and Asia destined for Western Europe; the lack of a well-developed financial system limits the country's utility as a money-laundering center ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... quite obvious. A craftsman who is accustomed to work with his hands, following the tradition developed by his ancestors, is useless when brought face to face with a machine. And the man who can handle the machine will only be concerned with quantity and utility in the first instance. Only gradually do the claims of beauty come to be recognized. Compare the modern motor car with the first of its species, or even, since the same law seems to operate in nature, the prehistoric animal with its modern ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... The origin of these customs is obscure; they go back to times and conditions for a knowledge of which data are lacking—possibly to the early conception of the sacredness of all natural objects.[371] It is less difficult to explain the belief in the purifying power of fire. Its splendor and utility caused it to be regarded as a god in India and Persia, and if it was also destructive, it often consumed hurtful things. It was sacred, and might, therefore, be a remover of impurity. Its employment for this purpose is, however, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... can be made to the deglutinatio Fijiana on the score of utility. The islands of the Fijians are but small; no Fijian Attila can lead forth his hosts into neighboring countries; no Fijian Goths can pour down from Polynesian Alps into an Oceanic Italy; no Athenians ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of leather, so that it crumbles to meal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... distant, a rugged, and northern clime. They bowed before different altars; they followed different customs; they were modified by different manners. Votaries of the Beautiful, they sought in Art the means of embodying their passionate conceptions: you have devoted your energies to Utility; and by the means of a power almost unknown to antiquity, by its miraculous agencies, you have applied its creative force to every combination of human circumstances that could produce your objects. Yet, amid the toil and triumphs of your scientific industry, upon ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... use of being exasperated at a tasteless joke?—only the exasperation comes before the reflection on utility. Few friendly remarks are more annoying than the information that we are always seeming to do what we never mean to do. Sir Hugo's notion of flirting, it was to be hoped, was rather peculiar; for his own part, Deronda was sure that he had never flirted. But he was glad ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... living, better methods of language study, substitution of things for words, social efficiency, personal culture, social service, complete development of personality, encyclopedic knowledge, discipline, a esthetic contemplation, utility, etc., have served. The following discussion takes up three statements of recent influence; certain others have been incidentally discussed in the previous chapters, and others will be considered ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... praetor of the city A. Atilius, was authorized to appoint decemvirs, whose names Livy gives, to assign ten jugera to Roman citizens and three jugera to Latin[19] allies. Thus the senate, with a newly-born sagacity, rendered useless the demands of the tribune and recognized the justice and the utility of the agrarian laws against which it had so long protested. Indeed, it justified the propositions of the first author of an agrarian law by admitting to a share in the conquered lands the Latin allies who had so often contributed to their growth. ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... iv. 328). In the letter dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say:—'The Bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit—I wonder how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Sarmah.—Sir William Jones has the name Vishnu-sarman. He says, further, that the word Hitopadesa comes from hita, signifying fortune, prosperity, utility, and upadesa, signifying advice, the entire word ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Caesar, and to Augustus—then there was nothing to restrain the men. There was to such a man no right but his power, no wrong but opposition to it. His cruelty or his clemency might be more or less, as his conviction of the utility of this or that other weapon for dominating men might be strong with him. Or there might be some variation in the flowing of the blood about his heart which might make a massacre of citizens a pleasing diversion or a painful process to him; but there was no conscience. With the man of whom we are ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... with the best modern practice brings to bear knowledge that arises from our knowledge of the germ cause of syphilis. No single fact except perhaps the knowledge that certain animals (monkeys and rabbits especially) could be infected with it has been of such immense practical utility in developing our power to ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes |
