"Futility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only natural that such a society should act as a powerful stimulus upon the vivid temperament of Voltaire, who had come to it with the bitter knowledge fresh in his mind of the medieval futility, the narrow-minded cynicism of his own country. Yet the book which was the result is in many ways a surprising one. It is almost as remarkable for what it does not say as for what it does. In the first place, Voltaire ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... the dim lamplight. Two disabled soldiers hobbled across the bridge and disappeared in the deep shade of the avenue. Their service had been rendered, their sacrifices made, months ago. They could look about them now with a peculiar sense of isolation, and with, perhaps, a feeling of the futility of the effort they had made. Our adventures were all before us. Our hearts were light and our hopes high. As we stood by the obelisk, talking over plans for the morrow, we heard, high overhead, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... deal on his possession of this hold upon the men who had been his associates. The whole situation had to be readjusted in the altered light of events. The first impulse of the man, to act, seemed strangled almost at its birth by the absolute futility of any move he could possibly make. He had no idea where to find his daughter, with whom she was living, or how. Any publicity of any sort was of course out of the question. No wonder that his frown grew heavier as he realized more completely the helplessness of his position. He was a ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I take in addressing to you the trifling production of a few idle hours, will doubtless move your wonder, and probably your contempt. I will not, however, with the futility of apologies, intrude upon your time, but briefly acknowledge the motives of my temerity; lest, by a premature exercise of that patience which I hope will befriend me, I should lessen its benevolence, and be ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... up from the bed and began to unpack. As he did this, the uselessness of what he was doing, the arid futility of every bit of the web of small details which, in their sum, were his life, flowed upon his soul like stagnant water forced into movement by some horrible machinery. He was like something agitating in a vast void, something whose incessant movements produced no effect, had no sort of relation ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... challenged and disproved by the eminent critics Hermann Ulrici and Charles Knight; it is supported only by the guesswork of Clark, Wright, Halliwell and others who assume to find a divided authorship from assumed divergencies of style. The result shows the futility of the method. What Shakspere is assumed not to have written is assigned to Marlowe, Greene, Peele or Lodge. If style cannot determine between them, what warrant is there for the conclusion that "Henry ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... above taught Richard the futility of alcoholic things, and thereupon he cultivated a Puritan sobriety upon coffee ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and ready at an early hour on the morning of August 1st. Again the city was blue with police. But this time they were reinforced. As I walked through streets lined with soldiers in the workingmen's quarters, I realised the futility of any further anti-war ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... myself that I had not been seen distinctly; I attempted to deny it. A deep flush suffused my face and I felt the futility ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... as an object-lesson of the futility of using the mechanism of the new management while leaving out its essence, and also of trying to shorten a necessarily long operation in entire disregard of past experience. It should be emphasized that the men who undertook this work were both able and earnest, and that failure ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... indeed, that gesture was the turning-point of existence. By the time he was wandering in the mysterious garden again in the colours of the morning the tragic futility of his ordinary mien had fallen from him; he was a man with many reasons for happiness. Lord Galloway was a gentleman, and had offered him an apology. Lady Margaret was something better than a lady, a woman at least, and had perhaps given him something better than an apology, as they drifted ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... only clever but sincere, undone by want of sympathy.... The author's want of sympathy prevents 'Mehalah's' rising to the highest art; for though we shudder at the end, there the effect of the story stops. It illustrates the futility of battling with fate, but the theme is not allowable to writers with the modern notion of a Supreme Power.... But 'Mehalah' is still one of the most ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the second and third offenders in the juvenile courts, the delinquents and pathological liars of childhood, the incorrigibles, the precocious hoboes, mental and moral deficients and defectives, the prey of the sentimental complexes of elderly virgins and helpful futility all around. Not utilitarianism or futilitarianism is needed, but pituitarianism. The feeding of pituitary gland in large enough quantities to these unfortunates may do more than ten charity organizations, with the most patrician ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... towards the Duke of Burgundy, the petitioners humbly begged to be granted the same terms that Liege and the other towns had received. March 31st is the date of this humble document. Months of doubt followed before the terrible experience of August proved the futility of their pleas, to which the ducal family refused to listen, so deep was their sense of personal aggrievement. Long as it was since the duchess had taken part in public affairs, she, too, had a word ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... than he can be made to do for his owner in a whole day or more!" And did not the whole Assembly of Grenada, as we collect from the famous speech of Mr. Pitt on the Slave Trade in 1791, affirm the same thing? "He (Mr. Pitt) would show," he said, "the futility of the argument of his honourable friend. He (his honourable friend) had himself admitted, that it was in the power of the colonies to correct the various abuses by which the Negro population was restrained. But they could not do this without ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... the difficulty—the futility of attempting to fasten on Emerson any particular doctrine, philosophic, or religious theory. Emerson wrings the neck of any law, that would become exclusive and arrogant, whether a definite one of metaphysics or an indefinite one of mechanics. He ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... see them in a wrong light, but the truth remains that he has loved you tenderly—always. I know his heart better than you—better than he. It is only that he thinks the line he has taken a lifetime to lay out for you is the best. He is as sure of it as that the days follow each other. He sees only futility in the way you would go. I have no doubt his heart is sore over it at this moment, and that he is grieving in a way that would shock you, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the face of that person as smooth as a piece of velvet; but in announcing it to the world its inventor had made the unfortunate statement that a child could use it with impunity, and some would-be smart person on a comic paper took it up and wrote an undeniably clever article on the futility of inventing a razor for children. The consequence was that the safety razor was laughed out of existence, and the additions to his residence which Jarley was going to pay for out of the proceeds ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... ghastly work of finding dead comrades. He had looked but a short while, or so it seemed to him, when he came upon d'Azay lying prone upon a little hillock of Austrian slain. As Calvert looked down upon him, grief for this dead friend and an awful sense of the futility of the sacrifice which had been made for him, came upon him. He knelt beside him for a few minutes and looked into the quiet, dead face. He had never before thought that d'Azay resembled Adrienne, but now the resemblance ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... him a second time what he meant. He had made her realize the utter futility of prevarication. Instead, she forced herself to meet his look boldly, and grapple with him with all her ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... I had a hard job to stop a small junk. The men were sweating at their oars like galley slaves, and muttering curses at the apparent futility of their labour. I had fired a couple of shots from a 'brown Bess' - the musket of the day - through the fugitive's sails; and fearing punishment if I let her escape, I next aimed at the boat herself. Down came the mainsail ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... under such circumstances, the establishment of quarantine against persons and goods, would manifestly be absurd and uncalled for. So fully satisfied has the Austrian Government been made by experience, of the futility and cruelty of such quarantines, that the Emperor apologises to his subjects for having inflicted them. The King of Prussia makes a similar amende, and the Emperor of Russia convinced by the same experience, abolished or greatly relaxed his ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... candidate and a lawyer by profession, was beaten on the field, but at a subsequent election he obtained the requisite number of votes and, in 1880, assumed the presidency. That the loser in war should become the victor in peace showed the futility of bloodshed ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... my life I went into a rage and cursed that nondescript kind of messenger, sent by I know not whom, in language that I think he will not forget. Then, realising the futility of swearing at a mere tool, I went up to the Great House and demanded an audience with Panda himself. Presently the inceku, or household servant, to whom I gave my message, returned, saying that I ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... upon him in a kind of wistful, inquiring scrutiny, which left the impression that something was troubling her, something that she longed to confide in some one upon whom she could rely; but his past experience had taught him the futility of attempting to force her confidence, of trying to learn more than ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... that the distance was now diminishing at an abnormal rate, as though the fugitive had lost heart at realizing the futility of the struggle. The policemen redoubled their efforts. The boat shot across the water with the swiftness of a swallow. Another hundred yards at most and they ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... and their compulsory nature is found rather to reduce than to increase public opposition to dissection. A study of the history of anatomy in the United States during the 19th century furnishes an instructive lesson on the futility of attempting to suppress dissection by legislation and on the serious and sometimes terrible crimes to which any such attempt naturally leads. It also teaches that, when unclaimed bodies must be given up and must be treated reverently and buried ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... hopeful scheme had dissolved, vanished like a puff of steam on icy air, leaving only a teazing memory of mocking failure. Judge Dent's conference with the District Solicitor, had convinced him of the futility of any attempt to secure bail; moreover, a message from the prisoner earnestly exhorted them to abandon all intercessory designs in her behalf, as she would not accept release on bail, and preferred to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... had pointed out the extreme futility of his behaviour, lest he should miss the peculiar irony of it. For when her fright and the cause of her fright were gone Desmond resented Nicky's having married her. She didn't really want anybody to marry her, ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... its own. With the utmost ease he portrayed for Ricardo, now seriously attentive, a Heyst fattened by years of private and public rapines, the murderer of Morrison, the swindler of many shareholders, a wonderful mixture of craft and impudence, of deep purposes and simple wiles, of mystery and futility. In this exercise of his natural function Schomberg revived, the colour coming back to his face, loquacious, florid, eager, his manliness set off ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... knowing the futility of further argument with the sheriff, who was representative of the considerable element that always looked upon Indians as "red devils" and that would never admit that any good ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... apparent that when the Germans practically demanded, as a price of their abstention from indiscriminate submarine warfare, that Mr. Wilson should move against Great Britain in the matter of the blockade, they realized the futility of any such step, and that what they really expected to obtain was the presidential mediation for peace. President Wilson at once began to move in this direction. On May 27th, three weeks after the Sussex "pledge," he made an address in Washington ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... proceedings and of Seaforth's vassals during his exile in France is abridged from an interesting and valuable work. [Chambers's "Domestic Annals of Scotland."] It brings out in a prominent light the state of the Highlands and the futility of the power of the Government during that period in the North. As regards several of the forfeited estates which lay in inaccessible situations in the Highlands, the commissioners had up to this time been entirely baffled, never having ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... waning moon hung in the sky. I made my way through the drive between the black shadows of the forest, and came at length to the big gates at the entrance, locked for the night. A strange thought of their futility struck me as I climbed the rail fence beside them, and pushed on into the main road, the mud sucking under my shoes as I went. As I try now to cast my memory back I can recall no fear, only a vast sense of loneliness, and the very song of it seemed to be sung in never ending refrain by the insects ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mastering him. That fact absorbed all the rest. She had an immeasurable contempt for such physical and moral weakness; all the three religions fused in her overwhelmingly condemned self-indulgence; her philosophy, the practical side of Lao-tze's teaching, emphasized the utter futility of surrender to the five senses. At the same time he was the subject of some interest: he was an American who had lived in China, and not only on the fringe of the treaty ports—he had penetrated to some extent into the spirit, the ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... bind the hearts of husband and wife to each other; but in his own case he had not found that a daughter produced that result. On the contrary, Lesley had been for many years a sort of bone of contention between himself and his wife; and he had retained a cynical sense of the futility of such conventional utterances, which were every day ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... since both of them had sought to bring their feud forcibly to an end in the Law Courts, the Anglo-Saxon peoples had had no cause to complain of any lack of effort on their part to be entertaining. The upshot of the law proceedings had been that the Court, with a futility almost fatuous, had ordered the duchess to return to her husband, and, what was far more important, had given the custody of their little daughter of twelve, Lady ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... occupying the observer's seat in his fighting Sva and operating the machine-gun. But perhaps the most brilliant of his military exploits was a bloodless one, when he flew over Vienna and bombed that city with proclamations, written by himself, pointing out to the Viennese the futility of further resistance. His popularity among all classes is amazing; his word is law to the great organization known as the Combatenti, composed of the 5,000,000 men who fought in the Italian armies. ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... no hope of inducing Mrs. Lancaster to—to change?" he said at last. Knowing Mrs. Lancaster as he did, he recognised the futility of the question. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... knowledge is required, and ample means and leisure, if the expenditure involved is to result in anything worth while; and a careful study of all available information regarding prosecutions, convictions, and, I may add, sentences, has convinced us, at least, of the futility of such attempts from a missionary point of view: for even if convictions were certain, as long as the law hands the child back to its guardians after their unfitness to guard it from the worst that can befall it has been proved, so long do we feel unable to rejoice ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the part. The other bruiser was an equally distinctive type, with a formidable fighting face and a chest like a barrel; but in Piccadilly he seemed to me less occupied in taking notice than in avoiding it. In innocuous futility one could scarcely excel the other; and between them they raised ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... that the business would resume, and for a time Rogers appears to have comforted him in his hope, but we cannot believe that it long survived. Young Hall, who had made such a struggle for its salvation, was eager to go on, but he must presently have seen the futility of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I reached the hall, half-stunned, and with all the misery of defeat and the certainty of the futility of my death to further torture my last moments. Over me stood Ramiro, his dagger upheld, ready ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... definite object, I believe I should always have remained in the place of my birth, except for family exigencies, for I had no ambitions, no special talent nor practical faculty. When I reflect on the futility of literature without genius, or the miserly rewards of scholarship, or the disastrous conclusion in a majority of business enterprises, I confess the life of a New England farmer is to be preferred. It was so ordered that opportunities, which I never could have made for myself, came to me unsought ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... temper loose and practise cruelty on any person or thing within your reach, and the result will be a sure preparation for a querulous, quarrelsome, pickety, snipity, fussy and foolish old age, accented with many outbursts of wrath that are terrible in their futility and ineffectiveness. ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... man was an officer of the law. He knew, too, the futility of trying to escape under the pseudonym he had written ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... personified, but explanations he had none to give, for the excellent reason, he urged that he was possessed of none. He was a soldier, and he had received orders which he must obey, without questioning either their wisdom or their justice. Appreciating the futility of bearing himself otherwise, since his retreat was already blocked by a couple of gendarmes, Caron submitted to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... riders. And they knew that he would catch Wildfire or die in the attempt. From that moment their attitude toward Slone changed as subtly as had come the knowledge of his feeling. The gravity and gloom left their faces. It seemed they might have regretted what they had said about the futility of catching Wildfire. They did not want Slone to see or feel the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Realizing the futility of these sporadic efforts at escape, Lieutenant McClure decided to wait until one o'clock for another supreme effort. It would be high tide at noon and he decided to make the great effort shortly thereafter ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... these principles. The surrender by the British Parliament and the British Government of all effective part in the government of Ireland, the ambiguities of such a term as 'Imperial supremacy' and all that these ambiguities involve, the inadequacy and the futility of the Restrictions, the errors and impolicy of the financial arrangements, above all the injustice to England and the injury to Ireland of retaining, under a system of Home Rule, even a single Irish representative at Westminster, these broad considerations ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... share the belief that the outbreak of the World War and its, in many ways, lawless and atrocious conduct have proved the futility of the work of the Hague Conferences. Throughout these anxious years we have upheld the opinion that the progress initiated at the Hague has by no means been swept away by the attitude of lawlessness deliberately—'because necessity ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim
... is concerned. Machiavelli shocked the moral sense of his time, if not the moralists of all time, when he proposed to accept human nature as it is as a basis for political science. Herbert Spencer insisted upon the futility of expecting "golden conduct from leaden instincts." To the utopian social reformers of his day he pointed out a series of welfare measures in England in which the outcome was the direct opposite of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of the holidays she had learned to enjoy Jim's companionship, but she had no respect for his opinions at all. He had taught her a good deal, however. He had taught her, for one thing, the futility of discussion with people of his capacity. The small intellect should be treated like the small child—with tenderest consideration. It must not hear too much of anything at a time, and there are certain things that it must ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... himself faced with something like financial ruin. Mercenary armies are very costly, and by bitter experience he had learnt the futility of opposing a half-hearted and badly disciplined force to the veteran troops of Alva. He resolved therefore to go in person to Holland to organise and direct the strong movement of revolt, which had found expression in the meeting of the Estates at Dordrecht. His agents had long been busy ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... might forecast what I purpose to do when the time is ripe. But I am not given to prophecy. I will only say that I think I shall, in due season, go into action again—profiting by my experience in the futility of trying to hasten evolution ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... futility of all such strivings came home to him, and as in a glass, for Hokosa was a man of imagination, he foresaw their end. A little success, a little failure, it scarcely mattered which, and then—that end. Within twenty years, ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... gradually, he edged over to my side of the controversy, taking up the cudgels for education and spiritual excellence with the same force with which he had a short while ago tried to set forth their futility ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... their character. The risks that they run through this confidence have often been pointed out, but it should also be remembered that by their reluctance to act on theory they have often been saved from the elaborate futility and expense of acting on a false theory. The disaster which has befallen Germany cannot but strengthen them in their belief that it is dangerous to devote care and thought to preparing for all imaginable conflicts. So also in the activities ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... for its wealth and luxury, and the enervating effect which these produced upon the army of Hannibal became a favorite theme of rhetorical exaggeration in later ages. The futility of such declamations is sufficiently shown by the simple fact that the superiority of that army in the field remained as decided as ever. Still it may be truly said that the winter spent at Capua (B.C. 216-215) was in great measure the turning-point of Hannibal's fortune, and from this time ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... to believe in reality. That was where he differed both from the Philistines and from the elect. He saw that the universe was something very different from what it was generally supposed to be: he saw the futility of popular morals and popular metaphysics; but he neither swallowed the conventions nor threw up his hands in despair, declaring the whole thing to be an idiotic farce. He knew that truth and goodness had nothing to do with law and custom; but he never doubted that ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... he recognized the futility of his efforts. The baseball swing of the figure below could not be mistaken. There was a roar beneath, and a flash of fire, as the bomb exploded on the door. Then came a rush of men, and the Tower had fallen. Heritage clambered through a hole in the roof and gained the topmost ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... protest against Miss Wort's experiments. Mrs. Christie had come trembling to the gate—a pretty-featured woman, but sallow as old parchment—and the doctor addressed his expostulations to her. Many defeats had convinced him of the futility of appealing ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of flight crossed her mind, to be as instantly abandoned for their futility. Where could she go that they would not follow her? When she had reacted from her first shock she fell to pondering the matter, pro and con. What could they want of her? If she was an enemy to the country, so were they. But even that led nowhere, for after all, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... attended by children 4 to 6 years of age, where instruction was given daily in regard to the date, and yet not a single one of the children was able to pass this test. This is a beautiful illustration of the futility of precocious teaching. In spite of well-meant instruction, it is not until the age of 8 or 9 years that children have enough comprehension of time periods, and sufficient interest in them, to keep very close track of the date. Failure ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... vibrations of the bell ceased; the street cleared; Esther turned back and walked instinctively homewards—to Royal Street. Her soul was full of the sense of the futility of life; yet the sight of the great shabby house could still give her a chill. Outside the door a wizened old woman with a chronic sniff had established a stall for wizened old apples, but Esther passed her by ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a few aristocratic Tory landlords. Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we believe they recognize the futility of persuading us ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... and recognizing at last the futility of fire and sword as means for stamping out opposing religious convictions, but still thoroughly convinced as to the correctness of their respective points of view, both sides now settled down to another century and more of religious ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... from his grave to taunt him with the futility of his own words, which had been spoken to comfort him in his distress? The apparition was growing vaguer. Just before it vanished, it cried again and waved its hand, "Jesus of ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... hatred of the country population, but striking no blow. If Henry seriously contemplated the idea of reviving old claims to the French crown, he could have adopted no worse policy. Charles of course gave no practical assistance, and the allies each blamed the other for the futility of the operations. Albany on the other hand had been back in Scotland for some months; and in opposition to Angus—in conjunction therefore with Margaret —threatened an invasion as soon as the French expedition ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... at too low a tension, or they may have outlived the more vivid appreciation of the spiritual values involved. There are many, also, with a turn for exhortation, who find employment for their best faculties in attesting the well-known atrocities and futility of war. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... come down again to her. His hovering near her, wanting her to be with him, the futility of him, the way his hands hung, irritated her beyond bearing. She turned on him blindly and destructively, he became a mad creature, black and electric with fury. The dark storms rose in him, his eyes glowed black and evil, he was fiendish ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... of evil crept over him and he opened the letter and read it. Then his life fell to wreck in a moment. Its nullity, its hopelessness, its futility, its folly, the world with its elusive joys, love with its deceptions so cruel and so sweet-all, all came sweeping up on him like the sea-wrack out of a storm. In an instant the truth appeared to him, and he understood himself at last. For Glory's ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... work, no matter how engrossing, immediately in hand, and concentrating his energies upon the details of some entirely different business. Thus Napier relates that it was while he was preparing to fight the battle of Salamanca that he had to expose to the Ministers at home the futility of relying upon a loan; it was on the heights of San Christoval, on the field of battle itself, that he demonstrated the absurdity of attempting to establish a Portuguese bank; it was in the trenches of Burgos that he dissected Funchal's scheme of ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... picture to yourselves their amazement at being asked such a question, and finding themselves actually confronted with such mysterious and terrible beings as spirits. They sprang to their feet, as one man, recognising the futility of any further attempt at concealment; and a chief named Lualamba came forward and modestly acknowledged himself to be the leader of the band. Forthwith he was invited to come up on deck and talk to us, a rope ladder ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... have lived." Napoleon could have said as much, if, like Sigurd, he had stood "upon his own grave and heard the great bell ring." The tragedy of the Isle of St. Helena lay not in the failure of effort, but in the futility of the aim to which effort was directed. There was no tragedy of the Isle ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... what is known for some mysterious reason as Berlin wool; and was so simple that it used to be called the Idiot Stitch; but the curious elaboration of the design and sort of dignified middle-Victorian futility about it cast a glamour over the whole, and dispelled any association of idiocy from the complete work. A banner screen was now in front of the fire, which Aunt William had worked during a winter at St. Leonards, and which represented enormous squashed roses like purple cauliflowers, with ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... behold, on the morrow, this Parlement, seated once more in its own Palais, with 'crowds inundating the outer courts,' not only does not register, but (O portent!) declares all that was done on the prior day to be null, and the Bed of Justice as good as a futility! In the history of France here verily is a new feature. Nay better still, our heroic Parlement, getting suddenly enlightened on several things, declares that, for its part, it is incompetent to register Tax-edicts ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... assistance. But the King had grown old and weary of the world, and whilst he did not openly discourage Urdaneta's pretensions he gave him no effective aid. At length, in 1553, two years before Charles abdicated, Urdaneta, convinced of the futility of his importunity at the Spanish Court, and equally unsuccessful with his scheme in other quarters, retired to Mexico, where he took the habit of an Augustine monk. Ten years afterwards King Philip, inspired ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... stand, taken by the court martial, had left no glimpse of hope, at head quarters, that the prosecution of Hall, on the charge of mutiny, on which he had been imprisoned, could be attempted with any prospect of success—the futility of any further proceedings against Louallier was evident—Jackson, therefore, put an end to Hall's imprisonment on Saturday, the 11th of March. The word imprisonment is used, because Eaton assures his readers, that 'Judge ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... had done was "defensive and incident to his main duty to crush the Seminoles." The Administration finally reached the decision to surrender the posts but otherwise to back up the General, in the hope of convincing Spain of the futility of trying longer to hold Florida. Monroe explained the necessities of the situation to Jackson as tactfully as he could, leaving him under the impression—which was corrected only in 1830—that Crawford, rather than Calhoun, was the member of the Cabinet ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... as the belief in magic declines, what was once intense desire, issuing in the making of or the being of a thing, becomes mere copying of it; the mime, the maker, sinks to be in our modern sense the mimic; as faith declines, folly and futility set in; the earnest, zealous act sinks into a frivolous mimicry, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... rendered it difficult to bring anything to pass. Added to this was a party system with obvious natural weaknesses, infected from the first with a dangerous malady. The political life, which lay on the surface of the national life of America, thus began to assume an air of futility, and, it must be added, of squalor. Only, Englishmen, recollecting the feebleness and corruption which marked their aristocratic government through a great part of the eighteenth century, must not enlarge their phylacteries at the expense ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... pinnacle. The spire was the natural consummation. Internally, the sublimity of space in the cupola had been superseded by another kind of infinity in the prolongation of the nave; externally, the spherical surface had been proved, by the futility of Arabian efforts, incapable of decoration; its majesty depended on its simplicity, and its simplicity and leading forms were alike discordant with the rich rigidity of the body of the building. The ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... found on his person. Not circumstantial evidence, but fact. Signed on one side by R.E. Lee and, on the other, by Colonel Morrison." He laughed shortly over the futility of argument under such circumstances. "Do you ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... another, I can do nothing. You short-circuit my force—I am helpless without you." And he had been inviting me into the work for which he had been ordained into the holy Church of Christ. I felt myself groping blindly into the futility of my own life, and I ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had, unarmed, run the gantlet of the maddened strikers who had been held at bay for six long hours. Only his great strength and physical endurance had pulled him out of the arms of violent death. There had been no shot fired from the shops. The strikers saw the utter futility of forcing armed men, so they had hung about with gibe and ribald jeer, waiting for some one careless enough to pass them alone. This Bennington did. His men had forgotten him. Bennington's injuries had been rather trivial; ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... called the day, which she had first reviewed in the open boat after the wreck of the Gaston de Paris terrified to find it torn from her—this thing had been returned to her that morning in all its futility. It seemed to her, as she cast it away, a horrible gaud, a thing made of tinsel, yet a thing that could destroy the soul and blind the eyes ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... younger days on the field of battle, and had he possessed a weapon at the moment, he would have snuffed out the leader's life as deliberately as he would have blown out the light of a candle, regardless of consequences. But recognizing the carrion with which he had to deal, and the futility of further interference, he quietly shrugged his shoulders, smiled and pulled the end of his mustache. The hanging might proceed so ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... interstate business, this control to be exercised for their own benefit and prosperity no less than for the protection of investors and of the general public. As I have repeatedly said in Messages to the Congress and elsewhere, experience has definitely shown not merely the unwisdom but the futility of endeavoring to put a stop to all business combinations. Modern industrial conditions are such that combination is not only necessary but inevitable. It is so in the world of business just as it is so in the world of labor, and it is as idle to desire to put an end to all corporations, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the futility of our first instinctive flare of suspicion. It was obvious that if Don Gaspar and Buck Barry had intended treachery they would never have returned to us. I think that, curiously enough, we were unreasonably a little sorry for this. It would have been satisfactory ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... that she had instituted divorce proceedings his anger returned, and he determined to hold her to the unwelcome bonds if for nothing else than to know that she still suffered; but a consultation with an attorney showed him the futility of any defence, so he simply held this up against her as another affront to be wiped out if the time ever came ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... is enhanced by dramatic contrasts, the splendour of the bright, breezy, sunlit garden contrasting with the road of ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; the splendour of the gorgeous stiff brocade and the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned flesh; the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous harmony with the rhythm of the swaying flowers, changed by one written word into a desert of silence. It is the sudden annihilation of purpose and significance in a body and mind vital with it; so ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... determines that nobody shall use it. It eliminates force. And it thus cancels the power of the units to use it against other units (other than as a part of the community) by standing ready at all times to reduce the power of any one unit to futility. If A says that B began it, the community does not say, "Oh, in that case you may continue to use your force; finish him off." It says, on the contrary, "Then we'll see that B does not use his force; we'll restrain him, we ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... lip and his dark face grew even blacker with rage at the futility of his position. With anyone other than Juliet Bissell, perhaps, he realized that insistent pressure of his suit might have favorable results. But this cool, calm girl offered no opportunity for argument ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Thinking over the futility of a further appeal to the authorities there, and wondering where she could turn for honest assistance beyond William Bentley, who could do no more than herself, Agnes walked away from the camp a short distance, retracing the ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... to his pen. So it goes on; ever-gnawing pain and anguish, as all her yearning love and pity is thrown back, and that dulled insensate heart and all-absorbing egoism can find only irritation in her timid attempts at sympathy, only dread of detection of the half-conscious futility of all his labours, in her humble proffers of even mechanical aid. Not easily can even the most fervid and penetrative imagination conceive what, to a nature like Dorothea's, such a life must be, with its never-ceasing, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them. All this, Sir, shows the inherent futility, I had almost used a stronger word, of conceding this power of interference to the State, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications of which the States themselves are to judge. One of two things is true; either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... made a wry face. "That's right," he finally admitted. He made a gesture of futility. "I reckon I'll let you do the plannin' ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and goal of the strange voyage of discovery through space upon which our system is embarked; but altogether fruitlessly. The variety of the conjectures hazarded in the matter is in itself a measure of their futility. Long ago, before the construction of the heavens had as yet been made the subject of methodical inquiry, Kant was disposed to regard Sirius as the "central sun" of the Milky Way; while Lambert surmised that the vast Orion nebula might serve ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Missouri Compromise. Neither party felt sufficiently secure of the strength of its legal position to be altogether pleased at seeing the doctrine of treating the slave in the Territories as "property" cast into the lottery of the Supreme Court. Lincoln recognized the futility of this whole arrangement, and said truly that the slavery question could "never be successfully compromised." Yet he accepted the situation, with the purpose of making of it the best that was possible. The mass of the people, less far-sighted, were highly gratified at the passing of the great ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... After these further reverses, the Chinese again begged a suspension of hostilities, and an armistice for a few days was granted. The local authorities were on the horns of a dilemma. They saw the futility of a struggle with the English, and the Cantonese had to bear all the suffering for the obstinacy of the Pekin government; but, on the other hand, no one dared to propose concession to Taoukwang, who, confident of his power, and ignorant of the extent of his misfortunes, breathed nothing ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... colleagues,—he indicated very plainly, that, though his humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause for so much unhappiness, yet that "he could, an if he would," demonstrate by a single word the utter futility of the whole invention. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... futility of trying to overcome the guards by wrestling. The only thing to do was dodge and punch. The guards were trying to take the Earthmen alive, but, because of their greater weight, they couldn't move quite as ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell |
