"Poorness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... designed the church of S. Jacopo at Pistoia, and set some Tuscan masters to work there in mosaic, who did the vaulting of the apse. But although it was considered a difficult and costly thing at the time, it rather moves one to laughter and compassion to-day, and not to admiration, oh account of the poorness of the design, a defect which was prevalent not only in Tuscany, but throughout Italy, where the number of buildings and other things erected without method and without design betray the poverty of their minds no less than the bountiful riches lavished on them by the men of their day; a wasteful ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... used to grow very thick, and to rise three or four feet high. A piece of ground which, when he wrote, could not maintain one cow, would in former times, he was assured, have maintained four, each of which would have given four times the quantity of milk which that one was capable of giving. The poorness of the pasture had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their cattle, which degenerated sensibly from me generation to another. They were probably not unlike that stunted breed which was common ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... told came from the south shore of Botany Bay. I thought the other natives seemed to make her an object of their merriment. In general, indeed almost universally, the limbs of these people were small; of most of them the arms, legs, and thighs were thin. This, no doubt, is owing to the poorness of their living, which is chiefly on fish; otherwise the fineness of the climate, co-operating with the exercise which they take, might have rendered them more muscular. Those who live on the sea-coast depend entirely on fish for their sustenance; while the few who dwell in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Trinity Ward Relief Committee, whose admirable letter in the London Times, attracted so much attention about a month ago. I met several members of the committee at his lodgings, and we had an hour's interesting conversation. I learnt that, in cases of sickness arising from mere weakness, from poorness of diet, or from unsuitableness of the food commonly provided by the committee, orders were now issued for such kind of "kitchen physic" as was recommended by the doctors. The committee had many cases of this kind. One instance was mentioned, in which, by the doctor's advice, four ounces ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... doubt an effort was made to hide the wiggishness of his wigs, but what effect in that direction was ever made successfully? He was, moreover, weak, thin, and physically poor, and had, no doubt, increased this weakness and poorness by hard living. Though others thought him old, time had gone swiftly with him, and he still thought himself a young man. He hunted, though he could not ride. He shot, though he could not walk. And, unfortunately, he ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... him, was all for Heathcote, and eloquent on the abominable sins of piety and inconstancy. And when he was with Dick he was all for Dick, and discoursed no less eloquently on the wickedness of deceit and poorness of spirit. Sometimes his bad memory, and the quick transitions of allegiance through which he was called upon to pass, made him forget his role, and condole with Dick on Heathcote's piety, or with Heathcote on Dick's poverty of spirit; and sometimes, when, in the company of the one, ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... stately, and perhaps a very little ostentatious withal, on the arrival of the party at the inn, insisted upon the two gentlemen doing him the honour of supping with him that night, "as well," he said, "as the poorness of the place would permit;" and a room apart having been assigned to him, he retired thither, with the humbly bowing host, to issue his own orders regarding their provision. The larder of the inn, however, proved to be miraculously well ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... he looked on as atrophied branches, and seem to result from poorness of soil, as the same plants, which, in hungry land, produce spines, develop their branches to the full extent when grown under more ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... hulsomer-lookin' gal. My Luke, he run the furrers in her corn-patch last May. Said it made him sick to see a gal like that a-staggerin' after a plough. She wouldn't more 'n half let him. She's a proud little piece. They're all proud, Quakers is. I never could see no 'poorness of spirit,' come to git at 'em. And they're wonderful clannish, too. My Luke, he'd a notion he'd like to run the hull concern, Dorothy 'n' all; but I told him he might's well p'int off. Them Quaker gals don't never marry out o' meetin'. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... we have. Seemingly the pecan is the stock that gets the greatest number of catches; but the difficulty the writer has had in making Vest hickories on pecan root live, leads him to question as to whether another stock might not prove better. Another thing disappointing so far is in the seeming poorness of the mockernut as a stock. Over quite a large section of the United States the mockernut is the prevailing hickory, and in that section the mockernut will be most generally available for top working; moreover it will grow well in sandy soils where the shagbark is not found. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... thrown to me as to others, I cannot say. Sometimes, fancying so—hoping so, I would follow. Yet never could I summon up sufficient resolution to face the possible rebuff before some less timid swain would swoop down upon the quarry. Then I would hurry on, cursing myself for the poorness of my spirit, fancying mocking contempt in the laughter that ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... says as to fire at great altitudes not cooking so effectually as usual is perfectly correct as far as anything boiled is concerned, but I doubt if it is as to anything roasted. The want of brightness in a fire at great altitudes is, I think, altogether attributable to the poorness of the fuel, which consists of either small sticks or bits of roots, or of argols of dung, all of which give out a good deal of smoke, more especially the latter if not quite dry; but I have often seen a ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... sculptures in the British Museum amazing, but the beauty and proportions of its architecture are of a refinement that is, I think, never even attempted in these days. What architect now thinks of correcting the poorness of hard, straight lines by very slightly curving them? Or of slightly sloping inwards the columns of his facade to add to the strength of its appearance? The amount of these variations is of the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... judgment, as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be showed at half lights, and to whom and when (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him, a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally, to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose, or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest, and wariest way, in general; like the going softly, by one that cannot ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... man of education, interested her more than the others. He rose and bowed to her when she entered his cell, apologizing for the poorness of his apartment. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... received your two letters of the 1st and 5th of January, N. S. I am very glad that you have been at all the shows at Versailles: frequent the courts. I can conceive the murmurs of the French at the poorness of the fireworks, by which they thought their king of their country degraded; and, in truth, were things always as they should be, when kings give shows they ought to ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who saddled Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. Many of these makers ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was seated, and ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Venice, on a great occasion, as the centre itself of the splendid Piazza: he had seen her there, on a still greater one, in his own poor rooms, which yet had consorted with her, having state and ancientry even in their poorness; but Mrs. Condrip's interior, even by this best view of it and though not flagrantly mean, showed itself as a setting almost grotesquely inapt. Pale, grave and charming, she affected him at once as a distinguished ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... fishing is no mean trial of endurance, while the fierceness of the stream will generally account for a good percentage of lost fish. With regard to the falling off of sport in August, it may be quite possible that the salmon may really have nothing to do with the poorness of fishing at this time, but that the real reason may be that the fish are fat and gorged with the abundance of fly and grasshopper, and lie lazily, deep in the pools. In other parts of British Columbia fishing is poor at this time, and in waters ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... Such was the poorness of the neighbourhood that none of the Lancastrian lords, and but few of their retainers, had been lodged therein; and the inhabitants, with one accord, deserted their houses and fled, squalling, along the streets or over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Caesar speaks after common men in this, To make a difference of me for my poorness; As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep Into a knowing spirit, as the bane Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. No, Caesar, they be pathless, moorish minds That being once made rotten with the dung Of damned riches, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... the most part, to ignorant and fanatical pretenders. Let it be diligently cultivated by educated men, and we shall find no more cause to expel it from the pulpit than from the forum or the parliament. "Poverty, inelegance, and poorness of diction," will be no longer so "generally observed," and even hearers of taste ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... Head, after having disclosed a religious Thought. Decency of Behaviour, all outward Show of Virtue, and Abhorrence of Vice, are carefully avoided by this Set of Shame-faced People, as what would disparage their Gayety of Temper, and infallibly bring them to Dishonour. This is such a Poorness of Spirit, such a despicable Cowardice, such a degenerate abject State of Mind, as one would think Human Nature incapable of, did we not meet with frequent Instances of it in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... thing he had loved before, out of supposed compliment the transcendental object of his affections and his own awakened merits. All the heights of love and wisdom terminate in charity; and charity, by very reason of its knowing the poorness of so many things, hates nothing. Besides, it is any thing but handsome or high-minded to turn round upon objects whom we have helped to lower with our own gratified passions, and pretend a ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... their room, as they nearly always did after they went to bed and the street lamp shone in and lighted their bare little room. They often sat up clasping their knees, Marco on his poor bed, The Rat on his hard sofa, but neither of them conscious either of the poorness or hardness, because to each one the long unknown sense of companionship was such a satisfying thing. Neither of them had ever talked intimately to another boy, and now they were together day and night. They revealed their thoughts to each other; they told each other things it had ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... misery. "Poverty is when you are poor; misery means suffering." "Only the poor are in poverty, but everybody can be miserable." "Poverty is the lowest stage of poorness; misery means pain." "The poor are not always miserable, and the rich are miserable sometimes." "Poverty means to be in want; misery comes from any kind of suffering or anguish." "The poor are in poverty; the sick are in misery." "Poverty ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... the poorness of their land, almost all the Somali are wandering pastorals, which of itself is enough to account for their turbulent natures. The system of government they maintain is purely patriarchal, and is succeeded to by order ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... comment. I simply introduce you to this gentleman, who had been restored to his native land after ten months of entombment, in order to mention that on the following morning, when his breakfast was placed before him, he turned up his nose at it. Loudly complaining of the poorness of the food, he leant out of bed, picked up a brown-paper parcel which had been his only luggage, and produced from it some German salted herring, which he proceeded to ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... far from being the only redeeming passage. There is one, indeed, in which he illustrates what he then thought Buonaparte's poorness of spirit in adversity, {p.077} which always struck me as preeminently characteristic of Scott's manner of interweaving, both in prose and verse, the moral energies with analogous natural description, and combining thought ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... their best. It was also ascertained that while Mr. Hales senior was living the trees had received an application of manure every year. Since his death they have not. This, in connection with the poorness of the soil for hickories, seems possible may be the reason for the cessation of bearing. It also seems likely that bitternut root is not a good stock for the shagbark. I have on my place two grafted Cedarapids trees, each of which when received was four years from the graft ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... shaken as to my first decision. Was I wise, I asked myself, to trust all my eggs (forgive, Sir ALEC BLACK, the poorness of this metaphor) to one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... seldom had any, and when I asked her why, she said, with tears, 'I used to laugh at Abby, because she had only crusty, dry bread, and so she wouldn't bring any. I ought to give her mine and be hungry, it was so mean to make fun of her poorness.'" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various |
