"Worthlessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rolled away, and many a young fellow would gladly have gone with the boys in blue could he have faced the social ban which a misguided public has established against its most loyal servants, holding enlistment in the regular army as virtual admission of general worthlessness. And now the crowds still lingered under the glass roof of the big passenger shed, for word had gone out that another train coming across the bridge was loaded with more troops, and there was a fascination in watching these prospective victims ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... regard to the war of 1812-15; they had no more sympathy with the Madison-Napoleon war than with the recent Fenian invasion of our shores. And when the war was declared, our fathers knew their duty, and knew the worthlessness of the pompous proclamations and promises of President Madison's generals and agents. The blood of our United Empire Loyalist forefathers warmed again in their own bosoms, and pulsated in the hearts of their sons and grandsons, and in the hearts of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... displeasure. He had it constantly before his mind, and it never failed to bring fresh pangs, the remembrance of how all had come to pass, and how all might have gone otherwise; and he was always fancying he could hear the songs in which after generations would recount this voyage of the great Folko, and the worthlessness of the savage Biorn. At length, full of fierce anger, he cast away the fetters of his troubled spirit, he burst out of the castle with all his horsemen, and began to carry on a warfare more fearful and more lawless than any in which he ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... honest, an' it isn't ivery man yo meet i'th world 'at's honest; but aw doant think Tommy ud wrang ony body aght o'th' vally o' that;"—saying which, he snapped his finger and thumb together to denote its worthlessness. ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... was of a still nobler kind. It rested on an unclouded faith in the Divine guidance, and on a very just estimate of the worthlessness of contemporary praise and blame. There have been very few men who have been able to combine so strong a faith with a thorough distrust of both logic-chopping and emotional excitement, and who, while denying themselves these aids ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... sunshiny. David went out and stood at the edge of his tobacco field. All about him the hail had wrought its destruction. Where yesterday broad, thick leaves of green tobacco had stood out strong and vigorous there hung only limp shreds, punctured and torn into worthlessness. ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... from every angle. It aroused the public by showing the actual contents of some of their pet medicines, or the absolute worthlessness of them. The Editor got the Women's Christian Temperance Union into action against the periodicals for publishing advertisements of medicines containing as high as forty per cent alcohol. He showed that the most confidential letters written by women with private ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... I come? To show you what sort of a heart I have sold for money? Why, you think you know, little Margret. You can reckon up its deformity, its worthlessness, on your cool fingers. You could tell the serene and gracious lady who is chaffering for it what a bargain she has made,—that there is not in it one spark of manly honour or true love. Don't venture too near it in your coldness ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the first the author vindicates the usefulness of writing; in the second he discusses the usefulness—it would be more exact to say the harmfulness—of criticism; in the third he expatiates upon the qualifications of authors. One may admit at once the comparative worthlessness of the pamphlet as a contribution to criticism or critical theory. Defoe's comments upon specific writers are thoroughly conventional and commonplace, as may be seen from a glance at his remarks about Milton, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... thought it possible to establish Communism firmly and fully in a country containing such a large majority of peasants. He admitted that it was difficult, and laughed over the exchange the peasant is compelled to make, of food for paper; the worthlessness of Russian paper struck him as comic. But he said—what is no doubt true—that things will right themselves when there are goods to offer to the peasant. For this he looks partly to electrification in industry, which, he says, is a technical necessity in Russia, ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... the useful and useless accumulation of printed matter—nothing more than useful store-rooms and useless lumber-rooms. So that a librarian has cause, now far more than before, to be informed of the progress of science and of the value and worthlessness of writings, and a German librarian has to possess attainments which would be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... speech than excellence of life, would no longer be profaned by evil speech and evil living: and, mark you, profanation of either kind is far from hard. What is more readily come by than madness of speech and worthlessness of character? The former springs from contempt of others, the latter from contempt of self. For to show little care for one's own character is self-contempt, while to attack others with uncouth and savage speech is an insult to those that hear you. For ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... stand amazed at the forms men have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to guide ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... who might, perhaps, be repelled by the apparent worthlessness of the succession of Greek opinions now to be described, will find them assume an interest, if considered in the aggregate, or viewed as a series of steps or stages of European approach to conclusions long ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... practice and fine art. It is not at all difficult to indicate sources of happiness; the main stress of the problem lies in the contest with the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and of mental suffering—indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. Poverty and Disease may be contracted in dimensions; and even vicissitudes of fortune ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... and cried heartily. Her good sense told her that her mother was right, but it was difficult to relinquish the hope of reforming him. As gently as possible, Mrs. Asbury dwelt upon his utter worthlessness, and the misery and wretchedness which would surely ensue from such a union. With streaming eyes, she implored her to banish the thought, assuring her she would sooner see her in her grave than the wife of a drunkard. And now the care of years was to be rewarded; her firm but ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul. Let any one dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness? Oh, there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... not seriously disputed. Plato also was human. He had a fixed income and so knew the worthlessness of riches. He issued no tariff, but the goodly honorarium left mysteriously on a marble bench by a rich pupil he accepted, and for it gave thanks to the gods. He said many great things, but he never ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... chooses the tritest topics, but she gives them a novelty and grace of her own. Even Thackeray's old "Vanity of Vanities" wakes into new life as she dexterously couples it with the dances of the last season. We nod our applause from the grass as she denounces the worthlessness and frivolity of the life we lead. If the weather were cool enough we should at once vow, as she exhorts us, to be earnest and great and good. Above all, let us be noble. The Pretty Preacher is ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... man to teach art because he understood paints as to set a man to teach the Bible because he has a thorough understanding of Greek and Hebrew. In our day we need not only to recognize the utter insufficiency and worthlessness before God of our own righteousness, which is the lesson of the opening chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, but also the utter insufficiency and worthlessness in the things of God of our own wisdom, which is the lesson of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, especially the first to the third ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... fish were thought to exist,—of mammals where it was believed there were no creatures higher than reptiles,—renders it daily more manifest how small is the value of negative evidence. On the other hand, the worthlessness of the assumption that we have discovered the earliest, or anything like the earliest, organic remains, is becoming equally clear. That the oldest known sedimentary rocks have been greatly changed by igneous action, and that still older ones have been totally transformed by it, is becoming ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... system (resting upon the act of 1789 and the resolution of 1816) the currency of the country has attained a state of perfect soundness; and the rates of exchange between different parts of the Union, which in 1841 denoted by their enormous amount the great depreciation and, in fact, worthlessness of the currency in most of the States, are now reduced to little more than the mere expense of transporting specie from place to place and the risk incident to the operation. In a new country like that of the United States, where so many inducements ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... at least, if any of them do, it will be such a proof of their own absolute worthlessness, that you will be well rid of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... introduced again, and seated among them in his rags; Sir William being one of the few who pay a greater regard to the man than the dress, can discern and support merit under rags, and despise poverty of soul and worthlessness in embroidery; but, notwithstanding the success of this stratagem, our hero always looked upon it as one of the most unfortunate in his whole life; for, after he had been at Sir William's, as above-mentioned, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... feeling of the French Canadians was against any change of their own laws that was not visibly and immediately beneficial to their own particular interests. Moreover, the use of the unknown English language, the worthlessness of the rapacious English-speaking magistrates, and the detested innovation of imprisonment for debt, all combined to make every part of English civil law hated simply because it happened to be English and ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... of our battalion. We remained on the outside of the building; and, for nearly an hour, sustained a series of the most intolerable abuse. This was chiefly from the officers of the light infantry, for the most part young and insolent puppies, whose worthlessness was apparently their recommendation to a service, which placed them in the post of danger, and in the way of becoming food for powder, their most appropriate destination next to that of the gallows. The term 'rebel,' with the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Dr. Pierce agreed. "Poor little thing, she's lived in a world of bottles and splints and bandages. She's never had a chance to realize either the value or the worthlessness of things." ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... may be dim from old age," replied Paul, "and perhaps I only guess, but I should say that the one nearest us is a shiftless character whom I used to know in my youth, a man who, despite his general worthlessness and incapacity, had a certain humorous and attractive quality of mind that endeared him to ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... provision for the further appointment of parish and town officers; relieved insolvent debtors, by an Act which enabled a debtor in prison to receive five shillings weekly from his creditor during his detention, if the prisoner were not worth five pounds, worthlessness being, in this instance, to a man's advantage; the curing, packing and inspection of pork was regulated by the appointment of inspectors, whose fees were to be one shilling and six pence per barrel, exclusive of cooperage, with six pence a mile to the Inspector, for every ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... of his nature was the conviction of the worthlessness and fleeting nature of all worldly goods. One thing alone was firm and unshaken, the stability of well-earned fame. "Goods perish, friends perish, a man himself perishes, but fame never dies to him that hath won it worthily." "One thing ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the wisest of angels. And what is it, think you, the angels desire to look into, but this incomprehensible mystery of the descent of the Most High to dwell among the lowest and vilest of the creatures? But as Solomon's temple, and these visible symbols ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of which he speaks rather despondingly of being "confined within the limits of Greenwich Hospital, which are far too small for an active mind like mine"; and in the second he gives a rapid sketch of the voyage, which, by its clear conciseness, proves the worthlessness of Mr. Forster's sneer, repeated by later writers, that the public account of the voyage owed more to the editing of Canon Douglas than to the writing ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... their general ill usage? Suppose a person were to make a collection of the different abuses, which had happened for a series of years under our own happy constitution, and use these as an argument of its worthlessness; should we not say to him, that in the most perfect system which the human intellect could form, some defects would exist; and that it was unfair to draw inferences from such partial facts? In the same manner he would argue relative to the alleged treatment of the slaves. Evidence had been produced ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... a fact, I assure you. You see, even with your views as to the worthlessness of wealth, views which, I am sure, are very sensible and much to your credit, you must allow that if a man should happen to be the possessor of vast—well, let us say of considerable—sums of money, it is his duty to get that money into circulation, so ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... many scruples and objections that scar and discourage them. This one truth believed would clear up the way so, as that such things, as would have been impediments and objections before, shall evanish, and be rolled out of the way now: Such as, the objections taken from their own worthlessness, their long continuance in that dead condition, and ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... of bargaining, during which Captain Van Horn had insisted on the worthlessness of the parcel, he had bought a fat pig worth five dollars and exchanged it for her. Thus, since he had paid for the pig in trade goods, and since trade goods were rated at a hundred per cent. profit, the girl had actually cost him ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... became of her, she had only a feeling that seeing he had been so good he ought to have any satisfaction he could find in marrying her. But what her indifference would have abandoned to him her love could not endure the thought of giving. The worthlessness of the gift, which before had not concerned her, now made its giving impossible. While before she had thought with indifference of submitting to a love she did not return, now that she returned it the idea of being happy in it seemed ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... for your convalescence, and equally so, at the hope which has sustained and tranquillized you through your imminent peril. Far otherwise is, and hath been, my state; yet I too am grateful; yet I cannot rejoice. I feel, with an intensity, unfathomable by words, my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I have learned what a sin is, against an infinite imperishable being, such as ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... observations, seems to correspond with the quality so emphatically described in the sacred writings under the name of Charity. It is there uniformly represented as the great test of the moral condition; and we find exposed, in the most striking manner, the worthlessness of all endowments which are not accompanied by this regulation of the whole character. We cannot, therefore, conclude this subject in a more appropriate manner, than by a passage in which, by a few most powerful ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... hearts. A'n't nobody ahead! Now we are on the hard dirt, the sacred soil, of the pewter State, mother of Presidents, the birthplace of Washington, the feeding ground of hams, but otherwise the very nursery and hive of worthlessness, humbug, sham, and superstition. Virginia, that might have been the first, and proudest, and most enlightened State in the Union, that is the last and most besodden State in or half out of it—But while my apostrophe runs on, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Low Church there are two subdivisions. The first is the Recordite party, so called from its organ. It intensifies the doctrines of the Low Church; on justification by faith it builds its view of the worthlessness of morality; on conversion by grace its predestinarian fatalism; and on the supremacy of Scripture its dogma of verbal inspiration. It holds strong Biblical views on the sanctity of the Sabbath, and both by the pulpit and the press, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... well be astonished and fascinated with the results of civilization, as they are here displayed. The universal courtesy and consideration—the gentle charity, which does not consider the appearance but the substance—the republican independence, which teaches foreign lords and ladies the worthlessness of mere rank, by obviously respecting the character and not the title—the eagerness with which foreign habits are subdued, by the positive nature of American manners—the readiness to assist—the total want of coarse ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... expression, at others they fight like heroes. Just at present, even the Juntas do not pretend that they have an army capable of driving the French out of the Pyrenees; which is a comfort, for we shall have to rely upon ourselves and not be humbugged by the Spaniards, the worthlessness of whose promises, Lord Wellington has ascertained, by bitter experience. The Portuguese government is as troublesome and as truthless as that of Spain, but Wellington is able to hold his own with them; and there is little doubt that the regular regiments will fight, and be really ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... they give him a place in literature. He also wrote a highly offensive Essay on Woman. W. was expelled from the House of Commons and outlawed, but such was the strength of the cause which he championed that, notwithstanding the worthlessness of his character, his right to sit in the House was ultimately admitted in 1774, and he continued to sit until 1790. He was also Lord Mayor ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... condition awakened his unsatisfied past days to desire positive proof of her worthlessness. The past days writhed in him. The present were loveless, entirely cold. He had not even the wish to press her hand. The market held beautiful women of a like description. He wished simply to see her proved the thing he read her to be: and not proved as such by himself. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... up with the Christian doctrine of redemption is that of mediation. Eucken believes that the Christian conception of mediation resulted from the feeling of worthlessness and impotence of man, and the aspirations which yet burned within him after union with the Divine. The idea of mediation bridges the gulf, "a mid-link is forged between the Divine and the human, and half of it belongs to each side; both sides are brought into a definite ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... hers either to preserve or to blot out; she could not wish herself different from what she had been; but the future—was that to be the same as the past? Then, with an apparent contradiction to what she had been thinking a few moments before regarding the worthlessness of life, she began to think that her unhappiness was possibly the result of her eccentric life. She had lived in defiance of rules, governed by individual caprice. Apparently it had succeeded, but only apparently. Underneath ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... conducted by Samuel Barmby. What need to stint himself whilst he felt able to enjoy life? If Fanny deceived him, were there not, after all, other and better Fannys to be won by his money? For it was a result of this girl's worthlessness that Horace, in most things so ingenuous, had come to regard women with unconscious cynicism. He did not think he could be loved for his own sake, but he believed that, at any time, the show of love, perhaps its ultimate sincerity, might be won by ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... several canoes of goldseekers on their return who shouted doleful warnings at us and cursed the worthlessness of the district to which we were bound. They all looked exceedingly dirty, ragged, and sour of visage. At the same time, however, boat after boat went sailing down past us on their way to Atlin and Dawson. They drove straight before the wind, ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... ready saddled, awaited the Sahib's displeasure in the front verandah suffered accordingly. He bowed, trembling, to the ground, and let the storm sweep over his head; making no defence beyond a disarming reiteration of his own worthlessness, and of his everlasting devotion to the Protector of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... fire of their enemies, the vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury of colour—sag-roofed barns and stables, and weak-backed, sunken- chested workshops of every sort, lounge along in tumble-down succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture of worthlessness and decrepitude, light wooden galleries cross to them from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley, and over these galleries flutters from a labyrinth of clothes-lines a variety of bright-coloured garments of all ages, sexes and conditions, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... had a son, also, who imagined himself to be ornamental, but laid no claim to usefulness of any sort. Lady Wentworth concurred heartily and proudly in her son's opinion of himself and encouraged his uselessness to a point where it became worthlessness. But Sir William took no pains to conceal his disappointment and disgust. Young William held a small post at court, and, being supplied with money by his mother, was one of the evil spirits of the set composed of ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... there— sorely clogged, and rusty; but for a woman to hate her husband is hardly enough to make a thinking creature of her. True as it was, there was no little affectation in her saying what she did about the worthlessness of her life. She was plump and fresh; her eye was clear, her hand firm and cool; suffering would have to go a good deal deeper before it touched in her the issues of life, or the love of it. What set her talking so, was in great part the ennui of endeavor after enjoyment, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... proverbial worthlessness of the Fig is of ancient date. Theocritus speaks of sykinoi andres, useless men; Horace, "Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum;" and Juvenal, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... a child of worthlessness; an incarnation of iniquity and son of perdition, and the name in the Bible for the children ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... The Cluthe Rupture Institute was located in New York City, we had daily evidence of the utter worthlessness ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... ones were very sweet and good, but the supervision of them during the day added a somewhat heavy responsibility to our already overburdened household. In these days, when one hears so much of the worthlessness of servants, it is a joy to remember how our faithful maid—we kept only one for that large house—at her own request, did all the laundry work for the family of five, and all through the three years of Eleanor's illness waited on her with ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... the room, Dora was amused at the perceptible look of surprised approval of the fine tall soldierly figure, as he advanced to meet Mr and Mrs Selby and their daughter, the nearest neighbours, who were, of course, in the regular course of instruction of the new-comers in the worthlessness and ingratitude of Uphill and the impossibility of doing anything for the good of ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... single bound, old Jim had been elevated to a starry firmament of importance, from wellnigh the lowest position of insignificance in the camp, attained by his general worthlessness and shiftlessness—of mind and demeanor—which qualities had passed into a proverb of the place. Procrastination, like a cuckoo, had made its nest in his pockets, where the hands of Jim would hatch its ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... beware—of the young man who is ever prating about the innate worthlessness, not to say vice, of your sex. I do not say, reject him forever, simply on suspicion; for that would be to go to the other extreme. But though I have admitted that there may possibly be exceptions in regard ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... assumes at once a tyrannical sway, whose wicked demands of gratification become more and more imperious and exacting day by day, and rears a throne that becomes impregnable in proportion as the sun is allowed to set on its possessions. Even filial love has withered under the shadow of Cassier's worthlessness. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... absurd conceit, which led me to believe that a beautiful, wealthy, and high-born young lady would choose me, of all men, for her husband, without any secret motive or hidden reason to prompt her. I ought to have known my own worthlessness better, and not yielded to a flattering self-conceit. You see, I acknowledge my fault fully, and I own that I have deserved my punishment. I have no accusation against you. You were desperate; you had to save your reputation, and you did not stop to consider ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... and effeminate form. Both, however, agreed in destroying individuality, inasmuch as the one degraded man into a will-less machine for executing the commands of others, and the other deadened him in cultivating the feeling of his sinful worthlessness. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... The utter worthlessness of the replies that were made in response to Hay's note of September 6, 1899, became fully apparent in the discussions that soon arose as to the status of consuls in the various spheres of influence. Japan claimed ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... his ideas and struggling in the emptiness of his dreams. After having immolated everything, youth, family, friendship, love, to this chimera: power, he found himself old, worn-out, broken by his combats, face to face with the folly of his hopes and the worthlessness of his will. Never had his nervous hand been able to grasp in its transition, the fragment of morocco of a portfolio and now that his parchment-like fingers were old and feeble, they would never cling to that shred of power! And now this Prangins ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... * * His imagination was such as could not easily enter into any other man." It had been easy enough, he adds, to have arrogated more to himself than was his due in the writing of the play; but "besides the worthlessness of the action, which deterred me from it, (there being nothing so base as to rob the dead of his reputation,) I am satisfied I could never have received so much honour in being thought the author of any poem, how excellent soever—as I shall from the joining of my imperfections with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... forgetting that it is only a demonstration nisi—a proof at all times liable to be set aside by the addition of a single new fact to the hypothesis —denies, instead of examining and sifting, the allegations which are opposed to him. For this he has considerable excuse in the worthlessness of the testimony on which the facts brought forward to invalidate the conclusions of theory usually rest. In these complex matters, men see with their preconceived opinions, not with their eyes: an interested or a passionate man's statistics are of little worth; and a year seldom ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... sort of shattering vision Robert saw him, a man of promise, black-browed with the riddle of his failure, a man of many hungers, seduced by rootless passions, lured to miserable shipwreck because he could not keep to any course, because he could not give up worthlessness for worth. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... black boots, to attend theatres, and, if possible, to stay all night on the pretence of waiting for the early edition of the great dailies. If a boy is once thoroughly caught in these excitements, nothing can save him from over-stimulation and consequent debility and worthlessness; he arrives at maturity with no habits of regular work and with a distaste ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... 1872) from the old word trousse, signifying the clipping of trees. But in old Gipsy or in the German Gipsy of the present day, as in the Turkish Rommany, it means so directly "fear, mental weakness and worthlessness," that it may possibly have had a Rommany origin. Terror in Gipsy is trash, while thirst is trush, and both are to be found in the Hindustani. Tras, which means ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... was made by the request of the editor of the Genesee Farmer, by whom it is not only endorsed, but proof given of its utter worthlessness upon the land where it was applied. Professor Norton made the following ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... with me on this subject, in which I deplored my want of judgment, he concluded with these words: "It is a common thing for people to complain of their defective memory, and even of the malice and worthlessness of their will, but nobody ever deplores his poverty of spirit, i.e., of judgment. In spite of the Beatitude, everyone rejects such a thought as a doing an injustice to themselves. Well, courage! advancing years will bring you plenty of judgment: it is one ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... have no more difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night than Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from each of three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness of a vast body of anthropologic material to which even the best ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell
... picture. "I did not hear one word you said, my dear cavaliere, but I am acquainted with the supposed miracles of San Frediano. They are entirely without evidence, and in no way shake my conclusions as to the utter worthlessness of such legends. In this I agree with the Protestants," he continued, "rather than with that inspired teacher, Savonarola. The Protestants, spite of so-called 'ecclesiastical authority,' persist in denying them. With the Protestants, I hold that the entire machinery of modern miracles ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... easy for him to invent questions of such a nature that the answer he wants is the only one possible. Again, his conclusions are often arrived at by methods or arguments which are frankly inadmissible; in the earlier dialogues are some very glaring instances of sheer logical worthlessness. Frequently the whole theme of discussion is such that no modern philosopher could be expected to approve of it. A supposed explanation of a difficulty is sometimes afforded by a myth, splendid and poetical but not logically valid. Inconsistencies can easily be pointed ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... has no second. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere." And yet this same Boswell is "a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect"; and, strangest of all, only achieves his amazing success by force of his worthlessness and folly. "If he had not {39} been a great fool he would never ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... populous centres, far more so than any American itinerary for a reliability trial for automobiles that was ever conceived. Many are the "events" which have been run over this "Land's End—John O'Groat's" course, and the journey has proved the worth or worthlessness of many a ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Hogarthian in the view both of vulgar and of genteel life here displayed. The character of Gertrude, in particular, the heroine of the piece, is inimitably drawn. The mixture of vanity and meanness, the internal worthlessness and external pretence, the rustic ignorance and fine lady-like airs, the intoxication of novelty and infatuation of pride, appear like a dream or romance, rather than anything in real life. Cinderella and her glass slipper are common-place to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... portrait-painter were suddenly to take his sitter by the throat on the ground that he had no right to exist. One would say to him that that was not his business: his business is to take the man's existence for granted, and to paint him until he becomes in a new sense alive. If he is worthless, paint his worthlessness, but do not merely comment on it. There is no reason why a portrait should be flattering, but it should be a portrait. It may be a portrait in the grand matter, or a portrait in caricature: if it expresses its ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... say nothing of these things, which are acts of a more hardy sort of villany. Let us speak rather of his meaner descriptions of worthlessness. You, with those jaws of yours, and those sides of yours, and that strength of body suited to a gladiator, drank such quantities of wine at the marriage of Hippia, that you were forced to vomit the next day in the sight of the Roman people. O action disgraceful not merely to see, but even to hear ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... had flashed before his mind a picture of a small park in New York as he had once seen it upon a summer Sunday afternoon. The park walks had been bordered with rows of benches and upon each bench slumbered at least one human derelict who, apparently, realized his worthlessness and had given up the fight. Captain Kendrick sat upright on the settee, beneath the locust tree. Was he, too, giving up—surrendering to Fate? No, by the Lord, he was not! And he was not going to drop off to sleep on that settee like one of those tramps ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of things they are. Just in the same way ought we to act all through life, and where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them of all the words by which they are exalted. For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason, and when thou art most sure that thou art employed about things worth thy pains, it is then that it ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... common infirmities of flesh: by a philosophy somewhat deeper, he can conquer the ordinary reverses of fortune, the dread of shame, and the last calamity of death. But what philosophy could ever thoroughly console him for the ingratitude of a friend, the worthlessness of a child, the death of a mistress? Hence, only when he stands alone, can a man's soul say ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... anti-aircraft guns busily discharging shrapnel at the invaders. It is claimed by the British that fearing this attack the Germans had called from the front in Flanders their best marksmen, for at that time the comparative worthlessness of the Zeppelin had not been demonstrated and the protection of the works was regarded as a prime duty of ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... remark, "Good thoughts are little better than good dreams," in the Essay on Virtue. Blake writes beside this, "Thought is act." This view is well exemplified in the Job illustrations, where Blake makes quite clear his view of the worthlessness, spiritually, of Job's gift to the beggar of part of his last meal, because of the consciously ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... day there are moments when it comes into my mind, and involuntarily I ask myself, 'What if it were true?' It's absurd, but it has on one or two occasions nearly affected my conduct. And yet I was not an impressionable ignorant young girl. I had taken the exact measure of the fellow's utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for me a person of prestige and power, like that awful governess to Flora de Barral. See the might of suggestion? We live at the mercy of a malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance of the air, sinks into our very ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... conspicuously and undeniably as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness. Not the least of its virtues is that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people. It is only when it is cheapened to worthlessness for some, and made impossibly dear to others, that it becomes a curse. In short, it is a curse only in such foolish social conditions that life itself is a curse. For the two things are inseparable: money is the counter ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... the substance of the earliest life of Homer we possess, and so broad are the evidences of its historical worthlessness, that it is scarcely necessary to point them out in detail. Let us now consider some of the opinions to which a persevering, patient, and learned—but by no means consistent—series of investigations has led. In doing ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... moments of calm consideration would have sufficed to show the danger of the undertaking, and the comparative worthlessness of the prize. But the temptation spoke to his feelings; the warning only to his reason. It was his misfortune that his nearest and most influential counsellors espoused the side of his passions. The aggrandizement of their master's power opened to the ambition and avarice of his Palatine servants ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... following who form Anti-Suffrage Societies. Before we criticise sex-antagonism in women, let us be honest about it in men; and before we sneer at the type of women who most display it, let us realize fully the worthlessness of the types of men who display it. But if this be granted—and I have never heard it granted by the men who deplore sex-antagonism as if only women displayed it—we must none the less recognize that this spirit injures both sexes, and that it is necessarily false, since ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... harm that can be done to others by any use of force against them, and the worthlessness of the goods that can be acquired by force, will be very full of respect for the liberty of others; they will not try to bind them or fetter them; they will be slow to judge and swift to sympathize; they will treat every human being with a kind of tenderness, ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... and then almost coldly continued: "Suicide is an act of importance; it shows that a man recognises, at least, the worthlessness of his life. He does one dramatic and powerful thing; he has an instant of great courage, and all is over. If it had been a duel in which, of intention, he would fire wide, and his assailant would fire to kill, so much the better; so much the more ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shadow of something too remote to make its substance visible appeared to fall over him then, causing him a vague wonder and awe, and revulsion of feeling. He knew not whether this old man was taking leave of sober daylight reason, or whether some fresh sense of the worthlessness of earthly wealth, more especially ill-gotten wealth, had come to him from a sudden remembrance of ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law's paper and shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers, and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable career of gambling, died in poverty at ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... had been a talisman of terrible and magical power, for with it he had touched men, and the men touched had disclosed their worth and their worthlessness. It had been a lamp which showed him society ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... we are betrothed, and should have been married years ago, had not Fate or Providence stood in the way; and I suppose her life at home is far from pleasant, for her step-mother is not one to let a good marriage go by, without reminding poor Paulie of my general worthlessness; but I must say that my better financial and matrimonial prospects offer little ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... spiritual powers could really be conferred instead of evolved! It is true that efforts toward the evolution of such powers may be enormously aided by teachers, but such instruction can not be bought, and the offer to furnish it for money is the best evidence of its worthlessness. Those who teach this ancient wisdom select their own pupils from the morally fit, and tuition can be paid only in devotion to truth and service to humanity. That is the only road that leads to instruction worth having, and until the aspirant is firmly upon that ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... the task, Watt became thoroughly aroused. "Every obstacle," says Professor Robison, "was to him the beginning of a new and serious study, and I knew he would not quit it until he had either discovered its worthlessness or had made something of it." The difficulty here was serious. Books were searched in vain. No one had touched it. A course of independent experiments was essential, and upon this he entered as usual, determined to find truth at ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... such circumstances for the present as require to be enforced by argument, I will content myself with pointing out certain passages that bear out my view. I must first, however, remind your readers that while some plays, from their worthlessness, were never printed, some were withheld from the press on account of their very value; and of this latter class were the works of Shakspeare. The late publication of his works created the impression, not yet quite worn out, of his being a later writer than many of his contemporaries, solely because ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... looked upon the corpse. There it lay, a senseless shell, deserted by its immortal tenant, and totally unconscious of that subject which had so lately and so intensely interested them both. It appeared as if the ghastly countenance expressed its sense of the utter worthlessness of all earthly schemes of wealth and happiness. Eternity seemed stamped upon the pinched and sunken features; not eternity in the sense of imperishable matter, but in the sense of the fate of man. Had all the gold of the Indies lain within his reach, the arm of Daggett was now powerless ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... composedly. I had no wish to argue with him; I only sought to read his shallow soul through and through that I might be convinced of his utter worthlessness. "According to modern civilization there is really no special need to be virtuous unless it suits us. The only thing necessary for pleasant living is to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... most cordial, their most unhesitating acceptance were absolutely beyond all possibility of parallel. Not Mucedorus or Fair Em, not The Birth of Merlin or Thomas Lord Cromwell, could reasonably or fairly be regarded as on the same level of worthlessness with this incomparable production. No mortal man who had survived its perusal could for a moment hesitate to agree that it was the most incredibly, ineffably, inconceivably, unmitigatedly, irredeemably, inexpressibly damnable piece of ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... itself, which is just moulded upon this petulant word of Abraham's momentarily failing faith and submission. How many people think that to pray means to bring their wishes to God, and try to coax Him to make them His wishes! Why, half the shallow sceptical talk of this generation about the worthlessness of prayer goes upon that fundamental fallacy that the notion of prayer is to dictate terms to God; and that unless a man gets his wishes answered he has no right to suppose that his prayers are answered. But ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian's or Macpherson's can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the controversy. 'Tantaene animis?' Can great minds descend to such absurdity? But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in favor of these poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his abomination with ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... low lands, it is useless, being too tough for animals to masticate. Strangers, when journeying in these parts, often make the mistake of selecting camps in this tall grass, being deceived by its thrifty appearance; but, one night, thus spent, will clearly prove its utter worthlessness. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... 'Luther has taken up the cause of honesty and good sense against abominations which are no longer tolerable. His enemies are men under whose worthlessness the Christian ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... in a sense, I shall never understand. I cannot change,' and her voice broke into piteousness. 'My Lord is my Lord always; but He is yours too. Oh, I know it, say what you will! That is what has been hidden from me; that is what my trouble has taught me; the powerlessness, the worthlessness, of words. It is the spirit that quickeneth. I should never have felt it so, but for this fiery furnace of pain. But I have been wandering in strange places, through strange thoughts. God has not one language, but many. I have dared to think He had but one, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... should be left in sight when the building is finished. It is a sad pity that modern modes of building, like modern manners and fashions, conceal actual construction and character, making a mask that may hide great excellence or absolute worthlessness." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... this gaudy cloak was, no doubt, devoid alike of truth and conscience; but, as to his being a philosopher, who knew the worthlessness of earthly things and turned his back upon the world, those who could might believe it! He was no more than an actor, who played the part of Timon not amiss, and who made use of his public to work upon their fears and enjoy the sight of their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father... It's bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... and she knew there would be no danger of a relapse into the mistakes of the past; other faults, other temptations would assail her, but these were harmless. Having once seen and realized the falsity of worldliness when compared with religion, the worthlessness of mere money, when compared with true affection, Sibyl could never forget the lesson, for firm reason and resolve were ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... faith. There are those who appear to me to wrest Scripture to their own destruction; they find in one part thereof a description of true faith as distinguished from a dead, false, or spurious faith, which reveals its worthlessness by the absence of 'works,' and, founding on that, they refuse to accept the other portion of Scripture which saith that 'by the works of the law shall no man living be justified.' I, with many others, hold that there is no merit in our simply suffering. The sufferings ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people's blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... of the street and the coin of the vaults are of equal value to this simple pair. Strange sight! They take up the bright gold in handfuls and throw it sportively into the air for the sake of seeing the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. They know not that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, potent to sway men's hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause in the investigation ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... position of the island of Louise, which thus falls in 46 Degrees N. instead of 41 Degrees, the latitude assigned to it in the letter. Nothing could more conclusively show the factitious origin of this delineation and its worthlessness as an ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... neighbour's sorrow, come to offer their tribute of condolence, and to "weep with those that weep." Never is true friendship so tested as then. Hollow attachments, which have nothing but the world or a time of prosperity to bind them, discover their worthlessness. "Summer friends" stand aloof—they have little patience for the sadness of sorrow's countenance and the funereal trappings of the death-chamber; while sympathy, based on lofty Christian principle, loves to ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... sentimental and tearful sort. And for many years after he began to write, it was much the same. Weeping poetesses filled whole columns with their tears, and in every local sheet new Werthers were trying to tell of the worthlessness of life and the beauties of dying. Young bards were inditing odes to melancholy, and everybody was chanting in chorus, if not the words, at least the sentiment of, "how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong." There was ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold |
