"Asset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... constituted no more than an advanced guard to legions which did not exist. Still one must acknowledge that (as will be pointed out further on) even some of our highest military authorities did not realize what an insignificant asset our splendid little Expeditionary Force would stand for in a great European war, nor to have grasped when the crash came that the matter of paramount importance in connection with the conduct of the struggle on land was the creation of a host of fighting men ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... I have seen you enthused like this, before. As for Brenton, it's a mere case of burbling genteel platitudes in a marvellous voice. Even I, though I deplore the platitudes, find my own gooseflesh rising in response to his larynx. It's a tremendous asset to a man, that! Some day, when I have the time, I'll work it out into a series of equations: heart and brain and larynx as the unknown quantities to be properly equated, so much brain for so much, or so little, larynx. Thanks, no. I won't come in. I'm late for luncheon now. You ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... ourselves until they are published Monday as the last big thing of the campaign. The rest of Monday and the Tuesday morning papers do not give us time to reply. Even if they were published to-day we should hardly have time to expose the plot, hammer it in, and make the issue an asset instead of a liability. No, you must admit it yourself. There isn't time. We must carry out the work we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign, and if we are diverted by this it means a let-up in our final efforts, ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... as a business asset is nowhere questioned, and the clergy has ceased to call upon men to prepare for death. We are preparing to live, and the way we are preparing to live ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... managed the branch well if he had gone to work; Penton was, evidently, familiar with the great circus man's aphorism about humbugging people, and could have given them all they wanted of it—to the bank's profit. It was, no doubt, owing to this hypocritical asset and the appreciation of it by head office officials, that ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... nose in his coat: "I thought it would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil! Wh-wh-why are ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... fore-looper, and a small black boy named Gelungwa, who was everything from ladies' maid to general adviser; and the other containing Mr. Pym, his engineer, driver, fore-looper, and the engineer's black cook-boy, who proved himself an invaluable asset. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... asset in her ladyship's estimation. It showed good sense—and it offered provocative opportunities for a battle of wits such as ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... finest natural setting on the Exposition grounds. Consummate skill in planning the entire architectural ensemble gave it a commanding position, at the extreme west of the group of exhibit palaces. The architect, Bernard. R. Maybeck of San Francisco, found as an asset on beginning his work, a small natural lake and a fine group of Monterey cypress. With this foundation he has created a temple of supreme loveliness, thoroughly original in conception, yet classic in its elemental ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... his talents for impressing people both privately and from the platform, he was at the end of his political career. The second weakness was that he was ashamed of his very obscure and humble origin. He knew that his being "wholly self-made" was a matchless political asset, and he used it accordingly. But he looked on it somewhat as the beggar looks on the deformity he exhibits to ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... 1857 and 1858 he ran for the state senate in Minnesota on the Republican ticket in a hopelessly Democratic county. In 1859 he was nominated for lieutenant governor on the ticket headed by Alexander Ramsey; and his caustic wit, his keenness in debate, and his eloquence made him a valuable asset in the battle-royal between Republicans and Democrats for the possession of Minnesota. As lieutenant governor, Donnelly early showed his sympathy with the farmers by championing laws which lowered the legal rate of interest and which made more humane the process of foreclosure on mortgages. The ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... unthinking being—in fact, a strong and fine intelligence. His thousands of miles of yearly journeying in his sumptuous private car had been the means of his accumulating not merely added gains, but ideas, points of view, emotions, a human outlook worth counting as an asset. His daughter, when she had travelled with him, had seen and talked with him of all he himself had seen. When she had not been his companion she had heard from him afterwards all best worth hearing. She had become—without any special process—familiar ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like Champlain could not have tricked Hebert into the bad bargain he made, and their friendship survived the incident. But a company which transacted its business in this fashion was not likely to enjoy long life. Its chief asset was Champlain's friendship with the Indians, especially after his long sojourn with them in 1615 and 1616. Some years, particularly 1617, showed a large profit, but as time went on friction arose between the Huguenots of La Rochelle {78} and the Catholics of Rouen. ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... worked—songs that rattled from his lips in a way that amused me greatly. Then, too, he could rip out words that had a new and wonderful sound in them. I made up my mind that he was likely to become a valuable asset when I heard Aunt Deel say to ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... at a higher stage of cultural development. Consequently, when the Muscovite people, instructed by the example of western Europe, shall have grown up intellectually, economically and politically to their big territory, its area will become a great national asset. Russia will come into its own, heir to a long-withheld inheritance. Many of its previous geographic disadvantages will vanish, like the diseases of childhood, while its massive size will dwarf many previous advantages of its ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... are largely the outgrowth of the fact that the minds of men are pitted against one other. Because of this, a knowledge of the manner in which the human mind seeks its way out of difficulties is a great military asset. Consideration is next given, therefore, to the natural mental processes employed (page 11) and to certain human tendencies which have been known to militate against their ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... available asset. I never will go, Arthur. The others may do as they think best. I ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... blushing. Bertram Chester stood square on his two feet smiling genially. As for Eleanor, she maintained that sweet inscrutability of face which became, as years and trouble came on, her great and unappreciated personal asset. ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... thinking also how cruelly she would miss Stevie at first, he felt greatly concerned about her health and spirits. How would she stand her solitude—absolutely alone in that house? It would not do for her to break down while he was locked up? What would become of the shop then? The shop was an asset. Though Mr Verloc's fatalism accepted his undoing as a secret agent, he had no mind to be utterly ruined, mostly, it must be owned, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and aggressive, and in language connection close to the Kru; the Bassa, with characteristics somewhat similar to those of the Kru, but in general not quite so ambitious; the Buzi, wild and highly tattooed; and the cannibalistic Mano. By reason of numbers if nothing else, Liberia's chief asset for the future consists ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... to the type that becomes charitable around Christmas time. She makes a glowing pretense of aiding the poor. As a matter of fact, she really does aid them, although she regards the poor as a sort of social and spiritual asset. They afford her the double opportunity of appearing in the eyes of her neighbors as a magnanimous soul and of doing something which reflects great credit upon her character. But, anyway, she "does good," and we'll let ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... degree of organization marks all nations with whom we may possibly have some day differences which will result in the use of force. The militia, willing as it is, cannot be depended upon as a reliable military asset. Its very method of control makes it an undependable force, and at times unavailable. The men and officers are not at fault; they have done all that could be expected under a system which renders efficiency almost impossible of attainment. The militia must be absolutely and completely transferred ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... bargaining commodities with contiguous neutral nations are steel building materials, coal, and dye-stuffs. Coal dug in Belgium by Belgian miners is a distinct asset for Germany, when she exchanges it for Swiss cattle, Dutch cheese, and Swedish wood. When we consider that the great industrial combinations of Rhineland and Westphalia are not only reaping enormous munition ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... soldier gives his valour or a captain of industry his talent," said Lord CURZON, speaking on the sale of titles, "so a wealthy man gives his wealth, which is very often his only asset, for the benefit of his country." Nothing like a delicate compliment or two to encourage him in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... dullness of her life. She had not what is called a "sense of humor." That is, she had no intellectual humor; no power to enjoy the absurdities of people, no relish of their pretentiousness and inconsistencies—which only depressed her. But her joviality, Fred felt, was an asset, and ought to be developed. He discovered that she was more receptive and more effective under a pleasant stimulus than she was under the gray grind which she considered her salvation. She was still ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Kelliher, former president of the National Letter Carriers' Association, spoke briefly and to the point. Miss Mary McDowell of Chicago made the principal address entitled The Working Women as a National Asset, in which she showed how little conception Congress and the Courts had of the legislation needed in their behalf and the sins of omission and commission that had resulted. In ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Sir Philip Swinburne to execute certain work, and he would carry out his contract with Sir Philip in spite of all the Indians in the South American continent. As to that story about his being the reincarnated Inca, Manco Capac, Harry Escombe was one of those estimable persons whose most valued asset is their sound, sterling common sense. He flattered himself that he had not an ounce of romance in his entire composition; and it did not take him a moment to make up his mind that the yarn, from end to end, was the veriest nonsense imaginable. ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... anticipated by the government after the suspension of UN sanctions in December 1995 has failed to materialize. Government mismanagement of the economy is largely to blame. Also, the Outer Wall sanctions that exclude Belgrade from international financial institutions and an investment ban and asset freeze imposed in 1998 because of Belgrade's repressive actions in Kosovo have ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the company relieved me from the fear that the worst might be yet to come, for they were only three young women, too weak to attempt any violence against us, who were of the male sex, at least, even if we had nothing else of the man about us, and this was an asset. Then, too, we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that if it came to a fight, I would engage Quartilla myself, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl. (While I was turning over this plan in my mind, Quartilla ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... small way, taking trips into Indian villages and bargaining for furs. A man of quick intelligence, he soon acquired a substantial knowledge of most of the queer Indian dialects, which proved a tremendous asset from a business ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... got on very well, though they had not a great deal in common. Harriet's education had been almost too successful. As Philip once said, she had "bolted all the cardinal virtues and couldn't digest them." Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for the house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if she had been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was worse, she would ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... nature with John Bannister. For years he had cultivated it as a commercial asset. Often a fortune had depended on his mastery of his emotions. Now, in an instant, he had himself under control once more. His face resumed its normal expression of cold impassiveness. Only his mouth twitched ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... hatchet to cut into some decayed stump, a trowel to dig up the forest soil, a knife for cutting off twigs and a hand reading glass for examining the structural parts of the various objects under observation. A camera is always a valuable asset because the photographs hung in the classroom become records of great interest ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... anguish immediately followed this announcement of mine, fully confirming me in the belief that Oahika was likely to prove a valuable asset if properly manipulated. The next moment, however, one of the men jumped ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... occurred to Fred Ripley. If he kept a close mouth, and watched his chance, he hoped that he might yet be able to make some sort of "trade" with the pony as an asset. ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... be even more dangerous to Europe in the eventful days to come when he will be called back to office, and be once more the leader and spokesman of German policy. In the future Congress which will liquidate the world war Buelow will be the greatest asset of the enemy. In the Congress of Berlin Bismarck, towering like a giant, dictated his policy to subservient Europe. The day of German hegemony is past, and no German plenipotentiary will be able again to impose his will by the same methods. But the resources of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... of the patriarchal system and the custom of marriage by capture or purchase, woman came to be regarded as a part of man's property, and as inviolate as any other of his possessions. Under these circumstances virginity came to be more and more of an asset, since no man wished his property to be denied by the touch of another. Elaborate methods for the preservation of chastity both before and after marriage were developed, and in many instances went so far as to consider a woman defiled if she were accidentally ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... now to rely upon its own population and resources alone. Of the number there were few enough who were not generously provided with the latter; it was in the former asset that so many were found acutely wanting, of course through no fault of their own. Thus it was that when the new division of territories took place, many of those countries which Nature had provided with an almost extraordinary degree of wealth found themselves in a state of poverty ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... the Daily Herald, to the Editor of which he wrote that the News "had come to stand for almost everything I disagree with; and I thought I had better resign before the next great measure of social reform made it illegal to go on strike." G.K. was a considerable asset to any paper and had recently been referred to by Shaw (in a debate with Belloc) as "a flourishing property of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... reasonable solution of the mystery. He had desired only that his failure would prove a valuable educational experience for him. For he believed that failure at this particular point in his career would make Oakes a more valuable asset to the Agency. But now here Oakes was, within a ridiculously short space of time, returning to the fold, not humble and defeated, but triumphant. Mr. Snyder looked forward with apprehension to the young man's probable demeanor under the ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... new thing for a dramatic author to write prefaces to his plays. We are fortunate in possessing a series of personal opinions in this form that constitute a valuable asset in determining individual attitude and technical purpose. Read Schiller's opening remarks to "The Robbers," Victor Hugo's famous opinions affixed to "Cromwell" and his equally enlightening comments introducing "Hernani," and you can judge the value ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... unblemished character, with credit founded on a rock. How infinitely brighter the future when the present is so sure, the past so glorious! Everything great done by this country in the last fifty years has been done under the auspices of the Republican Party. Is not this consciousness a great asset to have in your mind and memory? As a mere item of personal comfort is it not worth having? Lincoln and Grant, Hayes and Garfield, Harrison and McKinley—names secure in the heaven of fame—they all are ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... She knew the worth of beauty for those who possess it and those who do not. She had never been quite reconciled to her son's marrying such a plain girl as Diantha Stark, although she had money. She considered beauty on the whole as a more valuable asset than mere gold. She regretted always that poor little Amelia, her only grandchild, was so very plain-looking. She always knew that Amelia was very plain, and yet sometimes the child puzzled her. She seemed to see reflections of beauty, if not beauty itself, in the little colorless face, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... papers, but said it would mean nothing to their clients. Hopeless Philistines, all of them! I do believe I should have had a better chance if I'd called myself Austrian, instead of American, and I only revived my American citizenship because I thought it would be an asset!" He laughed, ironically. "They advised me to have a one-man show, late in the winter, so as to ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... recent hopes. Nothing could be worse than the betrayal of her disillusionment: because obviously she had been the victim of a rather cruel illusion especially since yesterday. Now her savoir faire became her most valuable asset. ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... What life gives to us can only be of permanent importance as it develops our souls, thus enabling us to give more back to it, and leaves us better prepared for any opportunities than may lie beyond this world. The most valuable asset for this assumption is love for the people among whom ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... state, which seek to guard and protect the youth against unwise labor, which seek to instill into his mind that intelligence which comes only from wise and broad educational facilities. Every able bodied citizen of our country is an asset, and those who through weakness, however painful the admission may be, are incapacitated from labor, must be entered upon the debit side of the national ledger. Therefore, the laws that guard against burdensome toil, too long ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... and dread, knowing he had had a hint of a possible situation, was the revival of the old story she had tried so hard to live down. She was ambitious, and a new and rigid morality was sweeping the country. What once might have been an asset stood now to ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... nature, of such a kindly, sympathetic, generous disposition, so intelligent, so naturally capable mentally that, with proper training and properly placed in a vocation in which he could have used his talents, he would doubtless have become an excellent asset to society. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... than snobbishness, and it was thought of them which supplied the pathos. Some careworn men and women had weighed that extra rent in the balance, and had considered that it was "worth while," since a good address might prove an asset in the difficult fight for existence, or perchance some loved one far away had vicariously suffered in past privations, and might be deluded into believing in a false prosperity by the high-sounding address. My ready imagination pictured ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the trap he was setting for her, was nonplussed. At the same time she could not help seeing that a house, if it were beautifully furnished, would be an interesting asset. People in society loved fixed, notable dwellings; she had observed that. What functions could not be held if only her mother's past were not charged against her! That was the great difficulty. It was almost an Arabian situation, heightened by the glitter of gold. And Cowperwood was ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Fedorovitch himself was received everywhere with respect. He deserved this, partly on account of his wealth and position, partly because, though limited, he was really a very good fellow. But a certain limitation of mind seems to be an indispensable asset, if not to all public personages, at least to all serious financiers. Added to this, his manner was modest and unassuming; he knew when to be silent, yet never allowed himself to be trampled upon. Also—and this was more ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... locality, or event. These are new definitions, and are suggested in order to give some sort of exactness to the terms in use. All these terms—myth, folk-tale, and legend—are now used indiscriminately with no particular definiteness. The possession of three such distinct terms forms an asset which should be put to its full use, and this cannot be done until we agree upon a definite ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... applause, having spoken for two hours and three quarters. The Public at once declared with unanimity so remarkable that nothing would well surpass it That patriotic self-sacrifice was a Priceless National Asset: No rational person, they said, could fail to be deeply impressed by the charms Of that truly august conception, a Nation in Arms: To become expert in the use of strictly defensive weapons, spear or sword, Lee-Metford, torpedo, or sabre, Was ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... wedge, and in cutting the cleft just the right depth and width for the scion selected. Experiment on worthless material until you get the knack. If you are a good, natural-born whittler you will find it a greater asset than a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... exigencies of the case. Gradually even this modified practice underwent amelioration, until at length it dawned upon the official intelligence that a seaman who was free to respond to the summons of the boatswain's whistle constituted an infinitely more valuable physical asset than one who cursed his king and his Maker in irons. All punishment of the condign order, for contempt or resistance of the press, now went by the board, and in its stead the seaman was merely admonished in paternal fashion, as in a Proclamation of 1623, to take the king's shilling "dutifully ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... desire to spread the Protestant religion was no unreal one. The war for independence, having taken on the character of a crusade, had touched with emotional fervor the Englishman's loyalty to the national faith. Religion became a national asset when it was thought to be served by an extension of the queen's domain. The pride of patriotism, as well as the sense of duty, was stirred by the fact that whereas Spanish Papists had been "the converters of many millions of infidells," English Protestants had ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... to this detachment a Christian value. For it is a part of Hindu thought to condemn every emotion and sentiment, however lofty as an asset of life. It regards every desire, however noble in itself, and every sentiment, however exalted, as essentially evil; for it is a momentary barrier to that equilibrium and quiescence of soul which the Hindu has always maintained to be the highest cultivation of the self. Therefore, action, in order ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... France and the peace of the world. Unfortunately the coup of the Prussian military clique was only postponed. Our generation was destined to sustain the unprecedented horrors of a base attempt to destroy France, that very glorious asset ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... took place; lands were sold at five dollars, six dollars, eight dollars an acre. The farmers began to realize that land represented wealth—that it was an asset, not a liability—and there was a rush for the cheap railway lands that had so long gone a-begging. Harris was among the first to sense the change in the times, and a beautiful section of railway land that lay next to his homestead he bought at four ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... had always held Ollie's beauty a greater asset than mental graces, and this early appraisement of it at its trading value had made Ollie a bit vain and ambitious to mate above her family. Isom Chase had held out to her all the allurements of which she had dreamed, and she had married him ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the next room—expects it, too," I went on, laughing even more disagreeably. "Your parents need money—they have decided to sell you, their only large income-producing asset. And I am willing to buy. What do ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... critical moments of decision for which no amount of reasoning will be a sufficient guide, but for which true feeling, a kind of unconscious higher reasoning, will be the safest guide. In the library the story is the greatest social asset of the librarian, it is her best means of reaching the obscure child who seeks there some food for his spirit, it is her best opportunity to lead and direct his tastes. In the school it is the teacher's strongest personal ally. It is her ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... experiences the groundwork of an opera dealing with the fortunes of the 'Wandering Jew of the Ocean.' When he was in Paris, the stress of poverty compelled him to treat the sketch, which he had made for a libretto, as a marketable asset. This he sold to a now forgotten composer named Dietsch, who wrote an opera upon the subject, which failed completely. The disappearance of this work left Wagner's hands free once more, and some years later he returned con amore to his original idea. 'Der Fliegende ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... found, was also a character asset of no little value when there were guests whom he, for good material reasons, wished to impress with the fine combination of business ability and sterling Christian virtue that so distinguished his simple and sincere nature. Profess yourself the disinterested friend of a man—make him believe that ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... in Newfoundland, that the long arm of England was ever extended for the colony's protection, and that the charges therefor were defrayed by the English taxpayer. Hence the view followed, naturally but unfortunately, that the island was an asset to be exploited commercially in the interests of the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... management, which the Garnett girls never ceased to deplore, their three brothers came at the end instead of the beginning of the family. Three grown-up brothers would have been a grand asset; big boys who would have shown a manly tenderness towards the weaknesses of little sisters; who would have helped and amused; big boys going to school, young men going to college, coming home in the vacations, bringing their friends, acting as squires and escorts to the girls at home. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... may safely predict that Gipsy, who won her way as leader of the Juniors, will have an equally successful career among the Seniors, and that her name will be handed down in the annals of Briarcroft institutions as that of one who upheld the common weal, and whose record was an asset to ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... changes to a minimum. They emerged out of their reconstruction operation with a Negro serf system to take the place of their old slave system. The Negro as a serf was just about as valuable as an industrial asset to the great landlords and to the small ones too for that matter, as had been the Negro as a slave. Just about as much unpaid and involuntary labor could be got out of the first as out of the last. Thus did the old master class perform their task without ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... demanded Grom, in some surprise. In his eyes the fellow was a valuable piece of property belonging to the tribe, a fighting asset. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... bringing to bear every asset of our personal and national lives upon the task of building the conditions in which security ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... United States, would therefore have been a piece of British property attached; either in compensation for claims, or as an asset in the bargaining which precedes a treaty of peace. Its retention even, as a permanent possession, would have been justified by the law of war, if the military situation supported that course. This is a political ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... destroy God's power. If, they contend, God had created everything which is in his intellect, he would not be able to create anything more, and this, they think, would clash with God's omnipotence; therefore, they prefer to asset that God is indifferent to all things, and that he creates nothing except that which he has decided, by some absolute exercise of will, to create. However, I think I have shown sufficiently clearly (by Prop. xvi.), that from God's ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... thing in prize-fighters. Of course, when a fellow gets to the point where he is something in particular, he doesn't have to care because he doesn't look like anything special; but while a young fellow isn't anything in particular, it is a mighty valuable asset if ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... him, or at least lay him under suspicion, and in Barney's present case, suspicion was as good as conviction were he to fall into the hands of the Austrians. The garb had served its purpose well in aiding in his escape from Austria, but now it was more of a menace than an asset. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... seemed to her that Charles Merchant sat, a filmy ghost, beside this tattered fugitive. He was speaking the same words that Andrew spoke, but his voice and his manner were to Andrew Lanning what moonshine is to sunlight. She had been thinking of Charles Merchant as a social asset; she began to think of him now as a possessing force. Anne Withero ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the brain and the will of the group, had made no false moves in business, had been bold only where his matchless judgment showed him a clear way; but he had not foreseen the instantaneous annihilation of his chief asset—his reputation. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... more applied yearly for employment than could be accommodated. This large farm, when equipped fully, represented fifty thousand dollars more, or an investment of ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a valuable asset ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... provocation, have treated us. For although we boast that we are their superiors in valour, in numbers, and in every other respect, the boldness which they feel in confronting us is due merely to elation at our misfortunes; and the only asset they have is the indifference we have shewn. For their self-confidence is fed by their undeserved ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... be a valuable asset, and experience in war is the most costly of its kind. To enable those coming after us to reconstruct the picture of war, Regimental Histories have proved of infinite value. That such a record fills a sentimental want ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... Magistrate's room in the country. The methods of organization and control vary in the different States of the Commonwealth, but on one point the six are all agreed—that dependent and delinquent children are a national asset and a national responsibility, and any forward step anywhere has every chance of being copied. The result of Children's Courts and probation has been that, while the population of the State has greatly increased, the committals to the Gaol and ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... for weeks, and I've crossed the Rubicon. I think we're a long way past such petty things as personal pride. Did it ever occur to you that what from one point of view is a monstrous catastrophe, from another is an asset?" ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... Ware interrupted, "that Miss Dale will tell you that I have no wish to hurry you into any decision you will regret. In our business, satisfied patrons are our best asset. I only want to call attention to a little matter that may have escaped your attention and then leave you to think it over." Though his remarks were addressed to the farmer, his appealing gaze was fixed on Persis. He was disagreeably uncertain as to her ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... other indirectly. I was sure it was not merely because he had been ill that he looked interesting. Nor did it seem to me that a spiritual melancholy, though I imagined him sad at the best of times, was his sole asset. I conjectured that he was clever. I thought he might also be imaginative. At first glance I had mistrusted him. A shock of white hair, combined with a young face and dark eyebrows, does somehow make a man look like a charlatan. But it is foolish to be guided by an accident of color. ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... a man who handed me a business card with photographs of the monument, the Wayside, the four-hundred-year-old oak, with information to the effect that Mr. —— would furnish guides and livery teams about the town and to places as far distant as Walden Pond and Sudbury Inn. Thus poetry becomes an asset, and transcendentalism is exploited after the poet and the philosopher are dead. It took Emerson eleven years to sell five hundred copies of "Nature," and Thoreau's books came back upon his hands as unsalable and were piled up in the attic like cord-wood. I was impressed ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... them; but Lauderdale was able to carry the King with him in their abolition on the plea of their injury to national pride, and their certain result in national discontent, and Clarendon's advice was set aside. The popularity which thereby resulted was a strong asset in Lauderdale's favour. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... of popularity—than Crabbe, one of his own group, while he was destitute of the extraordinary appeals—which might be altogether unrecognised for a time but when felt are unmistakable—of the other two, Burns and Blake, of the poets of the seventeen-eighties. His religiosity was a doubtful "asset" as people say nowadays: and even his pathetic personal history had its awkward side. But as to his letters there has hardly at any time, since they became known, existed a difference of opinion among competent judges. There may be some unfortunates for whom they are ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... for trimming; but no customer in balloon sleeves and bell-shaped skirt was ever heard to remark of these young women as they remarked of Gabriella, "No, I don't want anybody else, please. She takes such an interest." To take an interest in other people might become quite as marketable an asset, Mr. Plummer was discovering, after fifty years of adherence to strictly business methods, as a gift for the needle; and, added to her engaging interest, Gabriella appeared to know by instinct exactly what a ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... to find that one can get tired of optimism, especially when it is being so plainly converted from a psychic abstraction into a municipal asset. There's a sort of communal Christian Science in this place which ordains that thought shall not dwell on such transient evils as drought or black rust or early frost or hail-storms or money stringencies. And there's a sort of youthful ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... wonder whether living at Quicksands might not bring him in touch with important interests which had as yet eluded him. And, above all,—if the idea be put a little more crudely and definitely than it occurred in his thoughts, he awoke to the realization that his wife was an asset he had hitherto utterly neglected. Inconceivable though it were (a middle-of-the-night reflection), if he insisted on trying to keep such a woman bottled up in Rivington she might some day pack up and leave him. One never could tell what a woman ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from $25 to $35 worth of live stock per acre. Lack of capital is one of the most potent influences in preventing a larger production of animals and animal products. Cattle paper, or notes given to secure money for the purchase of fattening animals, is a common bank asset in the feeding ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... intelligently awake than at these nocturnal hours—remained with him as most typical of Helen's most significant and charming self. It was her aspect of mystery and that faint hint of bitterness that he found so charming; Helen herself he never thought of as mysterious. Mystery was a mere outward asset of her beauty, like the powdery surface of a moth's wing. He didn't think of Helen as mysterious, perhaps because he thought little about her at all; he only looked and listened while she made him think about everything but ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... maguey and cereals; oak and pine and cedar grow freely in the mountain timber belts, whilst the list of agricultural products and fruits, from sugar-cane and tobacco upwards, almost exhausts the flora of the country. Water-power is a valuable asset of the state, the numerous streams furnishing power for the plant of numerous manufactories—woollen, cotton, electric light, flour mills, and others. The area of the state is 8,950 square miles, with a population of nearly a million ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... the capitals of all the world—the changing fashions and her social popularity, to have heard so much as a murmur of the serious tides of her nature. Although no one disputed her intelligence—a social asset in France, odd as that may appear to Americans—she was generally put down as a mere femme du monde, self-indulgent, pleasure-loving, dependent—what our more strident feminists call parasitic. It is doubtful if she belonged to charitable ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... was destined to become common at a later period of American history, the Virginia Company had become nothing more than a land company. Its one asset was the land that had been bought with the sacrifices of the first ten years, and after 1616 all of its plans depended upon the hope that it might use its power to give title to that land as an inducement for investment in the colony. In its advertisement in 1616 adventurers, both old and new, were ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... with perfect sincerity, language, which had points of contact with Browning's own. He has an eye for "spiritual facts" none the less genuine in its gross way that it has been acquired in the course of professional training, and is valued as a professional asset. But his supernaturalism at its best is devoid of spiritual quality. His "spiritual facts" are collections of miraculous coincidences raked together by the anteater's tongue of a cool egoist, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... the agent. Hardy as he was, the contemplation of his momentary failure, which was about to cost him twelve months of hardship in one of the roughest lumber camps in Labrador, robbed him of something of that nerve which was his chief asset. He glanced for the first time at the burly figure of Bat. He contemplated the rugged features of the man whose battling instinct was his strongest characteristic. He read the purpose in the grim set of the square jaws, and in the unyielding light of the grey eyes ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... took all my degrees—and then chucked it up and took to travelling and exploration, which was the idea that led me to qualify. Because, you see, when a man ventures beyond the pale of civilisation and has to rely absolutely upon himself, a knowledge of medicine and surgery is a big asset; indeed, had I not possessed such knowledge I should have pegged out in Central Africa, for it was solely by its means that I escaped death upon at least half-a-dozen different occasions. And the same knowledge has enabled me to save the lives of ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... partially recovered his senses, he found himself facing McLaughlin, president of McLaughlin & Perkins, Inc. McLaughlin sat at his desk, rotund, red-faced, and pig-eyed, his stubbly hair bristling with chronic antagonism. Those pig eyes and that stubbly hair were a great asset to McLaughlin when it came to an "argument." They could do more fighting than his tongue or his fists, for ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... again. And this repayment need not be long deferred. I can show that once the public grasps the issues at stake it will supply enough petitioners to move any government based on popular support, and that the scheme itself will supply enough money to make the sanctuaries a national asset of the most paying kind, and enough higher human interest to make them priceless as a possession for ourselves and a heritage for all who ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... good voice, well handled, is not only an effective possession for the professional speaker, it is a mark of personal culture as well, and even a distinct commercial asset. Gladstone, himself the possessor of a deep, musical voice, has said: "Ninety men in every hundred in the crowded professions will probably never rise above mediocrity because the training of the voice is entirely ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... "that's something to own. Rheumatism is a fine asset compared to it; in fact if some one gives me my choice, Goldstein, I would say rheumatism every time. Both of 'em keep you awake nights; but there's one thing about rheumatism, Goldstein"—here he indulged in another bitter laugh—"you don't need a lawyer to get rid of it!" he said, ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... I am sure: that such a step would be welcomed with gratitude, gladness and sympathy by all at least of the non-combatant nations, and that it would be set down as a moral asset for you in the ledger both of history and of contemporary opinion. Nor can I doubt that, even regarded merely from the point of view of politics, it would ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... introduced as living in a larger city and in very poor circumstances. Their father and mother being dead, Ruth had to manage for the family on a very small pension from the Government. Aunt Sarah Maltby, who was peculiar in more ways than one, was a liability instead of an asset to ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... her own subjects, who wished for nothing more than for her destruction. Unfortunately the fact that the sympathies of the thirty million of Austrian Slavs and Latins were on the side of the Entente, constituting such an incontestable moral asset for the Allies as it does, has not always been fully appreciated by Allied public opinion. We ourselves, however, never doubted for a moment that the Allied cause would ultimately triumph and that we would achieve our independence, because we knew that in struggling for this ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... feel virtuous to think how Craney had no conscience. Maybe he hadn't. He was the busiest man in South America for a while. I never knew of another to make a business asset out of earthquakes nor his equal for seeing an opening for enterprise. He was a singular man, Craney, a shrewd one, and yet romantic and given to ingenious visions. And yet again, when he talked his wildest, you'd find he had his feet on some rocky facts, and ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... the great asset to be considered in this educational work, is the broad Catholic spirit we create and maintain in the soul of the child. This is far more important than his actual financial contribution, and at the same time it prepares him to be, in later years, a generous contributor. Without any doubt, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... you remember how his tongue stumbled, and tripped him, the last time he spoke in the House? And I saw you looking on, pitying him. You'd got a kind side to you, for all your efficiency. Men like you for that—that charm...It's been a great asset to you. Parnell, how he tried all his life to make a speech and couldn't. But what he said didn't matter—there was the man! What a force he might have been—was! What a Samson, when he pulled the whole Irish Party down—got them all on ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... Pantin, a man of affairs from Keokuk, Iowa, in the vicinity with a view to locating, had been called upon for a few remarks and was just closing with the safe and conservative statement that an ample water supply was an asset to ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... had a dislike to parting with an animal of my own breeding, and to have brought these to a ripe maturity under my own eye would have been a pleasure and a satisfaction. But such an action might have caused distrust of my management, and an honest name is a valuable asset in ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... discover none of his abilities.(699) They have settled nothing like a constitution; on the contrary, they seem to protract every thing but violence, as much as they can, in order to keep their Louie a day, which is more than two-thirds of the Asset they perhaps ever saw in a month. I do not love legislators that pay themselves so amply! They might have had as good a constitution as twenty-four millions of people could comport. As they have voted an army of an hundred and fifty thousand men, I know what their constitution ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... black soldier while inflicting on him the segregationist's concept of the Negro's (p. 020) place in society created in him an insupportable tension. Second, segregation wasted black manpower, a valuable military asset. It was impossible, Hastie charged, to employ skilled Negroes at maximum efficiency within the traditionally narrow limitations of black units. Third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white and black soldiers ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... the pity would have been misplaced, for Al Engle was older than he looked by several sinful semesters and infinitely wiser than he had any honest right to be. His frank, boyish countenance was at once a cloak and an asset; it had beguiled many a man to his financial hurt. He was shrewd, intelligent, unscrupulous, and acquisitive; the dangerous head of a small clique of horse owners which was doing its bad best to remove the element ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... did she want with personality and points of view? Obviously nothing. If she brought all the grandchildren safely into the world, with their due complement of legs and arms and noses, she would be a satisfactory asset. But Mrs. Marston forgot, in this summing up, to find out whether Hazel cared for Edward more than she ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... patriotic kind. For, since it has been shown that about 10 per cent. of the individuals born in one generation provide half the next generation, large families that are also eugenic may prove of primary importance to the nation and become its most valuable asset. ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... hands tight round her knees. How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again—not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organization, but privately important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions, to oneself. Somebody ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... field, has been betrayed into a reference in this connection (The Declining Birth-rate, 1911, p. 41) to the "increasing rarity of altruism," though in almost the next paragraph he points out that the large families of the past were connected with the fact that the child was a profitable asset, and could be sent to work when little more than an infant. The "altruism" which results in crushing the minds and bodies of others in order to increase one's own earnings is not an "altruism" which we need desire to perpetuate. The ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... powerful asset of Donald Brown's, and it had never been more powerful than now, this voice which had been given him of heaven. They had often heard him before but now, under these strange circumstances, they listened with fresh amazement to the beauty of his tones. Every word fell clean-cut upon their ears, every ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... whom Miss Somerville writes with "that indomitable family pride that is an asset of immense value in the history of a country." They "took all things in their stride without introspection or hesitation. Their unflinching conscientiousness, their violent church-going (I speak of the sisters), were accompanied by a whole-souled love of a spree and a wonderful gift for a row." ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... as Lincoln himself realized, was a very valuable asset. Leaving home, he found, in a venture at "Yankee notion-pedling," that glibness meant three hundred per cent, in disposing of flimsy wares. In the camp of the lumber-jacks and of the Indian rangers he was regarded as the pride of the mess and the inspirator of the tent. From ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... or have the misery of seeing her borne off by Holmes's big bank-account, as she probably would be. Poor Mac! He had yet to learn that a reputation as an Indian-fighter is but an ephemeral and unsatisfactory asset as an adjunct ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... herself very little about the child she had sent to England. When, however, she received her portrait from Sir Jasper, together with a glowing description of her attractiveness and charm, the situation assumed a fresh aspect. Lola, she felt, had become an asset, instead of an anxiety; and, as such, must make a "good" marriage. Bath swarmed with detrimentals, and there was a risk of a pretty girl, bereft of a mother's watchful care, being snapped up by one of them. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... one's greatest asset in life. No thought or effort should be spared in making it pleasing and inspiring,—a fit expression of one's character and ideals, and a worthy ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... Green counted it as a large asset in Molly's favour that Sir Edmund Grosse was so attentive. Adela did not seriously mind Sir Edmund's indifference to herself if he were only a constant visitor at her house, but she was far from understanding the motives ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... his life that bound worldlings to him in a bond of fellowship that grappled the best that was in them. Goodness of his sort is commanding—the practical power of a pure life is a pulpit asset that reenforces the spoken word beyond all human calculation. Under his leadership Union Seminary could not have been other than liberal and sympathetic toward devout scholarship that might seem to threaten the ancient ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... attempts to put an enemy to flight by legitimate means. They resort to fakery: one howls, and the other wrinkles his face in great anger. The jackal's greatest asset and protection, when he meets with an enemy, is bluff. He raises his ugly mane, lifts his ungainly shoulders and assumes the look of a Jason, while in reality he is as harmless as a mouse, and the smallest child could drive him away with a twig. His bravery is all pose—a ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... to New York, with two exceptions, Frank Brangwyn of London, and Arthur Mathews, of San Francisco. They were informed by Guerin that they could take their own subjects. He contented himself with saying that a subject with meaning and life in it was an asset. ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... whose keen sense of proportion showed what a valuable political asset such a coup would make in addition to its effect ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... unaware of trouble. Then, his wrong reaction engendered a hostile element. He was at war with himself; he was not what he meant to be. And finally, he returned to himself richer and wiser, including within himself the negative experience as a valuable asset in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the first, I was more relieved than dismayed at the captain's resolution to stay aboard. His drinking habit was growing on him, and afloat or ashore he was now little more than a figurehead, so that my chief asset as far as he was concerned, was rather his reputation than his direct influence. In contact with the men, I dreaded lest sooner or later he do something to lessen or destroy the awe in which they ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams |
