"Utility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shepherd, who should pen his flock in a fold to secure it from a marching army. No effective protection could be afforded in such ports against a superior naval force equipped for purposes of destruction; whilst their utility as places of refuge from steam privateers is quite disproportioned to their cost—privateers could neither tow off merchant vessels from our shore, nor regain their own, if appropriate measures shall be adopted ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... began his business career as a general utility boy in the jobbing grocery house of S.H. Williamson, 36 Broadway, New York, in 1875. Then he was a clerk for Park & Tilford, office man with Arbuckle Bros, and with Geo. C. Chase & Co., tea importers, for two years, afterward being admitted to a junior partnership. In 1886, the firm of Ross ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and Historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the Poet who comprehends the dignity of his art. The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... as to the utility of a bridge over the harbor from the bottom of Johnson Street. The first bridge crossing to the Songhees reserve at this point was built by Governor Douglas prior to 1860, it being an ordinary pile bridge such as graced, or disgraced, James Bay until ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... not in these things read deep lessons applicable to ourselves? The history of the people whose noble works I have endeavored to describe, should in the first place teach us how noble a thing it is to construct works of beauty and utility, not only for our own gratification, but for the benefit of posterity also. The selfish and unreflecting, even the modern utilitarian, will perhaps laugh at the thought, and say: 'What folly to undertake such labors for the benefit of posterity! We will labor for ourselves.' I would ask such persons, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... of Errors. (1) Error in any statement or assertion as to the utility of the useful article named in the application under this section, the design of which is sought to be registered, shall not affect the protection ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... Apart from the utility of these documents to other nations who thus may behold the battery of French law in action, the French legislator ought to know the lengths to which the abuse of procedure may be carried, always supposing that the said legislator can find time for reading. Surely some sort of regulation might ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... distinct methods. The grass might have been piled against hurdles or light frame-work and so dried by the wind; it might have been pitted in the earth and preserved still green; or it might have been dried by machinery and the hot blast. A gentleman had invented a machine, the utility of which had been demonstrated beyond all doubt. But no; farmers folded their hands and watched their ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... far as possible self-governing. Thus Alexander III decreed in the third Lateran Council (1179), that for relieving the needs of the community, everything contributed by the Church to supplement the contributions of the laity should be given without compulsion on the recognition of its necessity or utility by the bishop and the clergy. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council (1215), provided a further safeguard against lay impositions in demanding the permission of the Pope for any such levy. This ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... proper creed of hard unemotional natures, who do not respond to the more subtle moral influences. Such is the view natural to those who cannot dissociate the word "utilitarianism" from the narrow meaning of utility, as contrasted with the pleasures of art. The infirmity of human language excuses such errors; for the language in which controversy is conducted is so colored by sentiment that it may well happen that two shall agree on the thing, and fight to the death about the word. We need the support ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... men, but our principal aim in founding the State was not to make them happy. They were to be guardians, not holiday-makers. In this pleasant manner is presented to us the famous question both of ancient and modern philosophy, touching the relation of duty to happiness, of right to utility. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... United States. Now, it would not surprise me to find an English revolver in Patagonia, or an American rifle in Thibet, because they are universally known and used. Any one might carry them. But a bayonet is different, of course; it is a strictly military arm, and its utility is limited. That a criminal should select one with which to commit a murder is unusual; and, further; the fact that the make is one never introduced into the ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... health, usefulness, and happiness here depend on the perfection and utility of the physical body he inhabits, and its maintenance in health and harmony, have we the least reason to imagine that the same individual, dwelling on the spiritual plane, will not be under the same of analogous laws and relations there, since we have assumed the ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... that time governor of Britain, and ruled with a milder sway than was suitable to so turbulent a province. Under his administration, Agricola, accustomed to obey, and taught to consult utility as well as glory, tempered his ardor, and restrained his enterprising spirit. His virtues had soon a larger field for their display, from the appointment of Petilius Cerealis, [31] a man of consular dignity, to the government. At first he only shared the fatigues ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... The chief utility of the Golden Gardener lies in its extermination of all caterpillars that are not too powerful to attack. It has one limitation, however: it is not a climber. It hunts on the ground; never in the foliage overhead. I have never seen it exploring ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... distances apart—and regularly, as if they had been planted—there was nothing that deserved the name of timber. All the rest was mere "bush,"—a thorny jungle of mimosas, euphorbias, arborescent aloes, strelitzias, and the horrid zamia plants, beautiful enough to the eye, but of no utility whatever in the building of a house. The nwanas, of course, were too large for house-logs. To have felled one of them would have been a task equal almost to the building of a house; and to have made planks of them would ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... see that I can no longer stand punishment, and am "growing old." As I lay there and shook, I said to myself, "Old fellow, you will soon be a 'has-been.' Your gun and fishing rod will soon decorate your shooting case as ornaments, rather than as things of utility." Ah, well, let it be so! The memory of pleasant days when youth and strength were mine; days when the creel was full, and game limits came my way, will be with me still. I would not exchange the experience I have had with rod and gun for all the money any millionaire in ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... MacKeller, his first chief, had done, and not, like so many American engineers, to become a part of a professional movement, a cautious board member, a Nestor de pontibus. He happened to be engaged in work of public utility, but he was not willing to become what is called a public man. He found himself living exactly the kind of life he had determined to escape. What, he asked himself, did he want with these genial honors and substantial comforts? Hardships and difficulties he had carried lightly; overwork had ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... and throughout the other colonies, stamp the assertions of the pro-slavery party as the vilest falsehoods. They glory in the introduction of banks, steam-vessels, and railroads; with the knowledge (as they would have us believe) that the island is fast verging into destruction. They speak of the utility and success of railroads, when, according to their showing, there is no produce to be sent to market, when agriculture has been paralyzed, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... threatens Breach of Promise," said Garrett, whose mind was slowly working as to the best means of proving his practical utility. "That's the point, of course. That the letters are there and that we have got to get them back. What kind of letters were they? Did you ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... devoted themselves, though unknown to posterity, were of great utility at the time. They saw the youth they educated grow up under their care; when their studies were concluded, they sent them to labor in the ministry among their countrymen; they heard of them from time to time of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... S.E. Side of the Island, to the Southward of the high Land, is a pretty large Bar-Harbour, called Dunn Harbour, which will admit Fishing Shallops at half Flood, but can never be of any Utility for a Fishery. ...
— Directions for Navigating on Part of the South Coast of Newfoundland, with a Chart Thereof, Including the Islands of St. Peter's and Miquelon • James Cook
... he snatched down his old muzzle-loader from the pegs where it hung on the kitchen wall. After the backwoods fashion, the gun was kept loaded with a general utility charge of buckshot and slugs, such as might come handy in case a bear should try to steal the pig. Being no sportsman, Coxen did not even take the trouble to change the old percussion-cap, which had been on the tube for ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... surrounded by a grove of full-grown trees, stands on a hill near Maynooth, and can be seen to advantage both from the Midland and the Great Southern Railway. It is usually known as "Lady Conolly's Monument." From its being built without any apparent utility, illnatured people sometimes call it "Lady Conolly's Folly." It is said to have been designed by Castelli (Anglicised "Castells"), the architect of Carton, Castletown House, and Leinster House, Kildare Street, now ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Palace of the Regent, its costly fitting Partridge, John, his tomb and errors Parks of London, their utility and capability ——, noblemen's, their inutility Patronage, cause of war Parish allowances to the poor Panorama from Wimbledon Common Paper circulation always ruinous Parish poor-houses described Peace, its security Peach, its crawling myriads Peter the Hermit, his fanaticism Perihelion point, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... his walk through the chapels; stopping only to look at one which contained relics of opposite utility and double purpose: the shrines of Saint Piat and Saint Taurinus. The bones of the former saint were displayed to secure dry weather in times of rain, and those of the second to invoke rain in times of drought. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... deference was given those bishops from cities of great political importance, and they were exalted to the presidency of these councils, and this in time led to the recognition of a new order of church officials—metropolitans. Later the metropolitans seemed too numerous for general utility in governmental functions; therefore general leadership gradually became centralized more and more in the bishops or metropolitans of certain of the most important cities, until they were finally given recognition as an order superior to that of metropolitans ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... chopper or grinder, which costs but a dollar and a half or two dollars, will save its price in the utility of these scraps in ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... in the using. The strength of her species is the strength of the obstacles they overcome. We misinterpret Darwin when we assume that Nature selects as man selects. Nature selects solely upon the principle of power of survival. Man selects upon the principle of utility. He wants some particular good—a race-horse, a draft-horse—better quality or greater quantity of this or that. Nature aims to fill the world with her progeny. Only power to win in the competition of life counts with her. As I have so often ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... natural selection prevails in such cases as it does in others. Or stated otherwise, it is very probable, that in most cases the atavistic characters have been retained during youth because of their temporary usefulness. Unfortunately, our knowledge of utility of qualities is as yet, very incomplete. Here we must assume that what is ordinarily spared by natural selection is to be considered as useful, [457] until direct experimental investigations have ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... you will have the goodness to excuse M. Rousseau; he is very unwell; it is really extremely vexatious." I replied that M. Rousseau had made his own excuses. Just then Therese, wishing to give herself the appearance of great utility, cried out, "Am I wanted there, M. Rousseau?" "No, no, no," replied Jean Jacques, in a faint voice, which died away as if at a distance. He soon after re-entered the room. "Madam," said he, "have the kindness to place your music in other hands to copy; I am truly concerned ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... useful, if not always important, subjects included within the range of meteorology, is not perhaps sufficiently realized in the minds of active participators in the world's stirring work. Irrespective of any scientific object, how much utility is there to all classes in what is commonly called 'weather wisdom'? In our variable climate, with a maritime population, numbers of small vessels, and especially fishing boats, how much life and property is risked unnecessarily by every unforeseen storm? Even animals, birds, and insects have ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... at all worth speaking of,—no neck, I mean, that ever produced eloquence; she was brown, too, and had addicted herself in nowise, as she undoubtedly should have done, to larder utility. In regard to the neck and colour, poor girl, she could not help herself; but in that other respect she must be held as having wasted her opportunities. But then what eyes she had! Mrs. Pole was right there. They flashed upon you, not always softly; indeed not often softly ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... must have toiled at. Pulling these apart the maid led her into an inner hall fifty or sixty feet long, the first sight of which banished all diffidence about her shoes; for never had she seen such medley of East and West, such toning down of Oriental mysticism with the sheer utility of European importations; ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... a well-furnished house. In furnishing a house we do not fill it up with miscellaneous furniture, bric-a-brac and antiques, gathered promiscuously, but we plan everything with a view to harmony, beauty, and utility. We furnish a particular room in a tone that will be restful and pleasing to the occupant. We choose every piece of furniture, rug, picture, and drapery with a distinct purpose in view of what the total ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... that long slant tunnel, leading downwards from the pyramid's northern face, would at once find a meaning in this astrological theory. The slant tunnel pointed to the pole-star of Cheops' time, when due north below the true pole of the heavens. This circumstance had no observational utility. It could afford no indication of time, because a pole-star moves very slowly, and the pole-star of Cheops' day must have been in view through that tunnel for more than an hour at a time. But, apart from ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... the Transvaal troops, were consumed in quite another fashion from that intended. Even accumulated locomotives to the number of about fifty had been in some cases elaborately mutilated, or caught, and twisted out of all utility, by the devouring flames. So wanton is the waste war begets. The torch has played a comparatively small part in this contest; but it is food supplies that have suffered most from its ravages, and the Boers, with a slimness that baffled us, having ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... You're elected, then! We'll all tell you everything we know. Here's an old cook-book on the shelf, and well teach you the recipes. That leaves Whittington for general-utility man. He'll be our hewer of wood and drawer of water, to say nothing of washing the dishes. We'll all feel free to call on him whenever any of us gets into a tight place. How does that hit ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... Indian emperor to the memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, which signifies the "Chosen of the Palace." The Taj leaves an undying impression of beauty on all beholders, and certainly in this instance beauty outvalues utility. Shakespeare might well have written of sermons in stones had he seen the Taj. The marble and red sandstone came from Rajpootana, the diamonds and jaspers from the Punjab, the carnelians and agates from Tibet, the corals from Arabia, the sapphires and other precious stones from Ceylon, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... possess a talent for love-letters." He will always bear in mind that in love-affairs success is less the Ultima Thule of desire than its coup de grace, and he will be careful never to admit the fact, especially to himself. He will value ceremony, but rather for its comeliness than for its utility, as one esteeming the lily, say, to be a more applaudable bulb than the onion. He will prink; and he will be at his best after sunset. He will dare to acknowledge the shapeliness of a thief's leg, to contend that the commission of murder does not necessarily impair the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... vitreous compound, easily fusible, and coloured in various tints by the admixture of different metallic oxides; is fused to the surface of metals for utility and ornament; was known to the European and Asiatic ancients, and has maintained its popularity to the present day. Various schools have been formed, of which the Byzantine, Rhenish, and Limoges are the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... this verse is to show the utility and necessity of acts. Without acting no one, however clever, can earn any fruit. Both the vernacular translators give ridiculous versions ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Utility, which in its last analysis is Pleasure, is the test of right, in the first method; an assumed or discovered Law of Nature, in the second. If the world were perfect, and the balance of the human faculties undisturbed, it is evident that both systems would give identical results. As it is, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... war, and with the declaration that if this were refused, and if the prince's friends who fell into the enemy's hands were put to death as rebels, the prince would be compelled to treat his captives in the same way. It was evident that this step would be of great utility, as many of the prince's adherents hesitated to take up arms, not from fear of death in battle, but of execution ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... do and what thou shouldst not do the next day? Thou settlest nothing alone, nor takest counsels with many? The counsels thou hast resolved upon, do not become known all over thy kingdom? Commencest thou soon to accomplish measures of great utility that are easy of accomplishment? Such measures are never obstructed? Keepest thou the agriculturists not out of thy sight? They do not fear to approach thee? Achievest thou thy measures through persons that are trusted incorruptible, and possessed of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Congress is easily denounced, but no one has found a substitute for it, and it is fairly representative of the country. Congress will never gamble away the inheritance of the people. It will probably, in spite of all shortcomings, have its average of ability and utility kept up. Congress may go wrong, but will not betray. Our outlying possessions must be Territories until they are Americanized, and we take it Americans know what that word means. If a specification is wanted ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... mind, schooled by long experience with the world and its artifices, had taught him to view the transit of events with a certain philosophy, a sort of pragmatic philosophy, with reference to the causes and the results of events and how they bore on the practical utility of all concerned; and finally the mother, who in her devout and pious way, saw only the Holy Will of God working in all things for ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... published by the Director of Public Instruction, in behalf of Government, and furnishes a new instance of the liberal and judicious spirit in which Mr. Howard bestows his patronage on works of real and permanent utility. The Aitareya-brahmana, containing the earliest speculations of the Brahmans on the meaning of their sacrificial prayers, and the purport of their ancient religious rites, is a work which could be properly edited nowhere but ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... what Halevy calls the natural identity of interests is Bernard Mandeville" and that "What Mandeville did for the principle of the natural identity of interests Helvetius did for that of their artificial identity," that is, "that the chief utility of governments consists in their ability to force men to act in their own best interests when they feel disinclined to do so." It so happens, however, that Helvetius as an apostle of state intervention was not only not departing from Mandeville ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... publications among his stock. He can well afford to pay the heavy fee he does for his privilege; for his novel speculation has been a decided hit—of solid advantage to himself and of permanent utility ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... indulgence of the animal appetites, that we observe the grand distinction between man and the brute. There is nothing in the writings of evolutionists more pitiable than their attempts to degrade conscience into a mere gregarious instinct, an outcome of utility to the tribe, and to pleasurable sensations, resulting from the exercise of the social instincts. It would appear that these writers had so sophisticated their own minds that they have ceased to understand the fundamental, world-wide difference between right and gain, between duty and pleasure. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... of the present day make no other effort to ascertain their utility, than to keep a pair or two of them shut up in a public garden for children and their nurses to ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... as Schleiermacher said a hundred years ago: "These false islanders, wrongly admired by many, have no other watchword but gain and enjoyment. They are never in earnest about anything that transcends practical utility."—PASTOR ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... gaming-room." We feel that there is ill-nature in this description, for Evelyn was a grumbling Puritan, tainted with republican reveries. He did not appreciate the profitable example given by kings in those grand Babylonian gaieties, which, after all, maintain luxury. He did not understand the utility of vice. Here is a maxim: Do not extirpate vice, if you want to have charming women; if you do you are like idiots who destroy the chrysalis whilst they delight in ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... motor, but constructed exquisitely in a fashion which, far from affronting taste, delighted the eye by leading it to lines of unguessed beauty. They were motors as the ancients would have built them if they had understood the trick of science, motors in which the lines of utility were veiled and taught to be subordinate. The speed attained was by no means great, and the motion was gentle and sacrificed to silence. And when St. George ventured to ask how they had imported the first motors, the prince answered that as Columbus was sailing on the waters of the Atlantic at ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... the visible world for eyes that can see, the claim of the virtues as a visible representation by human persons and their acts of the eternal qualities of "the eternal," after all far out-weigh, as he thinks, the claim of their mere utility. And accordingly, in education, all will begin and end "in music," in the promotion of qualities to which no truer name can be given than symmetry, aesthetic fitness, tone. Philosophy itself indeed, as he conceives it, is but the sympathetic appreciation ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... motives cease to be all absorbing. Eventually, the subject of the food supply becomes less pressing. Races continue to increase and multiply with or without the performance of sacred rites and man begins to question the utility of his imitative magic. Higher desires force themselves into consciousness, and earlier motives are no longer outwardly expressed; the form of the early motives is retained however: usages, symbols and practices which have long ceased to be dynamic and whose meaning is entirely forgotten are still ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... he's curried me so often that he's lost all respect for me. I want to stop being merely ornamental and become useful; but when I say so, everyone hands me the jocose and jibing jeer and proceeds to lock up anything that seems to have any relation whatsoever to industry, commerce, or utility of any kind. And the best I can get is the festive roof garden, the broad speed-way, and the bounding wave. I wish I were running this universe. I ain't mentioning no names, but there's a certain svelte party on my left, whose initials ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... hooted down, and laughed to scorn. Are these the feelings with which any part of the government ought to be regarded? Above all, are these the feelings with which the popular branch of the legislature ought to be regarded? It is almost as essential to the utility of a House of Commons, that it should possess the confidence of the people, as that it should deserve that confidence. Unfortunately, that which is in theory the popular part of our government, is in practice the unpopular part. Who wishes ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was a very small woman, with no particularly developed character, and perhaps of no very general utility. She was fond of her daughters, and more than fond of her son, partly because he was so tall and so handsome, and partly because he was the lord, the head of the family, and the owner of the house. She was, on the whole, a good-natured ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... China—the city beseeches your Highness to have the investigation examined; and to favor the said city by ordering that commerce be opened with the inhabitants of Macan, in order to enable the inhabitants of the Filipinas Islands to trade and traffic with them. Since this is a matter of so great utility and necessity, as appears from the investigation, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... remote from defiance or impudence, and all his inclinations leaned towards preserving Romola's tenderness. He was not tormented by sentimental scruples which, as he had demonstrated to himself by a very rapid course of argument, had no relation to solid utility; but his freedom from scruples did not release him from the dread of what was disagreeable. Unscrupulousness gets rid of much, but not of toothache, or wounded vanity, or the sense of loneliness, against which, as the world at present ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... proper value for science, for literature, for liberty, or for any of the acquirements that either make a man estimable or useful. They neither excel in arts, nor in science; phisically sic, they are inferior in utility, and their minds are less instructed. They are not equal to Christians either in war or in peace, nor to be compared to them for any one ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... wind-proof, but also afforded endless amusement to those who had to spend therein the long winter months. The house was furnished sparingly with simple, home-made furniture that had more the appearance of utility than of beauty. ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... comfort; but no more than that. Caligraphy betokens caution, and if it be not light in hand it is nothing. That it be fairly grammatical and not ill spelt the writer owes to his schoolmaster; but this should come of habit, not of care. Then let its page be soiled by no business; one touch of utility ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... system as guilty of an imbecility as great as its iniquity. They appear to have wholly overlooked the fact that until their mighty engines should be devoted to increasing human welfare they were and would continue mere curious scientific toys of no more real worth or utility to the race than so many particularly ingenious jumping-jacks. This craze for more and more and ever greater and wider inventions for economic purposes, coupled with apparent complete indifference as to whether mankind derived any ultimate ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... not difficult to see that he was frugal, though possibly from necessity rather than taste, not sparing of effort, and had a keen eye for utility, and if that suggested the question why with such capacities he had not attained to greater comfort the answer was simple. Winston had no money, and the seasons had fought against him. He had done his uttermost with the means ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... (Philadelphus) completed the undertaking; having adapted an ingenious contrivance to the ingress of the canal, which was opened when a vessel was about to enter, and afterwards closed. Experience proved the utility of this invention. The waters which flow in this canal are called the river of Ptolemy, the king who executed this great work. The town of Arsinoee is constructed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... in its earliest introduction to public use, and interesting himself in its construction, he was the first to see that the ultimate triumph of the telegraph, both as a grand system of public utility, and of secure investment, would be by some absorbing process, which would prevent ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... have conscription for civil purposes? Why should not every young man in Ireland give up two years of his life in a comradeship of labor with other young men, and be employed under skilled direction in great works of public utility, in the erection of public buildings, the beautifying of our cities, reclamation of waste lands, afforestation, and other desirable objects? The principle of service for the State for military purposes is admitted ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... your teaching into effect before long, Maitre Dalboy," Sir John Loveday said, with a smile, "for we are going over to join the army in Holland in a few weeks, and we shall then have an opportunity of trying the utility of the parries you ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... be made to the deglutinatio Fijiana on the score of utility. The islands of the Fijians are but small; no Fijian Attila can lead forth his hosts into neighboring countries; no Fijian Goths can pour down from Polynesian Alps into an Oceanic Italy; no Athenians can there send sons and gods to a Coreyra: and no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... in France can never help being domineered by sounds and general ideas? Now everybody must be a geometre, now a philosophe, and the moment they are either, they are to take up a character and advertise it: as if one could not study geometry for one's amusement or for its utility, but one must be a geometrician at table, or at a visit! So the moment it is settled at Paris that the English are solid, every Englishman must be wise, and, if he has a good understanding, he must not be allowed to play the fool. As I happen to like both sense and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... senses thrills; Each instance vile of human worthlessness, My soul with holy anger fills. This arrogant, this foolish age, Which feeds itself on empty hopes, Absorbed in trifles, virtue's enemy, Which idly clamors for utility, And has not sense enough to see How useless all life thenceforth must become, I feel beneath me, and its judgments laugh To scorn. The motley crew, The foes of every lofty thought, Who laugh at thee, I ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Peter's only object was to enable his subjects to become a reading people, and to communicate to them useful knowledge through the medium of books. Beauties of style, and even mere purity of language, belong in a certain measure to the luxuries of literature; the Tzar thought only of utility. ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... practice of depositing them in the cabinets of the curious. Perhaps one improvement might be made. The sage and venerable Dr. Franklin, whose patriotic genius is active in old age, and ever prolific in projects of public utility, once suggested,[19] in conversation with me, as an expedient for propagating still more extensively the knowledge of facts designed to be perpetuated in medals, that their devices should be impressed on the current ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... After that she removed to New York and for the next seven years she battled with adverse fortune in the theatres of that city and of Albany and Philadelphia. From 1837 to 1840 she was under engagement at the old Park as walking lady and for general utility business. "I became aware," she wrote, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabin windows; he must serve and learn his trade before the mast. This was the way that I would henceforth ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... romances as vehicles of his new views of human life and happiness. Among his tales are "Agathon," "Musarion," and "Aristippus," which last is considered his best work. In all these writings his purpose was to represent pleasure or utility as the only criterion of truth. Although there is much in his prose writings to subject him to severe censure, he maintains his place in the literature of his native country as one of its most gay, witty, and graceful ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Blackguard is written in their faces. The poacher needs some courage, at least; he knows a penalty awaits detection. These fellows have no idea of sport, no courage, and no skill, for their tricks are simplicity itself, nor have they the pretence of utility, for they do not catch birds for the good of the farmers or the market gardeners, but merely that they may booze without working for ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the will of the people expressed in the most solemn form, and the constituted authorities are but agents to carry that will into effect. Every power which it has granted is to be exercised for the public good; but no pretense of utility, no honest conviction, even, of what might be expedient, can justify the assumption of any power not granted. The powers conferred upon the Government and their distribution to the several departments are as clearly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... emotions, and a warm-hearted and benevolent feeling towards our fellow-creatures; and for the most part afford a just and unperverted view of human character and conduct. In them a very sparing use is made of satire—that weapon of questionable utility—which perhaps has never yet done much good in any hands, not even in those of Pope or Young. Satire is thought useful, too much because it gratifies the uncharitableness of our nature. But to hold up wisdom and virtue to our admiration, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... months passed away, and still they spared our Hubert. Others were taken away and met their most doleful fate, but the more youthful and active slaves were spared awhile, not out of pity, but because of their utility; and Hubert's fine constitution enabled him still to live. But he could not have lived on had he not still hoped. The tremendous inscription seen by the poet over the sombre gate of hell was not yet burnt into his young heart: All ye that ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... was to be supposed; and if he had encouraged her to adopt a profession rich in opportunities for comradeship it was not for him to cry out because she had taken to it kindly. He had already descried a fund of utility in Mrs. Lovick's light brother; but it irritated him, all the same, after a while, to hear the youth represent himself as almost indispensable. He was practical—there was no doubt of that; and this idea added to Peter's paradoxical ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... since—but stay, it is not my intention to tell the reader, at least in this place, how and when I became a blacksmith. There was one thing, however, which stood me in good stead in my labour, the same thing which through life has ever been of incalculable utility to me, and has not unfrequently supplied the place of friends, money, and many other things of almost equal importance—iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of time and circumstance are of very little avail in any ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... destructive either to sound Doctrine, or to Godlinesse: And herein we are confident, the experience of all the Reformed Churches will bear witnesse with us. Nor do we doubt but in England also, time and experience will more and more commend, not only the beautifull order, but the great utility, yea, necessity of this Government, and dispell all the clouds of aspersions and prejudices which it lieth under among such as know it not, who ought therefore to beware of speaking evill of the things they ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... small utility parts and understudied the leading man. On the rare occasions when he played the lead, he made no great hit. The company did not, after the generous way of theatre folks, surround him, when the performance was over, with a chorus of congratulation. The manager would say, "Quite ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... at low water. This patch is only one cable to the westward of the line of lights, and a continuance of similar growths will render the entrance at night exceedingly difficult, and probably destroy the utility of the present leading lights. The channel, however, at present maintains a depth in its shallowest part of 21 feet at low water, spring tides. The attached plan shows the position of the line of lights in relation ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... in Udaipur of works of beneficence executed by Telis. "The Teli-ki-Sarai or oilman's caravanserai is not conspicuous for magnitude; but it is remarkable not merely for its utility but even for its elegance of design. The Teli-ka-Pul or Oilman's Bridge at Nurabad is a magnificent memorial of the trade and deserves preservation. These Telis perambulate the country with skins of oil on a bullock ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Coligny's army, discovered a ford by which a part of the Germans crossed. The main body laid siege to the town of La Charite, which was soon reduced (on the twentieth of May), the Huguenots thus gaining a bridge and stronghold that proved of great utility for their future operations. Six days after the king had demonstrated the impossibility of the enterprise, Deux Ponts was on the western side of the Loire.[692] Meantime, Coligny and La Rochefoucauld were advancing to meet him with ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... trees, on the lands we have to-day passed through, are more numerous than usual; and the country being undulating and well cultivated, the scenery is beautiful; but, as everywhere else, it is devoid of all architectural beauty in works of ornament or utility— not even a comfortable habitation is anywhere to be seen. The great landholders live at a distance from the road, and in forts or strongholds. These are generally surrounded by fences of living bamboos, which are carefully kept ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... authentic information as to the characters, habits, and motives of witnesses, accusers, and accused. Their devotion to public business is wholly disinterested, for there are no pecuniary emoluments attached to the office, which has truly little to recommend it, save as being a sphere of active utility, and as a gratifying token of the good-will of one's fellow-citizens. The proper style of the Court is the "Court of the Mayor and Aldermen in the Inner Chamber." It consists of the Lord Mayor or his deputy—an alderman who ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... combustion, so that all will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of leather, so that it crumbles to meal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... principle reason, but they also considered it advisable as a restorative, and a useful precaution not to overstrain the energies of the youths they both so much enjoyed. My late experiences at home had already taught me the advantage and utility of a quiet night's rest after frequent contests in the fields of Venus ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... foreigners: the Italian Vacarius, brought by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, had professed law at Oxford in 1149.[302] Then Anglo-Normans and English begin to codify and interpret their laws; they write general treatises; they collect precedents; and so well do they understand the utility of precedents that these continue to have in legal matters, up to this day, an importance which no other nation has credited them with. Ralph Glanville, Chief Justice under Henry II., writes or inspires a "Treatise of the laws and customs ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... obelisks. This disaster, the most dreadful which Egypt had ever known, followed suddenly upon a period of extraordinary prosperity, when new cities were built, and old cities enlarged; works of great public utility were constructed, a mercantile intercourse established with the surrounding nations, and the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, favoured by the long peace and the abundant resources of the country, reached their highest excellence. The reversal of all these signs of prosperity ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... any way resembling my case, I knew not how to explain myself. Besides, I desired to make nothing known, but the evil which was in me. Therefore Monsieur Bertot knew me not, even till his death. This was of great utility to me, by taking away every support, and making me ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... equally clear that neither in France nor in England has the original or any subsequent compact of the state, expressed or implied, constituted a majority of men, told by the head, to be the acting people of their several communities. And I see as little of policy or utility as there is of right, in laying down a principle that a majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is to be law. What policy can there be found in arrangements made in defiance of every political principle? To enable men to act with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and profess good- will is but hypocrisy. We cannot occupy the land without producing a change, fully as great to the aborigines, as that which took place on man's fall and expulsion from Eden. They have hitherto lived utterly ignorant of the necessity for wearing fig leaves, or the utility of ploughs; and in this blissful state of ignorance they would, no doubt, prefer to remain. We bring upon them the punishments due to original sin, even before they know the shame of nakedness. Such were the reflections suggested to my mind by the young savage as ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... enterprise. When he looked at anything it was always with the query running through his mind, how can this be turned to account? The beauty of utility was the beauty which Tony's eyes detected and ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... depends essentially on THE CUMULATIVE AUGMENTATION of minute variations in the direction of utility. But can such minute variations, which are undoubtedly continually appearing among the individuals of the same species, possess any selection-value; can they determine which individuals are to survive, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... desire proof of the great utility of your publication, methinks there is a goodly quantum of it in the very interesting and valuable information on the Collar of SS., which the short simple question of B. (Vol. ii., p. 89.) has drawn forth; all tending to illustrate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... the name of domestic exchanges differ essentially in their nature, operation, and utility. One class of them consists of bills of exchange drawn for the purpose of transferring actual capital from one part of the country to another, or to anticipate the proceeds of property actually transmitted. Bills of this description ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... of Hamilton's chair, claimed also the right to decide as to what subjects the professor should lecture on, and pronounced Metaphysics to be "an abstruse subject, not generally considered as of any great or permanent utility." But, while this controversy was raging without, within all was calm. "We were quietly engaged"—wrote Cairns twenty years later—"in our discussions as to the existence of the external world while the storm was raging without, and only felt it to be another form of the ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... called for a scene more majestically ornamented; and, lastly, he frequently endeavoured to give to his pieces a political or philosophical interest altogether foreign to poetry. His labours hare unquestionably been of utility to the French stage, although in language and versification (which in the classification of dramatic excellences ought only to hold a secondary place, though in France they alone almost decide the fate of a piece), he is, by most critics, considered inferior to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and religious sanction to my desire. Was I not trying to do that very thing now? It tortured me to think so; I strove to achieve a detached consideration of the problem,—to arrive at length at a thought that seemed illuminating: that the it "wrongness" or "rightness," utility and happiness of all such unions depend upon whether or not they become a part of the woof and warp of the social fabric; in other words, whether the gratification of any particular love by divorce ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... young fig-trees; of rows of the sword-bundles of pineapple tops. Everything except the old-fashioned flower-bed, with its border of mignonette, and the generous beds of roses and other flowers of the bountiful sisterhood of petals of artificial cultivation, spoke of utility which must make the ground pay ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... just the same with the agents of Louis XVIII. in France. It is in the course of things, in the nature of man, that they should feed the Bourbons with hopes of a possible return, were it only to induce a belief in their own talent and utility."—"That is very true! You are quite right; but I am not afraid. However, something might perhaps be done—we shall see." Here the subject dropped, and our conversation turned on the Consulate for life, and Bonaparte spoke in unusually mild terms ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... there was Uppinall, who, when he entered the office, was supposed to know everything which a young man had ever known. Those who looked most to dead knowledge were inclined to back him as first favourite. It had, however, been remarked, that his utility as a clerk had not been equal to the profundity of his acquirements. Of all the candidates ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope |
