"Practicability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his quarter-deck days in applying for leave or seeking promotion. Many, perhaps most, of the inventions which it was thus sought to father upon the Sea Lords, were happily never more heard of; but here and there one, commending itself by its seeming practicability, was selected for trial and duly put to ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... was addressed to the bishops "in council," and prayed for the appointment of a commission to report upon the practicability of making this Church a central bond of union among the Christian people of America, by providing for as much freedom in opinion, discipline, and worship as might be held to be compatible with the essential faith and order ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... convinced of the practicability of Jack's scheme that he set about immediately to put it ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... clemency and the other murder. M. de Villars not being able to make up his mind, on reaching Nimes, d'Aygaliers assembled the principal Protestants of the town, told them of his plan, showing them its practicability, so that also joined in the good work, and drew up a document in which they asked the marechal to allow them to take up arms and march against the rebels, as they were determined either to bring them back into the good way ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... laughed and cried, all in one bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out of Matocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would take the train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme sounded preposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability in performance. And ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... tone. In relation to another railroad, the "Boston Transcript" of Sept. 1, 1830, remarks: "It is not astonishing that so much reluctance exists against plunging into doubtful speculations.... The public itself is divided as to the practicability of the Rail Road. If they expect the assistance of capitalists, they must stand ready to guarantee the percentum per annum; without this, all hopes of Rail Roads are visionary and chimerical." In a report of legislative proceedings published in the "Boston Courier," of Jan. 25, 1830, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... camp. And, in truth, if ever an army might be permitted to murmur, it was this. In landing they had borne great hardships, not only without repining, but with cheerfulness; their hopes had been excited by false reports, as to the practicability of the attempt in which they were embarked; and now they found themselves entangled amidst difficulties from which there appeared to be no escape, except by victory. In their attempts upon the enemy's line, however, they had been twice foiled; in artillery ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... to Montreal, Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. His statements appear to have been based on theoretical considerations; but there is no longer any doubt as to the possibility of transferring power in this manner—its practicability for industrial purposes must be determined by trial. Dr. Paget Higgs, a distinguished English electrician, is now experimenting on it in the City of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... a series of surveys were made by government to ascertain the practicability of a railroad to the Pacific. The country, however, at that time, was not prepared to engage in such an enterprise; but now the people are calling for greater facility of communication with a section of the country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... quite possible to bring down to ordinary capacities even the truths of pure mathematics, by the substitution of a less general and precise species of evidence. We have ourselves made the attempt, and hence we are satisfied of its entire practicability. Into what a small space would the useful and practical truths of geometry be reduced, were we to dispense with the auxiliary propositions which are required merely to complete the rigid process of demonstration. How simple, for example, would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... he might reasonably have been preferred to the horse. Today Lord Kames, (or even old Hesiod, who urged that a ploughman of forty year and a yoke of eight year steers be employed because they turned a more deliberate and so a better furrow) would be considering the economical practicability of the gasolene motor as tractive power for ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... still greater than that of Raymond Lulli. Roger Bacon firmly believed in the philosopher's stone, and spent much of his time in search of it. His example helped to render all the learned men of the time more convinced of its practicability, and more eager in the pursuit. He was born at Ilchester, in the county of Somerset, in the year 1214. He studied for some time in the University of Oxford, and afterwards in that of Paris, in which he received the degree of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the practicability of airship flying impressed the smallest Corner House girl deeply. She intended to return to talk to Sammy and Tess about it; but on her way, as she came along the path next to the Willow Street fence, she suddenly saw Sammy's bandy-legged bulldog ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... of three and twenty he had already formed well-defined, profound, and comprehensive views on the situation and wants of these states. He had clearly discerned the practicability of forming a confederated government and adapting it to their peculiar condition, resources, and exigencies. He had wrought out for himself a political system, far in advance of the conceptions of his contemporaries, and one which in the case of those who most opposed ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... speech made on January 22 of this year, showed the English how they could protect themselves against the effects of submarine warfare by increased production in their own country. The practicability and effectiveness of his counsels are more than doubtful. He makes no attempt, however, to instruct his Allies how they are to protect themselves against the throttling of the ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... character to natural science. The possibility of separating generalities from specialties. Examples drawn from astronomy, recent optical discoveries, physical geognosy, and the geography of plants. Practicability of the study of physical cosmography — p. 33-54. Misunderstood popular knowledge, confounding cosmography with a mere encyclopedic enumeration of natural sciences. Necessity for a simultaneous regard for all branches of natural science. Influence ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... than five hundred animals perished from hunger and cold, and the next morning the camp was encircled by their carcasses, coated with a film of ice. It was a scene which could be paralleled only in the retreat of the French from Moscow. Had there been any doubt before concerning the practicability of an immediate advance beyond Fort Bridger, none existed any longer. It was the 16th of November when the vanguard reached that post, which the Mormons had abandoned the week before. Nearly a fortnight had been consumed in accomplishing less than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... expressed by eminent scientific men as to the practicability of successfully transmitting wireless messages through long distances, since these waves, travelling in all directions, would soon become too attenuated to produce intelligible signals; but when it was shown, from theoretical considerations, that these waves when traversing great distances ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... battery of violent rhetoric. It is scarcely too much to call Thomas Paine the Rousseau of English democracy. For, if his arguments lacked the novelty of those of the Genevese thinker (and even they were far from original), they equalled them in effectiveness, and excelled them in practicability. "The Rights of Man" (Part I) may be termed an insular version of the "Contrat Social," with this difference, that the English writer pointed the way to changes which were far from visionary, while the Genevese seer outlined a polity fit only for a Swiss canton peopled by philosophers. Paine had ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... standardization should be carried out, and also what variations should be introduced into its application. That such cases are not infrequent is borne out by the Australasian experience of which Mr. Collier writes, "In regard to the practicability of the common rule, opinion differs. In some staple industries such as coal mining, it has been said to operate fairly. But its application to small industries and retail stores, where conditions vary more widely, is fraught with considerable risk and is proceeded with slowly.... While the power ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... corrected and reasonably divided text; and 2d, the key to it. For that purpose I must see whether I shall succeed in executing the most difficult part, Isaiah and Jeremiah. And I have advanced so far with this since yesterday evening, that I see the child can move, it can walk. The outward practicability depends on many things, but I have thoroughly worked through the plan ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... existence of them all, and earnestly begging them to give the matter their most serious consideration. Suggestions were, of course, at once offered in plenty, but they all possessed one very serious drawback; they lacked practicability. The least unpromising of them all was that of Captain Blyth, who boldly advocated the abandonment of the scheme for building a vessel; and proposed that, instead of incurring the delay and risk involved in the carrying out of ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... December, 1908, suggested to me the practicability of holding a North American Conservation Conference. I selected Gifford Pinchot to convey this invitation in person to Lord Grey, Governor General of Canada; to Sir Wilfrid Laurier; and to President ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of this sort of thing, educational conferences resound with it. What the world is not full of is the capacity to organize these things, to drag them, struggling and clinging to a thousand unanticipated difficulties, from the region of the counsel of perfection to the region of manifest practicability. For that there is needed attention, industry, and an intelligent use of a fair sum of money. We want an industrious committee, and we want one or two rich men. A series of books, a model course of instruction, has to be planned and made, tried over, criticised, revised and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... true. The little iron door, which had permitted access to the well, for the ordinary domestic purposes of the family, was still there; and it was only after each had cast a look down the deep shaft, that he appeared satisfied of the practicability of the deed. Then a look of triumph gleamed in the swarthy visage of Philip, while the features of his associate expressed equally his satisfaction and his regret. They walked apart, musing on what they had just seen and heard; and when they spoke, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... for fixing the reflections of objects in a pool of water, and thus taking the most life-like portraits imaginable; and the same gentleman demonstrated the practicability of giving a permanent dye to ladies' dresses, in the gorgeous clouds of sunset. There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual motion, one of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper editors and writers of every description. Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous storm in a ...
— The Hall of Fantasy (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... practicability of this table for general laundry use, will be apparent without further explanation. The board, B, when drawn out will be used for ironing skirts, shirts, and other garments requiring a board of this character, and when the table is closed ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... come here to-morrow, we need not explore the place now. Shall we go down at once and observe the whole path, with a view to the practicability of carrying her up?" ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the other side of the globe was represented in such striking language as to interest the honour and pride of the colonists in renouncing the government of Great Britain. The necessity, the advantage and practicability ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... and lines of development bear eloquent testimony to the practicability of human improvement, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... proudest and the most profitable postal and mercantile steam marine that floats the seas. Several large companies, authorized to transport the mails to all parts of the world, were immediately organized, and paid liberal allowances for their peculiar duties. Where the practicability of the service was considered doubtful, larger sums were paid, and a greater length of time granted for making the experiment. The contracts were generally made for twelve years; and when their terms expired they were renewed for another term of twelve years, which will expire in ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... government without any visible head, until the next meeting of Congress. We have since seen the same thing take place, in the Directory of France; and I believe it will for ever take place in any Executive consisting of a plurality. Our plan, best, I believe, combines wisdom and practicability, by providing a plurality of Counsellors, but a single Arbiter for ultimate decision. I was in France when we heard of this schism and separation of our Committee, and, speaking with Dr. Franklin of this singular disposition of men to quarrel, and divide into parties, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... scale, and doubtless with great success. Mr. Hutt, the late governor, whose constant anxiety to promote the interests of the settlers in every way must long endear him to their memories, always appeared extremely sanguine as to the practicability of making this a ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... instance, those of turnip, cabbage, beet, lettuce, are planted widely apart, to guard against possible admixture; but the chances of that result must be much less than is popularly supposed, efforts having been used experimentally to test its practicability, and that between kindred closely allied, without success. Although the extent of the grounds would appear to be formidable, even for a farm conducted in the usual mode, it is insufficient for the demands on the proprietors, without diligent exertion and prompt recropping,—two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... capital. But even on this plan we must suppose the force to have already surmounted the thousand and one passes which occur between Cabul and Koollum. Much has been printed and a great deal more written and wisely left unprinted concerning the practicability of these routes for a modern army; it savours of a useless truism to state, that if the government making the attempt has resources sufficient in men, transport, and treasure, and dwells not upon the sacrifice of these three necessaries for an army, the thing may be done; but I ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... direct his attention to a kind of masculinization of his daughter and to schemes for giving her the completest control of all he had to leave her provided she never married nor fell under masculine sway. "After all," he would reflect as he hesitated over the practicability of his life's ideal, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... watch machines for keeping the longitude by difference of time, one on Mr. Harrison's principles, the other by Mr. Arnold; and, in short, every possible arrangement was made effectually to decide the long-agitated question concerning the practicability of a north-east ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... careful examination of the spot, the site of the tree, its dimensions, and the direction of its growth, convinced me fully of the practicability of this expedient, and I determined to carry it into immediate execution. For this end I must hasten home, procure an axe, and return with all expedition hither. I took my former way, once more entered the subterranean avenue, and slowly re-emerged into day. Before I reached home, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... "I never lost faith in the practicability of the invention, nor abandoned the intention of testing it as soon as I could command the means." But in order to command the means, he was obliged to devote himself to his art, and in this he did not meet with the encouragement which he had expected and which he deserved. His ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and it depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz as an artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption that the enemy was not in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... our foreign commerce, had advanced the market value of United States notes to ninety-seven and three-eighths per cent., or within nearly two and a half per cent. of coin. They had also conclusively demonstrated the practicability of restoring United States notes to par, in coin, by the time fixed by law, and that without disturbing either domestic or foreign trade or commerce. Every step had been accompanied with growing business, with the advance of public credit, and the steady appreciation ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... daring of the artilleryman, and the tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position, reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine, crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by apprehension. We talked ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... which he could do him service was to save his life, proposed to him a very probable method of escaping, which for reasons not hard to be guessed at, I shall forbear describing. He pressed him so often and made the practicability of the thing so plain that the criminal at last condescended to make the experiment, and his friend promised the next day to bring him ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... at one stroke from a nation of landlords into a nation of peasant proprietors—apparently without loss to any one, and with gain to everybody concerned, except the British Government, who neither gain nor lose in the matter. The practicability, however, of such a scheme depends altogether on the security against loss afforded to the British tax-payer, for he is industrious and heavily burdened, and cannot be expected to assent to any plan which will land him ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... said he was sure, if she would but try, he would soon convince her of the practicability of learning. She promised to try—and in the attempt she was greatly encouraged by the assurances of her husband ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... be considered, by those, who meditate the project of reunion, is, its practicability—those, who are disposed, to contend for the affirmative, will observe, the number of important articles, of Christian Faith, in which, all Christians, are agreed, and the proportionally small number of those, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... He then hastened to Marius, acquainted him with what he had done, and urged him to attack the fort on that side where he had ascended, offering himself to lead the way and the attempt. Marius sent some of those about him, along with the Ligurian, to examine the practicability of his proposal, who, according to their several dispositions, reported the affair as difficult or easy. The consul's hopes, however, were somewhat encouraged; and he accordingly selected, from his band of trumpeters and bugle-men, five of the most nimble, and with them four centurions ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... and "thine" will ensure unity, because it abolishes the primary cause of discord; common maintenance by the state removes all temptation either to meanness or cringing. Our guardians will be uncommonly happy. As to practicability: communism is suitable for war. The youngsters will be taken to watch any fighting; cowards will be degraded; valour will be honoured, and death on the field, with other supreme services to the state, will rank the hero among demigods. Against Greeks war must ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... deep-sea sounding seems to be DECISIVE of the question as to the practicability of a submarine telegraph between the two continents in so far as the bottom of the deep sea is concerned. From Newfoundland to Ireland the distance between the nearest points is about 1600 miles, and the bottom of the sea between ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the loosening of the bracing-chains, everything was found in the same entire state in which it had been left in the month of October. This, in the estimation of the writer, was a matter of no small importance to the future success of the work. He from that moment saw the practicability and propriety of fitting up the beacon, not only as a place of refuge in case of accident to the boats in landing, but as a residence for the ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Railroad and was subsequently studied and adopted by railroads in Europe, made it possible to avoid the difficulty of ventilation connected with steam traction in tunnels, and permitted the use of grades practically prohibitive with the steam locomotive. The practicability of the tunnel extension project finally adopted was ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond
... this muddy ditch dropped the little Matthew, with the Cabots in command, bound for the discovery of America; borne on the surface of this liquid mud, the Great Western (built at Bristol) found its way to the sea and demonstrated the practicability of steam traffic with America; and if you ask why Bristol now has so little share in that traffic, although reasons as plenty as blackberries will be showered upon you, perhaps you will find as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... reported that canyon impracticable for a railroad, and yet I have just driven through it without once dismounting from this buckboard. Moreover, we shall find in Copah to-morrow a re-survey of the line showing its entire practicability, Mr. Ford—a report ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... to the expediency or even practicability of instituting a body of this nature so long as fourteen years back, I am aware that there exists a great difference of opinion among the respectable class of the colonists themselves. For my own part, however small may have been the number of those from or by whom a colonial ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth |
