"Practical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The practical jest of Richie Moniplies going behind the arras to get an opportunity of teasing Heriot, was a pleasantry such as James might be supposed to approve of. It was customary for those who knew his humour to contrive jests of this kind for his amusement. The celebrated ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... I knew the whole thing would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward appearance it shortly did; for Dr. Downie advised him not to be in too great a hurry, and whatever he did to do it gradually. He therefore took no further action than to show marked favour to practical engineers and mechanicians. Moreover he started an aeronautical society, which made Bridgeford furious; but so far, I am afraid it has done us no good, for the first ascent was disastrous, involving the death of the poor fellow who made ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Medical Astrology the authors have given a system that is based on years of practical experience. Thirty-six example horoscopes are included, and the subject is ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... political opposition; MUBARAK tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, but moved more aggressively since then to block its influence; civic society groups are sanctioned, but constrained in practical terms; trade unions and professional associations are ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... attracted to itself, if not the abolitionists, certainly all those idealists, like James Russell Lowell and George William Curtis, who had opposed slavery when opposition was neither safe nor popular. To moral principles it added practical considerations. Business men had confidence in it. Workingmen, who longed for the independence of the farmer, owed to its indulgent land policy the opportunity of securing free homesteads in the West. The immigrant, landing penniless on these shores, as a ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and a sound mind. It was a happy day for Jim when, with Harry and the dog bounding before him, and Benedict leaning on his arm, he walked over to his old cabin, and all ate together at his own rude table. Jim never encouraged his friend's questions. He endeavored, by every practical way, to restrain his mind from wandering into the past, and encouraged him to associate his future with his present society and surroundings. The stronger the patient grew, the more willing he became to shut out the past, which, as memory sometimes—nay, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... an indifferent tone, but he changed the subject and went back to the question of the rival serenader's identity. 'It might be as well to think of more practical matters,' he said. 'The excellent Tommaso has not found out anything about the man you wounded last night, though he has already ascertained exactly where the ex-Queen of Sweden keeps ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... now come to the practical question, what is to be done? You will tell me, with reason, that I have said nothing, till I declare how much, according to my opinion, of the ultimate price ought to be distributed through the whole ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... stamped his way through the crowded store to the dusty street. Then it struck him that he had not asked the name of the man to whom Katharine was promised. He swore at himself for the omission. Whether he knew him or not, he was determined to fight him. In the meantime, the most practical revenge was to try and see Katherine before her father had the opportunity to give her any orders regarding him. Just then he met Neil Semple, and he stopped and ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... described by the donor as intended to promote "the ethical side of business life, including the morals and ethics of public service." I shall first ask your attention to the history of the profession, which shows that a paid advocacy is the only practical system, and to the rules of conduct to which lawyers must be held in order that such a system shall promote justice. I cannot claim to have any peculiar knowledge upon this subject other than that derived from a somewhat brief practice of five years at the Bar, from an experience ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... tried to think what this ride would be if another woman he knew were riding on that horse ahead, but there was very small satisfaction in that. In the first place, it was highly improbable, and the young man was of an intensely practical turn of mind. It was impossible to imagine the haughty beauty in a brown calico riding a high-spirited horse of the wilds. There was but one parallel. If she had been there, she would, in her present state of mind, likely be riding imperiously ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose upon him. He may be said to be amenable only to the tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too much taken up with the airy world of contemplation to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... strongly in their dealings with the Dutch envoy. Halifax showed an admirable talent for disquisition, but shrank from coming to any bold and irrevocable decision. Danby far less subtle and eloquent, displayed more energy, resolution, and practical sagacity. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Something practical and businesslike, rather, tres chere. I am thinking that for a concealment, if a concealment were necessary, this is the finest house ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... "are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics." Everybody perceives the sense in which this is true. For the science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the stream of history, like grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... masterly, not at all conspicuous at the outset for intellectual depth or seriousness, not at all obtrusive of its "mission;" but exhibiting simply a gift for acting, an abundant faculty of rhythmical speech, and a power of minute observation, joined with a thoroughly practical or commercial handling of the problem of life, in a calling not usually taken-to by commercially-minded men. What emerges for us thus far is the conception of a very plastic intelligence, a good deal led and swayed by immediate circumstances; but at bottom ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... the Philip of "The Bothie" may have "hewed and dug" to good purpose in New Zealand, success in colonial farming was a wild and fleeting dream in my father's case. He was born for academic life and a scholar's pursuits. He had no practical gifts, and knew nothing whatever of land or farming. He had only courage, youth, sincerity, and a charming presence which made him friends at sight. His mother, indeed, with her gentle wisdom, put no obstacles in his way. On the contrary, she remembered that her husband had ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... exclaimed the lady, adopting the practical with admirable readiness. "Thomas R. Billings is the name of the low brute who stands between the happiness of his legal—his legal, but not his spiritual—wife and Henry K. Jessup, the noble man whom nature intended for her mate. I," concluded ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... were authorised to order the removal from the ground of any timber or material they might deem inferior, or not in accordance with the stipulations. The railway contractor's foreman and inspector of sub-contractors was a practical man and a bushman, but he had been a timber-getter himself; his sympathies were bushy, and he was on winking terms with Dave Regan. Besides, extended time was expiring, and the contractors were in a hurry to complete the ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... as Ramball's bald head, but he said it was all a "jolly lark;" and then for want of something else to say to express how he was enjoying himself, he made the same remark again, and then laughed aloud. But it was the same sort of laugh as would be uttered by the victim of a practical joke who has suddenly sat down upon ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... access to human feeling and apprehension; to systematise the end gained; to learn what is universal, what partial, what temporary, what eternal, what presently obligatory, and wherefore; surely a science such as this, so noble in its object, so important in its practical bearings upon the unity and purity of the Church, and upon her relations to the temporal power, is not one of which Mr. Maurice would deliberately speak evil. Yet this is the science of the canonist. [Footnote: ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... examine precisely what is meant by a Balance of Power, we shall see that it presupposes certain conditions of animosity and attempts to neutralise them by the exhibition of superior or, at all events, equivalent forces. A Balance of Power in the continental system assumes, for all practical purposes, that the nations of Europe are ready to fly at each other's throats, and that the only way to deter them is to make them realise how extremely perilous to themselves would be any such military enterprise. Can any one doubt that this is the real meaning of ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... Pleasant practical matters soon recall us to the life of every day. That laborious, out-of-door existence, which seems sordid in superfine English eyes, but which is never without the gaiety that enchanted Goldsmith and Sterne a hundred and fifty ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... lucrative profession. But the ministers of Justinian were instructed to labor, not for the curiosity of antiquarians, but for the immediate benefit of his subjects. It was their duty to select the useful and practical parts of the Roman law; and the writings of the old republicans, however curious or excellent, were no longer suited to the new system of manners, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... am of the opinion (and Judge Methuen indorses it) that we need in this country of ours just that influence which the fairy tale exerts. We are becoming too practical; the lust for material gain is throttling every other consideration. Our babes and sucklings are no longer regaled with the soothing tales of giants, ogres, witches, and fairies; their hungry, receptive minds are filled with stories about the pursuit and slaughter of unoffending animals, of war ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... seriously to busy himself with a successor to Pickwick and Nickleby, which he had not, however, waited thus long before turning over thoroughly in his mind. Nickleby's success had so far outgone even the expectation raised by Pickwick's, that, without some handsome practical admission of this fact at the close, its publishers could hardly hope to retain him. This had been frequently discussed by us, and was well understood. But, apart from the question of his resuming with them at ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... a practical man who made his religion fit what he wanted to do, and what he felt was the proper thing. Bob and Jack were worldly, like the rest of us. The governor got the reputation of being a hard man, and the wine incident did a good deal to add to it. The ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). "They are real Indian, I assure you," said he. "Sambo, give ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... commencement exercises we tell the graduates that they are now passing across a threshold out into the world; that they are now entering into the realms of real life; and that on the morrow they will experience the initial impact of practical life. These time-worn expressions pass current, at face value, among enthusiastic relatives and friends, but there are those in the audience who know them to be the veriest cant, with no basis either in logic or in common sense. It is nothing short of foolishness to assert that a young ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... Aurelius, so distinguished as a man and a philosopher, had supreme contempt of the new apostles of truth, and was one of their most unrelenting persecutors. The early Christian literature is chiefly apologetic, and the doctrinal character of the fathers of this century is simple and practical, showing no great acquaintance with the system of heathen thought. There were controversies in the church—an intense religious life—great activities, great virtues, but no outward conflicts, no secular history, nothing to arrest public notice. But the converts to Christianity, plebeian ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... alone, pulled off the amber robe, and stood before the wardrobe in her silk slip, pushing along the hangers to try and find something practical. It was pretty hard. All her gowns were lovely loose or draped or girdled things: you could have costumed the whole cast of two Maeterlinck plays from just those hangers. She was very tired, suddenly, of all of them. At last she found a green dress that was the delight ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... bill was odious here to all just and honorable men. Massachusetts hated the bill, and was in no haste to "conquer her prejudices" in favor of Justice, Humanity, and the Christian Religion; she did not like the "disagreeable duty" of making a public profession of practical Atheism. At first the yellow fever of the slave-hunters did not extend much beyond the pavements of Boston and Salem; so pains must be taken to spread the malady. The greatest efforts were made to induce the People to renounce their Christianity, to accept and enforce the ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... details we may say that the practical effect is that, while the roving is held firmly by the rollers, it is twisted by means of its connection at the other end to the rotating bobbin, spindle and flyer. The twist runs right from the spindle along the 6 to 12 ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... abused and intrudes everywhere. The Times writes of a recent gale, Considerable damage was done by the gale in practically every parish in Jersey, and again of a bridge on the Seine that The structure has practically been swept away; but it seems that in the sense of 'for practical purposes' it can be defended as a useful word. For instance, a friend, leaving your house at night to walk home, says, It is full moon, isn't it? and you reply Practically, meaning that it is full enough for his purpose. You might say nearabouts or thereabouts ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... of Trade said that all that was necessary to avoid colds was to keep fit and not approach infection. Having offered this very practical advice the speaker gathered up his papers and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... through all its serious fighting, and had gained the complete confidence of all. He had kept a strict discipline without worrying the men about trifles; they could all appreciate his administrative ability, his grasp of detail and practical concern for their comfort. We were fortunate in gaining as his successor Colonel Lloyd Baker, of the Bucks Battalion, who had been well-known earlier in the war as General McClintock's Staff Captain, and he brought to his new duties all ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... thus far controlled the legislation of the country. How this power has been acquired is easily understood when we examine the false ideas respecting slavery which are everywhere prevalent; such as the weakness of the public conscience, in the absence of a practical and experimental knowledge of the truth of God's word—in the atheistic notion, prevailing even in the Church and in the ministry, that the unrighteous enactments of wicked me are paramount in authority to the commandments of the ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... friends and servants, and an elaborate scheme by which his fortune, in the hands of trustees, was to be applied to the erection and support of a retreat for aged actors, to be called "The Edwin Forrest Home." The idea had been long in his mind, and careful directions were drawn up for its practical working; but the trustees found themselves powerless to realize fully the hopes and wishes of the testator. A settlement had to be made to the divorced wife, who acted liberally toward the estate; but the amount withdrawn seriously ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... grace of a startled deer. She uttered no cry, however, perceiving in a moment who it was, gave a troubled little smile, and passed on her way as if nothing had happened. Hugh was not sorry when maternal orders were issued against the practical joke. The boys did not respect their mother very much, but they dared not disobey her, when she spoke ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... reasonable to suppose that they made use of this science to determine their lands, and to make out their several claims, at the retreat of the waters. Many indeed have thought, that the confusion of property, which must for a while have prevailed, gave birth to practical [199]geometry, in order to remedy the evil: and in consequence of it, that charts and maps were first delineated in this country. These, we may imagine, did not relate only to private demesnes: but ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... no difficulty in surrounding himself with such strong supporters as to secure the election of his son or heir, and frequently he had his successor chosen before his death. Thus the monarchy, though nominally elective, was in its practical operation essentially hereditary. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... say that the first class received in the forenoon instruction in practical military engineering ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Infidelity. Edwards' History of Redemption. Morison's Counsels to Young Men. Pike's Persuasives to Early Piety. Anxious Inquirer Edwards on Revivals. Mason's Self Knowledge Bishop Hopkins on Ten Commandments. Reformation in Europe. Henry on Meekness. Practical Piety, by Hannah More. Baxter's Dying Tho'ts. Memoir of Mrs. Graham. Baxter's Life, chiefly by himself. Complete Duty of Man. Anecdotes for the Family Circle. Owen on Forgiveness of Sin, Psalm 130. Alleine's ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... written three days after Burke's entrance into Parliament. It is curious to see, in the letters of those early correspondents, most of them accomplished and practical men, how fully they were possessed with a sense of his promised superiority. "You are now, I am certain," says Leland, "a man of business, deeply immersed in public affairs, commercial and political. You will show yourself a man of business in the House of Commons, and you will not, I am ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... lithe and exquisite figure, her golden voice, and her instinctive art, it was plain enough that her future lay upon the stage; and so at fourteen or fifteen she began where most actresses leave off—accomplished and attractive, and having had a practical training in ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... worked out for good.] Sprung from the lowest orders, inured to hardship and want, and on terms of the closest intimacy with the natives, they were peculiarly fitted to introduce them to a practical conformity with the new religion and code of morality. Later on, also, when they possessed rich livings, and their devout and zealous interest in the welfare of the masses relaxed in proportion as their incomes increased, they materially assisted ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... not classed as a legal scholar, nor did his branch of the profession, which was the making, not the interpreting of laws, demand that accomplishment. His power lay, first, in a strong common sense and in a practical mind; next, in a degree of tact amounting to instinct, by which he seemed to read the minds of those before whom he was pleading, and steered his course and pitched his tone accordingly; and lastly, in being in all respects a thorough gentleman, knowing how to deal ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... home its most efficient school was taken from it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable value of informality and reality. The father gone and ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... didn't mean that kind of resistance. It sounded too practical for me; I'm still satisfied to be the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... and stop playing to a certain extent as age advances, precisely as human children do. Each settles down into a more practical condition of life. They dislike to have their games and play disturbed, and if the mother dog growls because her playful son has continuously tumbled over her while she was sleeping, or the cat-mother slaps her kitten because he plays with her tail—it is a display ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... ever upon some practical exigency, now remembered that she had also heard that the Bennetts managed their dairy excellently, and, having a large craving for help on all such subjects, she began to bewail her own ignorance, asking many and various questions; but, although she ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... eclipse and rigged with curses dark." Mr. Hale's historical scholarship and his exact habit of mind have aided him in the art of giving vraisemblance to absurdities. He is known in philanthropy as well as in letters, and his tales have a cheerful, busy, {574} practical way with them in consonance with his motto, "Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... these signals are understood, a safe harbor is sought and the mariner is protected. So disease may hang out all her signals of distress, in order that they may be seen, but unless correctly interpreted, and a remedial harbor is sought, these symptoms are of little practical value. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... had! Does it not prove indisputably that I am not as other men are?" What gospel there can be in such a message to any honest man who has either to till the earth, plan a railroad, colonise Australia, or fight his country's enemies, is hard to discover. Hard indeed to discover how this most practical, and therefore most poetical, of ages, is to be "set to music," when all those who talk about so doing persist obstinately in poring, with introverted eyes, over the state of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... play practical jokes,' said James, as they watched the carriage drive off, 'I wish you would ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and may publish at his own expense, or not publish at all. He pleases himself, and a very tiny audience: I do not call that failure. I regard failure as the goal of ignorance, incompetence, lack of common sense, conceited dulness, and certain practical blunders now to be ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... Lacon.] Aram performed with a meekness and simplicity that charmed the vanity, even while it corrected the ignorance, of the applicant; and so various and minute was the information of this accomplished man, that there scarcely existed any branch even of that knowledge usually called practical, to which he could not impart from his stores something valuable and new. The agriculturist was astonished at the success of his suggestions; and the mechanic was indebted to him for the device which abridged his ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... standpoint, Beddoes' idea of the drama was something wildly amateurish. As a practical playwright he would be beneath contempt; but what he aimed at was something peculiar to himself, a sort of spectral dramatic fantasia. He would have admitted his obligations to Webster and Tourneur, to all the macabre Elizabethan ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and thought she might be glad of a little society; or perhaps they had come out of curiosity. They were well received; Fru Falkenberg was amiable as ever, and even played the piano for them. When they left, she went with them down to the road, talking sensibly of practical affairs, though she might well have had other things in her head than coops and killing pigs. Oh, she was full of kindly interest in it all! "Come again soon—or you, at any rate, Sofie...." "Thanks, thanks. But aren't you ever coming ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... sweep New York from its political moorings. Tradition says that young Douglass mingled much with local politicians, learning not a little about the arts and devices by which the Albany Regency controlled the Democratic organization in the State. In this school of practical politics he was beyond a ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... has not got the qualities that make for a sale, and you know that this is the great desideratum with the publisher. Now don't get peevish, and send us nothing else. I know you have a lot of talent, and your difficulty is in applying this talent to really practical problems rather than to the more attractive products of the imagination. Get down to facts, my son, and study your market. Find out what the people like to read and then write a story along those lines. This will bring you success, for you have a talent for success. Above all things, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... has given an adjective to our language—we call an impracticable scheme Utopian. Yet, under the veil of a playful fiction, the talk is intensely earnest, and abounds in practical suggestion. It is the work of a scholarly and witty Englishman, who attacks in his own way the chief political and social evils of his time. Beginning with fact, More tells how he was sent into Flanders with Cuthbert ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... serve to exhibit so much of his life as belongs to the whole public. His private life belongs to his family, until the time is come to let the world know more of the greatest of practical astronomers and of the inner life of one of its most profound philosophers,—of a great and ardent mind, whose achievements are and will remain the glory ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... Herschel thus became a practical astronomer. Henceforth he lived in his observatory; only on wet and moonlight nights could he be torn away from it. The day-time he devoted to making his long-contemplated ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... brought to his senses through an actual robbery committed by the worst of his companions. He returns home to find his father dead: and having had a substantial income left him already by an aunt, with the practical control of his mother's resources, he goes on living entirely a sa guise. This involves no positive debauchery or ruination, but includes smoking (then, it must be remembered, almost as great a crime in French as in English middle-class circles), playing at billiards (ditto), and a free ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Chimney-Sweepers' Friend and Climbing Boys' Album—with the benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the climbing boys' life and producing legislation to alleviate it. The first half of the book is practical: reports of committees, and so forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... title of Empress of India. The title and authority were inherited by Edward VII. He governs through the Secretary of State for India, who is a Cabinet minister, and a Council of not less than ten members, nine of whom must have the practical knowledge and experience gained by a residence of at least ten years in India and not more than ten years previous to the date of their appointment. This Council is more of an advisory than an executive body. It has no initiative or ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... in such wise that it was obvious that he had so sighed before. "Sir, there is no difference between soaps. Oh, they might use a slightly different perfume, or tint it a slightly different color, but for all practical purposes common hand soap, common bath soap, is soap, period. All the stuff the copy writers dream up about secret ingredients and health for your skin, and cosmetic qualities, and all the rest, is Madison Avenue gobbledygook and applies as well to one brand as ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... Hill" in Tom Jones, and in the first case at least, though most certainly not in the second, have more justification of connection with the central story. He may so far underlie the charge of error of judgment, but nothing worse. Unluckily the "Lady Vane" insertion was, to a practical certainty, a commercial not an artistic transaction: and both here and elsewhere Smollett carried his already large licence to the extent of something like positive pornography. He is in fact one of the few writers ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Napoleon, as logician, with his usual lucidity and precision, lays it down that they shall be strictly practical and professional. "Make professors (regents) for me," said he one day in connection with the Ecole normale, "and not litterateurs, wits or seekers or inventors in any branch of knowledge." In like ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a degree sympathetic. For a Galician nobleman and land-owner, and considering his age—he was hardly over thirty—he displayed surprising sobriety, a certain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived according to a minutely elaborated, half-philosophical, half- practical system, like clock-work; not this alone, but also by the thermometer, barometer, aerometer, hydrometer, Hippocrates, Hufeland, Plato, Kant, Knigge, and Lord Chesterfield. But at times he had violent attacks of sudden passion, and gave the impression of being about ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... are right enough," returned the captain. "Nothing wrong with the dime novel, only that things happen thicker than they do in life, and the practical seamanship is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the coming science, and Abner was faithfully carrying out the course of study he suggested. He was floundering through hours of lectures on the theory of the subject, and conscientiously working in the college settlement to get the practical side of things. He had the distressed look of a person with very short legs who is trying to keep up with a procession of six-footers, although there was nothing short about Abner. His legs were long, and his body was long, his arms were long, too long for most of his sleeves. His ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... recreative enjoyment. The necessary consequence of his abstracted devotion to the service of the settlement, for a long period, was the obtainment of a thorough knowledge of every subject connected with its welfare; and in the application of that knowledge to the practical improvement of the settlement, no man could have been more happy, none more eminently successful. A more forcible illustration of the truth of this remark will, however, be found in the following statements of the situation of the colony before ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... within effective range of her in less than two hours at least, while during the whole of that time the bigger of the two strangers would be proceeding in the opposite direction at such a rate as would render her ultimate escape a practical certainty. ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... judgment that this age is too practical for great ideals may be only a description of the husk that hides a very full ear of corn. It is well to remember that Spenser and Sidney judged their own age (which we now consider to be the greatest in our literary history) to be ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... geometry, the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, compiled some ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... will be about twenty feet wide at the centre of the machine, and made in sections, so that they can be depressed or elevated at pleasure with the rudder or tail. The gasometer will be made in sections, so that in the event of accident to one section, the remainder will be sufficient for all practical purposes; indeed, it is claimed that the ship can fly through the air with such speed that the sustaining power of the planes alone will be sufficient to maintain the avitor in mid-air. The gasometer will be made, probably, of ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... one to another that you love him, not only by a seeming love of affection, but with the love of duty. Practical love is best. Many love Christ with nothing but the lick of the tongue. Alas! Christ Jesus the Lord must not be put off thus: "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them," saith he, "he it is that ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... part or all? This being my conclusion I will say by many years of careful observation of the work of creating bodies and destroying the same, that to add to is the law of giving size, and to subtract from is the law of reduction. Both are natural, and both can be made practical in the reduction or addition of flesh, when found too great in quantity, or we can add to and give size to the starving muscle through the action of the motor and nutrient system conveyed to, and appropriated ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... school he became interested as a partner in the marble manufactory of T. Jones & Sons, and acquired a practical knowledge of the business, but never applied himself very ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... them aside. The existence of such power is not openly asserted, nor perhaps is it necessarily implied, in the provisions of the bill which is before me, but when its enacting clauses are read in the light of the recitations of its preamble it will be seen that it seeks in effect the practical annulment of the findings and the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... finding something of special interest attaching naturally to each. I shall have to deal much with figures and statistics, in a small way, and my pages may look like a school book, but I cannot avoid this, for in these figures and statistics lies the practical lesson. Theory alone is of no value. Practical application of the theory is the test. I am not imaginative. I could not write a romance if I tried. My strength lies in special detail, and I am willing to spend a lot of time in working out a problem. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... Majesty George III, was the increase of knowledge by new discoveries, and the advancement of science, more particularly of natural history and geography: the intention of the present voyage was to derive some practical benefit from the distant discoveries that had already been made; and no object was deemed more likely to realise the expectation of benefit than the bread-fruit, which afforded to the natives of Otaheite so very considerable a portion of their food, and which it was hoped it might ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... fall does not exceed a certain depth, the budding worms of the flesh fly are dropped without a qualm, as all our experiments show. This principle has a practical application which is not without its value in matters of domestic economy. It is as well that the wonders of entomology should sometimes give us a hint ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... kind,' said the Iron Pot, which stood next to the Matches. 'From the beginning, ever since I came into the world, there has been a great deal of scouring and cooking done in me. I look after the practical part, and am the first here in the house. My only pleasure is to sit in my place after dinner, very clean and neat, and to carry on a sensible conversation with my comrades. But except the Waterpot, which is sometimes taken ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... to me a particular duty of the psychologist from time to time to leave his laboratory and with his little contribution to serve the outside interests of the community. Our practical life is filled with psychological problems which have to be solved somehow, and if everything is left to commonsense and to unscientific fancies about the mind, confusion must result, and the psychologist who stands aloof will ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... Their role is similar to that performed in the open ports of Japan by the compradores and the Chinese agents into whose hands nearly all business passes. This activity is due to the efforts of their co-religionists in India, for in spite of their recognised probity and practical intelligence, the Guebres have long been exposed to ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... practical man, did not take in good part this reflection of an invisible paradise upon Marius; he was not much in the habit of concealed passions; it made him impatient, and now and then he called upon Marius ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Present of all the good Sermons [which [3]] have been printed in English, and only begg'd of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, that they follov one another naturally, and make a continued System of practical Divinity. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... be very curious to write the history of the local divinity of every continent as well as the history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. The negro has his ferocious man-eating idols; the polygamous Mahometan fills his paradise with women; the Greeks, like a practical people, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... talk over with you the events of the morning—to ask you to try to control yourself, and look at our peculiar situation with calmness and practical common ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... in finding his quality, for he came at me violently from the start, and I had chance to know his strength and weakness also. His hand was quick, his sight clear and sure, his knowledge to a certain point most definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of the true ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth—they, and they only. All other kingships, so far as they are true, are only the practical issue and expression of theirs; if less than this, they are either dramatic royalties,—costly shows, set off, indeed, with real jewels instead of tinsel,—but still only the toys of nations; or else, they are no royalties at all, but tyrannies, or the mere active and practical ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... turmoil of the summer, the mad search for gold was over. Save when there was a heavy snowstorm, the Graniteville stage traveled over the mountains, as usual; but no highwayman molested it. It would have been a practical impossibility for a robber to have made off with booty. The snow was light and feathery, and the drifts were often twenty-five feet deep. The web-footed snow-shoes of New England could not be used with advantage in such snow, so recourse was had to skis. But it was ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... transition from an embassy at the courts of Europe to a law office in Boston, with the necessity of furbishing up long disused knowledge, and a second time patiently awaiting the influx of clients. But he faced it with his stubborn temper and practical sense. The slender promise which he was able to discern in the political outlook could not fail to disappoint him, since his native predilections were unquestionably and strongly in favor of a public career. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... her from knifing the Bugologist and Angela both, when she had 'em?" was the sturdy reply. "The girl's a theoretical heathen, but a practical Christian. Come with us, Natzie," he finished, one hand extended to aid her to rise, the other pointing to the open doorway. She was on her feet in an instant, and, silently signing her companions to stay, followed ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... forgotten mine of Don Ignacio de Rincon. They experienced all the sensations of those who find themselves at last on the course that leads to buried treasure. To Harris, the romance attaching to the expedition obliterated all other considerations. But Reed was busy with the practical end of it, with costs, with the problems of supplies, of transportation, and trail. Carmen saw but one vision, the man in far-off Simiti, whose ancestor once owned the great mine which lay just ahead ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... monotonous and plaintive song. He is cautious of giving offence to his equals. He does not quarrel easily about money matters; dislikes asking too frequently even for payment of his just debts, and will often give them up altogether rather than quarrel with his debtor. Practical joking is utterly repugnant to his disposition; for he is particularly sensitive to breaches of etiquette, or any interference with the personal liberty of himself or another. As an example, I may mention that I have often found it very difficult to get ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... written to Lord Clarendon this morning on the subject of the fortifications of Sebastopol, which although, somewhat embarrassing at the moment, is not attended with any great practical importance. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... that some young student was trying to make a power loom. Off we went to see it. None of us had the knowledge with which to test its practical usefulness, but in our capacity for believing and hoping we were inferior to none. The poor fellow had got into a bit of debt over the cost of his machine which we repaid for him. Then one day we found Braja Babu coming over ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... dingy olive-green piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens, who ought to have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... for reformation in London and other cities, had contributed considerably to the suppression of vice; he was sure the corporation for propagating the gospel had done a great deal towards instructing men in religion, by giving great numbers of books in practical divinity; by erecting libraries in country parishes; by sending many able divines to the foreign plantations, and founding schools to breed up children in the christian knowledge; though to this expense very little had been contributed by those who appeared so wonderfully ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with the art of writing, invented by the Sumerians. But they regarded these pothooks as a clumsy waste of time. They were practical business men and could not spend hours engraving two or three letters. They set to work and invented a new system of writing which was greatly superior to the old one. They borrowed a few pictures from the Egyptians and they simplified ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... effectively worked for many years, with no attempts at ostentatious display, scarcely looking up the while to observe the outer results of his work, and to catch for inspiration the praises of men; when he shall see in his now mature years that all he so noiselessly invented, and fashioned into practical, useful form, is regarded by a well-meaning chronicler as of vast importance in serving as a noble example for the study and imitation of the youth of the land, and therefore to be faithfully recorded,—then it is hoped he will ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... intensify political and military cooperation throughout Europe, increase stability, diminish threats to peace, and build relationships by promoting the spirit of practical cooperation and commitment to democratic principles that underpin NATO; program under the auspices ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... men who saw in the negro slave an efficient laborer in a certain line of work, and there were the practical men who doubted the economic value of our system as compared with that of the free States, and whom the other ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... like water; the great Fact stares him in the face. 'Who made all that?' So too in practice; he, as every man that can be great, or have victory in this world, sees through all entanglements, the practical heart of the matter; drives straight toward that. When the steward of his Tuilleries Palace was exhibiting the new upholstery, with praises and demonstrations, how glorious it was and how cheap withal, Napoleon, making little answer, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Edwin Molyneux. Ninth Edition. By far the best practical work yet written on this subject. Price 1s.; post ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... the angry druggist, not catching the meaning of their words. "Now you hike for home and the next time you want to play a practical joke——" ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... differences to a supreme court of arbitration. Here at last was a leader of the world, with a clear call to the nobility in men rather than to their base passions, a gospel which would raise civilization from the depths into which it had fallen, and a practical remedy for that suicidal mania which ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... conclusiveness to be rationally assented to after a merely mechanical process, as is undoubtedly the case in algebra. But, if we except geometry, the conclusions of which are already as certain and exact as they can be made, there is no science but that of number, in which the practical validity of a reasoning can be apparent to any person who has looked only at the reasoning itself. Whoever has assented to what was said in the last Book concerning the case of the Composition of Causes, and the still stronger case of the entire supersession of one set of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... doing in Paris—at least that is what she came to do, but the siege put a stop to her studies, and she devoted herself to the much more practical ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... dear rate Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly One must first know what is his own and what is not Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation Passion has already confounded his judgment Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play Presumptive knowledge by silence Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion The cause of truth ought to be ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when there would be nobody to tell you so?" said Modeste, with the practical good-sense that never forsook her. "You would be beautiful for yourself alone. You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about that fancy to Monsieur—we should soon see what he would say to such ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... by "improvements" in too theatrical taste. All these notes, however, were made many years ago; and visitors of the Riviera, though they will find the little book charming where it speaks of seas and hills, will learn that France has greatly changed the city which she has annexed. As a practical man and a Parisian, De Banville has printed (pp. 179-81) a recipe for the concoction of the Marseilles dish, bouillabaisse, the mess that Thackeray's ballad made so famous. It takes genius, however, to cook bouillabaisse; and, to parody what De ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... points of view of those to whom he was opposed. Declamation, clap-trap, evasion, ambiguities of thought and expression, empty plausibilities, unfair, partial, and exaggerated statements, were all essentially repugnant to that clear and sceptical intellect, to that sound, cautious, practical judgment. His business talents were very great, and they were assiduously cultivated. His appetite for work was insatiable. No one knew better how to administer a great department or preside over a Parliamentary ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... getting practical experience in sailing a boat such as falls to few novices, but she took to the work like one who had long been used to the sea and its varying moods. Under her skilful manipulation the "Sister Sue" was making fairly good headway, though ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... the light entering only by the open door, the obscurity, on entering, seemed profound, although a few minutes sufficed to enable one's eyes to grow accustomed to it, when, at least during daylight, it was possible to see clearly enough for all practical purposes. ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood |
