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Unfit   /ənfˈɪt/   Listen
Unfit

adjective
(compar. unfitter; superl. unfittest)
1.
Below the required standards for a purpose.  "Unfit for human consumption"
2.
Not in good physical or mental condition; out of condition.  "Certified as unfit for army service" , "Drunk and unfit for service"
3.
Physically unsound or diseased.  Synonyms: bad, unsound.  "A bad heart" , "Bad teeth" , "An unsound limb" , "Unsound teeth"



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"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books



... theologians Gury, Scavani, Liguori, etc., ever been honest enough, in their works on confession, to say that the Most Holy God could never command or require woman to degrade and pollute herself and the priest in pouring in the ear of a frail and sinful mortal, words unfit even for an angel? No; they were very careful not to say so; for from that very moment, their shameless lies would have been exposed; the stupendous but weak structure of auricular confession would ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... His commandment and promise, knowing that He will not have them disregarded. This I say because I would like to see these things brought home again to the people that they might learn to pray truly, and not go about coldly and indifferently, whereby they become daily more unfit for prayer; which is just what the devil desires, and for what he works with all his powers. For he is well aware what damage and harm it does him when prayer is in proper practice. For this we must know, that all our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone. ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... air was admitted through a small grated aperture in the roof; and thus imperfectly ventilated, it will not be wondered at that the vault should be damp. Moisture constantly trickled down the walls, and collected in pools on the broken pavement; but unwholesome as it was, and altogether unfit for occupation, it was deemed good enough for those generally thrust into it, and far too good ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... a fearfully heavy one for men who, besides having walked so long and so far on the previous day, were, most of them, much weakened by illness, and very unfit for such laborious work. The floes, too, were so rugged that they had frequently to lift the heavy sledge and its living load over deep rents and chasms which, in circumstances less desperate, they would have scarcely ventured to do. Work as they would, however, they could not ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... misfortune. I went on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to study art. He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and for the public interest, the Company's favor and my unbounded confidence have been lavished on a man totally unfit for the exalted station in which he has been placed, and unworthy of the trusts that have been reposed in him. When I speak of one who has so deeply stabbed my honor, my wounds bleed afresh, and I must be allowed that freedom of expression which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of the Galilaeans. [90] In all the cities of the Roman world, the education of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... respect of the neighbourhood. Thus Talcaguana was at our mercy; nor had we any thing to fear, either from the armed corvette, or the battery on shore; the former being so situated that it must needs have struck to our first broadside, and the latter mounting only six guns quite unfit for use, and resting upon broken carriages. We had also removed our observatory, and conveyed all our effects on board. These imposing preparations did not in all probability remain unobserved; at all events, the ball passed off quietly enough; but it was remarkable ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... "take the general question. It is the way that change has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best—the suffering and extinction of the unfit, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... absolute spiritual despotism. The power might be used to repel a too faithful pastor, but if there was sometimes a temptation to this, the occasion was far more frequent for putting the people's reprobation upon the unfaithful and unfit. The colony, growing in wealth and population, soon became infested with a rabble of worthless and scandalous priests. In a report which has been often quoted, Governor Berkeley, after giving account of the material prosperity ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... superstitious, they were luxurious, they were unwarlike. Many of them were not Britons at all, but foreigners settled in the City for trade. Moreover, for it is not true that the whole British people had grown unfit for war, a revolt of the Roman legions in the year 407 drew a large number of the young men into their ranks, and when Constantine the usurper took them over into Gaul for the four years' fighting which followed, ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... simply but with some signe of admiration, as in our enterlude called the Woer. I woonder much to see so many husbands thriue, That haue but little wit, before they come to wiue: For one would easily weene who so hath little wit, His wife to teach it him, were a thing much unfit. ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham

... don't know! And I have not altogether got to shut down," the young man said, "only the show is growing rather rotten over here. We have let the rabble—the most unfit and ignorant—have the casting vote, and the machine now will crush any man. I have kept out of politics as much as I can ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... millionnaire heirs. That a dead man of a hundred millions should be allowed to keep fifty millions hoarded in private possession appears to me an extravagant claim, for even ten per cent. of that amount would be enough to spoil his children and unfit them for good citizenship. I believe it would be better for society if all inheritance of wealth were forbidden, and every boy and girl required to begin life with a few hundred dollars, and gain the position they deserved by ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... quality is afforded by the career of Henare Wiremu Taratoa. Baptised and taught by Henry Williams, after whom he was named, this man had been afterwards trained at St. John's College, and had actually taken a part in the founding of the Melanesian Mission. When at length he was pronounced unfit for the sacred ministry on account of his impetuous disposition, he became a teacher in the mission school at Otaki. Here he remained until 1861, when the governor's aggressive policy determined him to cast in his lot with his threatened countrymen. ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... with the strictest attention, and after considering it again & again, not without a real partiality to the Author, & the strongest desire of encouraging the most favourable idea of it, I am with much concern obliged to declare it unfit ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison

... elimination of the weak, a higher human type. To relieve this pressure through social arrangements would arrest by artificial contrivances the progress which the free play of natural forces tends to bring about. If progress is made only through the selection of the fit and the rejection of the unfit, it would follow that the keener the struggle for existence and the more rapid and relentless the elimination of the weak, the greater would be the progress made. This is exactly the contention of Kidd in his Social Evolution. He claims that if the pressure of population on the ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... received in some sort, their reward. I look upon them as so many old cabinets of ivory and tortoise-shell, scratched, flawed, splintered, rotten, defective both within and without, hard to unlock, insecure to lock up again, unfit to use. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... the doctor solemnly, "your conduct has been irregular; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical adviser, etiquette forbade you to get well but by his prescriptions. Since, then, you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it becomes my painful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at all, without my permission first ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... the meat ration on high, literally laid siege to the official tent. The meat supplied was miserably lean, quite unfit for consumption. I myself wouldn't have given it to a dog. When thrown against a wall, for instance, it would stick. Throughout the Camp it was dubbed "vrekvlys" (a man dies, an animal "vreks"—vlys is ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... the respectful attention which business details receive nowadays from those whose birth and education unfit them for such pursuits. It was obvious that he did not fully understand the terms of which Roden made use; but he tapped his smart boot with his cane, gave a quick nod of the head, and looked intelligently around him. He had a certain respect ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... President deftly brought about the election of Hill to the position; and many a gala hour he had in later days as Lewis and other witnesses described the chagrin of the senators at being obliged to accept as one of their colleagues a man whom they had adjudged unfit for ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... fit for me to read may be most unfit for you. I read the book when I was a young man; I would not read it now. Is it Benoite's?" he inquired, seeing the name ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... fat, they could tell by the "feel" of him; and if they drew upon the carcass for moderate rations, it would hold out for many days; but then how was the meat to be preserved? Lying as it was—still unskinned—it must soon become unfit for food, though not so soon as in the open air; for meat will keep much longer in a cave,—that is, if it be a very deep one, than it will when exposed to the full ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... story was told, and she fancied telling it without being scandalized at violating the conventions that should have kept her from even dreaming of such a thing. It was all exalted to a plane where there was no question of fit or unfit in doing it, but only the occasion; and he would never hear of the unworthiness which she wished to ascribe to herself. Sometimes he mournfully left her when she persisted, left her forever, and sometimes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a mica is facilitated by weathering, which softens the associated feldspar, making it an easier task to take out the mica blocks. On the other hand, iron staining by surface solutions during weathering may make the mica unfit for electrical and ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... sums spent on armaments and on the maintenance of enormous fleets and armies; but it may be doubted if this expenditure is as costly in the end as that which goes to support a systematic manufacture of the unfit, and to assist in the distribution of individuals to stations in the social scheme for ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... season; but on the other hand I almost invariably found that the planting and tending had been left to the uncontrolled management of native gardeners, who with a certain amount of skill in handicraft are, from habits and prejudices, singularly unfit for ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... the spring of 327 B.C. that he was ready to cross the Hindu Koosh and begin the great expedition into India. The night before the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the long march. So in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly set fire to his own baggage, and, giving orders that all his men were to do the same, the army started for the passes of the lofty mountain ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... consider, that the greater part of our success and comfort in life depends on distinguishing the similar from the same, that which is peculiar in each thing from that which it has in common with others, so as still to select the most probable, instead of the merely possible or positively unfit, we shall learn to value earnestly and with a practical seriousness a mean, already prepared for us by nature and society, of teaching the young mind to think well and wisely by the same unremembered process and with the same never forgotten results, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... love of God, do not despatch me!" cried the man. "I will try to walk; I would not be cut off so suddenly. In mercy, spare me, even for a few hours. I am unfit to die; yet I ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... band of horsemen alone remained to tell of the death of their king and the destruction of all their hopes. They numbered several hundreds, but their hacked armour, jaded steeds, and gaping wounds told that they were unfit to offer battle to any foe. They were in full flight, bearing a torn banner, still wet with the blood of King Arthur; yet they fled unwillingly, as men who were unused to retreat, and scarce knew how to comport ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... her disobedience against her own family, and then ye let a drunken rascal steal her from me to crown our disgrace,' he went on fiercely. Fer once in my life I stood silent, too ashamed to answer him, while he heaped words upon me that would be unfit to repeat in decent company. He was fair torn with anguish and temper, an' I let him have his say. Then, when he was calmer, I told him all I knew, from the first meetin' o' Florence with the bridge foreman. He listened, breathing sort o' sharp, as if my words hurt him, an' then of ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... was; yet hunted down For treasons, to my soul unfit; I've been pursued through many a town, For crimes that petty knaves commit; I've been adjudged t'have lost my wit, Because I preached so loud and well; And thrown into the dungeon's pit, For trampling ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... head, will come, Soon palsied age will creep our way, Bidding love's flatteries at last be dumb, Unfit for old ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... Since an unfit employment is a mistake, and a source of unhappiness, everyone is free to choose the work that suits his nature. Parents and teachers only help him to discover himself. One is called to his work by a love for it, and the pleasure he takes in doing it easily ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... human use, except through great geological changes, or other mysterious influences or agencies of which we have no present knowledge, and over which we have no prospective control. The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence, and of like duration with that through which traces of that crime and that improvidence extend, would reduce ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... mould of Phidias." This is well expressed. He justly animadverts upon the silly fashion of the day, in lauding the vulgar imitation of the worsted stockings by Thom. The subjects chosen were most unfit for sculpture,—their only immortality must be in Burns. We do not understand his extreme admiration of Wilkie; in a note on parallel perspective in sculpture, he adduces Raffaelle as an example of the practice, and closes by comparing him with Sir David Wilkie,—"known by the appellation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... consideration, he decided that upon the commencement of hostilities I should go to Antwerp, and there remain till the end of the campaign, which might last months. He wished me not to think of going along with him, because the rear of a great army was always dangerous, and an unfit situation for a woman; and he wished not to draw me into any scenes, or near any danger, more than if I had remained in England. He little thought I should be in the midst of horrors I would not pass again for any being now living; and alas, the cautious anxiety he expressed that I should avoid ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons, grapes. Mixing improper substances ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... at last, with a great effort (to do him justice) to climb back on to some ordinary level of conversation; 'all these transcendentalisms apart, I am about the most unfit man in the world for a college tutor. The undergraduates regard me as a shilly-shallying pedant. On my part,' he added drily, 'I am not slow to retaliate. Every term I live I find the young man a less ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of passages in the epistles of Paul would naturally cause the common reader to conclude that he imagined that the unregenerate those unfit for the presence of God were to be annihilated when Christ, after his second coming, should return to heaven with his saints. "Those who know not God and obey not the gospel of Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... war, others so small as to stand a foot lower than their guns," a large number of boys of sixteen, fourteen, and thirteen; in short, the reprobate of great cities as we now see him, stunted, puny, and naturally insolent and insurgent.[3241] "One-third of them are found unfit for service" on reaching the frontier.[3242]—But, before reaching the frontier, they act like "pirates" on the road.—The others, with sounder bodies and better hearts, become, under the discipline of constant danger, good soldiers at the end of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Horeb, which is called by six names, each conveying one of its distinctions. It is "the mountain of God," wherein the Lord revealed His law; "Basban," for God "came there"; "a mountain of humps," for the Lord declared all the other mountains unfit for the revelation, as "crookbackt" animals are declared unfit for sacrifices; "mountain of abode," because it is the mountain that God desired for His "abode"; Sinai, because the "hatred" of God ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... of Dublin, I am almost daily called upon to inspect meat suspected to be unwholesome; and I have always condemned as being unfit for ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... was not looked on as a trifling character? his name I will mention to any one who will apply to me; however, my brother said, the man who was sent with the application was a poor peasant, and the most unfit person in the world to send for intelligence; this argument was what had weight with Count Donop, and which saved his life.[I] These circumstances being mentioned by a brother, and which he declared to be true, naturally produced an alteration in my sentiments of Mr. Reed; for previous ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various

... of Europe and Asia, and, in its natural state, is quite as unfit for the table as the crab-apple. Cultivation has given it a degree of excellence that places it in the first rank among dessert-fruits. No other American fruit commands so high a price. New varieties are obtained by seedlings, and are propagated by grafting and budding: the latter is generally ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... love, it is the saddest thing, When friendship proves unfit, For lots of sadness it will bring, When e'er ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... birth, and, though a spotless and noble woman, her most trivial actions gave occasion to calumnies founded on the crimes of the last generation. Unfortunately, the king, though an honest and well-intentioned man, was totally unfit to guide a country through a dangerous crisis. His courage was passive, his manners were heavy, dull, and shy, and, though steadily industrious, he was slow of comprehension and unready in action; and reformation was the more difficult because to ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule, because it is incompetent to assure an existence ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... drew forth my highest approbation. These gentlemen had brought all the stores they could procure from the establishments at Cumberland and Isle a la Crosse; and at the latter place they had received ten bags of pemmican from the North-West Company, which proved to be mouldy, and so totally unfit for use, that it was left at the Methye Portage. They got none from the Hudson's Bay Post. The Voyagers belonging to that Company, being destitute of provision, had eaten what was intended for us. In consequence of these untoward circumstances, the canoes arrived ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... knows— The sting she nourished for her foes, Whose venom never yet was vain, 430 Gives but one pang, and cures all pain, And darts into her desperate brain: So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;[83] So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,[do] Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... he had infirmities; his bodily health was feeble, his mind to the extreme refined and to the last degree sensitive; he shrank from the conflict of life; common people he could not associate with; for the ordinary world he was wholly unfit, and sought refuge in some ideal not yet reached. Niebuhr truly reads the character when he writes: "Overbeck is an enthusiast and quite illiberal; he is a very amiable man and endowed with a magnificent ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson

... education might cost? It seems quite certain that if we wait for just appropriations from the State before we shoulder the burden ourselves, wait for it to compel us to accept of Catholic education, we shall find ourselves in a very unfit condition to appreciate the favor; and from present indications, this generation, at least, is likely to pass away before such interest will be manifested in ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... apologies, what far more than compensated for a little niggardliness in point of money (of which Becky never was free), that Becky, we say, received a notice to quit from the landlord, who had been told by some one that she was quite an unfit person to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not sit down with her. And she was forced to fly into lodgings of which the dulness and solitude were most ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... senate, I, and Rome herself agrees There's none but Marius shall be general. Therefore, Sylla, these daring terms unfit Beseem not thee ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... drafted. Abundant time is given for the settlement of any pressing business, the proper disposition of family affairs, or the procuring of a substitute. It is mild toward the infirm and afflicted, making ample provision for the exemption of those who, from any cause, are unfit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... he shall. It is such a pretty room that he cannot fail to be impressed. Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to the charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would be unfit to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I foresee those roses will be the means of reducing him ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... I would not, fair maiden, My tongue could pronounce what might tend to betray; The traitor, the demon, That could deceive woman, His soul's all unfit ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Edith's. I knew before that Mrs. Graeme was on the eve of confinement, and it now appeared she had been taken in labour. I saw, too, that my visit had not been very well timed, and the worse that Graeme himself was in the extraordinary frame of mind in which I found him—unfit for facing the dangers, repaying the affections, performing the duties, and receiving the honours or enjoying the hopes of his situation. A rap at the door was the signal for Edith's departure, with the words on her tongue that she knew the doctor's knock. I was now, I thought, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... of it windows would fly open, partitions fall down, and all those privacies meet and answer in one terrible outcry. He put up a hand to thrust it away—this awful gift of power. He would have none of it; he was unfit. "Oh, my God!"—it was he, not Casey, who held the real infernal machine. It was here, not in the Berenice, that the levin must fall; and he, John Gilbart, held it in his fingers. "Oh, my God, I am ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... indeed, to tell the truth, a day or two in bed was not calculated to do him the least harm, but a great deal of good; for what, between the united contributions of Father M'Cabe and Bob Beatty, he was by no means an unfit subject for the enjoyment of a few days' retirement ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... This shaping or "cutting" as it is technically called, is done by placing the rough stone in the end of a holder by means of a tough cement and then rotating holder and stone in a lathe-like machine. Another rough diamond (sometimes a piece of bort, unfit for cutting, and sometimes a piece of material of good quality which it is necessary to reduce in size or alter in shape) is cemented into another holder and held against the surface of the rotating diamond. ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... other argument to be true, on which you found your merit; "that you take them from their country for their own convenience; because Africa, scorched with incessant heat, and subject to the most violent rains and tempests, is unwholesome, and unfit to be inhabited." Preposterous men! do you thus judge from your own feelings? Do you thus judge from your own constitution and frame? But if you suppose that the Africans are incapable of enduring their own climate, because you cannot endure it yourselves; ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... perceiving it. Mr. Ransome's state made him unfit for business now, unfit to appear in the shop, above all unfit for the dispensary. Fit only to crawl from room to room and trouble them with the sad state of his peaked and peevish face. He required watching. He himself recognized that in his handling of tricky drugs there was ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... much country or Western butter as desired, you may get several pounds of it when it is cheap during the summer; or any butter unfit for table use may be made sweet and good for cooking purposes and will last for months, if prepared in the following manner: Place the butter in a deep, iron kettle, filling only half full to prevent boiling over. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not enable you to escape the evil, it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes. It does not bless to-morrow, but it robs to-day. For every day has its own burden. Sufficient for each day is the evil which properly belongs to it. Do not add to-morrow's to to-day's. Do not drag the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... brushed her tears away and returned to her grandmother's side. The gravel was cutting her feet. Her shoes were utterly unfit for running. She would rush back and get a pair of the boys' strong ones. She had ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... him into an act of culpable imprudence. Besides, that very day many things had reached his ears concerning these two who suited each other as perfectly as Heinz Schorlin seemed—even to the Hapsburg, who was loyally devoted to the Holy Church—unfit for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... are general directions how and with what baits to fish for the Russe or Pope, the Roch, the Dace, and other small fish, with directions how to keep Ant-flies and Gentles in winter, with some other observations not unfit to be known ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... slop chest was under water, and the tobacco utterly useless. I did not use it at the time, but I fished some out for the others. It did not do; it would not dry out to smoke, and the salt in it made it unfit to chew. But the bos'n had an upper bunk in the forward house, in which was a couple of pounds of navy plug, and he and the sailor talked this over until their craving for a smoke overcame their fear ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... the bottom.' Granted, my friends. Work must always be, and captains of work must always be; and if you in the least remember the tone of any of my writings, you must know that they are thought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need of government, and speaking with scorn of liberty. But I beg you to observe that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are general of an ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... directed the Bishop of Exeter that the chapels both of St. Ives and Towednack should be made parochial, "with font and cemetery, but dependent on Lelant." The people set to work at once, bringing the necessary granite from Zennor by boat, roads being then quite unfit for transit of heavy burdens. Completed in 1426, the church consists of chancel, nave, and two aisles, with a tower 119 feet in height. The roofs are of decorated wagon-form, with figures of angels at the springings of the braces. The Trenwith aisle was added a ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... in the lower animals are large and ponderous volumes, replete with technicalities, and unfit for the general reader; therefore the author of this book has endeavored to present the evidences of mental action, in creatures lower than man, in a clear, simple, and brief form. He has avoided all technicalities, and has used the utmost brevity consistent with clearness and ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... former times, when the bottle circulated freely amongst the guests, it was necessary for the ladies to retire earlier than they do at present, for the gentlemen of the company soon became unfit to conduct themselves with that decorum which is essential in the presence of ladies. Thanks, however, to the improvements in modern society, and the high example shown to the nation by its most illustrious personages, temperance is, in these ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... time, doubted by all who knew him best! Are such statements as these to be submitted to by a man of honor? Never! PUNCHINELLO dares the recreant editor of the dirty sheet to do his worst! Of that base man he could tell much which would render him unfit for the association of any person living, but he forbears. This much, however, he will say. It is well known that the said calumniator did, at many periods of his life, make use of the services of a calceolarius. Think of that, freemen of America! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... dalesman, who had so far accumulated estate in land as to be known in the vernacular as a statesman. Her mother had died at her birth, and before she had attained to young womanhood her father, who had married late in life, was feeble and unfit for labor. His hand was too nervous, his eye too uncertain, his breath too short for the constant risks of mountaineering; so he put away all further thought of adding store to store, and settled himself peaceably in his cottage under Castenand, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... "These are, therefore, to command you to make known in our name unto the House that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with anything concerning our government or deep matters of state." He insisted that "these are unfit things to be handled in Parliament except your king requires it of you. "As to the privileges of Parliament James wrote, "We cannot allow of the style calling it your ancient and undoubted right and inheritance, but could rather have wished that ye had said that your privileges were derived from ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... which explains their philosophical relationship and the sort of trilogy which these three novels form. Thus, Julian the Apostate, who tried in vain during his life to make history repeat itself, by transplanting pagan traditions into a plot which had become unfit to receive them, and who died in the effort to preserve a faith—does not this man, then, incarnate that implacable pursuit of the "integral personality" so extolled by Nietzsche? Leonardo da Vinci, that great universal and keen mind, who ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... resist the temptation to show her Totty, passed at once into the back kitchen, in search of her, not, however, without misgivings lest something should have happened to render her person and attire unfit for presentation. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... excellent friends by this time, and exchanged many gay quips and sallies together. Rosamund always made him tell the story of his past week in some detail; and Tom had therefore another motive for keeping free from scenes and company which would have made his story unfit hearing for her ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... with your sister. As I said to you in my note of this morning, when you are in this town you must consider this house your home. It is almost insulting of you to go to an inn. I am told it is even ... quite an unfit place that you are stopping at—for ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... not to dismount, strike below, or otherwise render unfit for immediate use, any of the guns on board the ship he commands, except imperative necessity should require it for the safety of the vessel. The particular circumstances of such necessity are to be immediately entered at large in the log, and information is to be given to the Commander of the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding. His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... did we run into Waterloo Station—doors were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms—much gold braid and silver buttons—came aboard. We thought that they were admirals and field-marshals at the very least, but it turned out they were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, men unfit for military service, who had provided their own cars and received not a penny of pay. With the tenderness of women they put us on stretchers and carried us out to their luxurious ambulances. With each four men went a lady ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... both among the clergy and civilians, to suppress as far as possible, all zealous Calvinistic preachers, to confine them entirely to their own pulpits; and at the same time to put all the public odium and reproach upon them as wicked, disorderly men, unfit to enjoy the common rights ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... us to determine the question first started, [FOOTNOTE: Sect. 1.] concerning the general principles of morals; and though we postponed the decision of that question, lest it should then involve us in intricate speculations, which are unfit for moral discourses, we may resume it at present, and examine how far either REASON or SENTIMENT enters into all decisions ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... anti-Russian. The opposition of France and Russia was strongly announced, but restrained within reasonable bounds. Mr Rudhart succeeded Count Armansperg. He, poor man! was assailed by England with all the artillery of Palmerston; and as neither France nor Russia would undertake to support so unfit a person, he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... feeling. They are perfectly right; for it is certain that beauty gives no separate, single result, either for the understanding or for the will; it does not carry out a single intellectual or moral object; it discovers no truth, does not help us to fulfil a single duty, and, in one word, is equally unfit to found the character or to clear the head. Accordingly, the personal worth of a man, or his dignity, as far as this can only depend on himself, remains entirely undetermined by aesthetic culture, and nothing further is attained than that, on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... is certain that they should not be foolishly idle; and on the other hand, it is equally certain that they should be relieved from painful laborious occupations that exhaust and unfit them for happiness. Pleasant and useful physical and intellectual occupation, however, will not only do ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... at least, sir," answered the mate. "If she comes up at this rate, she'll be within hail before the first watch is over to-night. Now, sir, as the carpenter reports the water increasing fast, and to have to keep the men at the pumps, where they must go for a spell, will make them unfit to meet the enemy, I venture to advise that we take the strain off the ship at once. It's clearly nothing else that makes her leak as she does, and we shall then meet that fellow by daylight, which I tell you honestly, Captain Bowse, I for one would ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... ultimate escape of Miss Onslow and myself was concerned, the prospect of such a result was distinctly improved by the loss, on the part of our enemies, of two killed and six wounded, of whom three of the latter were unfit for duty. This reduced the number of O'Gorman's gang to nine effectives, or, deducting the cook and steward, a working-party of seven, all told, who would have to be divided into two watches. As I reflected carefully upon the matter, looking at it in all its bearings, it seemed that the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... directly to meet us. Two of our boats were very heavy and could not row as fast as the canoes, and accordingly we were already far in advance. There were five canoes in this company, and among them only thirty-six men in a very unfit condition to fight, being tired and worn with so much rowing. The enemy sailed toward us directly before the wind, and we feared greatly lest they should run us down. So we rowed straight up into the "wind's eye," as the sailors say, and got close to windward of them. While we were doing this, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the reading of the Bible in the schools because "a majority of the teachers are utterly unfit to give religious instruction," Dr. Ryerson replied: The reading of the Bible and giving religious instruction from it are two very different things. The question is not the competency of teachers to give religious instruction, but the right of a Protestant to the reading of the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... fittest to live and thrive in it. And yet how, on this hypothesis, are we to account for the absence of cattle in the Pampas of South America, when those parts of the New World were discovered? It is not that they were unfit for cattle, for millions of cattle now run wild there; and the like holds good of Australia and New Zealand. It is a curious circumstance, in fact, that the animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere are not only as well adapted to live in the Southern Hemisphere as its ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... happens, that after the paper has been mounted and dried, it is discovered that lumps in the paste have caused defects to appear on the face of the paper in the shape of raised surfaces that unfit it for the intended purpose. These can be entirely removed by wetting the back of the strainer with some clean water immediately behind where the lumps of paste are, and with a knife scraping the cloth a little at these places; the ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt

... Uncle Toby's groin, which he received at the siege of Namur, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he should return to England, in order, if possible, to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... queen-dowager cried out angrily, "What better could be expected of a man who was reared as a herd-boy? If you want to go back to your business, take the maid with you, who may perhaps understand tending swine, but is quite unfit for a king's consort. Such a peasant girl can only disgrace the throne of a king." These words moved the king to anger, and he answered sternly, "I am king, and can do what I will, but woe to you who have brought my former ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,—one or the other—too often proves 'the dead fly in the compost of spices', and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... could not last always. The very same influences which put the real power into the hands of the regents were at work to render them unfit to continue to wield it. Abdication and effeminacy were gradually dragging down the Hojo family to the same level as that of the shoguns and emperors. In A.D. 1256 Tokiyori, then only thirty years old, resigned the regency in favor ...
— Japan • David Murray

... the actual sanction of Sir William Howe, these atrocities were at least committed with his guilty knowledge.[1] The calculated barbarities practised upon these poor prisoners, with no other purpose than to make them desert their cause, or if that failed, totally to unfit them for serving it more, are almost too shocking for belief. It was such acts as these that wrung from the indignant Napier the terrible admission that "the annals of civilized warfare furnish nothing more inhuman towards captives of war than the prison ships ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake

... imported, the fortress and palace of the Knights Templars, and, having been erected by them in the palmy days of their wealth and magnificence, contained spacious apartments, and extensive gardens protected from intrusion by a lofty wall, which surrounded the whole. It was not, unfit for, nor unaccustomed to, the reception of princes; for the Count d'Artois had fitted up a portion of it for himself whenever he visited the capital. And to his apartments those who had the custody of the king and queen at first ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... Mary's Church. No documentary evidence of their treatment of libraries remains, but it was certainly most drastic. Any illuminated manuscript, or even a mathematical treatise illustrated with diagrams, was deemed unfit to survive, and was thrown out for sale or destruction. Some of the college libraries did not suffer severely. Most of Grey's books survived in Balliol, although the miniatures were cut out. Queen's, All Souls, and Merton came ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... Almighty and everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess before Thy holy majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in guilt and corruption, prone to do evil, unfit for any good; who, by reason of our depravity, transgress without end Thy holy commandments. Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... that she annoyed the people about her, but she learned again the invaluable lesson that rich men are unfit companions for nice girls. Kedzie resolved to prove this for herself. She prayed for a chance to be tempted so that she might rebuke some swell villain. But she intended to postpone the rebuke until she had seen a lot of high life. This would serve a double purpose: Kedzie would get to ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... of great genius, who, for want of some minor quality, were rejected and perhaps placed in some lower division, humiliated and discouraged, although with care the deficient quality could have been supplied. The want of this perhaps would make the boy a recruit to the ranks of evil, or at least unfit him, when a man, for the real business of life. It was the small bolt wanting to enable the machine to do ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... the great packs that held my camping kit seemed a barbarity. Meanwhile Gotteland, who knows something of everything, had carefully examined the tiny animal, and just as I was growing sentimental over its perfections, he broke the charm by pronouncing it to be incredibly old, and unfit for work. He also drew my attention to a disagreeable sore upon its shoulder. It was sad; but indisputably the man was right; in any case there was no one with whom a bargain could have been arranged, and with poignant regret I was forced to leave my treasure-trove to its solitary thoughts. ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... them all with the greatest care, and found in most of them considerable quantities of water in the holes of the rocks, but so mixed with the sea-water that it was unfit for use; and therefore they were obliged to go farther. The first thing they did was to make a deck to their boat, because they found it was impracticable to navigate those seas in an open vessel. Some of the crew joined them by the time the work was finished; ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... period of work. Some of the men were to build a boom across the river in the defile, others were to construct a stone wall across the gorge leading from the Deadman's Pool; while he started the women and children on a new set of huts, having condemned the old village as unfit for habitation. Further, he passed a law that any man, woman, or child found wandering about idle during the three days, would have to pass a night on the banks of the "tabooed" pool tied to a tree; and, finally, he appointed himself and the two sub-chiefs, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... cheerful, and self-possessed, he would say a thing that none of his hearers would dispute. If he should add, that dancing-parties, beginning at ten o'clock at night and ending at four o'clock in the morning, do use up the strength, weaken the nerves, and leave a person wholly unfit for any home duty, he would also be saying what very few people would deny; and then his case would be made out. If he should say that it is wrong to breathe bad air and fill the stomach with unwholesome dainties, so as to make one restless, ill-natured, and irritable for days after, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... latter part of the night. Rain was pattering on the tent. The wind moaned. He thought of Blake, not clad for bad weather and in unfit condition for a long ride, facing the storm. Even then a vague doubt penetrated his ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... for the bath-house, which is at the foot of the hill, at Joncheroy. If they can't get bathed, disinfected, and changed before dark, they have to sleep their first night in the straw with the horses, as they are unfit, in more ways than I like to tell you, to go into anyone's house until that is done, and they ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... her flight with the Earl of Rochester, she had never yet been separated. She had now to part with her, in all probability, for ever. It was a heart-breaking reflection to both. Knowing it would only renew their affliction, and perhaps unfit Amabel for the journey, Mr. Bloundel had prevailed upon his wife not to see her in the morning. The moment had, therefore, arrived when they were to bid each other farewell. The anguish displayed in his wife's countenance ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Shabolovka, a young man of five-and-twenty, called Yakov Aratov. With him lived his father's sister, an elderly maiden lady, over fifty, Platonida Ivanovna. She took charge of his house, and looked after his household expenditure, a task for which Aratov was utterly unfit. Other relations he had none. A few years previously, his father, a provincial gentleman of small property, had moved to Moscow together with him and Platonida Ivanovna, whom he always, however, called Platosha; her nephew, too, used the same name. On ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... eclipse comes on, takes a torch, and begins to search his house and carefully removes all cooked food, and all water for drinking purposes. Such food and water, by the eclipse, incur Grahana seshah, that is, uncleanness, and are rendered unfit for use. Some, with less scruples of conscience, declare that the food may be preserved by placing on it dharba or Kusa grass," and much more to the like effect is duly set out ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... indeed; and I found him in a sad condition." Katherine went on to describe the scene of yesterday, dwelling on the desolate position of the old man. "I felt frightened to leave him alone; he seems weak, and unfit to take care of himself. I hope, Mr. Newton, you will go to him and induce him to have a proper servant. I am going, because I promised in any case to go; and I must give the little servant's mother ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... and dressed the carcass, wasting no part of the flesh, save the liver, which they fed to the dogs, for, as every one knows, the liver of the polar bear is poisonous and unfit for ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, "What blood's good enough ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... I know if I were SHAKSPEARE or any of his colleagues, my writings would be entirely unfit for representation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various

... to sea, take care of themselves, and remain there prepared to attack an enemy wherever he may be found. Invisibility to an enemy may facilitate attack, but it has to be dearly paid for in diminished safety. Further, the life that must be led in such vessels in time of war would very quickly unfit men for their ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... could procure from the establishments at Cumberland and Isle a la Crosse; and at the latter place they had received ten bags of pemmican from the North-West Company, which proved to be mouldy and so totally unfit for use that it was left at the Methye Portage. They got none from the Hudson's Bay post. The voyagers belonging to that Company, being destitute of provision, had eaten what was intended for us. ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... of the faces might be various, but an underlying callousness was discoverable beneath every mask. The people seemed removed from her immeasurably; they were infinitely above her. What was she to them, she and her baby, the crippled outcasts of the human herd, the unfit, not able to survive, thrust out on the heath ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... beginning of the new year, the affliction which I have already mentioned, rendered me unfit for public service, and for about three months my brother and I stayed at the home of Brother Baugh on Dry Creek, where we read and studied and prayed and fought the affliction that had been imposed upon us. My brother got his prayers through and obtained ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole

... bitter and every way execrable, and a burning in the stomach that was very uncomfortable. We put molasses in it, but that helped it very little; we added a pickle, yet the alkali was the prominent taste and so it was unfit for drinking. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the climate of the eastern portion of the continent, and of the region round Hudson's Bay, as a standard, it was long supposed that all the interior of North America, beyond the 48th or 49th degree of north latitude, was too cold to produce grain crops; and unfit, therefore, for the habitation of civilised men. Recent investigations, however, have fully established the curious and very important fact, that west of the western end of Lake Superior, at about the 100th degree of west ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... when I say that the Kasai in places is alive with them. You can shoot one of these monsters from the bridge of the river boats almost as easily as you could pick off a sparrow from the limb of a park tree. I got tired of watching them. The flesh of the hippopotamus is unfit for white consumption, but the natives regard it as a luxury. The white man who kills a hippo is immediately acclaimed a hero. One reason is that with spears the black finds it difficult to get the better ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... fit, you mean. Herr Lippheim is undoubtedly warm-hearted and, in his own way, intelligent, but he is as unfit to be Karen's husband as your ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... at first esteemed General Blunt much more highly than he deserved, and had given him most liberal commendation in my official report for all he had done, I became satisfied that he was unfit in any respect for the command of a division of troops against a disciplined enemy. As was my plain duty, I suggested confidentially to General Curtis that the command of a division in the field was not General Blunt's true place, and that he be assigned to the District of Kansas, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... relation in domestic matters. See the selfish carelessness about the happiness of those around them of men not ill-intentioned, nor unkind, perhaps, in their dealings with the world in general, but lamentably unfit for the management of a home. Then observe the effects of similar mismanagement in dealing with a country. Look at the listless loiterers about an Irish town: you would naturally say to yourself, "Surely this people have done all that there can ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... you, do you not think that such a man would be very improper to make a friend of?" "There is no doubt of it," said Critobulus. "And if we found another," continued Socrates, "who was saving of what he had, but who, on the other hand, was so covetous that it would be quite unfit to have anything to do with him, because he would always be very ready to receive and never to give again?" "In my opinion," said Critobulus, "this would be a worse friend than the former. And if we should find a man who was so carried away with ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon

... bitter disappointment or reality! The road, which began among hawthorns and primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in precipices! Why is there so much confidence at first, so much doubt at last? Has, then, the knowledge of life no other end but to make it unfit for happiness? Must we condemn ourselves to ignorance if we would preserve hope? Is the world and is the individual man intended, after all, to find rest only ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... drive on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the darkness has quite fallen. And—don't you think we have talked enough ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... in these later volumes his must seem to us a godlike voice chanting in the void. For, fit or unfit as we may be to grasp the elusive substance of his strains, all must confess the voice of the singer to be divine. At once in the range and suppleness of his music he is not merely the first of our living poets, but incomparable. In learning he has Robert Bridges ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Brugg still duller and more dead; unfit utterly for a man of such sublime accomplishments. Plenty of Counts Stadion, Kings of Poland even, offered him engagements; eager to possess such a man, and deliver him from dull dead Brugg; but he had hypochondria, and always feared their ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... knows from the Reports of the Commissioners themselves that a great deal of it is very badly spent. The business is a comic opera, but it has a tragic significance for Ireland. Primary education is so bad that a great number of the pupils are absolutely unfit to receive the expensive and excellent technical instruction organized by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and contributed to by the ratepayers. The Belfast Technical Institute, for example, has to go outside its proper functions, and spend from its too small stock in providing ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... and insure his glory she forgot her habitual economy, levied an army larger than she had ever supported, except at the time of the invasion, and sent it to Ireland under the command of a man who was utterly unfit for the place. And when, beset by enemies, harassed by defeat, and overwhelmed with shame, the impetuous and noble-hearted Essex rushed into the presence of majesty as a lover would have sought his mistress, her woman's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... gone! I looked around me on every side; I groped beneath the table; I turned the sleeping sots who lay about in no very gentle fashion; but, alas, it was gone. I sprang to my feet and only then remembered how unfit I was to follow up the search, as tables, chairs, lights, and people seemed all rocking and waving before me. However, I succeeded in making my way, through one room into another, sometimes guiding my ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... a book cased in cloth by modern methods are so injured as to make it unfit for more permanent binding unless an unreasonable amount of time is spent on it. It is a great pity that publishers do not, in the case of books expected to have a permanent literary value, issue a certain number of copies ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... you were totally unfit for the mission I entrusted you with," went on the owner of ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... the first place, it is formed, in many respects, upon feudal principles. In the feudal times, it was not uncommon, even among subjects, for the lowest offices to be held by considerable persons,—persons as unfit by their incapacity as improper from their rank to occupy such employments. They were held by patent, sometimes for life, and sometimes by inheritance. If my memory does not deceive me, a person of no slight consideration held the office ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... were mustered out late in May, Kelso and McNeil, being sick with a stubborn fever, were declared unfit for service and sent back to New Salem as soon as they were able to ride. Abe and Harry joined Captain Iles' Company of Independent Rangers and a month or so later Abe re-enlisted to serve with Captain Early, Harry being under a surgeon's care. The latter's wound was not serious and on July ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... that Marion was in the right, and that there is no policy like sticking to a man's duty. For, behold! presently Charleston was invested by a large British army, and the American general (Lincoln) finding Marion was utterly unfit for duty, advised him to push off in a litter to his seat in St. John's parish. Thus providentially was Marion preserved to his country when Charleston fell, as it soon ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... hundred recruits who have been enrolled to bring up the brigade to its proper establishment, and fill the places of those luckless fellows whose flesh was too weak for Imperial service, however willing their spirit might have been. I must say I was more sorry for the "medically unfit" than I have ever been for anyone in this hard world, when we took affectionate leave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... here asking consent of his father and mother to marriage with one whom they thought unfit for him. He was wise in asking their counsel, but not wise in rejecting it. Captivated with her looks, the big son wanted to marry a daughter of one of the hostile families, a deceitful, hypocritical, whining, and saturnine creature, who afterward made for him a world of trouble till she ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... of the past or future; everything that could unfit her for the duties of the present. Exceeding love supplied the place of experience. She never left the room after the first day; she forced herself to eat, because his service needed her strength. She did not indulge in any tears, because ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Sec. 8, cl. 3). By the same authority, all cattle for export and all imported from foreign countries are inspected and those diseased excluded. Slaughter houses and meat-packing establishments where meat is packed for interstate or foreign commerce are inspected; meat that is unfit for use being condemned, while that which is good has the government stamp placed upon it. Such measures are primarily health measures (see Chapter XX), but they ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... became aware that the whole number of blocks had been made use of to repair the heavens, that it alone had been destitute of the necessary properties and had been unfit to attain selection, it forthwith felt within itself vexation and shame, and day and night, it gave ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... men, can possibly acquire. But for this same reason it has gained infinitely in solemnity and dignity. Imposing by its very sound, exciting in the minds of millions sanctifying religious associations, it seems to have grown almost unfit for any vulgar use, and to have become exclusively devoted to holy, or at least to serious ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson

... Milton's assistant in September 1657, and the friendship between the two men was thus consolidated by the strong ties of a common duty. Milton's blindness making him unfit to attend the reception of foreign embassies, Marvell took his place and joined in respectfully greeting the Dutch ambassadors. After all he was but a junior clerk, still he doubtless rejoiced that his lines ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... death-like faintness. The scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments, not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace, that no other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... with all that the words mean, though the world may regard them as pleasures, and engage in them as amusements, are evil before God. But not to dwell on this, which is evident, amusements are evil (b) when they unfit for work. "The end of labor," said the Greek philosopher Aristotle, "is to rest." It is equally true that "the end of rest is to labor." Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that leave us listless and weary, are pernicious. Outdoor games, for instance, ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... not give it up,' replied he. 'Many a one is carried off to the wars, or to the tenders o' men-o'-war; and then they turn out to be unfit for service, and are sent home. Philip 'll come back before the year's ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... wretched mortal might be one? I thought not; and therefore I wished with all my heart that it might please heaven to remove him to a better world, or if that might not be, still to take him out of this; for if he were unfit to answer the summons now, after a warning sickness, and with such an angel by his side, it seemed but too certain that he never would be—that, on the contrary, returning health would bring returning lust and ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... what each had said of the other—calling no names, of course—and saying that he was glad that these sinners had had the humility to give up positions of trust and honor in the church which they were evidently unfit to fill. He hoped before the end of the year they would be restored spiritually and worthy to perform the services they had formerly performed. Meanwhile, there was nothing left for him to do but to appoint a committee of sinners to attend to the stewards' duties until these should ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... new one rises. These charges, which cannot be gainsayed, bear not only upon married men, but young men; for the tastes and habits fostered by the Clubs, are precisely those which go to alienate them from the paternal roof, and to unfit them to ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... personal prejudice. Thus, when the Duchess of Orleans, the Princesse Palatine, calls her "that nasty old thing, that wicked devil, that shrivelled-up, filthy old Maintenon, that concubine of the king," and casts upon her other gross aspersions that are unfit to be repeated, one must remember that the calumniator was a German, the daughter of the Elector Palatine Charles-Louis, a woman honest in her morals, but shameless in her speech, who loved the beauties of nature more than ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... hands than those in which the business now is. We allow for your natural desire of quitting a scene which, God knows, must be mortifying enough to men who feel how much of the safety of Europe depends on the conduct of the Austrian Government, and who see how unfit that Government is to be trusted with the interests of the smallest corporation. But we are confident that as long as there may remain the hope of doing so much good as would, we trust, be done by the complete success of the present ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a black rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of poisonous water, which, insinuating itself through the soil, penetrated to all the springs of the city, and rendered them unfit for use. After he had been shown all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber, filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if he would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors and houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... be not all unfit For thy sublime and-boundless courtesy, My lowly thoughts at first were fain to try What they could yield for grace so infinite. But now I know my unassisted wit Is all too weak to make me soar so high, For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry, And wiser ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds



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