"Better off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had to teach for his livelihood, and that though the Crown had continued his fellowship to him as Lucasian Professor without the necessity of taking orders, yet it was rather disgraceful that he should not be better off. So an appeal was made to the Government on his behalf, and Lord Halifax, who exerted himself strongly in the matter, succeeding to office on the accession of William III., was able to make him ultimately Master of the Mint, with a salary of some L1,200 a year. I believe ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... YOUNG LADY:—Something has happened which prevents Mr. Bridges from keeping the appointment with you, and you're much better off on that account, for nothing but unhappiness can come to you if you allow yourself to be carried out of your senses by your infatuation for a man who has neither the brains nor the manliness which he seems to have when playing parts ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Malizi and the Ljuri, who dwell in that uninviting district, were most anxious that the Serbs should come and should remain. For this the tribes had two principal reasons: in the first place, they recognized that their compatriots in Djakovica and Prizren were immeasurably better off than before they came under Serbian rule; and secondly, they did not wish to be separated from these towns which are their markets. In fact, they had become so anxious to throw in their lot with the Slavs that they formed six battalions, which operated on both banks of the river, under ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... won't say a word. You won't hit me half so hard as the skipper and the men did; and even if you did, you're only two, and there's twenty of them; so if you're allus doing it I shall be ten times better off." ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... hope ye're wrong," he said. "I'd like to spend me last days here with me sons and daughters around me, sich as are left to me," here his voice became sterner. "It's the curse of our country,—this constant moving, moving. I'd have been better off had I stayed in Ohio, though this valley seemed very beautiful to me the first time ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my last gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months in time; and debts, writs and pawnshops were my familiars. I was little better off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first of the Martin Renards to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirth with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. I wrote ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... will still, I hope, be something;—something left for the poor fellow. Lady Arabella and the girls would be better off, perhaps, than now, and I sometimes wish, for Frank's sake, that the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... the kind. What is your object? It is to get rid of him, and let Catharine see what he is. Suppose you prosecute and break down, where will you be, I should like to know? If you succeed, you won't be a bit better off than you are now. Discharge him. Everybody will know why, and will say how kind and forgiving you are, and Catharine cannot say we have been ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... in 1704, which states, "In the pleasant month of May, the last storm put our Pennsylvania post a week behind, and has not yet com'd in." But although this was rather slow communication, New Jersey was better off than many of the civilized communities of the day; for she had a regular postal system, which had been ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... your sister. That is right. A good colonist you would make.—Come in, Lee,' said Mr. Harewood, who, to Cherry's increased consternation, was followed by another clergyman. 'We are better off than I dared to expect, thanks to this young gentleman. Miss Geraldine Underwood—Mr. Lee.—You ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the best that could have been devised. True, I should like to have had the poor babe under my own eye and my wife's, that we might try to requite in some degree the many kindnesses we have received from his poor father and mother; but he will be better off in Edinburg. Give him every possible chance of life and health, and a sound mind, and then we must leave the rest to Him, who would not have sent this poor little one into the world at all if He had not had some purpose in so doing, though what that purpose ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... ninety-six murders and attempts at murder, one hundred and ninety-four burnings, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven burglaries and attacks on houses? How could the state of society be worse! and how could the people of Ireland be better off by persevering in maintaining the existing law! One hundred and ninety-six murders! Why, great battles had been fought, and great victories achieved by this country at a less expense of human blood. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not forget the heroism of her rescue by this brutal fellow when the Halfmoon had gone to pieces the day before, nor could she banish from her mind his threats of violence toward her, or his brutal treatment of Mallory and Theriere. And the question arose in her mind as to whether she would be any better off in his power than in the clutches of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... side to everything, sir, even if it's a looking-glass," continued Ned philosophically. "We're better off than ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... more than lame," she said. "I should be better off if the fiction of the Queens of Spain were truth with me. I could not move from this chair without help. Oh, Colin! poor Colin! it was very cruel not to have prepared you for this!" she added, as he gazed at her in grief and dismay, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with her when I asked her to come. I told her there was nothing here but the mountains and the sunsets, and a few items of picturesqueness which count with some people. Of course I had to tell her I was but little better off than when I left. A man's experience is something he cannot set forth at its value to himself; she passed it over as a word of no practical meaning. There her imagination failed her again. She took me frankly at my ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... better off in London," he said resolutely. "This trip to the seaside was a whim of my wife's; and, like most other whims of my wife's, it has entailed trouble and expense upon me. Of course I know that Georgy did it for the best," he added, in reply to a reproachful ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of how when I was at home I should have revelled in the idea of being in such a place, to have an uninhabited island, and such a glorious one, far more beautiful and productive than that of Robinson Crusoe, than whom I should be far better off, for in addition to a man Friday I had my clever uncle for companion, guide, ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... side, and how invariably he noted any defect in the fences. But still he talked of his sister, swearing that she was as good as gold, and at last wiping away the tears from his eyes as he described her maladies. 'And yet I believe she is better off than any of us,' he said, 'because she is so good.' Clara began to wish that she had called him Will from the beginning, because she liked him so much. He was just the man to have for a cousin a true loving cousin, ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... ahead to certain death. Boys like young George Willard and Seth Richmond will remember the incident quite vividly because, although everyone in our town said that the old man would go straight to hell and that the community was better off without him, they had a secret conviction that he knew what he was doing and admired his foolish courage. Most boys have seasons of wishing they could die gloriously instead of just being grocery clerks and going on with ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... if you wish to have my Julie, you are welcome to her. She will be much better off at your house, poor as you are, than in her paternal home. Not only is she without dowry, but she is burdened with poor parents—parents who are ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... say one thing for myself. He does not know—how should he, mocker that he is?—that when he came into the world it was I who washed him, and dressed him in his swathing-bands, for my sister Anisia had lost her husband, and was in great poverty. I was very little better off than she, but I sat up night after night with her, and nursed both mother and child; I used to go downstairs and steal wood for them from the house-porter. How often did I sing him to sleep when I was half dead with hunger! In short, I was more than a father to him, and ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on, with cushions of silk and chairs to sit upon, and richly worked cloths for their use. There was so much with this and other things that the booty must have been worth six thousand ducats; and though, as always, the soldiers took the lesser part, yet even thus some of them are a little better off. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... industry to relieve high unemployment, which recently amounted to one-third of the labor force. The gap in Reunion between the well-off and the poor is extraordinary and accounts for the persistent social tensions. The white and Indian communities are substantially better off than other segments of the population, often approaching European standards, whereas indigenous groups suffer the poverty and unemployment typical of the poorer nations of the African continent. The outbreak of severe rioting in February 1991 ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... are better off than the poor reserve forces," remarked Herr von Pechlar, not addressing himself to the speaker, but to Frau and Fraulein Ellrich. "We regular officers pull together like old friends in danger and in death, while the others come among us unknown. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Mother," said he, "and it might be worse—it might be a good deal worse. It gives me steady work, for one thing, and you can save most of my wages, counting on the eggs you'll sell, and the few turkeys and things. After a while you can get a cow and make butter, and we'll be better off, all around. We couldn't get out of it, anyway, Mother. He's paid you money, and you've signed your name to the contract along with Isom. If we were to pull out and leave here, Isom could send the sheriff after me and bring me back, I guess. Even if he couldn't do that, ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... aright what you say," answered the baron, "you are a strolling band of players, and have lost your way. Though my house is sadly dilapidated, and I cannot offer you more than mere shelter, you are heartily welcome to that, and will be better off within here than exposed to the fury of this ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... over-reached for once; that little one is stolen goods, be sure, Mr. Dymock,—some great man's child for aught we know,—the wicked woman will not call again very soon, as she promised, and what are we to do with the child? Had my poor wife been living, it might have done, but she is better off! What can I ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... believe the Browns are a bit better off than we are; and yet, when I spent the day with young Brown, we cooked all sorts of messes in the afternoon; and he wasted twice as much rum and brandy and lemons in his trash as I should want to make good punch of. He was quite surprised, ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... one who had to stand outside and who nevertheless was both worse off and better off ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... animals shivered as they were reined in among the floating ice! And we, who sat waiting in the piercing wind, were not much better off. Probably Brunet was of the same opinion; for, with his usual perversity, he plunged in immediately after Plante, and stood shaking and quaking behind him, every now and then looking around him, as much as to say, ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Mr. Walton, a little hotly, "the church and every good cause would be better off without their money, for, in plain English, it was acquired in a way that you and I regard as dishonorable. I'm very sorry they've come to spend it in our neighborhood. The fact may not be generally known here, but it soon will be. I consider such people the greatest demoralizers of the age, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... reason why most women do not want to take the ballot and stand out in the open for a free trial of power, is that they are reluctant to change the certain domination of centuries, with weapons they are perfectly competent to handle, for an experiment. I think we should be better off if women were more transparent, and men were not so systematically puffed up by the subtle flattery which is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... nation and the world, the man himself who produced them was perhaps the finest revelation of all. And here he transcends for once the larger kindred genius of whom we do not know, yet believe, that he was such a man as Scott, though better off in one way and less well in others. Shakspeare must have been somewhat oppressed with noble patrons, which Scott never was—patrons to whom his own splendid courtesy and the magnifying glamour in his poetic eyes must ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... or tried to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he would be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous knack at pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who, being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write, and ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... persons who pay income-tax on L5000 a year and upwards is only 13,000 out of 46 millions, and their wealth, if it could be divided up, would make no appreciable difference to the working man. The wage-earners are better off than they have ever been before in our history, and the danger of revolution comes not from the poor, but from the privileged artisans who already have incomes above the family average. We must look elsewhere for an explanation of social unrest. If we consider what are ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... passed in the Beast's palace, and told them of her promise to return on such a day. The two sisters were so very jealous that they determined to ruin her prospects if possible. The eldest said to the other: "Why should this minx be better off than we are? Let us try to keep her here beyond the time; the monster will then be so enraged with her for breaking her promise, that he will destroy her at once when she returns." "That is well thought of," replied the sister. "We will ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... would make the dresses, which would be of a kind to suit their particular styles, and they could have them for the party on the 17th. And if they didn't get them at once something would happen to make them spend the money and it would be gone and they no better off than before. And I mentioned that there was the loveliest piece of black charmeuse at Mr. Peter Smith's, and that he was expecting a piece of lavender satin on Thursday. I had been to see Mr. Peter and ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... a very smart coat," he said, "but you would be a great deal better off if you had a little more smartness inside your head and less on your ribs, the way I am. That's ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... more. She felt that Renine had his eyes fixed upon her and this sapped all her energies. Besides, had she been able to recover them, she would have been no better off nor sought to offer him the least resistance, for the reason that she did not wish to resist. All the adventures were over, but one remained to be undertaken, the anticipation of which wiped out the memory of ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... wasn't very honest t' use the cook's money, ner Mother's; it'll take a long time t' pay 'em back, an' I guess Mother won't have much patience with Baldy after this. I wouldn't mind gittin' punished myself, but I don't want him blamed. He'd be a lot better off with you, Mr. Allan; an' mebbe ef you'd feed him up, an' give him a chanct, he'd be a racer some day. He'd never lay down on you, an'," almost defiantly, "he's got ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... no one but him to cook for now!" mused Katrina, "no one but him to wait for! But what do I care for him? He could just as well have gone, too. It was the girl who understood him and all his silly talk, not I. I'd be better off alone." ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... mused Wade. "It doesn't sound logical to me. To say that, when you've seen a thing you want and can't have it, you're better off than before you wanted it, doesn't sound ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... notion of the thing, implies both privacy and detachment. Here you can have neither. You must consider yourself as so much public property, must do what others do—i. e. live in public, and make the best of it. No place can be better off for hotels, and few so ill off for lodgings—the latter are only to be had in small dingy houses opening upon the street. They are, of course, very noisy; nor are the let-ters of them at any pains to induce you by ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... luxury alternating with mean scarcity and inability. We have sumptuous garnitures for our Life, but have forgotten to live in the middle of them. It is an enchanted wealth; no man of us can yet touch it. The class of men who feel that they are truly better off by means of it, let them give ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... be to put him to the blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me. If a girl brings her bed in her trunk, then she will not have to card wool and spin yarn. In this case it will not be so, but what of it? We'll make a Sunday dinner out of Lenten fare, and a Christmas feast out of Sunday's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... This education passed from Greece and Rome to the feudal communities of Europe, where also the warrior caste and the priestly caste were alone held in honour, and where the really useful and working part of the community, though not nominally slaves as in the pagan world, were practically not much better off than slaves, and not more seriously regarded. And how absurd it is, people end by saying, to inflict this education upon an industrious modern community, where very few indeed are persons of leisure, and the mass to ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... "that is the advantage of the system. It will cost nobody anything, and will result in everybody being better off." ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... to ourselves, and let other folks do the same; and as to rousin' the camp, why them boys is a heap better off asleep than they would be round here. That's a nice sort of a guard, ain't it?" said Jerry, pointing to Hal, who was slumbering soundly near the fire. "That's just what he was doin' when I got up; and on his ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... A boy is better off learning a trade than cramming his head full of culture fads; he is then doing something useful and profitable on which the happiness and success of his life will depend. By the time his companions have done dabbling ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Tinnius Rufus were here," growled the soldier, "they would none of them be any better off than their own ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... support of an Episcopal Church would come from those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear. There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... she replied. "We have been at one or another of the German Spas most of the time, as we went abroad for Mr. Carling's health, and we are on our way home on about such an impulse as that which started us off—he thinks now that he will be better off there." ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... Roman government by the election of an anti-pope, and both popes proclaimed a crusade and issued their indulgences, Wyclif, who heretofore had admitted the primacy of the Roman See, now openly proclaimed the doctrine that the Church would be better off with no pope at all. He owed his safety to the bitterness of the rival popes, who in their mutual quarrels had no time to think of him. And his opportunity was improved by writing books and homilies, in which the antichristian claims of the popes were fearlessly exposed and commented upon. In fact, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... imposing ceremony with their presence, and honor it with their salutations."[1177] The Pope will come; he came to the first one; he must necessarily return to Paris, and fix himself there permanently. Where could the Holy See be better off than in the new capital of Christianity, under Napoleon, heir to Charlemagne, and temporal sovereign of the Sovereign Pontiff? Through the temporal the emperor will control the spiritual,[1178] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... worn through. The heel gone from the other shoe, and even then you're better off than most of us. Lots of the privates are barefooted. So you needn't think that the role of shoe buyer ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... she, with a smile. "I took an account of the deposits to-day, and find just five hundred and fifty dollars. So, even if Mr. Ellis should fail to return the two hundred dollars he borrowed, you will still be three hundred and fifty dollars better off than you thought you were. So push every gloomy thought from your heart. All will come out right ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... darlin'; don't cry for the baby,' said her husband. 'Shure it's better off than the rest av us, it is. An' didn't ye hear what the minister said about the beautiful place it is? An' shure he wouldn't lie to us at all.' But a mother cannot be comforted ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... thought Rattler loved that girl as well as I did, and I knew she liked him better than she did me, and would be happier I dare say with him. But then I knew that old Robins would have preferred me to him, as I was better off—and the girl would do as he said—and, you see, I thought I was kinder in the way—and so I left. But," he continued, as I was about to interrupt him, "for fear the old man might object to Rattler, I've lent him enough to set him up in business for himself in Dogtown. A pushing, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... and he carefully attended to filling his pipe so as to avoid meeting her hard, inquisitive eyes. "Pine is a man of business, and if he pays off the mortgages he will take over the property as security. I don't see that Garvington will be any the better off in that case." ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... peculiarly dry, and my flocks are remarkably well looked after; but I can see indications of it. Only fancy where we should all be if fluke showed itself in Britannula! If it once got ahead we should be no better off than ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... is the good Captain Bowse—they all went away in the other one; and we—that we might be much safer—we came on board this one. Here we are, and here we must remain, till you, my dear signora, can get well enough to go on shore; but there is no hurry, for we could not be better off than we are now. So, as you have asked a great many questions, which your doctor said that if you did I was not to answer, yet I have done so, you must try and go fast asleep again, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... no more than three or four shillings stood between him and utter destitution; and the only person in the world to whom he could apply for even the most trivial assistance, was Huckaback—whom, however, he knew to be really little better off than himself; and whom, moreover, he felt to be treating him more and more coldly, as the week wore on, without his hearing of any the least tidings from Saffron Hill. Huckaback evidently felt now scarcely any interest ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... and announced that our town had come to a crisis in its career; that we must now decide whether we were going to be a beautiful little city or a cow pasture. She said that beauty was as much an essential to life as money and that we would be better off with more beauty and less trade, and that with the court-house square a mudhole the town could never rise to any real consequence. As the men of the town seemed to be moral cowards, she was going to ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... gentle tones, that there should be no soldiers or sailors (fighting sailors, she meant) at all, but that people ought all to settle everything the best way they could without fighting, and live peaceably with one another, as the Bible told them to do. They would be far happier and better off, she was sure of that; and if everybody was of her way of thinking, there would be neither swords, nor guns, nor pistols, nor squibs, nor anything else at all! Dear old lady. It would indeed be a blessing if her principles could be carried out in this ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... There ain't a better spot on earth to live than right here. Yet for all that, every one of the Mortons 'cept Tiny (who showed her good sense, in my opinion) went flockin' out of this town quick as they was growed, like as if they was a lot of swarmin' bees. I doubt myself, too, if they're a whit better off for it. Your father now—what does he make out ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... lived in a tiny cottage in the village. She was eighty-three years old, and a respectable old person—a widow, who had reared ten children. The children had all grown up, and scattered, and old Mrs. Welden had nothing whatever to live on. No one knew how she lived, and really she would be better off in the workhouse. She could be sent to Brexley Union, and comfortably taken care of, but she had that singular, obstinate dislike to going, which it was so difficult to manage. She had asked for a shilling a week from the parish, but that could not be allowed her, as it would merely uphold her ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... need another servant. But he saw that the poorest slave in the land was better off than this man, and so he took pity on him. "I will do as you ask," he said. "I will give you a home and food and clothing; and you shall serve me and be my slave for ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... only money, and millionaires and their families were no better off in this respect than any one. Whoever got a vehicle could have the use of it; but the richest often went without, and spent the first two nights on rugs on the bare ground, with nothing but what their own arms had rescued. Fortunately, those ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... hold scholarships in the various universities in Great Britain and Europe. The Jews in certain countries send more money for the support of their fellow-countrymen who are teachers and scholars than the Jews of some of the Eastern European countries, and that is why some appear to be better off than many ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... familiar place and with all that he associated with his wife. This was really the ordeal which shook his soul, and not the fear that he would be unable to earn his bread elsewhere. The unstable multitude, who are forever fancying that they would be better off somewhere else or at something else, can have no comprehension of this deep-rooted love of locality and the binding power of long association. They regard such men as Holcroft as little better than plodding oxen. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... smaller it becomes—what a difference between the base and the apex!" he murmured, while walking away. "Doctor," said Dominic, "why did you not do with your science as I did with the nobility I left as inheritance to my sons? We would all be better off!" ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... just thinking. Quite a few times we'd have been a lot better off if we could talk back and forth at a distance. There's no reason why these have to be designed just for you and Barby to use in ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... all the work they do could be done, together with their own work, by the men, women, and children of classes C and D; that all they earn and spend might be earned, and could very easily be spent, by the classes above them; that these classes, and especially class C, would be immensely better off, while no class, nor any industry, would suffer in the least." Class C consists of 75,000, or 8 per cent., subsisting on intermittent earnings of from 18s. to 21s. for a moderate- sized family. Low-skilled labourers, poorer artizans, street-sellers, small shopkeepers, largely ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... air stirring. Not a sail appeared to break the monotony of the scene and the boys began to feel worried. The sun was scorching and they had no protection at all. Finally, night came with a welcome fall in temperature, but otherwise they were not one whit better off. They seemed just as far from ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... of the fit is of the first importance to the State. It supplies competent producers and courageous defenders, and the more of these, consistent with space and food (using these terms in their fullest significance), the better off the State. ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... nonsense!" cried my aunt. "I believe Thomas Willing is no better off in what you call this world's gear, nor Franks, nor any of them. You like the game, and, after all, what is it but a kind of gambling? How do you know what hands the ocean holds? Your ventures are no better than my guineas cast down on the loo-table." These two could never discuss anything but ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... for the Liberals was, however, the question of leadership; and Sir Charles wrote an article in the Speaker [Footnote: September 5th, 1891.] in support of one of his few paradoxes—that Great Britain would be better off without a Second Chamber, but that, given a House of Lords, the Prime Minister should be a member of it. For this reason he urged that though, 'when the moment has come for Mr. Gladstone to think that he has earned a change into the position of adviser from that ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... said Van Bibber, soothingly. "You would both benefit by it. We would be as willing to help two as one. You would both be better off." ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... patience. There are intermissions, happily, and pretty long ones. I get through the summer very well; but the end of the winter—this same month of February—is a sad aching time; and so it must be for as many winters as I may have to live. But I am better off than I was. Last February I did not know you. Oh, Margaret, if they had not brought you up from under the ice, the other day, how different ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... enough water to drink. None to wash in. One day I had nothing but dirty melted snow out of a hole. Vermin swarmed and no one worried about them. "If we had only as many gold pieces as lice," said folk cheerfully, "this would be the richest land in Europe." The population, in truth, was probably better off in Turkish times, when it lived by sheep-stealing and raiding caravans. Montenegro has never been self-supporting, and since frontier raids were stopped the chief trade of the people had been smuggling tobacco and coffee into Austria. Krsto and his relative were ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... But the world's better off, I'm convinced of it now, Than if heroes, like buns, could be bought for a penny To regard all mankind as their haltered milch-cow, And just care for themselves. Well, God cares for the many; For somehow the poor old Earth blunders along, Each son of hers adding his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... breath, in a kind of awe of their elder brother, of whom they had a very imperfect knowledge. "And it seems we never are to have a chance of a word with Frank!" cried Letty, who was indignant and exasperated. But at least it was a consolation that "the boys" were no better off. All next day Cuthbert and Guy hung about in the vain hope of securing the company and attention of the visitor. He was at the Rectory the whole morning, sometimes with Gerald, sometimes with Louisa, as ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... didn't want to seem too anxious. I knew that it was safe where you had put it, Miss Nelson," and he looked at Betty. "Besides, I have been without it so long now that it seems almost as if I never had it. And from all the good it is going to do me, perhaps I might be better off ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... colonies as our State does, to become a social burthen there, but into the technical schools to train for some fresh use of their energies. Taken all round, of course, these men, even the least enterprising or able, will be better off than they are now, with a fuller share of the product of their industry. Many will no doubt remain as they are, rather through want of ambition than want of push, because under Socialism life will be tolerable for a poor ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... fortune always falls with the house, Christie. You're young and strong, and better off than your mistress. ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... that something big was to happen within four days. What was strangest was the fate which made it so hard for him to come into contact with Framtree. He could not give up this thing—this last link to reality. He felt himself better off here—than ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... one idea was to get as far as possible from the Lipans, he hardly cared in what direction. To the "left" was also to the southward, and so he was better off ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... fine present has come to," he muttered, "and she has got a beautiful doll all to herself; I do not see why she should be better off than I am. I wonder if anybody could make my ball ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... adding water to the room, or the egg chamber, but he cannot tell when he has too much, nor can he reduce the vapor pressure of the air on rainy days when nature gives him too much water. As to air currents he is little better off—he has no way to tell accurately as to the behavior of air in the egg chamber and changes in temperature of the heater or if the outside air will throw these currents all off, since they depend upon the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... one thing well done. We're better off without a coward like that. He'd be getting under our feet all the time, or else opening the doors to the Caesars, with the idea of currying favor with them. Where did you ever pick up such an arrant little poltroon? Most ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... yoke of the Babylonish captivity in their old age. It is good for a man to be checked, crossed, disappointed, made to feel his own ignorance, weakness, folly; made to feel his need of God; to feel that, in spite of all his cunning and self-confidence, he is no better off in this world than a lost child in a dark forest, unless he has a Father in Heaven, who loves him with an eternal love, and a Holy Spirit in Heaven, who will give him a right judgment in all things; who will put into ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... not serve their turn to betray this plan at once to the Queen. But they agreed that, if they preserved the Queen, they would be utterly ruined, as they were like to be now, whereas, if it succeeded, they would be much the better off. And, even if it failed, they lost nothing, for it would not readily be believed that they had aided Lutherans, and there were no ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... marching regiment, who had little beyond good looks and excellent manners wherewith to support his position. He was extravagant in his tastes, and of an easy mind in the presence of embarrassments. To his other disadvantages he added that of falling in love with a pretty girl no better off than himself. They married, and Celia was born. For nine years they managed, through the wife's constant devotion, to struggle along and to give their daughter an education. Then, however, Celia's mother ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... think it,—if you will pardon my interrupting you," said the curate. "I think they would scarcely believe it if I felt at liberty to tell them, which I regret to say I do not. I am almost breaking my word in saying what I cannot help saying to yourself. The poor under my care are better off since she came, and there are some who have seen her more than once, though she did not go as a teacher or to reprove them for faults; and her way of doing what she did was new to them, and perhaps much less serious than they were accustomed ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and Graves say. We don't believe so. And suppose it did? Lancedale says, if we're so incompetent that we have to keep the rest of the world in ignorance to earn a living, the world's better off without us. He says that every oligarchy carries in it the seeds of its own destruction; that if we can't evolve with the rest of the world, we're doomed in any case. That's why we want to elect your father. If he can get his socialized Literacy program adopted, we'll ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... said, with luminous distinctness and common sense, "you are better off than I. I have hardly a penny in the world—I am staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than you—and I don't love you a bit: that's my side of the case. Now yours: you are a farmer just beginning; and you ought ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... cliffs, concealing the locks in other places;—a disposition which he also made of the knives and tomahawks; remarking, with great justice, that "if honest Christian men were to have no good of the weapons, it was just as well murdering Injuns should be no better off." ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... his loss, and his busy brain began to calculate how much money he would save by ceasing to be responsible for Eben's expenses of living and prospective debts. Without this drawback, he knew he would grow richer every year. He knew also that notwithstanding the sum it had just cost him, he would be better off at the end of the year than the beginning, and to a man of his character this was perhaps the best form of consolation that ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... his glass, put it down, and said: "Because I won't. Because I'm better off here. Because Ida's a pretty girl, and you're ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... a laugh. "He's an Irish-Frenchman and belongs to a dozen countries. He's fought for every flag that floats, and he's no better off to-day than ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... their pace to that of the baggage-horses. Their progress would, indeed, be slower than it would have been had they journeyed alone, but time was a matter of no importance to them. Even in the matter of Indian surprises they were better off than they would have been had they been alone. In case of meeting these marauders, they must have abandoned their baggage-animals; and their prospects, either of flight or defence, would have been poor had they met with a large ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... honey-cakes, dulchas, pistachios, sweet pepper-cakes filled with nuts and stewed in honey, and all manner of other delicacies, at the sight and smell of which Janaki began to shout that Sultan Achmed could not be better off. Halil, however, requested him not to mention the name of the Sultan quite so frequently and ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... better off than those who had no wells to draw water from for their fields; and the only way to provide against such evils in future is to have a well for every field. God has given you the fields, and he has given you the water; and when it does not come from the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... keep company with Wilkins the butcher's or Ord the baker's wife, and they would not be happy either. It would not matter, in one sense, though I knew they were respectable, worthy women, and were ever so much better off as to money than I. That would not keep me from feeling thoroughly out of place and having hardly an idea in common with my neighbours in their plush-trimmed gowns and fur-lined mantles. I could not stand such degradation for my girls," she protested, with rising agitation. "I had far rather ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... kind of Olga to provide us with distractions," said Nick, as he dropped into an arm-chair, with a cigar, "but I almost think we are better off without them. If I see much of that girl, it will upset my internal economy. Is she ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... in spring, with primroses and daisies, or meadows with cowslip and clover and buttercups, and hearing thrushes and blackbirds and larks and cuckoos, and seeing trout rise to the flies on the water! There is much exaggeration in second-rate books about tropical vegetation. You are really much better off than we are. No trees equal English oaks, beeches, and elms, and chestnuts; and with very little expense and some care, you have any flowers you like, growing out of doors or in a greenhouse. You can make a ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... line of action. Why longer wait in Merida for our boat? Progreso is cleaner, cooler, enjoys a sea breeze, and gives as good living for less than half the price we were paying. For comfort, for the benefit of our sick man, for the advantage of our pocket, we would be better off at Progreso than in Merida. While there were cases of small-pox in the little seaport, there were none of yellow fever. In every way it looked attractive, and on Monday morning we left, and found ourselves, before noon, comfortably located in the curious little hotel, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... "ferninst him." Leprosy is a contagious disease, within certain degrees of consanguinity, and by riding his pigs afield he communicated it to them; so that in a few weeks, barring the fact that they were hogs, they were no better off than he. Mr. Smith was an irritable old gentleman, so choleric he made his bondsmen tremble—though he was now abroad upon his own recognizances. Dreading his wrath, Bladud quitted his employ, without giving the usual week's notice, but so far conforming to custom in ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... draft is better off than I am," said Monty. "It at least exists officially, whereas I'm missing. I haven't officially arrived at Devonport. The War Office will probably spend months and reams of paper (which is getting scarce) in looking for me. But I don't suppose ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the note-book's appearance at the end of her little story. "But I think he has an inkling that he might be of more use. I told him he was a walking library. He does know such an amazing amount, you know! And he said Winsted would be better off if it had a real library instead of his kind; and then it flashed into my mind how he would love living among books, and how fine it would be for the town if all that knowledge of his could ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... done so many winters? But I would wait, I meant to have waited, only I am afraid of dying without being able to provide for her. If she would have me, she would be left better off than my mother, and then it would be all right for you and Armie. What ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... master?" It was a question I was puzzled to answer. I had to call loudly to Duppo to arouse him. After looking about for some time, I was convinced that the tree had been drifted into the main stream. On and on it floated. I began to feel very hungry; as did my companions. We were better off than we should have been at sea on a raft, because we could, by scrambling down the branches, quench our thirst. I brought some water up in my cap for True, as I was afraid of letting him go down, ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... left foot," said Manabozho. He did so and found that he was no better off, neither of his feet could he get to his mouth. He curled and twisted, and bent his large limbs, and gnashed his teeth in rage to find that he could not get his toe to his mouth. All, however, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... that, Margaret," said Sinton. "He's too heavy. And it's bad for him. He's better off to lie down and go to ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... obstacle in the way of the theory of evolution. Take the case of the scorpions to which I have just referred. No doubt, since the Carboniferous epoch, conditions have always obtained, such as existed when the scorpions of that epoch flourished; conditions in which scorpions find themselves better off, more competent to deal with the difficulties in their way, than any variation from the scorpion type which they may have produced; and, for that reason, the scorpion type has persisted, and has not been supplanted by any other form. And there is no ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... "Isn't it high time for it? We might have bought the water from Shandon before and have been better off. You wouldn't stand for it; you had to gobble everything for nothing. We took the chance. It wasn't a bad gamble either, considering Shandon was away the first year and is a fool to boot. But you've lost on it. Now when you go to him and ask for the water he's going to laugh at you. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... said Remonencq, "ash to moneysh, he ish better off than Mouchieu Monishtrol and the big men in the curioshity line. I know enough in the art line to tell you thish—the dear man has treasursh!" he spoke with a broad ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... ever thus praised for his goodness, and his goodness alone, by a man whom he had so maltreated, and who, as judicious and independent as he was just, said of this same king, "He was not better off for sense than for money, and he thought of nothing ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... man has no chance at home; he is kept down by landlords, and can never get a farm of his own. In Illinois I am a free man, and have no one to lord it over me. If I had lived and slaved in England for a hundred years I should never have been any better off, and now I have a farm as good as any in Will County, and am just as good a man as e'er another ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... "I wonder,—maybe, she's been better off, after all, right, here at home. She wouldn't have got to be ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... as to say that—or at least as to write it. But happiness—positive happiness—would have been something different. I don't know that it would have been better, by all measurements—that it would have left me better off at the present time. But it certainly would have made this difference—that I should not have been reduced, in pursuit of pleasant images, to disinter a buried episode of more than a quarter of a century ago. I should have found entertainment ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James
... wording of a passage may not be abstract and yet be general. Suppose, for example, you were telling the story of the prodigal son and should say: "He was very hungry, and could; not obtain food anywhere. When he had come to his senses, he thought, 'I should be better off at home.'" This language is not abstract, but it is general rather than specific. When Jesus told the story, he wished to put the situation as poignantly as possible and therefore avoided both abstract ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... of the devastation was really the redeeming feature, though, for it put all upon exactly the same basis, commercially speaking. Bankers and millionaires went about with only the few dollars they happened to have in their pockets when the crash came, and were little better off than the laborers who were digging through the debris. Money had practically no value, for there was no place to spend it, and this phase of the situation presented its own remedy. Almost every one slept out of doors, being afraid to enter their homes except ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... certain that we had at last discovered the stream which supplied "the forty rods" with water; but allowing that we had discovered it:—what then? How much better off ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... true, my love, but you must remember he is better off, and he has left his blessing with us, for ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... together; it gets just as close as it can, and everybody is after the same chances. 'Tain't all Fourth-of-July; you mustn't think it. Milk's ten cents a quart, and jest as blue! Don't you 'spose you're better off up here, after all? Do you think Mrs. Bree could get along without ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... I was not much better off. There was a heap of hay and a few bundles of straw lying at one end, and two great swing-doors, opening on to the courtyard, through which the hay and straw had been passed to shelter. It was plainly useless to lie down in the straw. That would ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... crowded for health, convenience, or beauty. Boston has for its main street a serpentine lane, wide enough to drive the cows home from their pastures, but totally and almost fatally inadequate to be the great artery of a city of two hundred thousand people. Philadelphia is little better off with her narrow Chestnut Street, which purchases what accommodation it affords by admitting the parallel streets to nearly equal use, and thus sacrificing the very idea of a metropolitan thoroughfare, in which the splendor and motion and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... and that it would be better to sell them blankets and kettles. But that was not the point. The traders believed that, if the western Indians could not secure brandy from the French, they would get rum from the English. The Indian would be no better off in that case, and the French would lose their hold on him into the bargain. Time and again they reiterated the argument that the prohibition of the brandy trade would make an end to trade, to French influence, and even to the missionary's own labors. For if the Indian went to the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... talents, and I'd lose caste in my set if I had. I don't wonder the Socialists hate us and want to put us all to work. No doubt we should be much happier. But now—even if you retired from business, you'd spend most of your time on the links. We poor women wouldn't be much better off." ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... far as he could see she was a great deal more inclined to worry over Vic, who refused to stay in school when he could now and then earn a dollar or two acting in "mob scenes" for some photoplay company out in Hollywood. He did not spend the money wisely; Helen May declared that he was better off with empty pockets. ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... can our friends be all this time? Is it possible that they can have been among the grass, and that the fire may have caught them up? Good Cousin Silas, and Mr Burkett, and jolly Mr Kilby. Poor fellows! we may be much better off than they are." ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... alive, he is better off than we," said De Sylva. He questioned Marcel again briefly. "There can be no doubt that the man in the boat cast off the lashings when he found that the ship was sinking," he continued in English. "Marcel saw him doing that, and wondered why he was alone. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... morning, June eighteenth, 1900.—It is four in the morning and we are sitting around the oil stoves in the middle of the tent. We have just had hot cocoa and crackers. The surf still booms, but it does not rain, and the wind has died down. We are better off than many people. Tomorrow we will put up the other tent and get more settled. We are thankful not to be on the sea beach, where so many are camped. A. wishes herself home again. People around our tent all night were talking, moving, afraid of the storm, but the big ships are still here ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... dry channel, which bore the marks of a considerable stream at some seasons. Following this dry channel down, I found its course turned to the northward, and even to the north-east. When we were disposed to encamp, I could find no water in the bed, nor were we better off when we had encamped, until Corporal Graham dug between two rocks therein, and, fortunately, found a spring. Thus, in one day vanished the pleasing prospect we had enjoyed in the morning, of a stream flowing in the direction of ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... this wise, making a rule which I have known as established in families. "If the children are hungry enough to eat dry bread, they can have as much as they want at any time; if they are not, they are far better off without anything." These are the plainest rules of Physiology, and yet how few of the girls around us are made to follow them! Nothing is more sure to produce a disordered digestion, than the habit of irregular eating or drinking. If possible, the growing girl should have her dinner in the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... was sure to make it a subject of conversation wherever we stopped. At Lawrenceburg, where we put up for the night, the landlord was also stage proprietor and a slave holder. He tried to make me believe that his slaves were much better off than himself. He enumerated his troubles and perplexities in contrast with the blessed freedom from care enjoyed by his slaves. I told him he had made out his case very well; but to test his sincerity, I merely wished him to declare candidly, whether he should be ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... all that you have come to that conclusion," replied Mrs. Franklin. "I expected it, as I have intimated to you. Parents must be better off than we are to be able to send a son ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... means," said Apollo; "I know quite well. I feel miserable; I have got a pain in my throat, and I cannot eat my strawberries; but Iris says we ought not fret, for mother is much better off." ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... scene reminded me of descriptions in the novels of Sienkiewicz or Erckmann-Chatrian. The road was littered with equipment of every sort, disabled pack-animals, and dead or dying Turks. It was hard to see the wounded withering in the increasing heat—the dead were better off. We reached the heights overlooking Haditha to find that the garrison was in full retreat. Most of it had left the night before. Those remaining opened fire upon us, but in a half-hearted way, that was not calculated to inflict much loss. Many of the inhabitants of ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... playing on the bill with us in Buffalo. He was a very polite chap, but his English was very Berlin. One night, after holding a rehearsal with a German acrobat, who was not much better off than he was as to the English language, he came over to my wife, and very ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy |
