"Unproductive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consequent on this depreciation was great and afflicting. "The requisitions of congress for eight years past," say the committee in February, 1786, to whom the subject of the revenue had been referred, "have been so irregular in their operation, so uncertain in their collection, and so evidently unproductive, that a reliance on them in future as a source from whence moneys are to be drawn to discharge the engagements of the confederacy, definite as they are in time and amount, would be not less dishonourable to the understandings of those ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... yielded from that hogshead. Cleanliness in every matter and thing, in and about a distillery becomes an indispensable requisite, without a strict observance of which the undertaker will find the establishment unproductive and injurious to his interest. Purity cannot exist without cleanliness. Cleanliness in the human system will destroy an obstinate itch, of consequence, it is the active handmaid of health and comfort, and without ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... Martial Law forbade the use of water for gardening purposes. But the reminder only furnished the workers with a fresh incentive; it made their work a real as well as an ideal pleasure. The possibility of breaking the "Law" (with impunity) was worth a deal of productive, or unproductive, labour. The bread ordinance had not increased our respect for "benevolent" despotism. Any chance of setting at naught the absolute prepensities of our legislators (with a watering-can or by judicious keyhole stuffing, to hide the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... to each officer. Directions for arranging this reduction are given by the Council, as also for the governor's management of expenses, etc., Fajardo makes recommendations as to certain crown encomiendas, at present unproductive. This is approved by the Council, who order him to prevent any unjust collections. He commends certain officers as deserving rewards, and exonerates many of the religious from the blame of harassing the Indians. He is able to maintain amicable relations with the orders, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... all wonderful, very, very wonderful. There seemed indeed, as Glastonbury affirmed, a providential dispensation in the whole transaction. The fall of his family, the heroic, and, as it now appeared, prescient firmness with which his father had clung, in all their deprivations, to his unproductive patrimony, his own education, the extinction of his mother's house, his very follies, once to him a cause of so much unhappiness, but which it now seemed were all the time compelling him, as it were, to his prosperity; all these and a thousand other ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... cultivation? They would have reduced all their most necessary establishments; they would have suspended the justest payments; they would have employed every shilling derived from the producing, to re-animate the powers of the unproductive, parts. While they were performing this fundamental duty, whilst they were celebrating these mysteries of justice and humanity, they would have told the corps of fictitious creditors whose crimes were their claims, that they must keep an awful distance; that they must ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... with 'Sweet Bells Jangled,' for he had now decided to make his coup with that, but in other respects he was unproductive. He had begun several little things in pursuance of his engagements, but somehow he did not get on with them, and had to lay them aside until the intellectual thaw he expected. Pecuniarily his position was much improved; his uncle had kept his word, and put an allowance at his disposal ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... limits by alien races who were cutting off their means of livelihood. Father replied that surely it could never have been the intention of God to allow Indians to rove and hunt over so fertile a country and hold it forever in unproductive wildness, while Scotch and Irish and English farmers could put it to so much better use. Where an Indian required thousands of acres for his family, these acres in the hands of industrious, God-fearing farmers would support ten or a hundred times more people in a far worthier manner, while at ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... his head. "We're rather foolish about Belfast in Dublin," he said. "After all, real work is done here, isn't it? And the chief industry of Dublin ... what is it? Absolutely unproductive! Porter! Barrels and barrels of it, floating down the Liffey and nothing, nothing real, floating back! I like that man Arthurs. I wish to heaven we had ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... not long enjoy the substitution of a certain, though moderate, revenue for a magnificent but unproductive claim. He died shortly afterwards, leaving no other male issue than an illegitimate son, named Christopher. He left two daughters by his wife, Dona Maria de Mosquera, one named Phillippa, and the other ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... into two classes according to the causes which give rise to the desert conditions. In "cold deserts" the want of vegetation is wholly due to the prevailing low temperature, while in "hot deserts" the surface is unproductive because, on account of high temperature and deficient rainfall, evaporation is largely in excess of precipitation. Cold deserts accordingly occur in high latitudes (see TUNDRA and POLAR REGIONS). Hot desert conditions are primarily found along the tropical belts of high atmospheric ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... citizen; "that the lender of this money will transact with the holder of the mortgage, or wadset, over the estate of Glenvarloch, and obtain from him such a conveyance to his right as shall leave the lands pledged for the debt, in case the warrant upon the Scottish Exchequer should prove unproductive. I fear, in this uncertainty of public credit, that without some such counter security, it will be very difficult to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... with a circular flower-bed, extended a short distance on either side of the house. But not too much land was put to such unproductive use; and the small lawn was closely bordered by a corn-field on the one side and on the other by an apple orchard. Beyond stretched the tobacco—and wheat-fields, and behind the house were the vegetable garden ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... cold arithmetical seers, with nothing but millions in their imagination; and whose choicest works of art are spinning-jennies, have valued the intellectual tasks of the library and the studio by "the demand and the supply." They have sunk these pursuits into the class of what they term "unproductive labour;" and by another result of their line and level system, men of letters, with some other important characters, are forced down into the class "of buffoons, singers, opera-dancers, &c." In a system of political economy it has been discovered ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... had missed altogether the Devil's Tooth outfit, and was swinging back now by way of the Lava Beds, where Tom had said that they were going. It was because Tom had named that as his destination that Lance had ridden elsewhere to find him; good reasoning, but so far unproductive of results. ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... trite remark that slave labor is unproductive, when compared with labor performed by free white citizens; and that the agricultural interests of the country have suffered by the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... approach, he shall not find me unprepared or faint-hearted. Our faith hopes for and awaits the deliverance to which it leads us. Yet as long as we are upon earth we must attend to our daily task. And mine shall not lie unproductive. However trifling it may seem to others, to me it is indispensable. My soul's tears must, as it were, have lacrymatoria made for them; I must set fires alight for those of my dear ones that are alive, and keep my dear dead in spiritual and corporeal urns. This is ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... though this is generally best, as the loss of space in the rooms is more than made up by the cheeriness of the approach. For the same reason, unless you are sailing very close to the wind, let your entrance-hall be roomy. It is in no sense an unproductive outlay, for it avails above in chambers, and below in the refuge it affords to the children from the severer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... own business is a purely negative and unproductive injunction, but, taking social matters as they are just now, it is a sociological principle of the first importance. There might be developed a grand philosophy on the basis ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... lived and flourished a set of young men, some of them rich, some poor, and all of them idle, called "free-livers" (viveurs); and, indeed, they lived with incredible insolence—unabashed and unproductive consumers, and yet more intrepid drinkers. These spendthrifts mingled the roughest practical jokes with a life not so much reckless as suicidal; they drew back from no impossibility, and gloried in pranks ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... found for him? What could he have expected to have accomplished by the new expeditions that had not been already fully effected by Verrazzano? And, especially after the way to Canada was found out by Cartier, what was there more inviting in that unproductive quarter than was promised in the temperate climate, fertile soil, and mineral lands, which the Florentine had already discovered in his name, that he should have sent Cartier and Roberval to settle and conquer the newer land? [Footnote: The letters issued to Roberval ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... not greatly mistake, it must surely soon perceptibly modify in our favor. Our opponents "triumph far more than they conquer us," as Tacitus says. They will not be able to hold their narrow, malicious, negative, and unproductive thesis much longer against our quiet, assured, positive progress in Art-works. A consoling and significant symptom of this is that they are no longer able to support their adherents among living and working composers, but devour them critically while the public is so indifferent. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... rich seal brindles from all undesirable colors, and we present to all interested in this important, and practically unknown and misunderstood, problem the result of a number of years extended and scientific experiments which, we confess, were disheartening and unproductive for a long time, but which ultimately resulted in success, the following rules to be observed, known as "The St. Botolph ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... get a living from their small and comparatively unproductive farms, and equally unable to find work elsewhere, the peasants clamor loudly for more land; and when, as the result of a bad harvest, their situation becomes intolerable, they are seized with a sort of berserker madness and break out into fierce bread riots, which frequently ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... economy and we'll lose the battle for men's minds. You can't have an economic system that allows such nonsense as large scale unemployment of trained employees, planned obsolescence, union featherbedding, and an overwhelming majority of those who are employed wasting their labor on unproductive employment." ...
— Subversive • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... conducted it with the utmost minuteness, was quite unproductive of results. If the woman possessed a typewriter, she had apparently made away with it. The scrap basket contained nothing but a few torn bits of paper of no value. There was no stationery on the small desk in the living ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... The Negro in America; the University of Minnesota, The American Negro; and Harvard University, American Population Problems: Immigration and the Negro. This study of the race problem, however, has in many cases been unproductive of desirable results for the reason that instead of trying to arrive at some understanding as to how the Negro may be improved, the work has often degenerated into a discussion of the race as a menace and the justification of preventative measures ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... should be but three in number, but this is quite in accordance with the notions of the ancient Greeks, who only recognized spring, summer, and autumn as seasons; nature being supposed to be wrapt in death or slumber, during that cheerless and unproductive portion of the year which we call winter. In some parts of Greece there were but two Horae, Thallo, goddess of the bloom, and Carpo, of the corn ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... learned to manage its affairs without its assistance, and trade had already found new auxiliaries, so that on the 1st of October last the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a national bank more than one-half of whose capital was either lying unproductive in its vaults or in the hands ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... way. Messrs. Meech and Barradale don't say much; Mr. Owen thinks we will never do much in Mongolia working upon so distant a base as Peking; Mr. Lees thinks it a pity to take up such a seemingly unproductive field while so many more promising fields call for attention; he moreover thinks that the only way to do much for Mongolia is through China; Dr. Edkins thinks I spend too much time and labour over the Mongols, his idea being seemingly a combination of Mongol and Chinese work, with a preponderating ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... preferable. But on some soils these are not a success, especially when the first attempts are made to grow crops. The choice of hay may be one between a crop of beggar weed and no crop at all. All are agreed as to the renovation which it brings to soils; hence, when grown or allowed to grow on unproductive soil for a few years and then plowed under, the soil becomes productive. Since it grows late rather than early in the season where the seed is in the land, it will not interfere with the growth of the corn, but will come on later, and ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... of the American continent, has heretofore lain far outside of the common interest, and therefore of the accurate knowledge, of mankind at large. The Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, in themselves remote, tempestuous, and comparatively unproductive regions, for centuries derived importance merely {p.002} from the fact that by those ways alone the European world found access to the shores of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The application of steam to ocean navigation, and the opening of the ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... are still vigorous and yielding immense crops of fruit, although they are only twenty feet apart." Seedlings are said to begin to bear remunerative crops in their tenth year, but by superior cultivation this long unproductive period my be somewhat lessened, while trees from three to five years old may be purchased from the nurserymen, so that the newcomer who sets out an orchard may begin to gather fruit by the fifth or sixth year. When first set out, and for some years afterward, ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... respect to the advantage of the United States. The old world has been convulsed by wars, a military emperor has had the sway of Europe, and broken kingdoms into fragments; blood has flowed in torrents, and thousands of millions have been wasted for unproductive purposes and on royal vanity. Since the fall of the Great Soldier the nations have incessantly risen against their rulers, and more than a million of men now stand in arms to restrain the people and serve the passions of monarchs and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Bencoolen, and I determined to take this route and travel on until I found some tolerable collecting ground. By this means I should secure dry land and a good road, and avoid the rivers, which at this season are very tedious to ascend owing to the powerful currents, and very unproductive to the collector owing to most of the lands in their vicinity being underwater. Leaving early in the morning we did not reach Lorok, the village where the road begins, until late at night. I stayed there a few days, but found that most all the ground ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... hurt her to behold this unproductive output, no doubt, had it not been a mere foreigner who lost what her own people gained,—money, besides, that could never have benefited her, and that came nearer to benefiting her when spent in that manner than in another. Clotilde, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Schurz wants to convert the world,' Herbert answered chillily, rolling himself a tiny cigarette, 'he must convince the unproductive as well as the proletariate before he can set things fairly on the roll for better arrangement. The proletariate's all very well in its way, no doubt, but the unproductive happen to hold the key of the situation. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... living to multitudes of vagabonds, who were content to eat their bread, and drink their soup, daily at the convent gates, rather than to make any honest decent effort to maintain themselves. Every country must be poor in which a large portion of the public property goes to the unproductive classes. The soldiery, the monks, the state annuitants, the crowds of domestics, dependent on the families of the grandees, all are necessarily unproductive. The money which they receive is simply consumed. It makes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... jealous of me; and as Gautama hath told me this, I do not venture to go there, for (while) there, if I were to advise what is good and calculated to secure piety and the fulfilment of one's desires, they would contradict me with words unproductive of any good. But I approve of any counsel and will go there; Vainya will give me kine ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... profitable. The state forester will soon study their influence in this state. It must be admitted that windbreaks occupy space that could be profitably devoted to agricultural crops, and that the roots of the trees and their shade render a strip of ground on either side of the windbreak relatively unproductive. Yet in spite of these drawbacks, efficient windbreaks undoubtedly ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... or their oaths nothing ensued, and even the civilities and compliments she received from Lady Jane's particular friends and acquaintance, though in a more polite style, were equally unmeaning and unproductive. Days passed without leaving ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... from worrying along with unsatisfactory varieties, or from reaching the conclusion that they can not grow grapes in their region or garden. Let them rather admit that they can not raise some kinds, but may others. If a variety were persistently diseased, feeble, and unproductive under good treatment, I should root it out rather than continue ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... years, then she was removed, and there were black years of poverty and loneliness for her, as she had not laid by a dollar for a day of want, but had given lavishly to all in need, especially to the negroes. She was not able to sell her valuable but unproductive real estate, and was reduced to actual need. "I tell you really and solemnly," she confesses to her diary, "I have suffered for necessary food. I have not one cent in the world. I have stood the brunt alone of a ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... animal failed to heal the aching void of his pockets, and drinking deeply, swearing eloquently and glaring defiantly at all mankind, were equally unproductive of coin. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... writer, did not, indeed, break forth into its glory till after his death; but what a number of ideas must have been in circulation before such an author could arise! Many branches of human knowledge have, since that time, been more extensively cultivated, but such branches as are totally unproductive to poetry: chemistry, mechanics, manufactures, and rural and political economy, will never enable a man to become a poet. I have elsewhere [Footnote: In my Lectures on the Spirit of the Age.] examined into the pretensions of modern enlightenment, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... good reason that your life is only really beginning now. You are not yet thirty-four, you may yet do something great, something pre-eminent, and who knows if those very qualities which have made your life unproductive hitherto, may not enable you later on to do things beside which the achievements of a Paul Haber shrink into insignificance? On the other hand, I am persuaded—quite apart from your respective ways of life—that you have chosen the ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... succeed in fertilizing land hitherto unproductive, or even death-producing, like certain swamps, they create thereby property in ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... number of laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive soil of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... business of fiction is to exhibit human life, can deny that scenes of misery and crime must of necessity, while human nature remains what it is, form part of that exhibition. Nobody can assert that such scenes are unproductive of useful results, when they are turned to a plainly and purely moral purpose. If I am asked why I have written certain scenes in this book, my answer is to be found in the universally-accepted truth which the preceding words express. I have a right to appeal to that truth; ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... is an apt illustration of the probable workings of Plautus' mind. The virtue of the Penelope-like Pamphila and Panegyris proves too great a strain and unproductive of merriment. The topic gradually vanishes as the drolleries of the parasite Gelasimus usurp the boards. He in turn gives way to the hilarious buffoonery of the two slaves. The result is a succession of loose-jointed ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... at first for his own and before long for the public service, post-horses and the letter-post within his kingdom. Towards intellectual and social movement he had not the mistrust and antipathy of an old, one-grooved, worn-out, unproductive despotism; his kingly despotism was new, and, one might almost say, innovational, for it sprang and was growing up from the ruins of feudal rights and liberties which had inevitably ended in monarchy. But despotism's good services are short-lived; it ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... yet so much division and hatred prevail between those who say it. It is the blind belief in our own faultlessness, it is the hard and assuming spirit of correction, which excite the temper, and make the truth unproductive of good. Why should we present truth in a disfiguring dress, when she is in herself so pure and beautiful? I know, my dear girl, that you only wish to do that which is right and good, and whoever aims rightly at that object will not fail of the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... differ little if at all from the ancient ones; in fact in Canton "my hill," or "mountain," is synonymous with "my cemetery." In order to fix the taxes at a just figure, stock was taken of the salt- flats, the unproductive lands, and the tracts liable to periodical inundation. Areas rescued from the waters were protected by dykes, and subdivided for allotment by sloping banks, but without introducing the rigid nine-square system. Good lands, however, were ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... from a world which she had found unkind. It was for their interests that she had worked harder than any man of her acquaintance, experimenting, studying, managing, until she was recognized as one of the greatest agriculturists of the State, and the unproductive property left by Basil Kildare had become a stock and dairy farm which netted her an income that ran well into five figures. More than wealth, she had given them education, bringing to Storm the best tutors and governesses to be had in the country. She had shared with them, too, her own practical ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... stimulate the labourer to exertion, and this could be done only by the payment of wages for over-work, as is even now done to a great extent. At present, the labour of the slave is in a high degree unproductive, as will be seen by the following passage from a letter to the New York Daily Times, giving the result of information derived from a gentleman of Petersburgh, Virginia, said to be "remarkable for accuracy and ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... undertakes the defence of deer-parks. But his ground is that the deer-forests which were denounced as unproductive have been proved to be the only mode of raising the condition and securing the well-being of the ill-fed population. If so, "humanitarians" are ready to hold up both hands in favour of deer-forests. Nay, we are ready to ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... with a single bell which might be heard tinkling for a mile or two over the fells, stood all alone about half a mile from the Squire's gate. Vavasor was a parish situated on the intermediate ground between the mountains of the lake country and the plains. Its land was unproductive, ill-drained, and poor, and yet it possessed little or none of the beauty which tourists go to see. It was all amidst the fells, and very dreary. There were long skirtings of dark pines around a portion of the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... honourable, how should one stop to listen to the lucubrations of a literary gamin, to the brawling and mouthing of a man whose praise would be as insolent as his slander is impotent, or to the irresponsible and irrepressible chatter of the professionally unproductive? ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... lay to off the northern coast of La Virgen Magra, a narrow little island arid and treeless, some twelve miles by three, uninhabited save by birds and turtles and unproductive of anything but salt, of which there were considerable ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... adding details to the doctrines of Adam Smith and Say. John Stuart Mill in turn did little more than combine the philosophies of his predecessors. "It is a truism to assert," said he, "that labour extorted by fear of punishment is insufficient and unproductive"; yet some people can be driven by the lash to accomplish what no feasible payment would have induced them to undertake. In sparsely settled regions, furthermore, slavery may afford the otherwise unobtainable advantages of labour ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... productivity of labor grows less as, other things remaining the same, workers become more numerous. We should know on a priori grounds that this must be the fact; but we can verify it by observation and statistical inquiry. Where men are numerous and land and tools are scarce, labor is comparatively unproductive; and it is highly productive where land and tools are plentiful. There is no doubt that crowding the world full of people, without providing the world with capital in a proportionate way, would impoverish everybody whose ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... estate, acres upon acres of equally sterile soil, all sand and gravel, descending in a gentle slope to the embankment of the railway line. It was indeed a stretch of country lost to culture, where the few good patches of loam remained unproductive, inclosed within the waste land. But the spot had all the beauty and exquisite wildness of solitude, and was one that appealed to healthy minds fond of seeing nature in freedom. And on that lovely night one could nowhere have found more ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... own workmen, but even of unproductive capitalists, men who have shares in and reap profits out of a business which they never meddle with. The first reason is, because this position of the productive, and still more that of the unproductive capitalist, is a prize for past industry expended upon production. To understand this, we must recollect once more that men work, not as individuals, but as heads of families. Every working man, from the sailor to the shop-boy, covets for himself two things, pay and leisure. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... capabilities. The same analogy is applicable to plant life. Under adverse conditions a plant or vegetable cannot put forth its best efforts. In a scrawny, impoverished soil, and exhausted atmosphere, lacking the constituents of nurture, the plant will become dwarfed and unproductive, whereas on good ground and in good air, which have the succulent properties to nourish it the best results may be expected. The soil and the air, therefore, from which are derived the constituents of plant life, are indispensably ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... turning from one placid face to the other; then she stepped to the baronet's side and, seizing him by the shoulder, shook him sharply. The sleeper might have been dead for all the consciousness which he exhibited at her rude touch. Another and more violent shake proved equally unproductive of results. Then she passed on to the colonel, to Mildmay, and to the professor, experimenting in like manner with each. If she wished to arouse them, her efforts were useless; they were, one and all, locked fast in the embrace of sleep—profound, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of narration. The striking facts which the writer exerts himself to record, and the reader is eager to peruse, arise only from difficult situations: uniform prosperity is described in very few words. Of this acceptable but unproductive kind was the passage of the Botany Bay fleet from Rio de Janeiro to the Cape of Good Hope; uniformly favourable, and not marked by any extraordinary incidents. This run, from about lat. 22 deg. south, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... add to these causes of discontent the vastness in number of the regular clergy, the "friars" and "monks" already referred to, who consumed, but were only too obviously unproductive, it will be sufficiently plain that the Protestant Reformation had something very much more than a purely speculative basis to work upon. Religious reformers there had been in Germany throughout the Middle Ages, but their preachings had taken ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... what business it is of a clergyman, or of any one else, whether I own property in Dalton Street," Mr. Plimpton had said, as he sat on the edge of the lawyer's polished mahogany desk. "What does he expect us to do,—allow our real estate to remain unproductive merely for sentimental reasons? That's like a parson, most of 'em haven't got any more common sense than that. What right has he got to go nosing around Dalton Street? Why doesn't he stick to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the peasants' huts near the road had been either entirely or partly rebuilt. But more important than the actual physical shelter, Miss Patricia's tractor had plowed its way over many acres which otherwise must have remained unproductive until, as far as the eye could see, the fields were now being made ready for planting. Even if German guns were thundering along the battle line, nevertheless behind that line the French peasants toiled on with their patience and their ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... and who finds it washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower—had his action for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be at once dispensed with. But only imagine the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... this rigorous climate of Tierra del Fuego furnish no animal fit for food, and without proper clothing or nourishment the people are reduced to a state of complete barbarism. Hunting yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the trouble ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Watt engine in complexity. When the rare man was revealed, and the engine under his direction had proved itself the giant it was reputed, ensuring profitable return upon capital invested in works hitherto unproductive, as it often did, the sagacious owner would not readily consent to let the engineer leave. He could well afford to offer salary beyond the dreams of the worker, to a rider who knew his horse and to whom the horse took so kindly. The engineer loved his engine, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... fund of gold coin, reserved against sudden contingency, was one of Bonaparte's imperial ideas. In a modified and more modern form, this notion of a "war-chest," untouched and unproductive in peace-time, is still adhered to by the Germans: they have kept to heart many of their former conqueror's lessons, lessons forgotten by the French themselves—and the enormous treasure of gold bags guarded at Spandau is a matter of common knowledge. Napoleon, however, in his triumphant ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... thousand millions at par in 1865, and most of this after gold fell to 30 per cent premium? Then the amount was drawn from hoards and commerce; but now our income exceeds expenditures, and we are reducing the debt ten or twenty millions a month; we require no funds for war or unproductive investments, and when we pay one hundred millions, we return it to those who will seek new loans for investment, and doubtless lend ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... her, involuntarily. He was ready to accept Madame Beattie's knowing neither good nor evil, but she seemed to him singularly unpleasant in flaunting that lack of bias. She was quite conscious of his distaste, but it didn't trouble her. Unproductive opinions were nothing to ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... reputation for literary culture, it is an instructive fact that their city continued for several centuries afterwards to be one of the strongholds of Gentile superstition. But the labours of Paul at this time were not entirely unproductive. "Certain men clave unto him and believed, among the which was Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman, named Damaris, and others with them." [107:1] The court of Areopagus, long the highest judicial tribunal in the place, had not even ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Authors). Preliminary Remarks. Book I. Production. Chapter I. Of The Requisites Of Production. 1. The requisites of production. 2. The Second Requisite of Production, Labor. 3. Of Capital as a Requisite of Production. Chapter II. Of Unproductive Labor. 1. Definition of Productive and Unproductive Labor. 2. Productive and Unproductive Consumption. 3. Distinction Between Labor for the Supply of Productive Consumption and Labor for the Supply of Unproductive Consumption. Chapter III. Of Capital. 1. Capital ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... if civil aviation can be built up as a productive organization to a position relative to that held by our mercantile marine, we must understand that it will ensure air supremacy better than a large unproductive outlay on armaments. And I am convinced that, with public support, this can, and will, be done. Others will do it if we do not. But air power, although drawing its vitality from the expansion of air commerce ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... that the Kid's fences needed repairing, and that the adjutant-general's sarcasm had fallen upon unproductive soil. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... power, and reserve and repression are parts of the dignified office of the preacher, but carried too far may degenerate into weak and unproductive effort. Perfection of English style, rhetorical floridness, and profundity of thought will never wholly make up for lack of appropriate action in the work ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... relatively large quantities of the principal cereals are produced. Upper Austria has the largest proportion of meadows in all Austria, 18.54%, while 2.49% is lowland and Alpine pasturage. Of the remainder, woods occupy 34.02%, gardens 1.99% and 4.93% is unproductive. Cattle-breeding is also in a very advanced stage and together with the timber-trade forms a considerable resource of the province. The principal mineral wealth of Upper Austria is salt, of which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... must be frankly said. Examine the country in as friendly a spirit as one may, little is developed to support any statement that the country may become prosperous from the products of her own soil. In truth Japan is nearly as unproductive as Greece and Norway, for only sixteen per cent. of her soil is arable. The mountain ranges and peaks and terraced hills that make the country scenically attractive to the tourist come near to prohibiting agriculture. The lowlands, separating seacoast ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... deer near Port Bowen at any season, neither were we visited by their enemies the wolves. A single ermine and a few mice (Mus Hudsonius) complete, I believe, our scanty list of quadrupeds at this desolate and unproductive place. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... speedily as possible, the control of the labor and the products of tropical Africa. In reference to the benefits which had been derived from her West India colonies, before the suppression of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves had rendered them comparatively unproductive, he said: "During the fearful struggle of a quarter of a century, for her existence as a nation, against the power and resources of Europe, directed by the most intelligent but remorseless military ambition against her, the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... her track, but pride bade me try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see her, but anyone ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... underlies modern civilization. For this reason the question of transportation is just as important to a community as the industries of agriculture, mining, and manufacture. Food-stuffs are of no use unless they can be transported to the people who want them; nor can peoples remain in unproductive regions unless the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... prevailing skull-forms with the Mediterranean race of N. Africa, was settled in the Aegean area from a remote Neolithic antiquity, but, except in Crete, where insular security was combined with great natural fertility, remained in a savage and unproductive condition until far into the 4th millennium B.C. In Crete, however, it had long been developing a certain civilization, and at a period more or less contemporary with Dynasties XI. and XII. (2500 B.C.?) the scattered communities ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... than in destroying those things that are worst. Nations, like individuals, must lead bravely hazardous lives, without too much thought of dangers. Peace as a sole program for the making of history appears to be too narrow, and especially too unproductive. Internationalism that is merely a combination of peoples to prevent war is not very inspiring, especially since it is doubtful whether it even leads to peace. A broad historical view that will enable us just now to make good come out of the evil of war will be a better organ of conscious ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... means of replacing. Estate after estate was sold for several generations, till, at last, my father found himself the heir to a half-ruined castle on the borders of the ocean, and a few thousand acres of unproductive land in the same neighbourhood. My mother, who is now a saint in heaven, was as much so as a mortal can be when on earth; and although my noble father inherited much of the true pride of ancient ancestry, he was free from the folly and vice of his predecessors, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... praise by the Sous-Prefet at the public distribution of prizes. Besides, what was still more important, Stephen had successfully passed his examination for the "Baccalaureat." Lastly, there had been an expensive and unproductive journey, and there was the prospect of another. All this in the same year somewhat alarmed me. The gig was not an important concern, being made, like the four-wheeled carriage, from designs of my husband's, by ordinary wheelwrights and blacksmiths; but though admitting its usefulness, and even ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... he confesses that the scholars of this country have not fulfilled the reasonable expectation of mankind. "Men here, as elsewhere, are indisposed to innovation and prefer any antiquity, any usage, any livery productive of ease or profit, to the unproductive service of thought." For all this he offers those correctives which in various forms underlie all his teachings. "The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his confidence in the attributes of the Intellect." New lessons of spiritual independence, fresh examples ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... S. T. Coleridge—who repeated that same doctrine without finding any evil in it. Look at the first part of the Wallenstein, where Count Isolani having said, 'Pooh! we are all his subjects,' i. e., soldiers, (though unproductive laborers,) not less than productive peasants, the emperor's envoy replies—'Yet with a difference, general;' and the difference implies Sir James's scale, his vine-dresser being the equatorial case between the two extremes of the envoy. Malthus ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Even his statement, "Man as he sprang from nature originally was only a mere creature, not a man." "Man is a product of human society, of education, and of history." Even this statement remains from his standpoint absolutely unproductive. ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels
... free-market economics, freezing spending, easing price controls, liberalizing domestic and international trade. Mongolia's severe climate, scattered population, and wide expanses of unproductive land, however, have constrained economic development. Economic activity traditionally has been based on agriculture and the breeding of livestock. In past years, extensive mineral resources had been ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... impulses: feudalism, which metamorphosed the relative positions of the people and the nobles, and the recognition of papal supremacy, which altered not less thoroughly the standing of the church. While these changes were not unproductive of good at that time, they were distasteful to the nation, and soon became injurious, both to freedom and knowledge, until at length, under the dynasty of the Tudors, the ecclesiastical shackles were cast off, and the feudal bonds began gradually ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... no surprise; and the stream of population rushes on without stopping one instant to notice these somniferous indulgences. Or, if they are not disposed to sleep, they sit and look about them: abstractedly gazing upon the multitude around, or at the heavens above. Pure, idle, unproductive listlessness is the necessary ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... some say a five, yearly settlement. But, according to certain officials, there has been no settlement since 1875. Land lying fallow for a season pays the same tax as land in cultivation, unless it is unproductive through flood or calamity (read earthquake here). The Government tax is calculated on the capital value of the land, taking a measure of about 11,000 square feet or a quarter of an ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... infests the more alkaline regions; nor the rabbit-brush with its blossom so like the goldenrod, but with a very disagreeable odor. No man who knows will ever buy land where the greasewood grows thickly; it is unproductive because of the large percentage of alkali. But the ancient-looking sage is a pretty sure indication of fertility of soil. Mother Nature is sometimes hard pushed to find dresses for all her poorer areas; of course the better portions of the land east ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... Although he was an ardent admirer of famous military men, the sound common sense of this peasant woman's observations made him reflect upon the wealth which would necessarily accrue to the country if all these unemployed and consequently ruinous hands—so much unproductive force—were available for the great industrial works that would take ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... flavour; but what is yet stranger, whoever ascends it, sees many wonderful objects. If to-day, going to visit this orchard, we gather dates from this tree, and also see the wonders of it, it will not be unproductive of amusement." In short, she so worked upon her husband with flattering speeches and caresses, that nolens volens he went to the orchard, and at the instigation of his wife, ascended the tree. At this instant she beckoned to the bramin, who was previously seated, expectantly, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... replied the banker. 'But pardon me for suggesting that it is too large a sum to remain unproductive. Would you not like ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... As the patient spider renews her web again and again after it has been torn asunder, so did this indefatigable patriot set to work to repair the misfortune that had occurred, and to build up another project of assistance for his unfortunate country. His perseverance was not unproductive of results. The Batavian or Dutch Republic, then in alliance with France, took up the project that had failed in the Bay of Bantry. In the month of July, 1797, they had assembled in the Texel an expedition for the invasion of Ireland, nearly, if not quite, as formidable in ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the current coin of the realm—the amount limited, from the nature of his necessities, which he very freely states, to seven shillings and sixpence. Discovering, or fancying he discovers, signs that his eloquence is likely to be unproductive, he is fortunately reminded that, should there be any difficulty in connection with security for the repayment of the loan, he is at that moment in possession of a document, which he is prepared to deposit ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... establishment of the colony been observed to be so severe. The settlement had indeed, between the fires of the summer, and the floods and gales of the winter, suffered very considerably. Added to these, at this time, were the inconveniences arising from an unproductive harvest, from an exhausted store in the very essential articles of clothing and bedding, from the hostile disposition of many of the natives, and from the annihilation of morality, honesty, and industry in the major part of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... was no short cut to this trade, and up to the recent present there has been none. But our American girls who are gifted with a talent for this superb form of graceful dancing will not consent to devote the best years of their lives to unproductive labor. The idea of signing away several years of their happy lives in order to become entitled merely to a critical teacher's approval, and all this time without compensation of a financial nature, does not appeal to any, and least of all to ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... improving the grounds, which had hitherto been left without much care; the banks of a little stream, which flowed past the cottage, were planted with trees; a fish-pond into which it discharged its waters was transformed into a pretty sylvan lake; and the barren and unproductive soil, by judicious cultivation, was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... instinctively toward each other, have taken upon themselves the vows and obligations of wedlock, and have been fruitful and happy in this relation. Alliances founded upon position, money, or purely arbitrary considerations, mere contracts of convenience, are very apt to prove unhappy and unproductive. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... feature that the young farmer is most likely to overlook in the selection of a farm is the relative proportion of tillable land. One farm of 200 acres, may, on account of stony land, wet land, comparatively unproductive woodland, or because of the arrangement of fences and roadways, contain only eighty acres of tillable land, while another may contain 160 acres. This is one reason why a 160-acre farm in the central West may be more valuable than a farm of the same size in the ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... nice assortment of tools, and he liked the old man better than ever. But who is there that does not himself feel inwardly gratified at conferring a new pleasure on a child? Such little contributions to juvenile happiness are neither barren of fruit nor unproductive of grateful returns. They cost nothing, yet they have rich rewards in the memory of the young. They make beautiful and lasting impressions. The gentle heart that makes a child happy will never be forgotten. ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Many husbands are absolutely sterile; for it is a mistake to consider that every man must be prolific who is vigorous and enjoys good health. Neither does it follow, because a woman has never given birth to a living child, that she has not conceived. About one marriage in eight is unproductive of living children, and therefore fails to add to the population. The seeds of life have, however, been more extensively sown among women than these figures would seem to indicate. If the life of an infant for a long time after birth is a ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the Government spent fully one-half of its total income on works of piety. No country except in time of war ever devoted so much to unproductive expenditures. The enormous quantities of copper used for casting images not only exhausted the produce of the mines but also made large inroads upon the currency, hundreds of thousands of cash being thrown into ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... education ever rise above the lowest class of operatives, and that the labor of this class, when it is employed in manufacturing operations which require even a very moderate degree of manual or mental dexterity, is unproductive; that a large majority of the overseers and others employed in situations which require a high degree of skill in particular branches—which oftentimes require a good general knowledge of business, and ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Enkhuyzen claimed the right to make herself as grotesque as Queen Elizabeth in all her glory. Sumptuary laws were an unwholesome part of feudal tyranny, and, as such, were naturally dropping into oblivion on the free soil of the Netherlands. It was the complaint therefore of moralists that unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing. Formerly starch had been made of the refuse parts of corn, but now the manufacturers of that article made use of the bloom of the wheat and consumed as much of it as would have fed great cities. In the little village ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bases or coaling stations in several parts of the world. This presupposes preparations for war; but if international peace were maintained, such possessions would be useless and the money spent on them wasted. In any case it is unproductive expenditure. It is the fashion for politicians (and I am sorry to find them supported by eminent statesmen) to preach the doctrine of armaments; they allege that in order to preserve peace it is necessary to be prepared for war, that a nation with a large army or navy commands ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... and silver," which he found in "fair Innis-fail." It is probable that land was cultivated then which now lies arid and unreclaimed, for a writer in the Ulster Archaeological Journal mentions having found traces of tillage, when laying out drains in remote unproductive districts, several feet beneath the peaty soil. Dr. O'Donovan also writes in the same journal: "I believe the Irish have had wheat in the more fertile valleys and plains from a most remote period. It is mentioned ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... only said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly proceeded to do, and had gone most of the distance before it occurred to anybody that little Terence O'Driscoll was not with them. Then, after a superficial and unproductive search among the scattered stones and bushes, they thought it expedient to run back in a fright, and report that the child had gone and got lost, unless by any odd chance he'd come home ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... self-assertion or self-seeking, is essentially barren and unproductive, both in regard to the lives of others and our own lives. Only so far as we are, in some real sense, laying down our lives for others, denying (not that which belongs to us, but) ourselves, for their sake, can we hope to ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... becoming straightened. The prospect was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell upon his spirits; but what told still more upon them was the undeniable fact that the promise of ultimate success diminished every day, now. That is to say, the tunnel had reached a point in the hill which was considerably beyond where the coal vein should ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... a high ridge of land, generally barren and unproductive, when upon a small scale. It is also a ridgy height that runs for many ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... generations of Hopes had spent life and toil unspeakable upon this unproductive tract, without making the least profit by it; being just able to pay their rent, and keep their heads above water. They subsisted, reared families, and died, worn out with hard work, leaving to their sons, besides an honest name, only the same inheritance of struggle and despair. ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... the law-making boys: "In the passing of measures immense Is involved quite a lot of expense, And the armies that stand When there's peace in the land Are the most unproductive of toys,—" Said ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... government, with the expectation that they would dispose of it at reasonable prices to settlers attracted by the new transportation facilities, and would use the proceeds in railway development. In fact, however, large quantities of this land have been held in an unproductive ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... be for him to give it all up; to acknowledge defeat, to feel those ten wasted years behind him, empty, unproductive; full of shattered hopes and dreams changed to nightmares! She sat, white of face, gripping the arms of her chair, feeling a great, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... led to their final separation was a commercial one. Norway has always been a country with the sea for its province, rugged and unproductive as compared with Sweden, but with a long sea-coast inviting maritime pursuits. As a result, during the century its commerce grew much more rapidly than that of Sweden and it ended the century with a shipping three ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... period in making enquiries for the Marechale, in every quarter which offered the slightest probability of discovering her abode. Though I had seen the announcement of Clotilde's approaching marriage in the public journals, I had seen no mention of its having taken place. My search was wholly unproductive. The captivating duchess, who received me with the kindness which seemed a part of her nature, while she joined me in my praises of the "young, the lovely, and the accomplished Comtesse," "her dearest of friends," could tell me nothing more than that she had left London, and she believed with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... therefore be based upon the strengthening of the South's economic position. Essentially the task was to build up Southern agriculture, which for generations had been wasteful, unintelligent and consequently unproductive. Such a far-reaching programme might well appall the most energetic reformer, but Dr. Buttrick set to work. He saw little light until his attention was drawn to a quaint and philosophic gentleman—a kind of bucolic Ben Franklin—who ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... the garden and made its way to the Saone just above Challe. Tall bushy trees followed the course of the little stream, and described a half-circle, inclosing the house on three sides. The house itself was formerly an inn which proved unproductive to the innkeeper. It had been closed for seven or eight years, and was beginning to fall into decay. Before reaching it, the main road coming from Macon made ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... phenomena under narrow experimental conditions will show them, also, in the large. But this is not the case, and it is for this reason that the results of modern psychology have remained practically unproductive. This, of course, is not a reproach to the discipline of experimental psychology, or an assault upon the value of its researches. Its narrow limitations were necessary if anything definite was to be discovered. But once this has been discovered the conditions may be extended and something ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and include Africa in Europe. It is bounded, on the west, by the strait connecting our sea with the ocean;[62] on the east, by a vast sloping tract, which the natives call the Catabathmos.[63] The sea is boisterous, and deficient in harbors; the soil is fertile in corn, and good for pasturage, but unproductive of trees. There is a scarcity of water both from rain and from landsprings. The natives are healthy, swift of foot, and able to endure fatigue. Most of them die by the gradual decay of age,[64] except such as perish by the sword or beasts ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... and sandy soil, so unproductive that corn is in the greatest scarcity and is always brought from Khartoum by the annual boats for the supply of the traders' people, who congregate there from the interior, in the months of January and February, to deliver the ivory for shipment to Khartoum. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... States and France, out of which the claims arose, in his annual message in 1808 adverted to the large surplus then in the Treasury and its "probable accumulation," and inquired whether it should "lie unproductive in the public vaults;" and yet these claims, though then before Congress, were not recognized or paid. Since that time the public debt of the Revolution and of the War of 1812 has been extinguished, and at several periods since the Treasury has been in possession ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and its varieties invariably bear male, female and hermaphrodite flowers within the same spathe, all of them being imperfect and consequently unproductive of seed. An individual may, even from excess of culture, moisture, &c., be entirely incapable of flowering. During the prevalence of a disease or blight among the plantain walks of Demerara in the years 1844 and 1845, it was seriously proposed to introduce male plantains, or obtain fresh ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... O'Neil, who was permitted to work with the pan in the meantime, instead of assisting with the cradles, came up to dinner with a less hearty aspect than usual, and at suppertime he returned with a terribly lugubrious visage and a totally empty bag. In fact his claim had become suddenly unproductive. ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... discoveries of America and of aerostatics, the advents of Columbus and of Montgolfier." It is not here our duty to inquire how it happened that the discoveries made by these two personages are classed together. Air-travelling may be as unproductive of actual good to society as filling the belly with the "east wind" is to the body, while every one knows something of the extent to which the discovery of Columbus has influenced the character, the civilisation, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... of constraint does no more, in the majority of instances, than make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy and virtue, unhappily united to those whom they find it impossible to love, spend the loveliest season of their lives in unproductive efforts to appear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of their partners or the welfare of their mutual offspring; and that the early education of their children takes its color from the squabbles of ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... Fig. 4. To these limbs the seaweeds become attached, grow to maturity and are then gathered by hand. By this method of culture large amounts of important food stuff are grown for the support of the people on areas otherwise wholly unproductive. ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... get this very garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them to the paddock for it—the paddock that she loved more dearly than the garden itself! The vine—she had got her way about the vine. It still encumbered the south wall with its unproductive branches. And so with Evie, as she stood talking to the cook. Though she could take up her mother's work inside the house, just as the man could take it up without, she felt that something unique had fallen ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... the sidewalk I had a cask of Madeira for the Common People." His repeated re-election as Governor proves his popularity. Through lavish expenditure, his fortune was much reduced, and for many years he was sorely pressed for funds, his means being tied up in unproductive ways. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... professor falls into a way of contenting himself with meeting the requirements of the college curriculum. The effects of this curriculum upon the professors are deeper and farther-reaching than is usually perceived. It is in accordance with facts to call American professors, as a class, unproductive. But it would be unjust and inconsiderate to ascribe this want of productivity to the disposition called laziness. Laziness is not a national fault of Americans. On the contrary, we are pushing, active, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... sort, of good quality, but rather unproductive. Shape somewhat long, though often nearly round; color white and purple, striped, and blended together. It is of no value as an agricultural variety; and, for table use, cannot be considered superior to many other varieties equally ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... the absolute and the permanent, and to grasp the necessary conditions of their existence, suppressing all accidental limits. No doubt this transcendental procedure will remove us for some time from the familiar circle of phenomena, and the living presence of objects, to keep us on the unproductive ground of abstract idea; but we are engaged in the search after a principle of knowledge solid enough not to be shaken by anything, and the man who does not dare to rise above reality will ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... grow where only one grew before is a benefactor of his race; and of all the pursuits connected with the interests of mankind what can be the source of more true and disinterested happiness than the knowledge that one has been instrumental in changing a waste and unproductive piece of land into a scene of umbrageous and waving beauty? Cicero speaks of tree-planting as the most delightful occupation of advanced life; and Sir Robert Walpole once said that among the various actions of his busy life none had given him so much satisfaction ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... years at Mossgiel, from 1784 to 1786, when the times were hard, and the farm unproductive, Burns must indeed have found poetry to be, as he himself says, its own reward. A nature like his required some vent for itself, some excitement to relieve the pressure of dull farm drudgery, and this was ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... were paid by the tenant. A reference to the Promptorinm Parvulorum (a further instalment of which I rejoice to learn, from Mr. Way's communication, in No. 15., is in a state of progress) has been equally unproductive. The editorial note to the communications inserted in No. 17., on the interpretation of Pokership, induces me to send you this query, in the hope of eliciting information, if not from the gentleman you there refer to, at least from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... destruction of the soils by the methods of cultivation prior to the war was worse than the ravages of the war. The post bellum farmer received as an inheritance large areas of wornout and generally unproductive soils." ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... important work. Here he wrote his treatise On Monastic Vows, declaring that they are wrong and invalid and urging all priests, nuns and monks to leave the cloister and to marry. In thus freeing thousands of men and women from a life often unproductive and sterile Luther achieved one of the greatest of his practical reforms. At the Wartburg also Luther began his translation of the Bible. The New Testament appeared in September 1522, and the Old Testament followed in four parts, the last ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... ought to do. The love of the better will have stood between me and the good. Yearning for the ideal will have lost me reality. Vague aspiration and undefined desire will have been enough to make my talents useless, and to neutralize my powers. Unproductive nature that I am, tortured by the belief that production was required of me, may not my very remorse be a mistake and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the luxurious vineyards and gardens of the south of Europe, seems like being transported from a cheerless desert to a blooming paradise. Our beautiful things are not connected with our climate or our unproductive fields, but with our free institutions, our systems of education, our public morality, our well-regulated government, our well-administered laws, and the industry, intelligence, and religious habits of the people. Our fields and vineyards, our rich groves and beautiful ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... there in comparative seclusion for a long time after that. Joan tried to think of plans, but her mind seemed, unproductive. She felt half dazed. Jim, too, appeared to be laboring under the same kind of burden. Moreover, responsibility had been ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... farmers have joined the great strike of labor against drudgery, and it will never end until it is fully recognized that, while every unproductive life is a dishonorable life, drudgery is no less degrading than pure idleness. To be sure, the sages in all times have taught that there was a time to sing and dance as well as a time to labor, but it is not fifty years since it was generally accepted by the masses that a person ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... but vigorous; and of the Greeks, 985 Achilles may alone with him contend. So saying, the merit of superior speed To Peleus' son he gave, who thus replied. Antilochus! thy praise of me shall prove Nor vain nor unproductive to thyself, 990 For the half-talent doubled shall be thine. He spake, and, doubling it, the talent placed Whole in his hand. He glad the gift received. Achilles, then Sarpedon's arms produced, Stripp'd ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... place to sterile and malarious ground: the plains and shores formerly covered with wealthy and populous cities are now deserted marshes: Sardinia and other ancient granaries of the Roman Empire are empty and unproductive: two-thirds of the Kingdom are occupied by mountains impossible of cultivation, and the remainder is to a large extent ill-farmed and unremunerative. To call Italy the 'Garden of Europe' under ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... enlisted. And I am a man of ancient lineage as honourable, so as not to enter into unproductive argument, as yours. And I am a Master of Arts of the two Universities of Glasgow and Cambridge. Yet I fail to find anything dishonourable in my present estate as 33702 Private Phineas McPhail in ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... like so many Esaus, have sold their inheritance for a meal! I leave the whole school of Adam Smith to calm their calculating emotions concerning "that unprosperous race of men" (sometimes this master-seer calls them "unproductive") "commonly called men of letters," who are pretty much in the situation which lawyers and physicians would be in, were these, as he tells us, in that state when "a scholar and a beggar seem to have been very nearly ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... wore deep gullies down the hillside, which, as they grew larger, became more of a menace to the lands below them. The streams soon grew large enough to take the top-soil from the fields lower down, and in a few years more the whole farm had grown so unproductive that the farmer, tired of the struggle, left the farm and went to the ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... patronage and show of royalty, spread a gloom and discontent, not only over the lower, but over the higher ranks. The commencement of a strict system of general taxation was new, while the miserable poverty of the country rendered it unproductive and unpopular. The great families still lorded it over their dependants, and exercised legal jurisdiction within their own domains; by which the general police of the kingdom was crippled, and the grossest legal ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... began one farmer has steadily continued to plough his acres on the plain near the racecourse. He reminded one of the French peasant ploughing at Sedan. His three ploughs went backwards and forwards quite indifferent to unproductive war. But to-day the Boers deliberately shelled him at his work, the shells following him up and down the field, and ploughing up the earth all wrong. Neither the farmer nor his Kaffir labourers paid the least attention to them. The plough drove on, leaving the furrow behind, just as the ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... an instant quitting his Imperial Friend, asked me if my LETTER TO JEAN JACQUES [now an entirely forgotten Piece], which had been printed in the Papers, was really by me? I answered, 'Sire, I am not famous enough to have my name forged' [as a certain Other name has been, on this same unproductive topic]. He felt what I meant. It is known that Horace Walpole took the King's name to write his famous LETTRE A JEAN JACQUES [impossible to attend to the like of it at present], which contributed the most to drive mad that eloquent and unreasonable ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types." 3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures." "That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular order, though deterministic. "The ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... its mirrors, lead and iron, and oftentimes the window-shutters and doors. He turns all into cash, no matter how, at the expense of the domain, which he leaves in a run-down condition, unfurnished and for a long time unproductive. In like manner, the communal possessions, ravaged, pillaged and then pieced out and divided off, are so many organisms which are sacrificed for the immediate relief of the village poor, but of course to the detriment of their future productiveness ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the Western Union Telegraph Company. In all these acts of consolidation the influence of Mr. Wade was active and powerful. Realizing the fact that competition between short detached lines rendered them unproductive, and that in telegraphing, as in other things, union is strength, he directed his energies to bringing about the consolidation, not only of the lines connecting with each other, but of rival interests. The soundness ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... as simple as they are beautiful, seeks its sap in narrow formulas dictated solely by ecclesiastical interests. In order that religious fanaticism should be inoffensive, the heart in which it exists must be very pure. It is true that even in that case it is unproductive of good. But the hearts that have been born without the seraphic purity which establishes a premature Limbo on the earth, are careful not to become greatly inflamed with what they see in retables, in choirs, in locutories and sacristies, unless they have first erected in their ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... of truth than the Jacobite baronet. And yet we know of an author—viz. one S.T. Coleridge—who repeated that same doctrine without finding any evil in it. Look at the first part of the Wallenstein, where Count Isolani having said, "Pooh! we are all his subjects," i. e. soldiers, (though unproductive labourers,) not less than productive peasants, the emperor's envoy replies—"Yet with a difference, general;" and the difference implies Sir James's scale, his vine-dresser being the equatorial case between the two extremes of the envoy.—Malthus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... have to be done up," said Andrey Yefimitch after a moment's thought. "If the corner lodge, for instance, were fitted up as a dispensary, I imagine it would cost at least five hundred roubles. An unproductive expenditure!" ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov |
