"Usefulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... returned, with an answer in the affirmative. Buonaparte made no remark upon this information; but asked, with apparent indifference, how the question and answer had been conveyed; and when I explained it to him, he approved highly of the usefulness ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... apoplexy on the 2nd of July 1740. The whole of his valuable books and manuscripts he bequeathed to the university. The only works he published were, Reflections on Learning, showing the Insufficiency thereof in its several particulars, in order to evince the usefulness and necessity of Revelation (Lond., 1709-1710) and the preface to Bishop Fisher's Funeral Sermon for Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (1708)—both without his name. His valuable manuscript collections relative to the history and antiquities ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the customary call, and the mastiff mounted the stage with a grave deliberate step, as if conscious of the dignity and usefulness of the life he led, and like a dog accustomed to the friendly notice of man. The appearance of this well-known and celebrated brute caused another stir in the throng, many pressing upon the guards to get a nearer view, and a ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Engine-house, Wood-sheds, and Passenger Depot were totally consumed, and with the Engine-house three second-class Engines were much injured by the fire, but not so destroyed but that they may be restored to usefulness. ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... thing to another. Now that which is applied to another is regarded in the light of means to an end; and consequently use always regards the means. For this reason things that are adapted to a certain end are said to be "useful"; in fact their very usefulness is sometimes ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the previous seven years he had occupied the position of lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, and he was to administer, for a like period, the public affairs of Canada acceptably and well. One thing, however, greatly interfered with his popularity and lessened his usefulness. A story was spread abroad that Sir Edmund Head had called the French Canadians 'an inferior race.' This, though it was not true, was often reiterated; and the French Canadians persisted in believing that Sir Edmund had made the remark—even ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... when she was abandoned. The usual sad story will go. She, driven out by her family, refuges finally in Hlassa, and your English was, of course, learned before the death of your father, when you were eighteen. Your usefulness as interpreter caused you to attach yourself to ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... newspaper. Our fathers did not denounce the telephone as an "American humbug," but they did describe it as a curious electric "toy" and ridiculed the notion that it could ever have any practical value. Even after Alexander Graham Bell and his associates had completely demonstrated its usefulness, the Western Union Telegraph Company refused to purchase all their patent rights for $100,000! Only forty years have passed since the telephone made such an inauspicious beginning. It remains now, as it was then, ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... endearments of her childhood's home, to go out together, and rear for themselves an altar, around which shall cluster all the cares and delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of the family relationship; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet, constitutes the chief usefulness and happiness ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... subject Nature's kindly anodyne Never contradict a man with a squinting brain Never to countenance a wrong because others did No patience with any form of deceit or duplicity Old Men's Tears Old people have a right to be epicures, if they can afford it Old women of both sexes Outlived their usefulness Persons with a strong instinctive tendency to contradiction Pitying kindness Pleasure to mediocrity to have its superiors brought in range Presumptions Rapture of self-admiration Reached and passed the natural limit of serviceable years Remember past happiness in the hour of misery ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... no gesture for the expression of admiration, love, reverence or ecstasy. They have but one method of expressing content, and They reserve that for moments of physical repletion. The tail, which is in all other animals the signal for joy or for defence, or for mere usefulness, or for a noble anger, is with Them agitated only to express a ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... Books on page xxxvi. Professor Cannon's volume contains "exact references to some two thousand of the most useful and accessible works on English history." No other single volume can compare with it for usefulness in this department. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... morals, or medicine, is subject to abuses. Its [5] infinite nature and uses occasion this. Even the human- itarian at work in this field of limitless power and good may possess a zeal without knowledge, and thus mistake the sphere of his present usefulness. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... as mouldings, but we might treat the whole wall superficies as a space for surface carving, not mechanically repeated, but with continual variation of every portion, so as to render our wall a matter of interest and beauty while retaining all its usefulness as a boundary, observing that such surface ornament should be designed so as to fulfill a double object: 1, to give general relief to the surface of the wall; 2, to afford matter of interest to the eye on close inspection ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... definite program for any other training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of educating people to religious ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... usefulness gone with the smashing of the accumulator trade, had been abandoned. No human foot now trod its surface. Its mighty domes were empty. It went its way, as it had gone for billions of years, a little burned out, worthless planet, ignored and shunned. For a brief moment ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... has been greatly superseded by that of "vulcanised" rubber; mixed with from 1/40 to 1/2 of its weight of sulphur and combined by heat, the rubber acquires greater elasticity, is not hardened by cold or rendered viscid by heat, and is insoluble in many of the solvents of pure rubber; its usefulness is thus largely increased and greatly extended of late; the demand for rubber is in excess of the supply, but no substitute has been found effective; in recent years care has been bestowed on its economical collection ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Cargill were his best, and his last services were his greatest. He grew like the cedar, increasing in strength, usefulness, and dignity till cut down by death. His zeal leaped into flames with the adverse winds: he did his noblest works when he was most sorely pressed. He conducted divine services even when wounded and bleeding; he carried ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... Over this throne is spread a canopy of white muslin, decorated with white and fragrant flowers, and through this canopy are gently showered the typical waters of consecration, in which have been previously infused certain leaves and shrubs emblematic of purity, usefulness, and sweetness. While the princess is thus delicately sprinkled with compliments, the priests enumerate, with nice discrimination, the various graces of mind and person which henceforth she must ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... thought and action, could bring heaven down to man. To weary and restless spirits He taught the great truth, that happiness consists in making others happy. No cloister for idle genuflections and bead counting, no hair-cloth for the loins nor scourge for the limbs, but works of love and usefulness under the cheerful sunshine, making the waste places of humanity glad and causing the heart's desert to blossom. Why, then, should we go searching after the cast-off sackcloth of the Pharisee? Are we Jews, or Christians? Must even our gratitude for "glad tidings of great joy" be desponding? ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... made to subserve a practical end. Where the American boy studies Latin and soon forgets it, the Japanese boy studies English and continues to read English and speak it on occasion the rest of his life, increasing his efficiency and usefulness in no small measure as a result. In Japan, too, I found the keenest interest in the teaching of agriculture to boys and domestic science to girls; and in all these things China is also moving—blunderingly, perhaps, but yet making progress—toward the most ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... to, we should, each of us for himself, consider his preaching, is the suggestion we would make to every preaching reader of the pages to follow. We leave the figure of the "business doctor," for every illustration is of limited usefulness, which is a good thing to learn. There is but one authority capable of conducting this inquiry in such a way as inevitably to make discovery of the real truth. That authority is surely the preacher's own conscience ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... The clerk of the peace told him that he might 'exhort his neighbours in private discourse,' if only he would not bring the people together in numbers, which the magistrates would be bound to notice. In this way he might continue his usefulness, and would not be ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... spot two suits of mourning—one for Rob the Grinder, which was immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in connexion with the instrument business. In their several garments, which the vendor declared to be ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... opinion that the enterprising peasants might manage to partly indemnify themselves for their losses by taking possession of some of the various things abandoned, and renewing their usefulness. ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... an index of the myriad of attempts which cities are making to bring school and shop together, to train for usefulness, ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... the true order of rank which graces occupy in reference to gifts. The most trifling act which is marked by usefulness to others is nobler in God's sight, than the most brilliant accomplishment of genius. To teach a few Sunday-school children, week after week, commonplace simple truths—persevering in spite of dullness and mean capacities—is a more glorious occupation than the highest meditations ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... her new radiant world of usefulness, which she had been building on her journey from Toronto. It was falling to pieces about her ears, before the breath of ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... while not too happy with their ally's increasingly independent attitude, were more anxious than ever to see the alliance progress to the working stage. As an indication of its potential usefulness, the monster had provided them with a variety of working plasmoid robots, built ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... in a speech almost word for word the same as a sermon delivered in New York City only a few days earlier and published broadcast. He was promptly exposed by the parallel-column system; but I have never heard that his standing was affected or his usefulness impaired by the offence proven against him. A few years ago an eminent divine in one of our cities preached as his own the sermon of a brother divine, no longer living; he, too, was detected and promptly exposed by the parallel-column system, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... soreness and contraction of the diseased muscles. There is also an adhesive product excreted from the inflamed tissue that binds the muscular fibres of an organ together, and you have contraction of the organ and its usefulness impaired. Now, as this is precisely the pathological or diseased condition which chronic cases of proctitis and periproctitis present, you will readily understand how spasmodic and partial stricture or contraction occurs in the sore muscles (circular and longitudinal) of the anus and rectum. ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... retired, a hale, respected veteran with a long path of usefulness behind him. Until he was eighty he read without glasses; and so accurate was his eye that never in all his life did he measure the notchings on a wheel, and yet these free-hand calculations proved to be unfailingly ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... way, and the size and central situation of the latter city contributed no little to the success of its young university, which, under unusually politic as well as able management, increased annually in size and usefulness, until now no less than 1,500 students have graduated in its halls, and the number of undergraduates attending its lectures exceeds 280. It confers degrees in arts, laws, science, medicine, surgery, and engineering—the standard for which is above that ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Greek boy hardly eight years old came running from the outer corridor—all laughter—one of those spoiled favorites of fortune whom it was the fashion to keep as pets. Their usefulness consisted mainly in retention of ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... are readily digested by the average stomach; though some delicate digestions have difficulty with them. They contain a fair amount of acids, and from five to seven per cent of sugar. Their general wholesomeness and permanent usefulness may be gathered from the fact that they are one of the few fruits which you can eat almost daily the year round, or at very frequent intervals, without getting tired of them. Food that you don't get tired of is usually food ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... watch, took off his spectacles, and dusted them carefully with a soft yellow handkerchief; then restored them to their double sphere of usefulness, and perused, with some diligence, the time of day. By the law which compels a man to sneeze when another man sets the example, Sir Duncan ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of my personal safety and, possibly, of my future usefulness, the Tribune was desirous of arranging for me a safe passage across the Atlantic. Such an opportunity presented itself in the ordered return of the disgraced and discredited German Ambassador to the United ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... beautifully, to add prosperity and honour to the nation. So they worked on steadily and bided their time, full of increasing faith in their attempt as year after year their numbers grew, their plans succeeded, and the sense of usefulness in this most vital of all professions blessed ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... reason now why I am the Dowager Duchess of Darte," she went on, "and why I have money and houses and lands. There is a reason why I have lived when it sometimes seemed as if my usefulness was over. There are uses for my money—for my places—for myself. Lately I have found myself saying, as Mordecai said to Esther, 'Who knowest whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.' A change is taking place in me too. I can do ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which the Queen could expect from Wolf Hartschwert was certainly far less deep and varied; yet to him who, as a knight, belonged to her train, she granted many favours which she denied the famous Gombert. Besides, Wolf's musical knowledge was as remarkable as his usefulness as a secretary. Lastly, his equable disposition, his unerring sense of propriety, and his well-proved fidelity had gained the full confidence of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... suppose I know what this means? It means the destruction of all my fine hopes, the death of all I hold dear in the world. I love my work, for I am—or I was—a success; this means I must give it up. I'm strong in body and brain; this robs me of my usefulness. All my life I have prayed that I might some time love a woman; that time has come, but this means I must give her up and be lonely all my days. I must grope my way through the dark with never a ray of light to guide me. Do you know ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... tired of all the great foolishnesses of youth, and had thought myself done with them. Now I found myself plunged into more uproarious waters than I had ever known I, who had hoped to begin a life of usefulness and peace, was forced to dwell in the midst of a ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... explain. It appeared that she had two aunts, both sisters of her father—one a widow, the other unmarried. The widow, a certain Mrs. Kihm, lived in New York, and was wealthy, and had views on "women's sphere of usefulness." The other, Miss Bessemer, a little old maid of fifty, Condy had on rare occasions seen at the flat, where every one called her Aunt Dodd. She lived in that vague region of the city known as the Mission, where ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... that it would not have moved at all. So it is with the church. If the Spirit of the living God is not in it, it will not and can not move forward. Oh, this spiritless, powerless performance called worship. How it detracts from the usefulness of the church!" ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... level present no startling deviations from traditional standards. Little or no attention has been given to some of these obscure dramatists who in the midst of the Collier controversy attempted to illustrate in tragedy the arguments advanced in the third part of John Dennis's The Usefulness of the Stage, to the Happiness of Mankind, to Government, and to Religion (1698). Striving to demonstrate the usefulness of the stage, these avowed reformers produced essentially domestic tragedies, ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... off in the forty-eighth year of his age, in the full vigour of his faculties and in the midst of all his usefulness." ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... are aware of the usefulness of an ordinary deep sea grapnel rope, as used for cable work, in recovering specimens of the fauna of any locality. The grapnel rope should be left down for a few months, so that the denizens of the deep may get used to it and make it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... kind was dispelled by thoughts full of gratitude to God, for the welfare and happiness of my beloved family during so long a period. I had cause especially to rejoice in seeing our sons advance to manhood, strengthened by early training for lives of usefulness and activity wherever their lot ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... extracted. This matter is further elaborated in some mines, in that winzes and rises are written off at one rate, levels and crosscuts at another, and shafts at one still lower, on the theory that they lost their usefulness in this progression as the ore is extracted. This course, however, is ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... attached to his flock, to the Established Church of Scotland, to his friends at home, and to his country. In his altered circumstances, however—severed as he was by an arbitrary act over which there was no moral or legal control, cast destitute from the altar at which he had ministered with usefulness and acceptance, and having no claims to immediate patronage in the church—he resolved, with a heavy heart, to betake himself to that field of exertion in a foreign land to which he had been so courteously invited. Having adopted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... Senator, there are dozens of those things up there. Every year one or two burns up. They have no usefulness. They're a menace to navigation. ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy
... advancement of His truth. Every advantage for moral or intellectual culture which their life of toil permitted them to enjoy, was eagerly improved by these parents. Their efforts were earnest and persevering to prepare their children for a life of piety and usefulness. With their firmness and strength of character they sometimes exercised too great severity; but the Reformer himself, though conscious that in some respects they had erred, found in their discipline more to approve than ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted." "Take no notice of the cads," said Dr. Fynes. But Beresford represented meekly that a clergyman's value and usefulness were gone when once a slur was thrown upon him. Then Dr. Fynes gave him high testimonials, and they parted ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... his infinite pains about his writing was not because style for its own sake is worth while, but because he saw that the only way to win men to a consideration of his message was to make it perfectly clear and attractive to them. Huxley's message to the people was that happiness, usefulness, and even material prosperity depend upon an understanding of the laws of nature. He also taught that a knowledge of the facts of science is the soundest basis for moral law; that a clear sense of the penalties which Nature inflicts for disobedience of her laws must eventually ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Library has been engaged in the re-education of the blind adult since it opened its Books for the Blind Department in December, 1904. At first it supplied books to those who already knew how to read, but soon it became evident that its field of usefulness could extend to the adult suddenly deprived of eyesight, and not eligible to a school for the blind. And thus the need for home teaching became apparent long before the State Library could employ such a teacher. I realized this need, even before leaving school, and ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... an excuse for advancing from his position in the rear, and rode close by her side. They had gone two or three miles in the moonlight, speaking desultorily across the wheel of her gig concerning the fair, farming, Oak's usefulness to them both, and other indifferent subjects, when Boldwood said ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... asked Advena "that when people have no capacity for private usefulness they should be so anxious ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... most important member of the Iridacae or great Iris family and has long been the most popular of all summer-flowering bulbous plants, ranking in general usefulness even such prime favorites as the dahlia, the canna and the lily. Almost one hundred and fifty species have been from time to time described by botanists, but only a fraction of the number has thus ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... man comes not to be ministered unto but to minister. He has been poorly taught if he leaves college with no thought but for his material success. He must have had a vision of service, his lips touched with a coal from the altar of social usefulness, and his heart cultivated to respond to the call for any need he can supply, ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... contrivers or directors of them; who, by means thereof, have liv'd in Ease and Plenty upon other Peoples Labours, whilst they (instead of repining thereat) were skilfully taught to reverence them for their usefulness. ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... convent, joining the Order of Blue Nuns, at Milan. She was most actively interested in hospital work and charities of all kinds, and, as her death did not occur until 1799, lived a long life of usefulness. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... for the opportunity of action and usefulness; I long for the freedom of the prairie, and the dignity of labor; I long to resume my old life, and to see my husband begin ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... stupendous weight, all made to give shop-room for an apple-woman, or a convenient platform for a suicide. The parapet is a fiddle-faddle of pretty cast-iron arcading, out of scale with the columns, incongruous with the capitals, and quite unsuited for a work that should be simply grand in its usefulness; and at each corner of the bridge is a huge block of masonry, apropos of nothing, a well-known ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... that the discovery of the balloon has very greatly retarded the science of aerostation, yet, in my opinion, its field of usefulness as a vehicle for pleasure excursions, for explorations, and for scientific investigations, has not been fully developed for the want of certain improvements, the nature of which it is the object ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... But, "in seeking a heavenly home man lost his bearings upon earth." Let me commend for your reading Taylor's "Mediaeval Mind."(1) I cannot judge of its scholarship, which I am told by scholars is ripe and good, but I can judge of its usefulness for anyone who wishes to know the story of the mind of man in Europe at this period. Into the content of mediaeval thought only a mystic can enter with full sympathy. It was a needful change in the evolution of the race. Christianity ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... rapidly moved to the cross roads at dusk on Saturday;) while Meade with the rest of his corps, so soon as Howard had relieved him, went into position to support this entire line on the extreme right of the Army of the Potomac. Thus three strong army corps henceforth disappear from effective usefulness ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... comprehend America, he was an unsound teacher and made his youthful readers see her through a false medium. And I am further informed that in mature life it cost an effort, a mental wrench, so to speak, to get rid of this influence and see things as they really were, which was necessary for usefulness in lives cast in America. The United States was our country; she was entitled to our love and service; and yet such a frame of mind was impossible, so this objection runs, if we read and believed the writing of The Nation. A man of character ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... not too big and disproportioned for our Enquiries, too unwieldy for the Management of the Eye and Hand, there is no question but it would appear to us as curious and well-contrived a Frame as that of an Human Body. We should see the same Concatenation and Subserviency, the same Necessity and Usefulness, the same Beauty and Harmony in all and every of its Parts, as what we discover in the Body of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... light and counsel. They knew so little, and needed so much. True, his own knowledge was not great; but it was all freely at their service. His heart swelled with good-will as he prepared to open his modest campaign of usefulness. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... lama sabachthani?' The hours when the mysterious sustaining and driving force is withdrawn, and a lassitude and despair comes over us like that of a deserted child: the hours when we feel we have reached the limit of service, when our brief span of usefulness is done. Had God brought him, John Hodder, to the height of the powers of his manhood only to abandon him, to cast him adrift on the face of the waters—led him to this great parish, with all its opportunities, only that he might ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... well educated citizens, chaste and domestic wives, who afterwards would rear godly children and servants. Here consider now what deadly injury you are doing if you be negligent and fail on your part to bring up your child to usefulness and piety, and how you bring upon yourself all sin and wrath, thus earning hell by your own children, even though you be otherwise pious and holy. And because this is disregarded, God so fearfully ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the usefulness of womankind. Tarnish the sacredness of girlhood and you scar the purity of womanhood. Deface the beautiful countenance of chastity, which is found in the bosom of girlhood, and you not only mar the happiness of girlhood, but you deface and obliterate the families of ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... family, her father and mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of usefulness. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... stout, brave hearts to what Carlyle terms, with homely vigor, their "heavy job of work," and, by denying themselves many an insidious indulgence, doing it effectually and well, and rearing up well-taught families in usefulness and comfort, to be the stay of the future, we see other men yielding to the ignoble solicitations of appetite or of indolence, and becoming worse than useless themselves, and the parents of ignorant, immoral, and worse than useless families. The wandering vagrants of Great ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... Standing, as she does, for thoroughgoing, non-sectarian, Christian education, for true manhood and womanhood, with mutual co-operation and helpfulness, with so many from all parts of this great State of Texas looking to her for light and leadership, her opportunities for usefulness are out of all proportion to her means. To properly meet these demands she sorely needs many things. A full list of imperative needs would call for too much space. A ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 2, April, 1900 • Various
... over a wooden wheel, and disappeared through a broad-framed aperture into the bowels of the earth. Close at hand in the shade of a brush-covered "leanto" hung three or four huge ollas, earthen water-jars, swathed in gunny sack and blanket. Beyond them, warped out of all possibility of future usefulness, stood what had once been the running gear of a California buck-board. Behind it dangled from dusty pegs portions of leather harness, which all the neat's-foot oil of the military pharmacopoeia could never again restore to softness or pliability. A newer edition of the same class of vehicle ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... held forth in barns and school-houses. Among these imitators of Whitefield were some men of high character, such as Tennant and Finley (afterwards president of Nassau Hall, Princeton), while others were frenzied enthusiasts. Davenport, the chief of these, was 'a heavenly-minded youth,' whose usefulness was wrecked by fanaticism. In his journey he was attended by one whom he called his armor-bearer, and their entrance into each village was signaled by a loud hymn sung by the excited pair. The very tone in which Davenport preached has been perpetuated ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... persons. These will be ships of moderate size, with a high freeboard, in which their owners will take a quantity of biscuit, rice, wine, meat, and other supplies; these will be of great assistance, since a number of volunteers will go. This provision made by private persons is of considerable usefulness, and on that account I have had it made. To induce them to go it is absolutely necessary to encourage them to it, and to urge upon them the service which they will render to your Majesty. This I have had to undertake, since in view of the losses and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... has the widowed husband exclaimed, 'Oh death, how cruel, how relentless thou art, to take from me my best friend, my beloved wife, in the spring of her youth, in the prime of her strength, in the morning of her usefulness, in the bloom of her beauty! Just when I had come to know her best, and to love her most, thou didst take her from my arms, leaving me to pine in unavailing regrets. If thou wilt permit her, just Judge! to return once more to my arms, and again be the star of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... assistance, the authoritative confirmation of his fears—yet Blake's spirit rose to meet the exigency with a new courage. It occurred to him that if Maruffi, or whoever the author was, had exhausted his usefulness, perhaps Vittoria could help. She had spent much time in her search for this very Cardi, and might have learned something of value concerning him. Oliveta, too, could be of assistance. He felt sure that the knowledge of his own peril would be ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... outlived his usefulness is one of the most pitiable objects in the whole range of natural history. Old age has probably been decided in the economy of buffalo life as the unpardonable sin. Abandoned to his fate, he may be discovered, in his dreary isolation, near some stream or lake, where it does not tax him too severely ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... half suspect I do; but the fact is, it is not your words that reproach me, it is your whole life of usefulness is my reproach, and the least syllable you utter comes charged with all the responsibility of one who has a duty and does it, to a mere good-for-nothing. There, is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... images and forgets what he is trying to illustrate. The relation between reality and image should be as invariable as mathematics. If such startling images cannot be used with perfect clearness and vivid perception of their usefulness and value, they should not be used at all. De Quincey is so successful because his mind comprehends every detail of the scene, and through the images we see the bottom truth as through a perfect crystal. A clouded diamond is no more ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... opportunities of every kind, the Greeks persistently refused to assimilate the foreign-born. Regarding themselves as a superior people, descended from the gods, they held themselves apart rather exclusively as above other peoples. This kept the blood pure, but, from the standpoint of world usefulness, it was a serious ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... speedily dissipated upon the swimmer coming in contact with the water. Besides this, a great deal in the art of swimming depends upon the degree of ease with which the swimmer can use his hands and feet. Now this sort of exercise may in part be acquired on land, and it would be of great usefulness to the learner were he to enter upon some preliminary practice which would give him the use of his hands and feet, in the manner required in swimming. To do this, he should provide himself with two ropes, which should be fastened up in the ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... I was wrong, for poor Clarette must be somewhere. And since yesterday I have been thinking with more deliberation, and I have decided," he added, his tone becoming confidential, "that it is better I do not find Clarette just now. It might destroy my usefulness to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... before, are in a state of far greater liberty than are the female Arabs, but it is more than anything else the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers the wife is a chattel from whom it is permissible to extract all the usefulness possible, and whom it is allowable to sell when a bargain can be struck. The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is her errand to the fountain. This is sometimes situated in the valley, far from the nodding pillar or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... father telling, and my John, being a hopeful man, never failed to hint that a few shillings would help us over a difficult week and so on; but Rupert only listened. My John, you see, was one of they unfortunates stricken with the rheumatism that turns you into a living stone, so his usefulness was pretty undergone afore he reached sixty and but for my little bit, saved in service, and an occasional food-offering from my daughter's husband, it would have gone hard with us. This my eldest son well understood and often the tears would come into his eyes ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... side with it. And it was necessary that the growing child should prove his own limbs, and the growing intelligence should learn to depend upon itself. Then we come to a long period when the tyranny of the King brought out more and more strongly the usefulness of the Teacher, and when the Teacher was continually standing between the power of the tyrant and the helplessness of the people; when religion became a shield for the weak, a strong check for the violence of power. And ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... him, by no means came up to expectations, and were ponderous and clumsy, in spite of the fact that he had previously captured several of ours from which to copy, but they proved to be far behind ours, both in construction and usefulness. ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... meditating on the melancholy uncertainty of human life, when I contrasted the comforts, the pleasures, the pride of conscious usefulness and genius felt by this gentleman a short time since, with the agony which that trying and bitter hour brings to the stoutest and most callous heart—when it must quit this state of being for another, of which it knows so little, and over which ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... still considering the matter. So soon as he made his formal demand from Khartoum for the assistance of Zubehr it was evident that his belief in the old slave dealer's usefulness was a sound conviction and not a mere passing caprice. Besides, he had now become 'the man on the spot,' and as such his words carried double force. Sir Evelyn Baring determined to support the recommendation with his whole influence. Never was so good a case ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... the service, and building all sorts of castles in the air which you and I are going to inhabit together. But we must not let the old faiths hamper us, Elisabeth; if we do, our powers will be impaired by prejudices, and our usefulness ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... South was enveloped in darkness. Out of that gloom this man emerged and came here to the East, where the sun shines first in the morning. Judging him to-day by the record he has made, we are warranted in saying that on coming here he adopted Usefulness as his chariot, and that thereto he harnessed the spirited steeds of Enterprise, Progress, and Development. To-day we see him driving that triumphal car through the land of his birth, and making the sunlight of prosperity to shine there. [Tremendous applause.] Sharing ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... pages that Edelman compiled. Dr. Michael T. Ryan, Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and of the Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University of Pennsylvania, reviewed a list of 204 sites that Edelman forwarded to him in order to determine their appropriateness and usefulness in the library setting. Because the sites that Ryan reviewed were not selected randomly (i.e., they were chosen by plaintiffs' counsel), his study says little about the character of the set of 6,777 sites that Edelman compiled, or the total amount of overblocking by the four filtering programs that ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... third or fourth class held no allurement. Nothing less than the Golden Fleece would have interested him, and the grand duke himself could not boast of this rare and distinguished order. In truth, Carmichael coveted nothing but a medal for valor, and his own country had not yet come to recognize the usefulness ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... impelled to precipitate their power into very narrow channels. The most eminent helpers of civilization have been penetrated by their single mission,—they have known that in concentration and courage lay their highest usefulness. Let us not judge men who are other than these. We will not question the importance of a Goethe, with his scientific amusements, stage-plays, ducal companionships, and art of taking good care of himself; but we cannot deny at least ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... story is quite a different one. The very fact that many large mining organizations, as a result of their experience, now leave these matters of exploration and development largely in the hands of geologists, is a tribute to the usefulness of the science. Also, it is to be remembered that not all applications of geology are made by geologists. It is hard to find a prospector or explorer who has not absorbed empirically some of the elements of geology, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the foundation of her husband's wealth by her union with the rising young lawyer and statesman. Her two sons and two daughters had grown up around her, all four being married into the leading families of the land, and with apparently long lives of prosperity and usefulness before them. And now the headsman's sword had shivered all this grandeur and happiness at a blow. The name of the dead statesman had become a word of scoffing and reproach; vagabond mountebanks enacted ribald ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... foresee their needs before they feel them, their intelligence has made a great step forward, they are beginning to know the value of time. They must then be trained to devote this time to useful purposes, but this usefulness should be such as they can readily perceive and should be within the reach of their age and experience. What concerns the moral order and the customs of society should not yet be given them, for they ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... and usefulness of the postoffice every one can appreciate; it ministers to the comfort ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... niggehs, ain't so much as tetched the deepest root uv his trouble, much less cu'ud! Why, Doctor, Brother Garnet see him, himself!—a-tellin' that C'nelius Leggett!—and pulled him away! Po' Brother Garnet! Johanna, I wish, betwixt the Doctor an' you, you could make him look betteh. His load of usefulness is too great. I declare, Brother Coffin, he was that tiud this evenin' that evm here, where you'd expect him to seem fresh and happy in his new joy, he looked as if, if it wa'n't faw the wrong of the thing, he'd almost be willin' ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... grateful to our readers for corrections, and particularly for suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. We shall particularly welcome the receipt from authors, editors, agents, and publishers, of stories printed during the year beginning July 1, 1922, which have qualities of distinction but yet are not published ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... own repose, Grindal ought never to have quitted this sphere of unmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of Parker in 1575, the primacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of rendering his plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted its acceptance. Thus was he brought once more within ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... navy; strictest orders were given to admit no one on board, not even high officers; only admirals were allowed to penetrate within, and on every matter concerning our U-boats we had to maintain absolute silence. Now, however, that our usefulness has been so fully justified, the veil of discretion can be somewhat lifted, and I can describe within certain limits the life and activities on ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... "The superior usefulness of the slaves in the south, will constitute an effectual demand, which will remove them from our limits. We shall send them from our state, because it will be our interest to do so. Our planters are ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... meet him would be social ruin and would seriously affect my usefulness, as I was the only attache who spoke French with entire ease, and it was, as I said, a part of my duty to learn at the clubs and in society the trend of opinion in regard to the war with the rebel States. I could do nothing but wait. I was the victim of circumstances ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... reflecting telescope was nearly three hundred inches in diameter, and was powerful enough to spot a spaceship leaving Sator. Its military usefulness, however, was practically nil, since painting the ships black ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... curious shift of feeling to pity the man plighted to her. If it suited her purpose to pity Sir Willoughby, she was not moved by policy, be assured; her needs were her nature, her moods her mind; she had the capacity to make anything serve her by passing into it with the glance which discerned its usefulness; and this is how it is that the young, when they are in trouble, without approaching the elevation of scientific hypocrites, can teach that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disheveled by his night in a cell, stood Rowland, with other unfortunates more or less guilty of offense against society. When his name was called, he was hustled through a door, along a line of policemen—each of whom added to his own usefulness by giving him a shove—and into the dock, where the stern-faced and tired-looking magistrate glared at him. Seated in a corner of the court-room were the old gentleman of the day before, the young mother with little ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... happens—even to the extent of being arrested, and possibly tried for the offenses that have been committed. If one of us should get caught, he must play his part even then, for the protection of the others who are still on their jobs; for if that one should confess himself a detective, the usefulness of ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... respect, although he displayed no intimacy with their epoch-making works. Graham learnt that University Extension still existed in a modified form. "There is a certain type of girl, for example," said the Surveyor-General, dilating with a sense of his usefulness, "with a perfect passion for severe studies—when they are not too difficult you know. We cater for them by the thousand. At this moment," he said with a Napoleonic touch, "nearly five hundred phonographs are lecturing in different parts of London on the influence exercised by Plato and ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... life, though attended with fearful alternatives, is a glorious birthright, with boundless possibilities and promise of good to ourselves and others. Buddhism makes life an evil which it is the supreme end of man to conquer and cut off from the disaster of re-birth. Christianity opens a path of usefulness, holiness, and happiness in this life, and a career of triumph and glory in the endless ages to come. Both Buddhism and Hinduism are worse than other pessimistic systems in their fearful law of entailment through countless transmigrations, each of which ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... man of high religious principles. He taught his children to love the good and refuse the evil. He wanted his girls to be useful women by-and-by in the world. He put usefulness before happiness, assuring his children that if they followed the one ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... in acquiring this happy and cheerful dignity comes from the desire to be admired, which is a tendency inborn in the great majority of women. It stands in the way of their greatest strength and usefulness, because it takes away their real independence and keeps them thinking about themselves instead of about others. It is a form of bondage which makes them vain and self-conscious and renders impossible the ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... concerned with tools of more recent vintage. Anonymity is the chief characteristic of hand tools of the last three centuries. The reasons are many: first, the tool is an object of daily use, subjected while in service to hard wear and, in some cases, ultimate destruction; second, a tool's usefulness is apt to continue through many years and through the hands of several generations of craftsmen, with the result that its origins become lost; third, the achievement of an implement of demonstrated ...
— Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 • Peter C. Welsh
... other sizes. I'm going to study there when I leave college. Mother says I may," cried Helen, delighted that her favorite school was on the point of proving its usefulness ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... those countries develops in ourselves, but principally through a profound comprehension of the truth contained in the principle above enunciated, that a nation only lives as far as it demonstrates its right to existence by its usefulness to humanity. And one of the most conclusive guarantees of the success of this effort is found in the solid and loyal friendship which exists between the United States and Mexico, with which nation, day after day, and year after year, we are working within ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... are effectively so, and arbitration for the recovery of contract debts is now practically obligatory. As time passes and its feasibility gains credence, arbitration, like the jury trial, will extend its sphere of usefulness until it too settles questions of honor. Nor need we imply from this analogy that it will take such an age to accomplish this result. Because of the increased mobility of society, resulting from the greater like-mindedness and consciousness of kind ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... their earliest years to one undeviating mechanical employment, they acquire great skill in it, but grow up utterly ignorant of any thing else. We speak not of ignorance of reading or writing, but of ignorance in still more momentous particulars, with reference to their usefulness in life as wives and mothers. They can neither bake nor brew, wash nor iron, sew nor knit. The finest London lady is not more utterly inefficient than they are, for any other object but the one mechanical occupation to which they have been habituated. They can neither darn a stocking ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... sell you a ticket and let you into the beautiful, old, orange-gray cloistered court, where there is a young architect with the T-square of his calling sketching some point of it, and a gardener gently hacking off from the parent stems such palm-leaves as have survived their usefulness. Beyond is the famous fountained court, and a classic temple to the right, and other structures responsive to the impulses of the good Pope Julius III., who was never tired of adding to this pleasure palace of his. It was his favorite resort, with all his court, from the Vatican, and his favorite ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilised life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are that first condense men into society, and what are the motives that regulate ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and dialysis of our advanced civilization. How can you make an oyster stout or train him down by making him jerk a health lift so many hours every day, or cultivate his body at the expense of his mind, without ultimately not only impairing the future usefulness of the oyster himself, but at the same time affecting the future of the human race ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... are wooden molds, iron molds, sand molds and plaster of Paris and special molds. Each kind has its field of usefulness, and its advantages over the others. They will be considered briefly ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... but it creates spasms of irregular exertion; it ruins the natural power of life, but it develops preternatural paroxysms of intermitting power. Let us ask of any man who holds that not Coleridge himself but the world, as interested in Coleridge's usefulness, has suffered by his addiction to opium; whether he is aware of the way in which opium affected Coleridge; and secondly, whether he is aware of the actual contributions to literature—how large they were—which Coleridge made in spite ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... their faith, gave them courage to go forward, and taught them the joy of working in such a cause. And while they were struggling with poverty and looking disaster often in the face, up in Massachusetts, the man who was to lead this chosen people into a new land of usefulness, was himself fighting that battle as to whether he should hearken to the voice of the Spirit that was calling him to a new work. But finally he left all to follow Him, and when this church, going down under its ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the other to destruction. Unwise efforts to carry the application of the parable beyond the Author's intent have suggested the criticism that whether the fish be good or bad they die. The good, however, die to usefulness, the bad to utter waste. Though all men die, they die not alike; some pass to rest, and shall come forth in the resurrection of the just; others go to a state of sorrow and disquiet there to anxiously and with dread await the resurrection of the wicked.[642] Similarity ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the copy of "Science Breath" promptly and I am very much pleased with it. The simple, clear, logical manner in which it is written will certainly be appreciated and will enhance its usefulness. Please send me another ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... devotion to the law, and his dread of becoming that slave to party usages which all public men must necessarily more or less fashion of themselves, would have retained him in his native state, and made his usefulness sectional. To the politicians of the school of General Jackson, and to the administration of that President, he was particularly distasteful. His tenacious conservatism drew forth from the "old hero," on one occasion, the remark, that "he was the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... by the law, which it is not always easy to change, even when it is desirable, may survive with it their own usefulness, and still preserve the name of public services, even when they are no longer services at all, but rather public annoyances. The latter belong to the sphere of the will, of individual responsibility. ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... to be a few hours ahead of us now." He might have added that all these annoyances, which he was so carefully discounting, had sprung from Dick's thoughtlessness; but he was silent, sure of the young man's value when the field of his usefulness should be reached. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... the all-important question of scientific living can afford to be without this book. It will be found of interest to teachers and students of domestic economy. It is very carefully and thoroughly indexed, adding to its usefulness. ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... sometimes indulged in a freedom of speech on interdicted topics, which was unpalatable to those around him. Hence it happened that slight offences, which were at first overlooked in consideration of his usefulness, were no longer passed by when that usefulness was no longer prized, and there were even some who were disposed to visit him with punishment for transgressions of the kind, of years previous. Spikeman, who by his wealth and cunning, had lately ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... settle down to a life of usefulness. To increase their resources she gave lessons in English to Belgians and even to German officers. She offered herself to various groups of Belgian ladies who had taken up such charities as the Germans permitted. She also asked to be taken on ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... made it almost impossible to punish the wealthy and influential. When Smollett declared that the miserable fate of Count Fathom would deter his reader from similar courses by a fear of similar punishment, when Defoe urged the moral usefulness of "Moll Flanders" and "Roxana," the two novelists simply expressed the general feeling that the sight of a malefactor hanging on the gallows was the most effective recommendation to virtue. In the same ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the seasons, constant and eternal as the sky which stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps, ivy was sacred to Attis; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests were tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves. Another reason for the sanctity of the pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the stone-pine contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food since antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer classes in Rome. Moreover, a wine was brewed from these ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... between which messages were transmitted by despatch-rider or signal according to the nature of the intervening country. Along the coast of Down and Antrim the organisation of signals was complete and effective. The usefulness of the despatch-riders' corps was fully tested and proved during the Curragh Incident, when news of all that was taking place at the Curragh was received by this means two or three times a day at the Old Town Hall in Belfast, where there was much information of what was going on that was ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... men, in this and other countries, who, by dint of persevering application and energy, have raised themselves from the humblest ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness and influence in society, are indeed so numerous that they have long ceased to be regarded as exceptional. Looking at some of the more remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... works, that prejudice would be supplanted by complacency in their goodness, and pity and sympathy for their disabilities. If the friends of the blacks had quietly set themselves to work to increase their intelligence, their usefulness, their respectability, their meekness, gentleness, and benevolence, and then had appealed to the pity, generosity, and christian feelings of their fellow citizens, a very different result would have appeared. Instead of this, reproaches, rebukes, and sneers, were ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... remarked, however, that this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to God or nature, to dogmatically affirm there is ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... strange and stirring scenes which it was his lot in after-life to witness and to share, did he bless the over- ruling providence of God, which had laid him on a bed of pain and weakness, that he might learn lessons of piety and of usefulness, which otherwise he would never ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... turning-point and crisis of his character. It represents the high-water mark of his powers, and serves thereafter as an ideal pattern for his self-imitation. The teacher who never rouses this sort of pugnacious excitement in his pupils falls short of one of his best forms of usefulness. ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... Superintendent; the ladies to retain their respective positions—teacher, house-keeper and matron. From this time Miss Thayer felt greatly fettered, and the impression grew upon her that her presence was not desired at Mt. Hope; that her usefulness there was at an end. Long and prayerfully did she weigh the matter, and at last, though it nearly broke her heart, she asked to be dismissed from the field. Her request was granted, and Miss Thayer closed her labors at Mt. Hope, December 31, 1853, and longed to die. It was the saddest day ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson |
