"Utility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said Sidonia, 'since the peace, there has been an attempt to advocate a reconstruction of society on a purely rational basis. The principle of Utility has been powerfully developed. I speak not with lightness of the labours of the disciples of that school. I bow to intellect in every form: and we should be grateful to any school of philosophers, even if we disagree with them; doubly grateful in this ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... (1) Error in any statement or assertion as to the utility of the useful article named in the application under this section, the design of which is sought to be registered, shall not affect the protection secured ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... income of 3000 ducats. The Sulphur baths of Trescorio, at some distance from the city, were improved and opened to poor patients by a hospital which he provided. At Rumano he raised a church to S. Peter, and erected buildings of public utility, which on his death he bequeathed to the society of the Misericordia in that town. All the places of his jurisdiction owed to him such benefits as good water, new walls, and irrigation works. In addition to these munificent foundations must be mentioned ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... for the choice of any way of life: the first is inbred taste in the chooser; the second some high utility in the industry selected. Literature, like any other art, is singularly interesting to the artist; and, in a degree peculiar to itself among the arts, it is useful to mankind. These are the sufficient justifications for any young man or woman who adopts it ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contemplate) as of that outline and proportion of parts with which utility is oftenest combined. Then carefully viewing his stock he will consider where they approach to, and how far they wander from, this utility of form; and he will be anxious to preserve or to increase the one and to supply the deficiency of the other. He will endeavor to select from his own stock those animals that excel in the most valuable points, and particularly those which possess ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... latter, who now resides in a place he has inherited from a relative at Turnham Green. Lamb is settled at Endfield, about seven miles from London, with his sister, who I fear is in a very indifferent state of health; so his friends see very little of him. In this grand age of utility, I suppose it will soon be discovered that a piece of canvas is more advantageously employed as the door of a safe, where it will secure a joint of meat from the flies, than if it was covered with the finest ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... individual with individual. He thus explained adaptation to new conditions and divergence of several species from a common ancestor. Characters which were not obviously adaptive were explained either by correlation or by the supposition that they had a utility of which we were ignorant. Darwin also admitted the direct action of conditions ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... proof that its originating source is likewise of a moral character. This argument, however, appears to me of a questionable character, seeing that, for anything we can tell to the contrary, the moral sense may have been given to, or developed in, man simply on account of its utility to the species—just in the same way as teeth in the shark or poison in the snake. If so, the occurrence of the moral sense in man would merely furnish one other instance of the intellectual, as distinguished from ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... where there is no practical utility in comparing one very large number with another, as in the case of the distances of the planets from the sun, mere round numbers may suffice, yet astronomers must know such numbers with exactness. But in regard to all mundane affairs, the pupil must throw off the character of scholar ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... out for myself. Hitherto I had been Fortune's darling instead of her mercenary, and she had most politely carved out my paths for me, until she had played her jade's trick and left me in the ditch. Now things were different. I stood alone, ironical, ambitionless, still questioning the utility of human effort, yet determined to play the game of life to its bitter ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Boroughs, or planning a code of laws for some "lone island in the watery waste," his walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and his manner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY—or pausing, perhaps, for want of breath and with lack-lustre eye to point out to the stranger a stone in the wall at the end of his garden (overarched by two beautiful cotton-trees) Inscribed to the Prince of Poets, which marks the house where Milton formerly lived. ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... remarks on Shakspearian difficulties from the same pen. His papers on the Taming of the Shrew were of special value; and although I do not quite agree with all he has said on the subject, there can be no doubt of the great utility of permitting the discussion of questions of the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various
... blossoms clustering heavily, With evening dew upon their folded leaves, Can claim no value or utility— Therefore shall fragrancy and beauty be The ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... feed two herds together, and some do even more than that. A small herd is less expensive than a large one because the swineherd requires less assistance. A swinefeeder should fix the number to be fed as a herd on a principle of utility, not by the number of boars he may happen to have, for that is determined ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... the province are disgusted with the accounts of the disgraceful dissensions of the Episcopal Methodist Church and its separatists, recriminating memorials, and the warfare of one Church with another. The utility of an Establishment depends entirely on the piety, assiduity, and devoted zeal of its ministers, and on their abstaining from a secular interference which may involve them in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... old Miles rode off, very much disturbed in his mind. His confidence in the utility of the telegraph company was ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... the publication of the First Edition of this Treatise, on "The Laws of War, affecting Commerce and Shipping," has confirmed the author's opinion of the utility of such a work; and its hearty acceptance by the mercantile world has induced him to add largely and materially to this edition. The general plan of the former work has not been departed from in the first portion of the present; and although a great ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... women who do not hold their pens correctly and write for long spells day after day. The break-down which happens in them is called "writer's cramp," but it is a disaster of the same kind as that which overtakes the foot when its arch collapses, and its utility as a lever ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... the tax dodger along the entire line of his defense, from the curbstone to the Supreme Court. They began with an intricate investigation which uncovered the fact that in 1899, $235,000,000 of value of public utility corporations paid nothing in taxes. The Teachers' Federation brought a suit which was prosecuted through the Supreme Court of Illinois and resulted in an order entered against the State Board of Equalization, demanding that it tax the corporations mentioned ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... its own. It could bridge over every gap; it could make profit of its own, and make profitable that which had before been unprofitable. It placed immigrants where the steamboat, canal, and road could at last be of the highest utility to them; it developed the great West with startling rapidity; it increased the sale of government lands so rapidly that in a few years the debt of the United States was paid off, and the surplus became, for the first time, a source of political embarrassment. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the garden and were duly housed in winter, but these were the sole tender plants admitted, and they pleaded their own cause in the breath of the linen-press and the bureau-drawers that held Miss Lucinda's clothes. Beyond the flowers, utility blossomed in a row of bean-poles, a hedge of currant-bushes against the farther fence, carefully tended cauliflowers, and onions enough to tell of their use as sparing as their number; a few deep-red beets and golden carrots were all the vegetables beside: Miss Lucinda never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... entitled "The Constitution of Man," and other writings, whose considerable merit and value appear to me more or less impaired by the craniological theory which he made the foundation of all his works, and which to my mind diminished the general utility of his publications for those readers who are not prepared to accept it as the solution of all ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... act up to it, and it is more than enough when I gain companions in the onward march. I have claimed in private conversations with English friends that it is because of my incessant preaching of the gospel of non-violence and my having successfully demonstrated its practical utility that so far the forces of violence, which are undoubtedly in existence in connection with the Khilafat movement, have ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... works of utility carried on by convict labour during the tenure of the office of Superintendent of Convicts by Captain Man was the widening and improving of the Bukit Timah Canal, in order to drain the adjacent low lands, and render them capable for cultivation by market gardeners. In the cutting of these artificial ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... it is provided that the Reparation Commission may, within one year of the coming into force of the Treaty, demand that the German Government expropriate its nationals and deliver to the Reparation Commission "any rights and interests of German nationals in any public utility undertaking or in any concession[26] operating in Russia, China, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, or in the possessions or dependencies of these States, or in any territory formerly belonging to Germany or her allies, ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... good deal like his own style of oratory—impressive and energetic, but not very polished." We question the last; but, be this as it may, polish is only desirable so long as it does not impair truth and utility. Plain-speaking has been the best rule of conduct for public men ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... accepted the position thrust upon me by Cleon. In accepting it, I flatter myself that I took a common-sense view of the case. In the petit drama of real life in which I am now acting an uneventful part, I look upon myself as a 'general utility' man, bound to enact any and every character which my manager may think proper to entrust into my hands. Now, you are my manager, and if it seem to me conducive to your interests (you being absent) that, in addition to my present character, I should be a 'cast' for that ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... natives of Ceylon get over the difficulty very well by gathering one of the many beautifully spotted large caladium leaves which abound in the roadside ditches. For a time it serves its purpose, combining utility with elegance, and when the shower is over it is thrown away. I have also seen these leaves used as sunshades, but they do not answer so well in this capacity, for they wither directly and become limp and ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... mode of communication will be of the utmost utility, especially at the times of the breaking up of the frost, when all intercourse is interrupted. The architect is a foreigner, and has engaged to complete the work in the space of three ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... industry against a Francois I tapestry? Paint him at his desk. The desk is a throne; interpret it. We are ruled by mobs. Who paints mobs? What is wrong is this, that art is in the bondage of literature—sentimentality. We must record what we experience. Ugliness has its utility, its magnetism; the ugliness of abject misery moves you to think, to readjust ideas. We must be rebels, we young men. Ah, if we could only burn the galleries, we should be ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... the common useful occupations of life, he began to feel a more tender interest in the common concerns of his fellow-creatures. He now found, from his own experience, that Mr Barlow had not deceived him in the various representations he had made of the utility of the lower classes, and consequently of the humanity which is due to them when they discharge their duty. Nor did that gentleman abandon his little friend in this important trial; he visited him frequently, pointed out everything that ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... named John Smalley of Preston found him the wherewithal to carry on his experiments first at Preston and later on at Nottingham. Certainly what he put up at Nottingham gave such promise of practical utility, that two experienced business men were led to join him in partnership, and the three of them, Need, Strutt, and Arkwright, very soon had mills built in Nottingham, Cromford and Matlock. The first-named mill was worked by horses, the two latter by water, hence the common name of water ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... Broadsides, and Ballads: a curious byway of book-collecting this, for the knowledge to be gleaned from these curiosa is not probably of great value. Nor can a great deal be said in favour of their utility. Perhaps, however, the first two would be classed more properly with No. 22—Facetiae and Curiosa, leaving Ballads only under this heading. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres' 'Bibliotheca Lindesiana: a Catalogue of a Collection of English Ballads of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, printed ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and virtuous woman, the Princess ——, his mother, the manuscript of which he had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the suitability of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of interest, possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the Princess resembled my mother's handwriting. My visitor, to whom I gave it back, turned over the leaves for ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... The rationality of good morals is not to be found in nature, which in itself is indifferent, ignorant of good or evil. It is in the divine word, which is not to be trespassed against without after regret. The laws of humanity are based on utility, and that can only be an apparent and illusory utility, for nobody knows naturally what is useful to mankind, nor what is really appropriate to them. And we must not forget that our habits contain a good moiety of articles which ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... exaggeration, believe me) that I hate woman and love women—have an acute animosity to your sex and adoring each individual member of it. What matters my opinion of your understandings so long as I am in bondage to your charms? Moreover, there is one service of incomparable utility and dignity for which I esteem you eminently ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... and Poetry, compared Palace of the Regent, its costly fitting Partridge, John, his tomb and errors Parks of London, their utility and capability ——, noblemen's, their inutility Patronage, cause of war Parish allowances to the poor Panorama from Wimbledon Common Paper circulation always ruinous Parish poor-houses described Peace, its security Peach, its crawling ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... familiar form is the firmer-chisel, Fig. 65, which is said to get its name from the fact that it is firmer or stiffer than the paring-chisel. (See below.) The firmer-chisel is a general utility tool, being suited for hand pressure or mallet pounding, for paring ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... being 36 cents a head for cattle, 4 cents for sheep, 8 cents for calves, and 12 cents for hogs. Mainly on account of the extensions and improvements, this market is not being run at a profit at present, but its public utility is held to justify the outlay. Nor does the Deptford Cattle market, of thirty acres, maintained on the banks of the Thames to deal with live cattle imported from abroad, pay its way. But there has been a serious decline in imported ...
— A Terminal Market System - New York's Most Urgent Need; Some Observations, Comments, - and Comparisons of European Markets • Mrs. Elmer Black
... say dull. By no stretch of imagination could Vane imagine him as the leader of a great cause. He might have been a country lawyer, or a general practitioner, or any of those eminently worthy things with which utility rather than brilliance is generally associated. He recalled what he had read in the papers—paragraphs describing meetings at which Mr. Ramage had taken a prominent part, and his general recollection of most of them ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... set on foot, by no means directly philanthropic in their aim, which contemplated utility more than virtue or justice—enterprises whose vast effects are yet unexhausted, and which have so modified the conditions of human existence as to make the new reign virtually a new epoch. As to the real benefit of these immense changes, opinion is somewhat ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... of our law that no one can be deprived of his property except for the sake of general utility, and in consideration of a ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Art's sake is Dead-Sea fruit—rosy without, ashes within. Socrates was not perhaps quite right in saying that the Beautiful was the Useful, but it doesn't follow that the Beautiful should be the Useless. Even crockery, cutlery, and furniture should never be Beautiful at the cost of utility. Their Beauty should be implicated with their natural shapes, inblent with and inseparable from their uses, not a monstrous accretion from without. The most artistic knife is the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Grammont may be considered as unique there is nothing like it in any language. For drollery, knowledge of the world, various satire, general utility, united with great vivacity of composition, Gil Blas is unrivalled: but, as a merely agreeable book, the Memoirs of Grammont perhaps deserve that character more than any which was ever written: it is pleasantry throughout, pleasantry of the ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... would think them either praiseworthy or desirable? For as we esteem the skill of physicians not for the sake of the art itself, but from our desire for good health,—and as the skill of the pilot, who has the knowledge how to navigate a vessel well, is praised with reference to its utility, and not to his ability,—so wisdom, which should be considered the art of living, would not be sought after if it effected nothing; but at present it is sought after because it is, as it were, the efficient cause ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... instead of the native language. I should not have named this subject at all, had I not been aware that the missionaries themselves still retain their former impressions, and that although they have yielded to public opinion on this point, they have not done so from a conviction of its utility. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... charities of "universal benevolence," is now happily re-united. Godwin maintains, however, that his moral theory and his political superstructure stands intact, and the claim is not unreasonable. He retains his criterion of justice and utility, though he has seen better how to apply it. The duty of universal benevolence is still paramount; the end of contributing to the general good still sovereign, and a reasoned virtue is still to be ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... fervent language, upon the beauty and the interest of the celestial phenomena. He points out the imperative necessity of continuous and systematic observation of the heavenly bodies in order to extend our knowledge. He appeals to the practical utility of the science, for what civilised nation could exist without having the means of measuring time? He sets forth how the study of these beautiful objects "exalts the mind from earthly and trivial things to heavenly ones;" and then he winds up by assuring them that "a special use of astronomy ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... Agricultural Fairs, is a more rapid and general diffusion of knowledge among the farmers in regard to the advantages and practical utility of new inventions, for the saving of time and labor in agricultural operations. This is illustrated very clearly by the exhibition of Mr. Parish's "Stump and Grub Extractor," on exhibition here. This machine, I understand, was patented on the first day of the present month, ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... the accelerator, trying to pull free. The truck at once swerved off the road, steering around a utility pole. As the cable tautened, there was a sickening screech of metal and the sports car was brought to a ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... action; light circulates; every one has the right to speak and to be heard; the sum total of all opinions, the net result of discussion, may be accepted as the voice of truth itself! I do not deny that in certain questions of general interest and utility, on which every one may be tolerably well informed, the voice of all has, in our mild and instructed ages, its share of reason, and even of wisdom; ideas ripen by the mere conjunction of forces and the course of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... may be in many things harmful; and so say I of my stories. If any be minded to draw therefrom ill counsel or ill practice, they will nowise forbid it him, if perchance they have it in them or be strained and twisted into having it; and who so will have profit and utility thereof, they will not deny it him, nor will they be ever styled or accounted other than useful and seemly, if they be read at those times and to those persons for which and for whom they have been recounted. Whoso hath to say paternosters or to make tarts and puddings ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... really necessary on the place, and in the ornamentation of Four Oaks. This, however, was part of the experiment. I asked the land not only to supply immediate necessities, but to minister to my every want, to gratify the eye, and please the senses by a harmonious fusion of utility and beauty. I wanted a fine country home and a profitable investment within ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... supplying whatever you may be unprovided for in your instructions, you will explore as far as it is possible for you to do, on your return, the country north of the settled districts of York and Toodyay; so that something of utility may be accomplished, and the great object for which this expedition was prepared may not ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... bolster of the saddle, and by it the horse may be fastened whenever the rider alights, without the use of the reins for that purpose. At first a foreigner is apt to regard the equipments of a Peruvian horse as superfluous and burthensome; but he is soon convinced of their utility, and, when the eye becomes familiar to them, they have a ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... across the globe represents the utility of the passions that are necessary to man in the course of his life, as water is requisite to the earth in order to ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... is rather deaf, and has not caught the name, grasps the paper and hides behind it. From long experience he has discovered the utility of the newspaper as a sort of parapet behind which he ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... corporations, departments, communes, banks, institutions, churches, and universities.—Add to these, according to circumstances, sundry optional co-operative services,[2217] such as subsidies granted to institutions of great public utility, for which private contributions could not suffice, now in the shape of concessions to corporations for which equivalent obligations are exacted, and, again, in those hygienic precautions which individuals fail to take through indifference; so occasionally, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... uncultivated, and encourage the soul to strive toward perfection, in beauty: and there is no contesting the value of beauty when the soul is taken into account. But were they not in too great a profusion in proportion to their utility? That was the question for Nevil Beauchamp. The democratic spirit inhabiting him, temporarily or permanently, asked whether they were not increasing to numbers which were oppressive? And further, whether ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... clear field and with the advantage of the experiment and the experience of other lands to guide us, we may begin upon a higher level and upon a larger scale. There is reason to believe that the utility of a system like Labour Exchanges, like utility of any other market, increases in proportion to its range and scope. We therefore propose, as a first principle, that our system shall be uniform and national in its ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... stronger theatrical effect; he called for a scene more majestically ornamented; and, lastly, he frequently endeavoured to give to his pieces a political or philosophical interest altogether foreign to poetry. His labours hare unquestionably been of utility to the French stage, although in language and versification (which in the classification of dramatic excellences ought only to hold a secondary place, though in France they alone almost decide the fate of a piece), he is, by most critics, considered inferior to his predecessors, or at least to Racine. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... him to "put all the bars of one length together. Ye'll find it a good deal easier." Jem thanked him respectfully for the advice but neglected to follow it. His aunt also came to the front door occasionally to watch his progress, but shook her head as if doubtful of either the ornament or utility of his work. ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... and badly ordered, did not obtain the unanimous assent of the army. Part of the generals, and of the troops, already wearied and disgusted by marches and countermarches without end and without utility, executed with ill will the orders given them. Another part, questioning the reality of the disembarkation, hesitated. In fine, the corps of M. d'Autichamp, one of the most considerable, plainly refused, to take any part in this hazardous expedition; and this example, for which the other ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... this. The endless number of charity sermons that we have to preach for their aid, not only extracts too much of what should be spent for the benefit of our own special communities, but militates against our getting contributions to other works of greater utility. Our congregations become so deadened by these repeated onslaughts on their benevolence, that they button up their pockets and respond in only a half-hearted way when we claim their assistance ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... whose guilt had been established by the hot iron Criminals buying Paradise for money Crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs Democratic instincts of the ancient German savages Denies the utility of prayers for the dead Difference between liberties and liberty Dispute between Luther and Zwingli concerning the real presence Divine right Drank of the water in which, he had washed Enormous wealth (of the Church) which engendered the hatred Erasmus encourages the bold ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... a half miles from Lebanon Springs, and seven miles from Pittsfield. The settlement is admirably placed on the hillside to which it clings, securing it good drainage, abundant water, sunshine, and the easy command of water-power. Whoever selected the spot had an excellent eye for beauty and utility in a country site. The views are lovely, broad, and varied; the air is pure and bracing; and, in short, a company of people desiring to seclude themselves from the world could hardly have chosen a ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... exposition of Anastase Gouache's views in regard to the utility of revolutions, Del Ferice laughed loudly; but Anastase remained perfectly grave, for he was perfectly sincere. Del Ferice, to whom the daily whispered talk of revolution in Donna Tullia's circle was mere child's play, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... Library, and the other by the late Mr. James M. Anderson, Assistant Librarian of the University of St. Andrews. Mr. Harrison gives the following as the three guiding principles of selection in forming a library: 1. Policy; 2. Utility; 3. Special or Local Appropriateness; and he deals with each successively. Mr. Anderson writes that "the selection of books should invariably be made (1) in relation to the library itself, and (2) in relation to ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... yields a support for the other parts of the community: it is now the spring which sets the whole grand machine of commerce in motion; and the sail could not be spread without the assistance of the plough. But though the farmers are of such utility in a state, we find them, in general, too much disregarded among the politer kind of people in the present age; while we cannot help observing the honour that antiquity has always paid to the profession of the husbandman; which naturally leads us into some reflections ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... of German cities public-utility services, gas, water, electricity, street-railways, slaughter-houses, and even canals, docks, and pawn-shops are owned and controlled by the cities themselves. There is no loop-hole for private plunder, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... upon the field of its activity. We were pleased to see that Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, a few days ago presented in the Senate petitions from Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and others, and from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, at Boston, to the effect that it would be of great public utility to attach to the boundary commission to run the line between the United States and Mexico, a small corps of persons well qualified to make researches in ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... not see how there could well be a more emphatic assertion that there exists a primary basis of morals independent of, and in a sense antecedent to, that which is furnished by experiences of utility; and consequently, independent of, and, in a sense antecedent to, those moral sentiments which I conceive to be generated by such experiences. Yet no one could gather from Mr. Hutton's article that I assert this; or would even find ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... lying and a belief in the utility of lying are often attended by the most unhappy and paralysing effects. The liars become unable to recognize the truth when it is presented to them. This is the misery which fate has fixed on the German cause. War, the Germans are fond of ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... animate creation labours under the beautiful necessity of being beautiful. Everywhere it exhibits a perfect utility subservient to harmonious laws. Nature is the workshop in which are built beautiful organisms. This is exactly the aim of the architect—to fashion beautiful organisms; what better school, therefore, could he have in which to ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... spacious, regular, and airy; and the houses generally convenient. The bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public-spirit. — I wonder how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility. But, notwithstanding these improvements, the capital is become an overgrown monster; which, like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and support. The absurdity will appear in its full force, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... at length, "I think it is something of very equivocal utility. Why should such gentle hands and feet spend their strength in clod-breaking, when rough ones are ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... been cultivated, can generally withstand with unimpaired fertility great changes in their conditions of life; though both are sometimes slightly affected. With animals the somewhat rare capacity of breeding freely under confinement has mainly determined, together with their utility, the kinds which have ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... horizontal line Nature scarcely knows save in her rocks and on a vaster scale than we here have to do with. Yet straight lines in gardening are often good and fine if only they are lines of real need. Where, when and in what degree it is good to subordinate utility to beauty or beauty to utility depends on time, place and circumstance, but when in doubt "don't" pinch either to pet the other. Oppression is never good art. Yet "don't" cry war, war, where there is no war. A true beauty and a needed utility may bristle ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... Dear Mr. Melville,—I am now in my twenty-fifth year. In looking back it seems only a few years ago that you called me to you, on the street of my native city, and offered to make me general utility boy in the telegraph office of Damietta. My mother and I were nearly starving at the time, and no kindness could have been more appropriate than yours, nor could anyone have shown greater tact and wisdom in cultivating the good instincts ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... country was the background of life, that is of pleasures, endeavors, labor. To Sergey Ivanovitch the country meant on one hand rest from work, on the other a valuable antidote to the corrupt influences of town, which he took with satisfaction and a sense of its utility. To Konstantin Levin the country was good first because it afforded a field for labor, of the usefulness of which there could be no doubt. To Sergey Ivanovitch the country was particularly good, because there it was possible and fitting ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... at that time governor of Britain, and ruled with a milder sway than was suitable to so turbulent a province. Under his administration, Agricola, accustomed to obey, and taught to consult utility as well as glory, tempered his ardor, and restrained his enterprising spirit. His virtues had soon a larger field for their display, from the appointment of Petilius Cerealis, [31] a man of consular dignity, to the government. ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... interesting minor sections may be, at times must be, introduced. But even by their vividness and attractiveness they must help the speech, not hinder it. The decorations and ornaments must never be allowed to detract from the utility ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... be this as it may, it is certain that the compact coherent rocks are appointed to form the greatest part of the earth's surface, and by their utility, and easily changed and governed qualities, to tempt man to dwell among them; being, however, in countries not definitely mountainous, usually covered to a certain depth by those beds of loose gravel and sand to which we agreed to give the name of diluvium. There ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... depreciated its application to physical inquiries. He contemptuously rejected the Copernican system, alleging absurd objections to it. While Galileo was on the brink of his great telescopic discoveries, Bacon was publishing doubts as to the utility of instruments in scientific investigations. To ascribe the inductive method to him is to ignore history. His fanciful philosophical suggestions have never been of the slightest practical use. No one has ever thought of employing ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... numbers into the binary system for use by the machine may be performed automatically by subroutines. Similarly the output conversion of binary numbers into decimals is done by subroutine. Operations for floating point numbers are handled by programming. The utility program system provides for automatic insertion of the routines required to perform floating point operations and number ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation
... actually are. The deserts which surround the city of Rome, that land which, fatigued with glory, seems to hold in contempt the praise of being productive, presents but an uncultivated and neglected country to him who considers it with regard to utility. Oswald, accustomed from his infancy to the love of order and public prosperity, received, at first, unfavourable impressions in traversing those deserted plains which announce the approach to that city formerly the queen of the world: he blamed the indolence ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... think, has shown that, except for the reception of epileptic patients during the continuance of their paroxysms, and in a few cases where there is a determined propensity to suicide, the utility of padded rooms is not so great as was at one time supposed; and that, for cases of ordinary maniacal excitement, seclusion in a common day-room or sleeping-room of moderate size, from which all articles that might furnish ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... generally. The Banias are very good to their own caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars are very rare in the caste. Rich Marwaris are extremely generous in their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage on the price received by them for religious purposes. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... for anything like that period of time, or I fear the commerce of this populous and most thriving town would be in a bad way. The great Telford and Macadam are the persons to be thanked for our beautiful system of road-making, and no person can, I am sure, deny the utility of their plans. As I said, roads are a means of communication for the body, and also for the mind; and therefore, now that their advantages are seen, we should strive to further their advance in ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... about the halls and yard, sometimes sweeping, and again carrying something, or doing errands for the keepers from one part of the prison to another. I was what theatrical managers call a general utility man, and, not at all strangely, for it is human nature, now that I could do what I pleased, I pleased to do a great deal, and was tolerably useful, and far more agreeable than I had been ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... man is fashioned so much upon straight lines with consequent sharp points and angles. Is it not obvious that Art has had but scanty share in designing our towns and manufactories? Right angles, no doubt, stand for utility in a commercial age, but Nature with her longer purview has little use for them and prefers a more rounded way of progress. Nature inspires, but not in square-cut periods. It is a safe plan to turn to Nature, as to the diagram of God, ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... 1806, the editor, then a lad, fresh from Yale, and destined for the navy, made his first voyage in a merchantman, with a view to get some practical knowledge of his profession. This was the fashion of the day, though its utility, on the whole, may very well be questioned. The voyage was a long one, including some six or eight passages, and extending to near the close of the year 1807. On board the ship was Myers, an apprentice to the captain. Ned, as Myers was uniformly called, was a ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... conflicting motives; and his whole life was almost thrown away. He lacked power to choose one object and persevere with a single aim, sacrificing every interfering inclination. He, for instance, vacillated for weeks trying to determine whether to use "usefulness" or "utility" in a composition. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and in paying the additional charges in America incurred on our account, together with the loss of their men-of-war, the total of all these articles will be a most exorbitant sum, and is the strongest conviction of the utility of this expedition, which, with all its numerous disadvantages, did yet prove so extremely prejudicial to ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... Guerchy, an officer lately belonging to Coligny's army, discovered a ford by which a part of the Germans crossed. The main body laid siege to the town of La Charite, which was soon reduced (on the twentieth of May), the Huguenots thus gaining a bridge and stronghold that proved of great utility for their future operations. Six days after the king had demonstrated the impossibility of the enterprise, Deux Ponts was on the western side of the Loire.[692] Meantime, Coligny and La Rochefoucauld were advancing to meet him with the elite of their army and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... training hammer. 18 point cross-cut saw. 9 point rip saw. Large screw driver, wooden handle. Small screw driver. Nail puller. Stanley smooth-plane, No. 3. Bench hook. Brace and set of twist bits. Manual training rule. Steel rule. Tri square. Utility box—with assorted nails, screws, etc. Combination India oil stone. ...
— A Catalogue of Play Equipment • Jean Lee Hunt
... and Liane were among the first to come aboard; after all, they were not to sail before morning, according to the women. He apprehended a tedious time of waiting before he gained his berth. He noticed, too, a life ring lettered SYBARITE, and thought this an odd name for a vessel of commercial utility. Then he found himself descending a wide companionway to one of the handsomest saloons he had ever entered, a living room that, aside from its concessions to marine architecture, might have graced a residence on Park Lane or on ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... certainly Papuan warriors are foes as wild and weird as any adventurer can desire to meet. The rescuing of wrecked mariners at Tahiti added a spice of adventure of another sort. From beginning to end, indeed, this voyage must have been as full of charm as of utility. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... more than one in breadth. As they looked upwards with their backs to the open sea, they beheld a scene which no other in this country can parallel, and which the admirers of the magnificence of nature will ever remember with regret, whatever consolation may be derived from the probable utility of the works which have excluded the waters from their ancient receptacle. Vast rocks and precipices, intersected with little torrents, formed the barrier on the left: on the right, the triple summit of Moelwyn reared its majestic boundary: in the ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... remembrance; very often he objects their unthankfulness toward God and present imperfections. By sickness, poverty, tribulations in their household, or by persecution, he can allege that God is angry, and regard them not. Or by the spiritual cross which few feel and fewer understand the utility and profit of, he would drive God's children to desperation, and by infinite means more, he goeth about seeking, like a roaring lion, to undermine and destroy our faith. But it is impossible for him to prevail against us unless we obstinately refuse to ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... also the principal periodicals and the latest treatises of note in the medical world. In a long, upright case, like that of an old hall-clock, was the anatomy of one who had long done with time; a laryngoscope and some other professional apparatus of constant utility lay upon the leaf of the doctor's desk. There was nothing in the room which did not suggest his profession, except the sword and the spurs which hung upon the wall opposite where Grace sat beside one of the front windows. She spent her time in study of the room and its appointments, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mart of the world, to which the best and richest products are brought from every land and clime, so that if you have put money in your purse you may command every object of utility or fancy which grows or is made anywhere without going beyond the circuit of the great cosmopolitan city. Parisian, German, Russian, Hindu, Japanese, Chinese industry is as much at your service here, if you have the all-compelling talisman in your pocket, as in Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... towards criticism in general. He found it difficult to admit the utility of these thousands of artists who formed a Fourth or Fifth Estate in the modern community: he read in it the signs of a worn-out generation which relegates to others the business of regarding life—feeling ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... letter to the three brigadiers, Monckton, Townshend, and Murray: "That the public service may not suffer by the General's indisposition, he begs the brigadiers will meet and consult together for the public utility and advantage, and consider of the best method to attack the enemy." The letter then proposes three plans, all bold to audacity. The first was to send a part of the army to ford the Montmorenci eight or nine miles above its mouth, march through the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... taste in architecture, where there is messy and cumbrous ornament without strength or solidity of column. This has exposed learning, and especially classical learning, to reproach. Men have seen that it might exist without mental superiority, without vigor, without good taste, and without utility. But in such cases classical learning has only not inspired natural talent, or, at most, it has but made original feebleness of intellect, and natural bluntness of perception, something more conspicuous. The question, after all, if it be a question, ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... copyist as the only substance fit for writing on, even when it was so scarce that it could be used only for the most expensive books. The card-like cotton paper once made by the Saracens was certainly known in Europe for many years before its utility was recognized. Hallam says that the use of this cotton paper was by no means general or frequent, except in Spain or Italy, and perhaps in the south of France, until the end of the fourteenth century. Nor was it much used in ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... substance whence they are formed, the facility of multiplying copies, or the practice of depositing them in the cabinets of the curious. Perhaps one improvement might be made. The sage and venerable Dr. Franklin, whose patriotic genius is active in old age, and ever prolific in projects of public utility, once suggested,[19] in conversation with me, as an expedient for propagating still more extensively the knowledge of facts designed to be perpetuated in medals, that their devices should be impressed on the current coin ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... The desire to live by your own labour is actuated by the very proper feeling that you ought to be doing your duty in the social organism. Your present work is equal to, say, three respectable pairs of boots a week. That, you will admit, is a fair measure of your utility. Now, if by becoming a great poet, you could give pleasure and delight to thousands of your fellow-men, it seems to me your utility would be fairly represented by quite a considerable number of pairs of boots, and very ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the silly old noodle for turning him out of the house. And he had written this doggerel. 'It's the first time I've soiled my hands with writing poetry,' he said. 'It's to win her heart, so it's in a good cause. When I get hold of the silly woman's fortune, I can be of great social utility.' They have this social justification for every nasty thing they do! 'Anyway it's better than your Pushkin's poetry,' he said, 'for I've managed to advocate enlightenment even in that.' I understand what he means about Pushkin, I quite ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... history the claims made in behalf of patent medicines have been extreme. This Turlington bottle, however, affords one of the few cases on record wherein such a medicine has been felt to possess a postmortem utility.[103] ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... standard gauge: the right-of-way have seriously reduced the capacity and utility of the system; a project to restore Nigeria's railways ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... The great utility of remarkable accounts of the ways of God in bringing his sheep into the fold, must be admitted by all. The Bible abounds with these manifestations of Divine grace from the gentle voice that called Samuel, even unto the thunder ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some of the brighter spirits with this condition, but many of its remedies were worse than the disease. The nouveau artist-craftsman stood less chance than anybody of getting back to the secret of noble things, having forsaken the path of pure utility which, wherever it may go for a time, always leads back again to beauty. The disappearance of beauty for a time need not have been a cause of despair. Beauty will always come back if it is left alone. People had been swept off their feet with delight at what ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... of the utility of the balloon as an instrument of research, formed at the conclusion of his aeronautical labours, has a special value and significance. Speaking with all the weight attaching to so trained and eminent an observer, he declares, "The balloon, considered as an instrument for vertical exploration, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... mercenaries that are the scandal of the Established Church, her most faithful friends will not greatly resent this conduct of a dissenter-(Scott). Dr. Paley would have done well to have read this chapter in Bunyan before composing some of the chapters in his Moral Philosophy, and his Sermon on the Utility of Distinctions ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shall thank you, and do what I can for you. A few days after I sent them all three to——, by the return of some waggons, that he might have an opportunity of viewing, and convincing himself of the utility of those machines which he had at first so ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... to be the only pure form of marriage, a great majority of societies and individuals are still doubtful whether the earthly bond must be a meeting of souls, or only supposes a contract of convenience and utility. Were Woman established in the rights of an immortal being, this could not be. She would not, in some countries, be given away by her father, with scarcely more respect for her feelings than is shown by the Indian chief, who sells his daughter for a horse, and beats her if she runs away ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the local village mind, and investigating and recording the good things of old-time, his many-sided activities were shown in every direction and his literary facility made his work known far and wide. His familiarity with the country-side and his interest in folk-lore were of special utility in recovering and preserving for publication a large mass of English popular song, and in assisting the new English movement for studying and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... no longer lay claim to the title of a Journeyman Goldsmith. It was while in that capacity that the greater part of the following pages were written: he cannot but believe that they may be of some practical utility; and if, added to this, their perusal should afford to his readers some portion of that pleasure which their composition yielded to him, his purpose will have ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... The utility of the Sunflower has been alluded to in a former page. Here we have only to regard the plant in its ornamental character, as an occupant of the shrubbery ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... show. This principle has a practical application which is not without its value in matters of domestic economy. It is as well that the wonders of entomology should sometimes give us a hint of commonplace utility. ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... original form is rare, but I am glad to say that a cheap edition, a reprint of the English edition produced by the Royal Society in 1727, has recently been published in this country. Kaemfer's work is spoiled and its utility or reliability largely impaired by the fanciful theories put forward by the author respecting the origin of the Japanese. Much of his information is, of course, mere hearsay, and a great deal of it, by the light of what we now know, is not only misleading but nonsensical. A considerable ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... of vast importance, and to them we are indebted for a large amount of the comforts we enjoy; as, without their aid, we should be reduced to a state of misery and destitution of which it is hardly possible to form an adequate conception. To learn, then, how to fabricate articles of dress and utility for family use, or, in the case of ladies blessed with the means of affluence, for the aid and comfort of the deserving poor, should form one of the most prominent branches of female education. And yet experience ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... say, of the Bishop and Governor-General. So she determined to set out for Quebec, to present her petition to these distinguished persons, hoping to have little difficulty in making them understand the utility of the establishment. Messrs. Souart and Perrot gave her letters of recommendation, and the inhabitants of Montreal, who knew the great virtues and talents she concealed beneath the veil of humility, assembled en masse ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... Castracani, whom he had left there. Designing to turn their conquest to account, they offered it to the Florentines for 80,000 florins, which, by the advice of Simone della Tosa, was refused. This resolution, if they had remained in it, would have been of the greatest utility to the Florentines; but as they shortly afterward changed their minds, it became most pernicious; for although at the time they might have obtained peaceful possession of her for a small sum and would not, they afterward wished to have her and could not, even for a much ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... it. Thy Theodosia's health and spirits increase daily. Bartow's industry and utility are striking to the family and strangers. Johnstone returned yesterday. Your letter was as eagerly read as though I had not seen you. Write when you have leisure; if it does not reach me immediately, it will serve to divert some tedious moment in a future absence; even when you ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... of the Suard pension, Proudhon took part in the contest proposed by the Academy of Besancon on the question of the utility of the celebration of Sunday. His memoir obtained honorable mention, together with a medal which was awarded him, in open session, on the 24th of August, 1839. The reporter of the committee, the Abbe Doney, since made Bishop of Montauban, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... disobedience to the king and of fidelity to the nation. The Assembly had afterwards proclaimed Louis XVI. king of the French. If they possessed the power of proclaiming him king, they also possessed that of proclaiming him a simple citizen. Forfeiture for the national utility, and that of the human race, was evidently one of its principles, and yet how did it act? It leaves Louis XVI. king, or makes him king, not through respect for that institution, but out of respect for his person, and pity for so great a downfall. Such was the truth; ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... and few things can be more galling than to see men far inferior to ourselves enabled by fortune and circumstances to attain what we toil after in vain, and to learn from our own experience how many things there are in this life of greater practical utility than splendid abilities ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Professor had regained his health, they began to make a few necessary things, and hunt for the food which was necessary to preserve life. As they grew bolder, however, they fashioned crude implements, like bows and arrows, and primitive articles of utility. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... to many that there can be anything better than butter for cooking, or of greater utility than lard, and the advent of Crisco has been a shock to the older generation, born in an age less progressive than our own, and prone to contend that the old fashioned ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... should be a real gift in spirit, something expressive of the giver's good wishes, and something which the bride and bridegroom can enjoy and appreciate for its worth to them. Foolish things, whether expensive or not, have no real utility or beauty, and have always the atmosphere of insult about them, or else always reflect upon the intelligence of ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... behaviour? Does the choirmaster advertise 'Naughty boys preferred,' or do musical voices commonly exist in unregenerate bodies? With all the opportunities they must have outside of the cathedral to exchange those objects of beauty and utility usually found in boys' pockets, there is seldom a service where they do not barter penknives, old coins, or tops, generally during the Old Testament reading. A dozen little black-surpliced 'probationers' sit together ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... remarkable in various respects. Great advances in matters of practical science; a vast development of individual enterprise, and general prosperity;—at the same time, strange retardations in things of social concern; a singular want of earnestness in carrying out objects of undeniable utility. Much grandeur, but also much meanness of conception; much wealth, but also much poverty. A struggle between greatness and littleness; intelligence and ignorance; light and darkness. Sometimes we feel as if going forward, sometimes as if backward. One day, we seem as if ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... regulate our rivers, support our industries, and promote the fertility and productiveness of the soil should be preserved and perpetuated; that the minerals found so abundantly beneath the surface should be so used as to prolong their utility; that the beauty, healthfulness, and habitability of our country should be preserved and increased; that the sources of national wealth exist for the benefit of the people, and that monopoly thereof should ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... were thrown on the corpse at interment. So many were entire, however, that I do not believe any considerable number were purposely broken at that time, and none were found with holes made in them to "kill" or otherwise destroy their utility. ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... motif was distinctly one of officialdom. Although the Southern element was not lacking, it was not so marked as in the library or in the hall. The place was appointed for utility rather than ornament. Everything was in perfect order. In the library, with the blinds drawn, one might have supposed oneself in Trinidad; in the study, under similar conditions, one might equally well have imagined Downing Street to lie outside the windows. Essentially, this was the workroom ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... teacher's standpoint, there can be no question at all, among those who look upon education as something more than a commercial asset, as to the utility of looking on every old town, with the neighbourhood around it, as a condensed record, here and there perfect, elsewhere lamentably blotted, yet still a record, of the history of our race. Historic memories survive in our villages far more widely than is ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... architect will first secure a solid foundation to build upon, and with materials of known durability; this accomplished, he need have no fears of the stability of the structure, and may, at pleasure add thereto, either for ornament or utility." ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... fusible, and coloured in various tints by the admixture of different metallic oxides; is fused to the surface of metals for utility and ornament; was known to the European and Asiatic ancients, and has maintained its popularity to the present day. Various schools have been formed, of which the Byzantine, Rhenish, and Limoges are the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... hard, useful, wise words in opposition to the follies of those they love best. A woman to be useful and wise no doubt should have such power. For myself I am not so sure that I like useful and wise women. "Then I for one will say nothing against it," said Mrs. Orme, deficient in utility, wanting in wisdom, but ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... excess, found themselves greatly indisposed, a thing which it must be allowed does not happen to robust people: several of these persons of weak constitutions, on seeing the foregoing treatise, have betaken themselves to a regular course of life, convinced by experience of its utility. In like manner, I should be glad to be of service to those, who are born with a good constitution, and presuming upon it, lead a disorderly life; whence it comes to pass, that, on their attaining the age of sixty or thereabouts, they are attacked with various pains and diseases; some with ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... early years, I am unable to supply the public with any information, and I regret it,—not that any very important lesson of utility can be derived from the anecdotes of childhood, but they are amusing, and amusing without harm; and I agree with Dr. West that he has a very imperfect knowledge of human nature who is not convinced, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... distances apart—and regularly, as if they had been planted—there was nothing that deserved the name of timber. All the rest was mere "bush,"—a thorny jungle of mimosas, euphorbias, arborescent aloes, strelitzias, and the horrid zamia plants, beautiful enough to the eye, but of no utility whatever in the building of a house. The nwanas, of course, were too large for house-logs. To have felled one of them would have been a task equal almost to the building of a house; and to have made planks of them would have required ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Mr. Peter Van Tromp, an English-speaking, two-legged animal of the international genus, and by profession of general and more than equivocal utility. Years before he had been a painter of some standing in a colony, and portraits signed 'Van Tromp' had celebrated the greatness of colonial governors and judges. In those days he had been married, and driven his wife and infant daughter in a pony trap. What were the steps of his declension? No ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for himself could not be possible if all were to live together. In course of time, in addition to utility, certain more sensitive individuals began to see a charm, a beauty in this consideration for others. Gradually a sort of sanctity attached to it, and nature had once more illustrated her mysterious method of evolving from rough and even savage necessities her lovely ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... explanation being that it died of the loss of novelty. "The arrears of subscriptions seem," it says, "to confirm an observation that has sometimes been made, that in Scotland every disinterested plan of public utility is slighted as soon as it ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... county cess, road jobs, etc., became topics, and various strictures as to the utility of the latter were indulged in, while the merits of the neighboring farmers ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... for marauding parties of both Persians and Russians (both equally to be feared) had made their appearance, and molested the peaceable and inoffensive inhabitants of ours and the neighbouring villages. This frontier warfare, in its general results, was of no great utility to either of the powers at war, yet to those who inhabited the seat of it, its consequences were dreadful. We were continually harassed either by the fears of the invading enemy, or by the exactions and molestations of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... them as channels for procuring to European nations the refinements of the East. Though Venice and Genoa were wealthy, they were but small, and of little importance; and all the nations who might have crushed them at a blow, only considering them as sea-ports of convenience and utility, allowed ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... rudest way, is produced along lines of concurrent effort, and is the common property of the group. All practice it as it is, and all are unconsciously cooperating to improve it. The processes are folkways. The artifacts are tools and weapons which, by their utility, modify the folkways and become components in them. The skill, dexterity, patience, ingenuity, and power of combination which result are wider and higher possessions which also modify the folkways at later stages of effort. The ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner |
