"Worthlessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Kepler's astrological opinions, and of the degree of credit which he himself placed in the opinions that he did avow. In his Principles of Astrology, published in 1602, and in other works, he rails against the vanity and worthlessness of the ordinary astrology. He regards those who professed it as knaves and charlatans; and maintains that the planets and stars exercise no influence whatever over human affairs. He conceives, however, ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... made, and it was now final, this no longer troubled him. He had already weighed for her every side of the question, taking especial pains to discuss each phase of the subject, even going so far as to disagree with MacFarlane's opinion as to the worthlessness of the ore lands. But the dear child had ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... FOLIUM), too mean of proportions, too dull and commonplace of colour to be termed pretty, worth nothing, and justifying, in appearances its worthlessness, is remarkable for the exercise of a certain sort of deliberate wit in accordance with special conditions. Nature provides various species of the great oyster family with respective methods of holding ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... and once he dared to make a personal appeal to old Mr. Mellows to send Luke away to school. He was received with scant courtesy, and only tolerated because he gave the father a chance to void some of his bile at the worthlessness of Luke. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... juxtaposition of his figures, denoting the amount of paper in circulation, and this assumed fall in the price of merchandise for the present anomalous condition of the Money Market, and for the apparent worthlessness of capital. We cannot agree, however, with our correspondent to the full extent, because the very low prices of commodities, with a minimum rate of interest for money, proves that there is no fictitious or inflated excess of paper money. The anomalous state ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... Mr. Walker of Whitby, in the first of which he speaks rather despondingly of being "confined within the limits of Greenwich Hospital, which are far too small for an active mind like mine"; and in the second he gives a rapid sketch of the voyage, which, by its clear conciseness, proves the worthlessness of Mr. Forster's sneer, repeated by later writers, that the public account of the voyage owed more to the editing of Canon Douglas than to the ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... Union of Utrecht of 1579 was a league of petty sovereignties; a compact less binding and more fragile than the Articles of Union made almost exactly two hundred years later in America, and the worthlessness of which, after the strain of war was over, had been demonstrated in the dreary years immediately following the peace of 1783. One after another certain Netherland provinces had abjured their allegiance to Spain, some of them afterwards relapsing under it, some having been conquered ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the ground of formality. This was too long, and that was too short; one was too high, and another too low; a fifth was too broad, and a sixth too narrow; in short, there was no figure of speech of this nature to which he did not resort, in order to prove their worthlessness, with the exception that I do not remember he charged any of my reasons with being ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Padre, "do not all hold the same faith. There are those who appear to me to wrest Scripture to their own destruction; they find in one part thereof a description of true faith as distinguished from a dead, false, or spurious faith, which reveals its worthlessness by the absence of 'works,' and, founding on that, they refuse to accept the other portion of Scripture which saith that 'by the works of the law shall no man living be justified.' I, with many others, hold that there is no merit in our simply suffering. The sufferings and the obedience of Jesus ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... have given to it, and the fictitious barriers they have built up between themselves and their brethren. I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... go through a previous life in the sphere of Instinct, where they are brought to see the worthlessness of earthly treasures, to amass which they gave themselves such untold pains! Who can tell how many times the human being lives in the sphere of Instinct before he is prepared to enter the sphere of Abstractions, where thought expends itself on erring science, where mind wearies at last of ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... thought it possible to establish Communism firmly and fully in a country containing such a large majority of peasants. He admitted that it was difficult, and laughed over the exchange the peasant is compelled to make, of food for paper; the worthlessness of Russian paper struck him as comic. But he said—what is no doubt true—that things will right themselves when there are goods to offer to the peasant. For this he looks partly to electrification in industry, ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... Donnacona, who had no idea of the value of the precious metals, spoke of the men of old who dug for metal such as we wore on our fingers, and about our necks. He had a fine scorn for such baubles; and, as if to impress us with their worthlessness, stood on the heights of Stadacona, and pointed with pride to the wigwams of his tribe clustering at the foot of the cliff: 'But,' he said, 'the men who wrought the metal are no more. Mighty oaks grow from the earth in which ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... really be conferred instead of evolved! It is true that efforts toward the evolution of such powers may be enormously aided by teachers, but such instruction can not be bought, and the offer to furnish it for money is the best evidence of its worthlessness. Those who teach this ancient wisdom select their own pupils from the morally fit, and tuition can be paid only in devotion to truth and service to humanity. That is the only road that leads to instruction worth having, and until the aspirant is firmly upon ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... as practice and fine art. It is not at all difficult to indicate sources of happiness; the main stress of the problem lies in the contest with the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and of mental suffering—indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. Poverty and Disease may be contracted in dimensions; and even vicissitudes of fortune are not wholly ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... She knew what would be said—she had heard it so often of others! The recollection bathed her in misery. The men would probably back Gannett to "do the decent thing"; but the ladies' eye-brows would emphasize the worthlessness of such enforced fidelity; and after all, they would be right. She had put herself in a position where Gannett "owed" her something; where, as a gentleman, he was bound to "stand the damage." The idea of accepting such compensation had never crossed her mind; the so-called ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... middle-class schools[2]? I will tell you. It means getting up endless forms and rules by heart. It means turning Latin and Greek into English, for the mere sake of being able to do it, and without the smallest regard to the worth, or worthlessness, of the author read. It means the learning of innumerable, not always decent, fables in such a shape that the meaning they once had is dried up into utter trash; and the only impression left upon a boy's mind is, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... expressed, he had no longer any doubts as to his daughter's skill, and hastened to go and test the pretended diamond, and to advise his associates to say nothing about the matter after they had received proofs of the worthlessness of the stone. This advice was, as it happened, useless; for though the persons concerned said nothing, everybody knew about it, and people said, with their usual malice, that the dupes had been duped most thoroughly, and that St. Germain had ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... three or four books. It is but a collection of short stories. Its author rejoiced in the romantic title of Gauthier de Costes Chevalier Seigneur de la Calprenede; he published Cleopatre in 1642; he was the author of other romances, and some tragedies, noted only for their worthlessness. Even Richelieu, "quoiqu' admirateur indulgent de la mediocrite," could not stand Calprenede's tragedies. Reine Marguerite is probably the translation by Robert Codrington of the Memorials of Margaret ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... to write to you before on the subject of your loss[76]; but the recollection of the uselessness and worthlessness of any observations on such events prevented me. I shall only now add, that I rejoice to see you bear it so well, and that I trust time will enable Mrs. M. to sustain it better. Every thing should be done to divert and occupy her with other thoughts and cares, and I am sure that all that ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... gear, and in my anxiety about a borrowed animal, of which Mr. Austin makes a great joke, I put my saddle-bags on my own mare, in an evil hour, and not only these, but some fine cocoanuts, tied up in a waterproof which had long ago proved its worthlessness. It was a grotesquely miserable picture. The house is not far from the beach, and the surf, beyond which a heavy mist hung, was coming in with such a tremendous sound that we had to shout at the top of our voices in order to be heard. The sides of the great gulch ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... shillings per week, which was double his worth, and that he should go elsewhere if he was not content, as I could daily get a better man for half his wages; but he will not go hence, nor will he perform, and has persuaded others to join with him, his very worthlessness having made him their leader, and they threaten, unless they may receive additional 4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for sack, they will have no plays performed, nor will they allow others to be ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... The utter worthlessness of the replies that were made in response to Hay's note of September 6, 1899, became fully apparent in the discussions that soon arose as to the status of consuls in the various spheres of influence. Japan claimed that sovereignty ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... as they have because they have found the melancholy view of life the most fruitful thing in recent culture. They have found it the richest in novelty, surprises, images, scenes, reflections, effects, and sensations. The worthlessness of life is an idea that agrees with science, meets the mood of the age, and fires ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... is to think that Swift knew the tendency of his creed—the fatal rocks towards which his logic desperately drifted. That last part of Gulliver is only a consequence of what has gone before; and the worthlessness of all mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, the pompous dullness, the mean aims, the base successes—all these were present to him; it was with the din of these curses of the world, blasphemies against ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... harm that can be done to others by any use of force against them, and the worthlessness of the goods that can be acquired by force, will be very full of respect for the liberty of others; they will not try to bind them or fetter them; they will be slow to judge and swift to sympathize; they will treat every human being with a kind of tenderness, because the ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... the worthlessness, lassitude, and physical and mental feebleness attributable to the modern woman are to be ascribed to these habits as their initial cause." "Foreigners are especially struck with this fact as the cause of much of the physical disease of our young women. They recognize it ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Hanwell or Bethlehem Hospital. A nation so degraded as to be capable of responding to no higher stimulus than that of horror had better be exterminated, by Prussian war lords or anyone else foolish enough to waste powder on them instead of leaving them to perish of their own worthlessness. ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... the worthlessness of earthly life, regarding it merely as a preparation for an eternal life beyond. Hence it immediately followed that all we find in the life of a man here below, all that is beautiful in art and science, in public and in private life, is of no real value. The true Christian must avert his eyes ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... ought earlier to have stated, that the filial connection we have here to consider, does not include those melancholy instances where some woful defect or utter worthlessness in the parent counteracts the natural course of the affections, but refers only to cases, where the character of father is on the whole sustained with honour, and the principle of the connection is left ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Rhys Davids illustrates the worthlessness of poetic narrations as grounds of argument by quoting from Milton's Paradise Regained this mere fancy sketch of the accompaniments of ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... presence, she saw instantly and instinctively the worthlessness of that gold eagle, however genuine, compared with her sisterly love, in her mission to Frank. So she ran directly to her mother in the long kitchen, and, planking the American eagle upon the sloppy little table where the eels were rapidly getting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of things they are. Just in the same way ought we to act all through life, and where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them of all the words by which they are exalted. For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason, and when thou art most sure that thou art employed about things worth thy pains, it is then that ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... Papeete's skull had been a talisman of terrible and magical power, for with it he had touched men, and the men touched had disclosed their worth and their worthlessness. It had been a lamp which showed ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... always waiting for some such boy to come to him with his confession of moral worthlessness and vows of unnatural perfection, and was too simple and earnest and good himself to realise that such states of the youthful mind are not unfrequently merely morbid and hysterical, and too often degenerate into Pharisaism, or ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Charles Lamb, one of the best of his commentators, who has viewed his labors in a kindred spirit, speaking of one of his most elaborate and varied works, the "Election Entertainment," asks, "What is the result left on the mind? Is it an impression of the vileness and worthlessness of our species? Or is not the general feeling which remains after the individual faces have ceased to act sensibly on the mind, a kindly one in favor of the species?" Leslie speaks of his "high species of humor, pregnant with moral meanings," ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... structure, which was erected in 1879, at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars, to the memory of Charles the Second of Brunswick, the "Diamond Duke," as he was called by the Germans, who, after his expulsion from his principality by his subjects, on account of his extravagance and general worthlessness, took up his residence in Geneva, and, on his death, in 1873, bequeathed all his property, about four million dollars, to the city. The municipality was grateful enough to carry out in a very sumptuous manner the last wishes of its benefactor, who ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... the party to Khartoum, and was re-admitted into the Mission. The establishment was at that time swarming with little black boys from the various White Nile tribes, who repaid the kindness of the missionaries by stealing everything they could lay their hands upon. At length the utter worthlessness of the boys, their moral obtuseness, and the apparent impossibility of improving them, determined the chief of the Mission to purge his establishment from such imps, and they were accordingly turned out. Poor ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... the husband you selected for your mother's child, and doubtless you had your own private reasons for sacrificing her to such a man. His worthlessness, too, furnishes an excuse for your niggardly allowance to me. The very dresses I wear are the price of dishonor. I often feel ashamed of the part I play toward your wife, Ottario, and I know not but some day I may throw myself at her feet and ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... execution. The notion that intelligence was put in man only to be shattered, a will given him only to be forthwith distorted by passion or blinded by ignorance, and that "there is no health in us" unless we abase ourselves to the dust and proclaim our utter worthlessness, is to men and women of this time wholly inconceivable. That nothing ethically valuable can be accomplished except after instant prayer, or after copious outpourings of Divine grace, that the curse of absolute ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... quite frequent, and she never failed to find something that needed putting to rights, and putting it so immediately, with fierce comments on the worthlessness of all "high-lands," which was negroce for hirelings—a class held in contempt by the servants ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... company; he was however introduced again, and seated among them in his rags; Sir William being one of the few who pay a greater regard to the man than the dress, can discern and support merit under rags, and despise poverty of soul and worthlessness in embroidery; but, notwithstanding the success of this stratagem, our hero always looked upon it as one of the most unfortunate in his whole life; for, after he had been at Sir William's, as above-mentioned, coming to Stoke Gabriel, near Totness, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... even the Juntas do not pretend that they have an army capable of driving the French out of the Pyrenees; which is a comfort, for we shall have to rely upon ourselves and not be humbugged by the Spaniards, the worthlessness of whose promises, Lord Wellington has ascertained, by bitter experience. The Portuguese government is as troublesome and as truthless as that of Spain, but Wellington is able to hold his own with them; and there is little ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... of distinction gives this instance of the worthlessness of all attempts to flee from the Power ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... voice. He distinguished his own voice given in promise, Clark had always encouraged him, no matter how often he returned empty handed, and now, looking broodingly at Manson, the half breed perceived the type that for centuries had defrauded his ancestors with poor bargains and glittering worthlessness. All that was good in Fisette, all the savage honor of that vanishing race whose blood flowed in his veins, all the unquestioning fidelity of his half naked forebears, rose in violent protest. He might be sold out, but not by any ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... person, only that If he should ever go in jeopardy 140 Of being damn'd (as he's now persecuted) For his virtue and fair sense, he may be sav'd By the supererogation of this Fellow's Folly and Worthlessness.—— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ministers, whose only check was the king. The executive and judicial were all the same: there was no appeal from one to the other. The only appeal from the ministers was to the king, and as the king shut himself up in his palace, and was practically inaccessible to all but high officials, the worthlessness of this appeal is evident. Outside Mandalay the country was governed by wuns or governors. These were appointed by the king, or by the council, or by both, and they obtained their position by bribery. Their tenure was exceedingly insecure, as any ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... benefit and advantage of earning something—something real and solid—hit the artist very hard. That was the thought that troubled her so much, and paralysed her imagination. They were unsaleable—she saw the worthlessness of them far more than Iden. They were less in value than the paper on which they were traced; fool stuff, fit for the ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... military strictness; by the second, in a social and effeminate form. Both, however, agreed in destroying individuality, inasmuch as the one degraded man into a will-less machine for executing the commands of others, and the other deadened him in cultivating the feeling of his sinful worthlessness. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... to hear any excuse that No. 3, rear rank, had to offer, so that he would be able to remark upon its utter worthlessness. Now, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law's paper and shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers, and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable career of gambling, died in poverty ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... vain, labor lost, labor of Sisyphus; lost trouble, lost labor; work of Penelope; sleeveless errand, wild goose chase, mere farce. tautology &c (repetition) 104; supererogation &c (redundancy) 641. vanitas vanitatum [Lat.], vanity, inanity, worthlessness, nugacity^; triviality &c (unimportance) 643. caput mortuum [Lat.], waste paper, dead letter; blunt tool. litter, rubbish, junk, lumber, odds and ends, cast-off clothes; button top; shoddy; rags, orts^, trash, refuse, sweepings, scourings, offscourings^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... constant watching of men, ready to criticise, could but improve. The least exhibition of selfishness, cowardice, vulgarity, dishonesty, or meanness of any kind, brought down the dislike of every man upon him, and persistence in any one disreputable practice, or habitual laziness and worthlessness, resulted in complete ostracism, loneliness, and misery; while, on the other hand, he might, by good behavior and genuine generosity and courage, secure unbounded love and sincere respect ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... present as require to be enforced by argument, I will content myself with pointing out certain passages that bear out my view. I must first, however, remind your readers that while some plays, from their worthlessness, were never printed, some were withheld from the press on account of their very value; and of this latter class were the works of Shakspeare. The late publication of his works created the impression, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... and town officers; relieved insolvent debtors, by an Act which enabled a debtor in prison to receive five shillings weekly from his creditor during his detention, if the prisoner were not worth five pounds, worthlessness being, in this instance, to a man's advantage; the curing, packing and inspection of pork was regulated by the appointment of inspectors, whose fees were to be one shilling and six pence per barrel, exclusive of cooperage, ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... thoughts incident to their customs and status of culture, and they have no more difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night than Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from each of three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness of a vast body of anthropologic material to which even ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell
... as furnishing the key to many of the paradoxes of his public conduct, one of the most important, though perhaps the least appreciated, is the dishonor of his repute. It is difficult, with his present position in history, especially when taken in relation to the now well-certified worthlessness of his contemporaries, to realize to the imagination the full extent of his infamy. "You dare," said his former friend Rulhiere, in a pamphlet that had a wide circulation, "You dare to speak of a country, Count Mirabeau! If your brow were not trebly bronzed, how must you have blushed at its very ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... experience of Hindoos, Malabarese, and coolies in Abyssinia, I knew exactly how to deal with a case like this. Unhesitatingly I granted the request as soon as asked, for as much tired as Abdul Kader said he was of life, I was with Abdul Kader's worthlessness. But the Hindi did not want to be left in the jungle, he said, but, after arriving in Unyanyembe. "Oh," said I, "then you must reach Unyanyembe first; in the meanwhile you will carry those saddles there for the food which ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... lansquenet or faro, and for stakes which no public table could possibly supply. It was not alone that this life of a gambler estranged Kostalergi from his wife, but that the scandal of his infidelities had reached her also, just at the time when some vague glimmering suspicions of his utter worthlessness were breaking on her mind. The birth of a little girl did not seem in the slightest degree to renew the ties between them; on the contrary, the embarrassment of a baby, and the cost it must entail, were the only considerations he would entertain, and it ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... For the man Christ I have respect. He was an infidel in his day, and the ministers of his day cried out blasphemy, as they have been crying ever since, against every person who has suggested a new thought or shown the worthlessness ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... within and without may seem to nullify everything else; they may contract and even seemingly destroy man and his spiritual potencies; all his acts may seem fruitless and vain, and his whole existence may seem to sink into nothingness and worthlessness. Yet, through the entrance of the new life and a new world, everything is transformed from within, and the clearness of the light appears all the more by contrast with all the depth of the darkness. Indeed, in the midst ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... itself. He does not love, who can resign this cherished sentiment, without suffering some of the sharpest struggles that our nature is capable of enduring. Add to this, Mary had fixed her heart upon this chosen friend; and one of the last impressions a worthy mind can submit to receive, is that of the worthlessness of the person upon whom it has fixed all its esteem. Mary had struggled to entertain a favourable opinion of human nature; she had unweariedly fought for a kindred mind, in whose integrity and fidelity to take up her rest. Mr. Imlay undertook to prove, in his ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... them was sick. The wagon, under a load of barreled pork and general supplies, had slumped into a hole and suffered a "general giving-way." While in Suez the Judge had paid Cornelius off, written a note to be given by him to Major Garnet, and agreed, in recognition of his abundant worthlessness, to part with him ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... age, and said a good deal in those days about the flight of time and the mutability of human affairs: I expected anybody who was grown up when I was young to be well stricken in years; and if Mr. Lenox had been a shrunken old man with altered aspect and a deep sense of the worthlessness of all efforts after temporalities, the change would have seemed only a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... centuries, which still survive, though they may be said to have gone to seed. Concord represents University philosophy, as a dude represents fashion, and as University philosophy is a haughty antagonist of all genuine philosophy, it is important to illustrate its worthlessness. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... in the disciplines of the older philosophies is still open to the philosophy of evolution. Behind it, as behind the "self-hypnotised catalepsy of the devotee of Brahma," the Buddhist aspirations to Nirvana, the apatheia of the Stoics, there may lie a recognition of the worthlessness of the individual: an equable acceptation of one's self as part of a process: a triumph of intelligence over selfishness. Finally, behind the sharp division made between man and the Cosmos, there still lurks one of the oldest ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... sow, cow, cat, snake, dragon, dog, toad, are among the many animal prefixes to the names of flowers that the English country people have given for various and often most interesting reasons. Just as dog, used as a prefix, expresses an idea of worthlessness to them, so toad suggests a spurious plant; the toadflax being made to bear what is meant to be an odious name because before flowering it resembles the true flax, linum, from which ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... admitting the practical worthlessness of the evidence in hand against this formidable adversary, and he abandoned, for the moment, his purpose of proving that De Heidelmann-Bruck had killed Martinez. Under the circumstances there was no way of proving it, for how ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... himself does not know the schemes, or the worthlessness of the men who mean to use his ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... had a son, also, who imagined himself to be ornamental, but laid no claim to usefulness of any sort. Lady Wentworth concurred heartily and proudly in her son's opinion of himself and encouraged his uselessness to a point where it became worthlessness. But Sir William took no pains to conceal his disappointment and disgust. Young William held a small post at court, and, being supplied with money by his mother, was one of the evil spirits of the set composed of Crofts, Berkeley, Little Jermyn, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... more important relief from the blight of Buddhistic doctrine was afforded by its own practice. At the very time that it declared the worthlessness of the self and the impotence of the will, it declared that salvation can come only from the self, by the most determined exercise of the will. What more convincing evidence of powerful, though distorted, wills ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D—, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... destroy the general applicability of his teaching to all times and to all countries. Many will ask what possible good could be derived from the works of men who must have been either deceived or deceivers, nor would it be difficult to quote some passages in order to show the utter absurdity and worthlessness of the religious books of the Hindus and Chinese. But this was not the spirit in which the apostle of the Gentiles addressed himself to the Epicureans and Stoics, nor is this the feeling with which a thoughtful Christian and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... to provide a regular customer, whose patronage it is desirable to retain, with a good servant, but generally all is fish that comes to their net. The business is now in such ill odor that intelligence-office servants are proverbial for worthlessness and all the worst qualities of the class. I have known a thief, a drunkard, and a vixen to be sent from one of these offices in succession, the victimized housekeeper finally begging that no more be sent, preferring to let the retaining fee go, than to be pestered any further. It is well known ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... unspoken thought. Limerick knew nothing of Abbie Flagg's worthlessness, birth, and training, and the awful stigma of his poorhouse birth, so that he would start fair. He could have gone to Wareham and thus remained within daily sight of the beloved Emma Jane; but no, he was not going to permit her to watch him in the process ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ready saddled, awaited the Sahib's displeasure in the front verandah suffered accordingly. He bowed, trembling, to the ground, and let the storm sweep over his head; making no defence beyond a disarming reiteration of his own worthlessness, and of his everlasting devotion to the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... orator, who establishes natural law, who repudiates historic law, who proclaims the equality of men, who contends for the sovereignty of the people, who denounces on every page the usurpation, the vices, the worthlessness, the malefactions of the great and of kings! And I omit the points by which he makes acceptable to a rigid and laborious bourgeoisie, to the new men that are working and advancing themselves, his steady earnestness, his harsh ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... hear the bulk of the music for the theatre, as has been remarked, because of the worthlessness of the plays to which it is attached. Even King Arthur, The Tempest, The Fairy Queen and Dioclesian pieces are too fragmentary, disconnected, to be performed with any effect without scenery, costume, and some explanation ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... be holidays. We can no more do without holidays than without sleep. For every man there must be certain stated intervals of repose—of recreation in the original sense of the word. My views on the worthlessness of classical education are perhaps pretty well known to you, but I don't underrate the great service that my friend Professor Ezra K. Higgins has rendered by his discovery[5] that the word recreation originally signified a re-creating—i.e.,[6] a time ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... request that Admetus, now threatened with premature death, may live out the appointed seventy years. The Fates retort on him by exclamations on the worthlessness of such a boon. They enumerate the follies and miseries which beset the successive stages of man's earthly career, and maintain that its only brightness lies in the delusive sunshine, the glamour of hope, with which he (Apollo) gilds ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... everything; what wonder that by some, now-a-days, it is held to prove nothing. True the evidence it affords is sometimes negative, often conflicting, but it is so rather from imperfect interpretation than from any intrinsic worthlessness. If misused the fault lies with the disciple, not ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... things. If the soul has not been satiated—has not yet been pricked by the hidden thorn—it wishes to go on further in the dream of material pleasure, and so it does, until it learns its lesson. Finally, perceiving the folly and worthlessness of materiality, it emerges from its cocoon and, spreading out its newly found wings, takes its flight for higher planes of action and being—and so on, and on, ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... James Dutton growing in wealth and importance; and his daughter in sparkling, catching comeliness—although certainly not in the refinement of manner which gives a quickening life and grace to personal symmetry and beauty. James Dutton remained firm in his theory of the worthlessness of education beyond what, in a narrow acceptation of the term, was absolutely 'necessary;' and Anne Dutton, although now heiress to very considerable wealth, knew only how to read, write, spell, cast accounts, and superintend the home-business of the farm. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... boldly: 'Luther has taken up the cause of honesty and good sense against abominations which are no longer tolerable. His enemies are men under whose worthlessness the Christian world has groaned ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... (three to the initial line of the original) disappears to the reader's gain, Lane's textual date (App. 263) is also exchanged for that of the notes (A.H. 653); and the "aera of Alexander," A.M. 7320, an absurdity which has its value in proving the worthlessness of such chronology, is clean omitted, because Lane used the worthless Bull Edit. The latinisms due to Lane show here in force—"Looked for a considerable time" (Maliyyan for a long while); "there is an announcement that presenteth itself to me" (a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... say nothing of these things, which are acts of a more hardy sort of villany. Let us speak rather of his meaner descriptions of worthlessness. You, with those jaws of yours, and those sides of yours, and that strength of body suited to a gladiator, drank such quantities of wine at the marriage of Hippia, that you were forced to vomit the next day in the sight of the Roman people. O action disgraceful not merely to see, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... an hour of bargaining, during which Captain Van Horn had insisted on the worthlessness of the parcel, he had bought a fat pig worth five dollars and exchanged it for her. Thus, since he had paid for the pig in trade goods, and since trade goods were rated at a hundred per cent. profit, the girl had actually cost him two ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... seems to correspond with the quality so emphatically described in the sacred writings under the name of Charity. It is there uniformly represented as the great test of the moral condition; and we find exposed, in the most striking manner, the worthlessness of all endowments which are not accompanied by this regulation of the whole character. We cannot, therefore, conclude this subject in a more appropriate manner, than by a passage in which, by a few most powerful expressions, a code of ethical science is laid before us with a clearness ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... the view both of vulgar and of genteel life here displayed. The character of Gertrude, in particular, the heroine of the piece, is inimitably drawn. The mixture of vanity and meanness, the internal worthlessness and external pretence, the rustic ignorance and fine lady-like airs, the intoxication of novelty and infatuation of pride, appear like a dream or romance, rather than anything in real life. Cinderella and her ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... value or the worthlessness of the Bible; the value or the worthlessness of the Church—I require no guide, Mr. Holland. I do not need to go to a priest to ask if it is wrong to steal, to covet another's goods, to honor my father——Oh, I cannot discuss what is so very obvious. The Bible I regard as precious; you think that ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... fact righteousness on his side will in general fail so to persuade them. And even if in rare cases he do persuade his audience, he does not gain a permanent place in literature. Bolingbroke's speeches, though so enthusiastically praised by the best judges, have perished by their own worthlessness. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... 'all stealing is toy-stealing. That's why it's really wrong. The goods of the unhappy children of men should be really respected because of their worthlessness. I know Naboth's vineyard is as painted as Noah's Ark. I know Nathan's ewe-lamb is really a woolly baa-lamb on a wooden stand. That is why I could not take them away. I did not mind so much, as long as I ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... the monks were the most unpopular class of all, and that they were reckoned a living proof of the worthlessness of conventual life, of the whole ecclesiastical organization, of the system of dogma, and of religion altogether, according as men pleased, rightly or wrongly, to draw their conclusions. We may also assume that Italy retained a clearer recollection of the origin of the two great mendicant ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... approbation of the chief of the patricians, whether relations or aliens. Being raised by this generally good character to a proper confidence in himself, he claimed to be admitted into the senate; a thing intermitted for many years, on account of the worthlessness of former flamens. On entering the senate, Lucius Licinius, the praetor, led him out; on which the flamen appealed to the tribunes of the people. He demanded back the ancient privilege of his priesthood, which was given, together with the purple-bordered ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... police. The stones of the street and the coin of the vaults are of equal value to this simple pair. Strange sight! They take up the bright gold in handfuls and throw it sportively into the air for the sake of seeing the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. They know not that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, potent to sway men's hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause in the investigation of the past. They have discovered the ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with an intensity unfathomable by words, my utter nothingness, impotence, and worthlessness, in and for myself. I have learned what a sin is against an infinite, imperishable being, such as is the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... great. The latter did not consider them worthy combatants in a philosophical fight, claiming that they came with preconceived notions and arranged their conceptions of nature to suit the religious beliefs which they desired to defend. Maimonides expresses a similar judgment concerning their worthlessness as philosophical thinkers.[11] ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... understood her niece thoroughly, and she knew there would be no danger of a relapse into the mistakes of the past; other faults, other temptations would assail her, but these were harmless. Having once seen and realized the falsity of worldliness when compared with religion, the worthlessness of mere money, when compared with true affection, Sibyl could never forget the lesson, for firm reason and resolve were parts of ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... canoes of goldseekers on their return who shouted doleful warnings at us and cursed the worthlessness of the district to which we were bound. They all looked exceedingly dirty, ragged, and sour of visage. At the same time, however, boat after boat went sailing down past us on their way to Atlin and Dawson. They drove straight before the wind, and for the most part experienced ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... letting Flora at once know the absolute and complete worthlessness of her lover, so that she could have no difficulty in at once tearing herself from him by the assistance of the natural pride which would surely come to her aid, upon finding herself ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... mother had seen, with the clearness of a mother's love, that the marriage would never tend to her child's happiness: she had observed both characters narrowly, and was perfectly convinced of Burrell's worthlessness. She could not impress this conviction on Sir Robert's mind; but in her last moments she extorted from him the promise that he would never urge the union. This was, as we have seen, all she could obtain; and Sir Robert was content to "keep the word of promise ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... is proven by the position of the island of Louise, which thus falls in 46 Degrees N. instead of 41 Degrees, the latitude assigned to it in the letter. Nothing could more conclusively show the factitious origin of this delineation and its worthlessness as an exposition of ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the general worthlessness of his existence, and ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... but was it fair to infer from these their general ill usage? Suppose a person were to make a collection of the different abuses, which had happened for a series of years under our own happy constitution, and use these as an argument of its worthlessness; should we not say to him, that in the most perfect system which the human intellect could form some defects would exist; and that it was unfair to draw inferences from such partial facts? In the same manner he would ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... of worthlessness is often referred to as when it is said that "There is small choice in rotten apples," with which may be compared another which warns us of the contagious effects ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... worthlessness of the assumption that we have discovered the earliest, or anything like the earliest, organic remains, is becoming equally clear. That the oldest known sedimentary rocks have been greatly changed by igneous ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... to cast her nativity. Agrippa replied, that he would not encourage such idle curiosity. The result was, he lost her confidence, and was forthwith dismissed. If it had been through his belief in the worthlessness of astrology, that he had made his answer, we might admire his honest and fearless independence; but, when it is known that, at the very same time, he was in the constant habit of divination and fortunetelling; and that he was predicting splendid success, in all his undertakings, to the Constable ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Theodore Parker once said, is very often a choice between two nothings. These women may have literary culture and social polish; but, for want of an idea to light up their eyes and strengthen their souls, these things are only glitter and worthlessness. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... fact that he thoroughly disapproved of the way in which the national money was being wasted. It is said that one day, when the Commander-in-chief came to inspect the progress of the work, Gordon denounced the whole thing most vehemently, and exposed its worthlessness. It is characteristic of the man that he had the courage of his opinions at all times. He must have been carried away a good deal by his feelings, for when he got home that day he said that he might have been put under arrest for the way in which he had denounced ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... needs enabled it to plead the cause of spiritual monotheism and to oppose the worship of idols in the manner most easily understood. As it did not require historic and positive material to describe the nature of religion and morality, this philosophy enabled the Apologists to demonstrate the worthlessness of the traditional religion and worship of the different nations.[342] The same cause, however, made them take up the conservative position with regard to the historical traditions of Christianity. These were not ultimately tested as to their content, for this was taken for granted, no matter how ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... holding out the "helping hand," and turns away from all other consolations!—Does beauty, too, grow out of the ancient culture? I think that our ugliness arises from our metaphysical remnants . our confused morals, the worthlessness of our marriages, and so on, are the cause. The beautiful man, the healthy, moderate, and enterprising man, moulds the objects around him into beautiful shapes after his ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... death. The little ones were very sweet and good, but the supervision of them during the day added a somewhat heavy responsibility to our already overburdened household. In these days, when one hears so much of the worthlessness of servants, it is a joy to remember how our faithful maid—we kept only one for that large house—at her own request, did all the laundry work for the family of five, and all through the three years of Eleanor's illness waited on ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... rest in and on himself; so powerful is the comfort to be derived from a vivid consciousness of this advantage; a comfort to be preferred to every other earthly blessing. Contrarily, nothing in the world can relieve a man who knows his own worthlessness; all that he can do is to conceal it by deceiving people or deafening them with his noise; but neither expedient will serve him ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... of any sort. Better trust Caesar than Brutus, or even Cato. Nor will he seek them in the antagonism of interests intended to neutralize or balance each other, as in the English constitution. This was the great error of Mr. Calhoun. No man saw more clearly than Mr. Calhoun the utter worthlessness of simple paper constitutions, on which Mr. Jefferson placed such implicit reliance, or that the real constitution is in the state itself, in the manner in which the people themselves are organized; but his reliance was in constituting, as powers in the state, ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... presently despatched Arthur into town after an excellent assortment of groceries. All the while, however, he neglected no opportunity to elaborate for Nellie's benefit his opinions concerning the handy-man's utter worthlessness. At length this good Samaritan paused from his labors, and regaling himself with a fresh chew of tobacco and a parting gibe at Joe, set briskly off ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... man was Calliope Catesby at other times—quiet to indolence, and amiable to worthlessness. At best he was a loafer and a nuisance; at worst he was the Terror of Quicksand. His ostensible occupation was something subordinate in the real estate line; he drove the beguiled Easterner in buckboards out to look over lots and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... a duty or a grief must be worth it,' said John. 'Consider the worthlessness of what we think most important in That Presence. A kingdom less than an ant's nest in comparison. But, here, I must show you a more everyday bit. It was towards the end, when she hardly ever left her grandfather, and I had been writing to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tried to find out whether his horse could be accustomed to go without food, was not more ridiculous than the men who wish to find happiness in their home and yet refuse to cultivate it with all the pains which it demands. The errors of women are so many indictments of egotism, neglect and worthlessness in husbands. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... biographers. He has no second. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere." And yet this same Boswell is "a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect"; and, strangest of all, only achieves his amazing success by force of his worthlessness and folly. "If he had not {39} been a great fool he would never have been ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... I'm sure. Thank you for your frank opinion of my—worthlessness. It was kind of you ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... proved the utter worthlessness of Christianity as a civilizing force. The nations engaged were not fighting non-Christians; Germany, Austria, Russia, England, Belgium, Servia, Italy, and the United States are all Christian nations. They all worship the same God, ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... what we commonly call the Resurrection. Some say: 'How can the same dust be raised again, when it may be scattered to the winds of heaven?' It is a question I hardly care to answer. The mere difficulty can in reason stand for nothing with God; but the apparent worthlessness of the supposition renders the question uninteresting to me. What is of import is, that I should stand clothed upon, with a body which is my body because it serves my ends, justifies my consciousness of identity by being, in ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald |
