"Nugatory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... language. Can then sublimity of versification, the harmony of numbers, reconcile man to the idea that the puny offspring of natural causes is adequate for a single instant to dispute the commands, to thwart the desires, to render nugatory the decrees of a Being whose wisdom is of the most polished perfection; whose goodness is boundless; whose power must be more capacious than the human ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... arose out of the experience, now first obtained, that these assassins pursued the plan of secreting themselves within the house where they meditated a murder. All the care, therefore, previously directed to the securing of doors and windows after nightfall appeared nugatory. The other feature brought to light on this occasion was vouched for by one of the servants, who declared that, the moment before the door of the kitchen was fastened upon herself and fellow servant, she ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... life became a savor unto death. In short, it will appear from the example of Rome, that man cannot save himself; that he cannot originate any means of conservation which will not be foiled and rendered nugatory by the force of human corruption; that man, left to himself, will defeat his own purposes, and that all his enterprises and projects will end in shame and humiliation, so far as they are intended to preserve society. The history of all the pagan races and countries ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... wife and children, native soil, and all That once they deemed life's sweetest, at thy call; Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted; Wearied for months at sea—yet ever painted Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain Invalidated pain, Cured the sick soul—made nugatory evil Of man ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the way for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the title 'Testimonies of Authors,' some straggle of real documents, which, now that I find it again, sets the matter into clear light and sequence;—and shall here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, be reprinted as it ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... one's back; done up, dead beat, exhausted, shattered, demoralized; graveled &c (in difficulty) 704; helpless, unfriended^, fatherless; without a leg to stand on, hors de combat [Fr.], laid on the shelf. null and void, nugatory, inoperative, good for nothing; ineffectual &c (failing) 732; inadequate &c 640; inefficacious &c (useless) 645. Phr. der kranke Mann [G.]; desirous still but impotent to rise [Shenstone]; the spirit is willing but the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in which the woman, the type of the Israelitish people, is called completion,—i.e., one who, in her whoredom, had proceeded to the highest pitch,—is so obvious from the context, as to render nugatory the argument which Maurer (p. 360) has drawn from the omission of express statements on this point, in order thereby to recommend his own interpretation, which is altogether opposed to the laws of the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity "anemone-words;" for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant, only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the daisy; a flower indeed common enough, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... circumstances it will not be out of place to inquire into the nature of this peace about which swings this wide orbit of opinion and argument. At the most, such an inquiry can be no more gratuitous and no more nugatory than the controversies that provoke it. The intrinsic merits of peace at large, as against those of warlike enterprise, it should be said, do not here come in question. That question lies in the domain of preconceived opinion, so that for the purposes of this inquiry it ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... enough to cultivate it properly. Illiberality, jealousy, and local policy, mix too much in our public councils, for the good government of the union. In a word, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance; and congress a nugatory body, their ordinances being little attended to. To me, it is a solecism in politics:—indeed it is one of the most extraordinary things in nature, that we should confederate as a nation, and yet be afraid to give the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall |
