"Inefficient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suffered by newly levied and inefficient forces, discouraged the loyal and gave new hopes to the insurgents. Voluntary enlistments seemed about to cease and desertions commenced. Parties speculated upon the question whether conscription had not become necessary to fill up the armies of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... I struggled upwards, and at last I reached a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched when you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first or second fall, certainly on the third, the young man would have gone into the abyss; for Mr. Wharton was a stern man, and capable of coming to a clear conclusion on things that were nearest and even dearest to himself. But Everett Wharton had simply shown himself to be inefficient to earn his own bread. He had never declined even to do this,—but had simply been inefficient. He had not declared either by words or actions that as his father was a rich man, and as he was an only son, he would therefore do nothing. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Numerous fires were built in front of Lebanon, and kept up all night to induce the belief that the division was encamped there and would attack in the morning. The night was intensely dark and bitterly cold, the guides were inefficient, and the column floundered along blindly; the men worn out and half frozen, the horses stumbling at every step—nothing preserved organization and carried the column along but the will of the great Captain in the front and the unerring ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should encourage the establishment of American ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... still. And I would have staked my last dollar, or, better, my hopes of escaping from Farallone, that as man and wife she and the groom would never live together again. I felt terribly sorry for the groom. He had, as had I, been utterly inefficient, helpless, babyish, and cowardly—yet the odds against us had seemed overwhelming. But now as we journeyed down the river, and the distance between us and Farallone grew more, I kept thinking of men whom I had known; ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... was not beyond his eighth year. In his eighth year he began Latin, not only as a learner but as a teacher. It was his duty to teach the younger children of the family what he had learned. This practice he does not recommend. "The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well know that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either." By the time this prodigy of intellect and industry reached the age of fourteen he had studied the following formidable list: Virgil, Horace, Phaedrus, Livy, Sallust, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... physical particulars and hindrances; that the greatest of them never despised an aid nor avoided a difficulty. The loss of imaginative liberty sometimes involved in a too scrupulous attention to methods of execution is trivial compared to the evils resulting from a careless or inefficient practice. The modes in which, with every great painter, realization falls short of conception are necessarily so many and so grievous, that he can ill afford to undergo the additional discouragement caused by uncertain methods and bad materials. Not only ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... abrogated, in view of its being unjust and dangerous. Between 1812 and 1827 the mood of the legislation is again altered and prohibitive measures follow one another. In 1835, these measures are once more found to be useless and inefficient. In 1852, expulsions are renewed, but a few years later, with the beginning of the liberal reign of Alexander II, this policy is again abandoned and an interval of rest and quiet, covering a quarter of a century, is inaugurated. Then the ...
— The Shield • Various
... baffled! Inefficient, Craven spirits! leave this labor Unto time, the great Destroyer! Come away, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... chimerical flower, the Rose of Jericho. As it was, the conventionality around me, the intellectual drought, gave me no opportunity of outward growth. They did not destroy, but they cooped up, and rendered slow and inefficient, that internal life which continued, as I have said, to live on unseen. This took the form of dreams and speculations, in the course of which I went through many tortuous processes of the mind, the actual aims of which were futile, although the movements themselves were useful. If I may more minutely ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... that petition work in the early days for the slaves and the women, can ever know the hardships and humiliations that were endured. But it was done because it was only through petitions, a power seemingly so inefficient, that disfranchised classes could be heard in the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... known capable of reading, I have never known one to read any thing but the Bible, and this task they impose on themselves as matter of duty. Of all methods of religious instruction, however, this, of reading for themselves, would be the most inefficient—their comprehension is defective, and the employment is to them an unusual and laborious one. There are but very few who do not enjoy other means more effectual for religious instruction. There is no place of worship opened for the white population, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... been only wise and right if, under such circumstances, the vessel had not attempted to pursue her course, but had put into the nearest port. Such was not the case, however, and though she was known to be in a most inefficient state, she proceeded on her voyage. It was about six o'clock on Thursday evening when the "Forfarshire" passed through the Fairway, the water which lies between the Farne Island and the mainland. It was ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... brother Czar, was too feeble and inefficient to take any part whatever in the management of public affairs. He was melancholy and dejected in spirit, in consequence of his infirmities and sufferings, and he spent most of his time in acts of devotion, according to the rites ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... and,2. Unless the government then kept itself within the terms of its contract, juries would not enforce the payment of the tax. Besides, the agreement to be taxed would probably be entered into but for a year at a time. If, in that year, the government proved itself either inefficient or tyrannical, to any serious degree, the contract would not be renewed. The dissatisfied parties, if sufficiently numerous for a new organization, would form themselves into a separate association for mutual protection. If not sufficiently numerous for that purpose, those who were ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... miserably under a tent, until the surveyor-general should be able to point out to him the land which had fallen to his share, in the general lottery of the Government. In many cases this was not done for one or two years after the formation of the colony, in consequence of the lamentably inefficient force placed at the disposal of the able and indefatigable surveyor-general; and even then, the boundaries of the different allotments were not permanently defined. This state of incertitude had the most fatal effect, not only upon the ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... power and resources of the latter. The duchies of Alencon and Berry more than equalled in extent the actual domain of the King of Navarre; for, from the time when Ferdinand the Catholic (in July, 1512) wrested from brave Catharine of Foix and her inefficient husband John[230] all their possessions on the southern slope of the Pyrenees,[231] the authority of the titular monarch was respected only in the mountainous district of which Pau was the capital, and to which the names of Bearn ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... world, and hoped that neither Mrs. Seal nor Mr. Clacton would appear until the impression of importance had been received. But in this she was disappointed. Mrs. Seal burst into the room holding a kettle in her hand, which she set upon the stove, and then, with inefficient haste, she set light to the gas, which flared up, exploded, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... That it is disclosed, by the testimony in this case, that the agency for the purchase of anthracite coal for the use of the navy has been, for some time past, in the hands of a person wholly inefficient and grossly incompetent, and that reform is needed in the regulations which exist on that subject; but there is no proof which traces any knowledge of such inefficiency and incompetency to the responsible authorities in Washington, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... garrisons in Lorraine, withdrew through Luxemburg and the northern frontier; its remaining exploits were few and mean, for the one gleam of good fortune enjoyed by Anne de Montmorency, who was unwise and arrogant, and a most inefficient commander, soon deserted him. Charles V., as soon as he could gather forces, laid siege to Metz, but, after nearly three months of late autumnal operations, was fain to break up and withdraw, baffled ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... brought many proofs that there is no small amount of truth in this indictment, and most unfortunate of all, neutral countries too accept Germany's version that Britain is unorganized, self-interested, inefficient and effete. And to just the same degree they are convinced that Germany is thorough. They love Britain's humanitarian idea, but admire German efficiency—although ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... that if a quick, efficient workman, with good tools, takes a day to make a coat, while another workman, who is slow, clumsy and inefficient, and has only poor tools, takes six days to make a table that the table will be worth six coats upon the market. That would be a foolish proposition, Jonathan. It would mean that if one workman made a coat in one day, while another workman took ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... authors ancient and modern with lists of their writings. Butzbach continued it with an Auctarium, into which he hooked almost every writer he could find, whether ecclesiastical or not. It is a large book, still remaining in manuscript at Bonn, as it was written out for him by two very inefficient novices. The date of its composition is abundantly indicated by the notes with which he terminates his notices of living authors: 'Viuit adhuc anno quo hec scribimus 158' or 159.[13] Such a compilation, in so far as it deals with contemporary writers, might ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Further, a fleet of ten ships of war was to be maintained, and 350 flat-bottomed transports built for the conveyance of an invading army to England. These demands were perforce complied with. Nevertheless Napoleon was far from satisfied with the State-Government, which he regarded as inefficient and secretly hostile. ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the American Government, during the War of 1812, either from ignorance of the value of the Northwest, or, as some think, from a fear lest it might, if conquered, become free territory, were very inefficient in their efforts in that direction. As, however, the same imbecility was displayed in other quarters, for example, at Washington, where they allowed the capital to be taken by a handful of British troops, and as the Yankee who ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... ever successfully met by a self-governed people, the war lent powerful stimulus and tonic to the cause of free institutions everywhere, proving republican loyalty to be as firm and trustworthy as monarchical, and government by and for the governed to be not necessarily either inefficient or ephemeral. It demonstrated that a republic, without lessening its freedom, may become a great military power, generals of highest genius passively obeying a popularly elected Congress and Executive, these in turn maintaining full mastery, yet not ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... all the chances were that de Barral should have fallen upon a perfectly harmless, naive, usual, inefficient specimen of respectable governess for his daughter; or on a commonplace silly adventuress who would have tried, say, to marry him or work some other sort of common mischief in a small way. Or again he might have ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... and yet reap all the benefit? I had occasion, some years ago, to examine the evidence on this subject given before the House of Commons in 1825, and was exceedingly amused at the schemes resorted to to evade the law, moderate and inefficient as was the law at that time. (Since then the law has been altered both in Scotland and Ireland, but I do not know what are the provisions, nor what has been the effect of the new law.) It required that there should be a free passage for the fish (Salmon) through all the traps, nets, ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... other condition," said Bolaroz, hastily, unable to gloat as he had expected. "The recapture of the assassin who slew my son would have meant much to Graustark. It is unfortunate that your police department is so inefficient." Dangloss writhed beneath this thrust. Yetive's eyes went to him, for an instant, sorrowfully. Then they dropped to the fatal document which Gaspon had placed on the table before her. The lines ran together and were the color of blood. Unconsciously she took the pen in her nerveless ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... examination" [he thought,] "was ideally best, but for many reasons impossible." [But the] "conjoint scheme" [recommended in the report appeared to punish the efficient medical authorities for the abuses of the inefficient. Moreover, if the examiners of the Divisional Board did not affiliate themselves to any medical authority, the compensation to be provided would be very heavy; if they did,] "either they will affiliate ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... which presented so firm and unbroken a frontage, were to be torn up and removed. Picks, and wedges, and levers, were applied by my brother workmen; and simple and rude as I had been accustomed to regard these implements, I found I had much to learn in the way of using them. They all proved inefficient, however, and the workmen had to bore into one of the inferior strata, and employ gunpowder. The process was new to me, and I deemed it a highly-amusing one: it had the merit, too, of being attended with some such degree of danger ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... speak. Its skin frictional resistance is very great. In a word, in comparing the hydraulic system with the normal system, we are comparing two very imperfect things together; but the fact remains, and applies up to a certain point, that the hydraulic propeller must be very inefficient, because it, of all propellers, drives the smallest quantity of water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... manner. Her large acquaintance among, and knowledge of, men of affairs in Washington, and her clear statements as to the way in which this board had been created, and her convincing argument that the work of the board must of necessity be most inadequate and inefficient by reason of lack of funds, gained many advocates for the bill, and to her is due the credit for the success of the work which the committee was appointed to do. She was always at work, unresting, unhasting, and, although weary and ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... With this inefficient crew he made his way up the Ottawa River, and by the ancient route of the fur traders, along a succession of small lakes and rivers, to Michilimackinac. Their progress was slow and tedious. Mr. Hunt was not accustomed to the management of "voyageurs," and he had a crew ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... Pigou has said: "Either through lack of bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of recognising the numbers ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... a party of youthful friends, I crossed the Hillsboro' Creek, to visit the Indians. We had a large heavy boat, with cumbrous oars, very ill balanced, and a most inefficient crew, two of them being boys either very idle or very ignorant, and, as they kept tumbling backwards over the thwarts, one gentleman and I were left to do all the work. On our way we came upon an Indian ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... for the then very limited field of arc lighting, but they were regarded as valueless as a part of a great comprehensive scheme which could supply everybody with light. Such machines were confessedly inefficient, although representing the farthest reach of a young art. A commission appointed at that time by the Franklin Institute, and including Prof. Elihu Thomson, investigated the merits of existing dynamos and reported as to the best of them: "The Gramme machine is the most economical as ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... denim edged with white braid, which showed off the silver and the set of delft—her great and never-ending joy—to great effect. Then she tied her apron about her, and went into the kitchen to make the mayonnaise dressing for the potato salad, to slice the ham, and to help the cook (a most inefficient Irish person, taken on only for that month during the absence of the family's beloved and venerated Sing Wo) in the matter of ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... Maurice solaced himself with these crazy dreams, it was because of his secret discontent with the Commune itself. He had lost all confidence in its members, he felt it was inefficient, drawn this way and that by so many conflicting elements, losing its head and becoming purposeless and driveling as it saw the near approach of the peril with which it was menaced. Of the social reforms ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... from abroad of $600-$800 million, mostly from Albanians residing in Greece and Italy; this helps offset the towering trade deficit. Agriculture, which accounts for about one-quarter of GDP, is held back because of lack of modern equipment, unclear property rights, and the prevalence of small, inefficient plots of land. Energy shortages and antiquated and inadequate infrastructure contribute to Albania's poor business environment, which make it difficult to attract and sustain foreign investment. The planned construction of a new thermal power plant near ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... money of the people to Italy. The whole German people, from the princes down to the peasants, felt themselves unjustly treated, that the German money which flowed to Rome should be kept at home, and that the immoral and inefficient clergy should be replaced by upright, earnest men who would attend better to their religious duties (R. 150). It was these conditions which prepared the Germans for revolt, and enabled Luther to rally so many of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... transisthmus line. In addition to this, it has a branch line to Vera Cruz, and so becomes a through route of travel from that port to the Pacific Ocean, via Tehuantepec. The road carried a Government subsidy and was financed in the United States, but due to inefficient management and the heavy work involved in construction, the company suspended payments in 1903, and the Government, in view of the strategic importance of the line, took the property off the hands of the company. The railway is now operated under Government ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... attempted establishment of artificial oyster fisheries a prominent error was in working too large areas. One or two acres intelligently cultivated can be made to produce far more substantial results than a very large area under inefficient management, and at much less expenditure of time and money. A vast amount of money has been expended in different localities on the Victorian coast for the purpose of developing the oyster fisheries. In the great majority of ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... began to flag a little, the long hours of teaching, the hurried walks to and fro, tried her vigorous young frame. The little maids who followed each other in quick succession were all equally inefficient and unreliable. Marcus began to complain that such ill-cooked, tasteless meals would in time impair their digestion. The Marthas and Annes and Sallies, who clumped heavily about the corner house, with smudges on ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... thou heedest not this order, I shall offer other measures, Know I well of other forces; I shall call the Hisi irons, In them I shall boil and roast thee, Thus to check thy crimson flowing, Thus to save the wounded hero. "If these means be inefficient, Should these measures prove unworthy, I shall call omniscient Ukko, Mightiest of the creators, Stronger than all ancient heroes, Wiser than the world-magicians; He will check the crimson out-flow, He will heal this wound of hatchet. "Ukko, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... before I would ask anyone to do things for me. If they can't see what's to be done, I'll not tell them." This was her declaration of independence. Needless to say, Mrs. M. had a large domestic help problem. Her domestic helpers were continually going and coming. The inefficient ones she would not keep, and the efficient ones would not stay with her. So the burden of the home fell heavily on her, and, pulling her martyr's crown close down on her head, she worked feverishly. When she ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... "The Dewey of Our Day," which was drunk sitting, the guests rising from their recumbent postures in honor of it. The chairman's opening address was almost wholly a plea for the enlargement of the Athenian navy: the implication that the republic had been saved, in spite of its inefficient armament, was accepted as the finest possible compliment to the guest of the evening. The note of all the other speeches was their exquisite impersonality. They got further and further from the occasion of the evening, until the effort of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... chain gang, or (3) the penal settlements. (1) In the first case, the convicts might be kept in the vicinity of the towns or marched about the country according to the work in hand; the labour was severe, but, owing to inefficient supervision, never intolerable; the diet was ample and there was no great restraint upon independence within certain wide limits. To the slackness of control over the road parties was directly traceable the frequent escape of desperadoes, who, defying ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... bound to say that my cousin Cecilia Combe had quite as much trouble with her household, her lady's-maids were quite as inefficient, her housemaids quite as careless, and her cooks quite as fiery-tempered and unsober as those of "ordinary Christians," in spite of Mr. Combe's observation and manipulation of their bumps previous to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Burnside then took Ledlie's division—a worse selection than the first could have been. In fact, Potter and Willcox were the only division commanders Burnside had who were equal to the occasion. Ledlie besides being otherwise inefficient, proved also to possess disqualification ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... had not the extreme tactfulness of his so typically Catholic wife; he made it only too plain that he thought the British postal and telegraph service slow and slack, and the management of the Great Eastern branch lines wasteful and inefficient. He said the workmen in the fields and the workmen he saw upon some cottages near the junction worked slowlier and with less interest than he had ever seen any workman display in all his life before. He marvelled ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... they WOULD not see that as they were receiving pay every day, they therefore ought to work every day. However, as they yielded at last, by some few leaning to my side, I gave what they asked for, and went to the next village, still inefficient in men, as all the Pig's Watoto could not be collected together. This second move brought us into a small village, of which Ghiya, a ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... shall now proceed to point out what, in my humble opinion appears to be the only efficient remedy, namely, the education of the infant poor. It may not be amiss, however, to glance at the means which have heretofore been employed, and found, though productive of some good, inefficient for ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... it is estimated that four times as many rifles as men are required. The fighting man must have two because one quickly gets hot and becomes unusable; he must have a third so that he may still have two if one is hit by the return fire or otherwise rendered inefficient; he must have the fourth so that at least one of his weapons may be in the arms hospital undergoing repairs if necessary, and be ready for him in case one of his others is demolished. This development of modern warfare means ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... and Legitimists. It was an insane policy on the part of the two last, as they knew perfectly well they wouldn't gain anything by upsetting the actual cabinet. They would only get another one much more advanced and more masterful. I suppose their idea was to have a succession of radical inefficient ministers, which in the end would disgust the country and make a "saviour," a prince (which one?) or general, possible. How wise their reasoning was time has shown! I wanted to go to the Chamber to hear the debate, but W. didn't want me. He would be obliged to speak, and said it ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... competition. Clearly the bulk of the shame lies with the shareholders, who encourage opposition for the sake of increasing their own dividends at the expense of their neighbours, and who insist on economy in directions which render the line inefficient—to the endangering of their own lives as well as those of the public. Economy in the matter of railway servants—in other words, their reduction in numbers—necessitates increase of working hours, which, beyond a certain point, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... next. As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers take more money out of the business than he put into it; he had, as he said, simply forced out of it a timid and inefficient participant in advantages which he had created. But Lapham had not created them all. He had been dependent at one time on his partner's capital. It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the man for ever after who can choose the ideal, the unselfish part ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to the fact that the relatively high typhoid death rate in Washington, since the filter plant was installed, was a possible indication that the filters were inefficient. It is true that there has not been the marked reduction in the typhoid death rate in Washington, following the installation of the water filtration works, that has been observed in other cities in America. For the six years prior to the date on which filtered water was supplied ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... of sugar-cane, plantains, rice, wheat, and orchards of fruit were constantly coming into view from the cars. The olden style of irrigation was going on by means of the shaduf, worked by hand, the same as was done in the East four thousand years ago; while the very plow, rude and inefficient, which is used upon these plains to-day, is after the fashion belonging to the same period. Indeed, except that the railroad runs through southern India, there seems to have been no progress there for thousands of years. A lethargy of the most hopeless character ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... your troopers ride,—they are very fine horsemen.' There he stopped; I waited for more, but he had ended; his silence was a crushing criticism, unintentionally too severe, but very true.... I assert, therefore, that at this moment, our Cavalry is inefficient, and not prepared for war."—The Times ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... persons conversant with policy, a foe that is disregarded and neglected, being all along unsubdued at heart, smites at the proper season, especially when the enemy makes a false step. By employing trusted agents of his own, such a foe would also render the other's forces inefficient by producing disunion. Ascertaining the beginning, the middle and the end of his foes,[309] a king should in secret cherish feelings of hostility towards them. He should corrupt the forces of his foe, ascertaining everything by positive proof, using the arts of producing ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the Commission democracy is an inefficient weapon. Nothing but disappointment is in store for men who expect a people to outrage its own character. A large part of the unfaith in democracy, of the desire to ignore "the mob," limit the franchise, and confine power to the few is the result of an unsuccessful attempt to make republics act ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... know how to keep it. True, Eliza had not to begin at the very beginning: she knew the names and prices of the cheaper flowers; and her elation was unbounded when she found that Freddy, like all youths educated at cheap, pretentious, and thoroughly inefficient schools, knew a little Latin. It was very little, but enough to make him appear to her a Porson or Bentley, and to put him at his ease with botanical nomenclature. Unfortunately he knew nothing else; and Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shillings ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... this mill, I wuddn't have believed it! But I'll say at this point meself, that I'm not looking a gift mill in the mouth. Moreover, this runnin' of your own mill, not bein' beholden to any sordid capitalist, nor yet depindent on anny inefficient labor, is what I may call a truly ijeel situation in life. I'll stay here till the wood runs out. Not that I'll cut wood for annybody. Capital must draw the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... confidence which has been found essential to the progress of improvement? But were the existing system of government essentially conservative in its nature, instead of being virtually destructive, it would still prove inadequate and inefficient. The circumstances and wants of this colony will vary every year, and consequently require either such partial modifications or entire alterations of policy as may be suited to each progressive stage of advancement. ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... mistakes we did not have to hear a chorus from European nations telling us that we were unfit to govern ourselves. Nor were we forced to have other nations trying to corrupt every honest man we wished to put in office, nor to have these alien nations attempting to put into power dishonest and inefficient men as their own tools. That is China's problem at present: not only must she contend against the inherent weakness and dishonesty, the inefficiency and graft of her own people, but she must contend against unseen, suave enemies, who under diplomatic disguise are intriguing to bring the ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... on his part, calmly took stock of her appearance, as she beat up against the wind, her flapping waterproof cloak giving very inefficient protection to the rather girlish dove-grey cashmere dress, picked out with pink embroidery, beneath it. At first his eyes challenged hers in slightly defiant and amused enquiry. But as she smiled back at him, sweetly eager, ingenuously benignant, his glance softened and his hand ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... him his lips were making words out of wood, and that the words were fatuously inefficient compared with what he should have said, or acted, under ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... conditions of divorce, like the conditions of marriage, must be such as best serve the interests of the race. This means, in the first place, that both partners in a marriage must have the assurance that when the moral conditions of the contract are broken, or through any reason become inefficient, they can be liberated, without any shame or idea of delinquency being attached to the dissolution. "Divorce is relief from misfortune and not a crime," to quote from the admirable statute-book of Norway, a saying which should be one of universal ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... was fighting inside by the ships, it was Patroclus who repelled him and extinguished the flames which had got a hold on Protesilaus's ship; yet one would not have said the people aboard her were inefficient—Ajax and Teucer they were, one as good in the melee as the other with his bow. A great number of the barbarians, including Sarpedon the son of Zeus, fell to this sponger. His own death was no common one. It took only one man, Achilles, to slay Hector; Paris was enough for Achilles himself; ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... efficiency. On this point the King was inflexible, for he always refused to allow the army to be reduced organically, though he never refused to accept such a diminution of the rank and file as made it utterly inefficient for an emergency, so long as the cadres and the number of officers were not diminished. He sent a message to some senators who were in his confidence to the effect that the measure of Ricotti must ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed a horse paddock and some acres of pig run; but 'tis a good deal of money regarded simply as money. K. is bosh; I have no use for him; but we must do what we can with the fellow meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but inefficient, idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a self-excuser—all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty weeks' service—the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry is almost the only one of our employes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... far-back lessons of benevolent and wise men to restrain the prevalent coarseness and animality of the tribal ages—with Puritanism, or perhaps Protestantism itself for another, and still another specified in the latter part of this memorandum)—to it is probably due most of the ill births, inefficient maturity, snickering pruriency, and of that human pathologic evil and morbidity which is, in my opinion, the keel and reason-why of every evil and morbidity. Its scent, as of something sneaking, furtive, mephitic, seems to lingeringly ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... police duty. They have been of the greatest assistance to the Director of Health in effectively maintaining quarantine, and making possible the isolation of victims of dangerous communicable diseases like cholera and smallpox, when inefficient municipal policemen have utterly failed to do their duty. They have given similar assistance to the Director of Agriculture in the maintenance of quarantine in connection with efforts to combat diseases of domestic animals. In great emergencies such as those presented by ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... of Japanese Industrial Conditions Japanese Labor Cheap but Inefficient Actual Cost of Output Little Cheaper than in America Laborers in a State {xii} of Deplorable Inexperience Illustrations of Japanese Inefficiency Some Current Misconceptions Corrected Labor Wage ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... on a method which did not mean surrender of the principle. He perceived that there were in political life many bad men who were thoroughly efficient and many good men who would have liked to accomplish high results but who were thoroughly inefficient. He realized that if he wished to accomplish anything for the country his business was to combine decency and efficiency; to be a thoroughly practical man of high ideals who did his best to reduce those ideals to actual practice. This was the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... soon as possible the fort commenced there by the Ohio Company. He was enjoined to act only on the defensive, but to capture or destroy whoever should oppose the construction of the works, or disturb the settlements. The choice of Captain Trent for this service, notwithstanding his late inefficient expedition, was probably owing to his being brother-in-law to George Croghan, who had grown to be quite a personage of consequence on the frontier, where he had an establishment or trading-house, and was supposed ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... reasons, pack off Miss Snaith in the summary fashion you demand. She may be, in certain respects, inefficient; but she is kind to the children, and ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... admire the sheen of tin, have bowed down in greater admiration than any other people to German "efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term "efficiency" has become nauseating because ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... the saloon opposite and thought he could distinguish Cheyenne's voice. Bartley wondered what would happen in there, and when things would begin to pop, if there was to be any popping. He felt foolishly helpless and inefficient—rather a poor excuse for a partner, just then. Yet there was that husky rider, back there in the straw. He was even more helpless and inefficient. Bartley licked his knuckles, ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Look on the other side of the picture. Our form of national government has been notoriously inefficient—taking Germany as the standard. Our state governments at their best are mediocre, while at their worst they stand pitifully paralyzed before mob law. Our unpunished lynchings of coloured people, innocent as well as guilty, make ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... which in its essence many a man and woman among us might have sat. For I suppose that there is nothing more common than these half-and-half convictions which, like inefficient bullets, get part way through the armoured shell of a ship, and there stick harmless. Many of us have the clearest convictions in our understandings, which have never penetrated to that innermost chamber of all, where the will sits sovereign. It is so about little things, it is so ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... tries to act on his own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... think it is also sufficiently proved, that Sandom, the third person for whom I am counsel, was in the chaise which was driven from Northfleet to Dartford, and from Dartford to London; and on my part, I should consider it a most inefficient attempt, if I were to attempt, for one moment, to persuade you that Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte, together with Mr. Sandom, have not been most criminally implicated in this part of the transaction; but, gentlemen, although ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... of pity and sympathy. These impel many to endeavor, not to persuade, but to compel the more efficient and prudent who have by their farsightedness, courage, industry and thrift made good provision for themselves and their offspring, to provide also for the inefficient and the improvident. To be asked to give to these does not offend any sense of right, but if one be told he must give he feels resentful at once. He feels he has a right to decide for himself to whom and to what extent he shall give of his savings. Society did not come into existence ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... way the ownership is not changed, and if the new management should prove to be inefficient, it can be placed in more ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... you over at five-thirty this morning, having traveled from London by the mail train. I must lecture you on your inefficient window-catches, Mr. Grant. Several self-respecting burglars of my acquaintance would give your house the go-by as being too easy. And, one other matter. I suggest that any man who mentions the Steynholme murder again before the coffee ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... statement contained a hot attack on the police department. He charged that the department was disorganized, honeycombed with graft, tolerating and protecting vice conditions, inefficient and negligent. He cited the operations of bunko swindlers, gamblers and bandits and declared that the city ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... should. For, seeking to emulate those whom he so unstintedly admired, Bud Lee and Carson and the rest of the hard-handed, quick-eyed men in the service of the ranch, Hampton was no longer the careless, frankly inefficient youth who had escorted his guests here. He went for days at a time unshaven, having other matters to think of; he came to the table bringing with him the aroma of the stables. He wore a pair of ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... crew, but on what grounds, or by whom particularly, it is said, could not be discovered. The circumstance led to much apprehension of an attempt to revenge, and measures were accordingly taken to render it inefficient, but they were seemingly unnecessary. The dangers at sea were much more formidable, and far less easily provided against. It is perhaps quite enough to say of them, that the ships were for a considerable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the swords of the Franks, but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue colour, marked with ten millions of meandering lines, which showed how anxiously the metal had been welded by the armourer. Wielding this weapon, apparently so inefficient when compared to that of Richard, the Soldan stood resting his weight upon his left foot, which was slightly advanced; he balanced himself a little as if to steady his aim, then, stepping at once forward, drew the scimitar across the cushion, applying the edge so dexterously and with so little ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... washes, lotions and injections upon which the ignorant rely for protection from disease, are inefficient; not because they cannot destroy the germs of disease, but because they do not penetrate the skin and mucous membranes in which ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... you could possibly make; for we, who are natives of the greatest fighting nation that the world has ever known, can teach you much in the art of war, your knowledge of which is of the slightest. Your weapons are poor and inefficient, and you know nothing of strategy and generalship; but we can instruct you in those important matters, and also teach you how to make new and powerful weapons, by means of which you will be able effectually to subjugate ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... of life in Gopher Prairie was the summer cottages. They were merely two-room shanties, with a seepage of broken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden walls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so close together that you could—and did—hear a baby being spanked in the fifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens on a bluff which looked ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... recover, should be fattened and sold. This is the first and the grand step toward the prevention of abortion, and he is unwise who does not immediately adopt it. All other means are comparatively inefficient and worthless. Should the owner be reluctant to part with her, two months, at least, should pass before she is permitted to return to her companions. Prudence would probably dictate that she should ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... disappear at will, apparently invisible and invulnerable to the officers of the peace and the guardians of the public safety? It was incredible, it was monstrous, degrading, nay, intolerable, and a remedy would have to be found either in the reorganisation of an inefficient police force or in the resignation of ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... son to Mr. Leigh: his school is wholly inefficient. Your son should go through the usual course of instruction given at the Royal Academy, which, with a good deal that is wrong, gives something that is necessary and right, and which cannot be otherwise obtained. Mr. Rossetti and I will take care— (in fact your ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... a whit less inefficient as a moralist. He is a kindly soul, and in his easygoing way he has learnt something of the tricks of the world and something of the hearts of men. He writes as an unsuccessful courtier; and in that capacity he ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... no doubt that this absence of any organised opposition was fortunate, for the so-called troops at the disposal of the Governor of the Equator were as miserably inefficient and contemptible, from a fighting point of view, as any General Gordon ever commanded; and at a later stage of his career he plaintively remarked that it had fallen to his lot to lead a greater number of cowardly and unwarlike races than anyone else. But it ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... condition is that education should embrace the means of discipline, for without discipline the mind will remain inefficient, just as surely as the muscles of the body, without exercise, will be left flaccid. That should seem to be a self-evident truth. Now it may be possible to derive a certain amount of discipline out of any study, but it is a fact, nevertheless, which cannot be gainsaid, that some ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... wants things particularly nice." And she hurried past them in search of the head waiter. The worry of nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive frown upon her forehead; she was pale and looked unhappy and more than usually inefficient, and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Parliament can do this. There is no royal road which all can travel. It has been done, to some extent, in the past, and it will have to be done, to a much greater extent, in the future by the layman and the laywoman, by the teachers of all denominations, by some even whom inspectors may consider inefficient and whom children may tolerate as queer. It will be done best by the best teachers, but all teachers can share in the work on the one condition that they have consciously or unconsciously dedicated themselves to the task. For a teacher ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each new comer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Since this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat inefficient one. Then he looked at the official, who made a sign, and ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... sailors huddled panic-stricken below-decks and refused to obey orders. Every man became his own master; and if that ever works well on land, it means disaster at sea. Thus it has almost always been with the inefficient and the misfits who have gone out in ships—land-lubbers trying to be navigators. Just when Bering's crew should have braced themselves to resist the greatest stress, they collapsed and huddled together with bowed heads, inviting the worst that fate ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... Guardian's directorate. And Mr. Gunterson, uneasily suspecting that the structure of the German institution might at any moment collapse at some quite unexpected point, and calculating that he might secure the managerial berth for his equally inefficient brother-in-law, and thus keep the salary in the family, cautiously accepted the invitation. So this was the man who, a few days later, faced the full board, who with affable confidence in his own abilities won over even the somewhat skeptical Whitehill, and who was, on ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... left solely to bad men, and if virtue is confined solely to inefficient men, the result cannot be happy. When I entered politics there were, as there always had been—and as there always will be—any number of bad men in politics who were thoroughly efficient, and any number of good men who would like to have done lofty things ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of Montrose's victories was hostility between the Covenanting army in England and the English, who regarded them as expensive and inefficient. Indeed, they seldom, save for the command of David Leslie, displayed military qualities, and later, were invariably defeated when they encountered the ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... above is a very inefficient and rather absurd translation of the French. It turns upon the fact that in the French language the word ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the circumstances which prompted me to think or act; and it grieved me that I was unable to afford the slightest assistance to the young Count of Riverola. But I dare not wait longer in Italy; and I was convinced that the authorities in Florence were too inefficient to root out the horde of banditti, even had I explained to them the clew which I myself obtained to the stronghold of those miscreants. I accordingly quitted Florence in the afternoon of the day following the numerous arrests which I have mentioned; ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... born into the community must acquire during childhood." If their parents have the power of obtaining for them this instruction and fail to do so, they commit a double breach of duty. The child grows up an imperfect being, socially inefficient, and members of the community are liable to suffer seriously from the consequences of this ignorance and want of education ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... privates. When the story was brought to Lincoln, he said it was too bad about the men. Someone suggested that it was a pity the generals had been taken, but Lincoln said that did not matter much, as he could make some more. Joffre has made it uncomfortable for the inefficient generals in France. Many of them have lost their commands and most of them live in fear of his ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... no personal consideration should induce the Duke to sacrifice the interests of the country by keeping him; it may be disagreeable to dismiss him, but he must do it. Hay told me that for the many years he had been in office he had never met with any public officer so totally inefficient as he, not even Warrender at ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... not a priori reasonable to expect this relation should be uniform as between two such countries as England and India, so that it should be a matter of economic indifference whether a piece of work is done by cheap and relatively inefficient Indian labour or by expensive and efficient English labour. Such a supposition could only stand upon one of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... aid her in putting some restraint over her husband even in this country, should they fail in their effort to take him to England. She saw the doctor in Siena constantly, and had learned from him how such steps might be taken. The measure proposed would be slow, difficult, inefficient, and very hard to set aside, if once taken;—but still it might be indispensable that something should be done. "He would be so much worse off here than he would be at home," she said;—"if we could only make him understand ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... convinced, even in the chill dwellings of real poverty, that this was hardly ever entirely unmerited. Where it had not been brought about by laziness, frivolity, or drink, its source was to be found in ignorance or incapacity, in other words, in an inefficient equipment for the battle of life. He judged all these circumstances, however, to be the outward and visible signs of obscure natural laws, and that to interfere with rash and ignorant hands in their workings was as useless as it was unreasonable. He therefore ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... as yet but fairly commenced, when a break in the 'piff-paff' chorus warned Andreas that he was losing influence, women and men were handing on a paper and bending their heads over it; their responses hushed altogether, or were ludicrously inefficient. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with it industrial opportunity and social justice. This they cannot attain until they be permitted to enter the higher pursuits of labor. Two reasons are given for failure to enter these: first, that Negro labor is unstable and inefficient; and second, that white men will protest. Organized labor, however, has done nothing to help the blacks. Yet it is a fact that accustomed to the easy-going toil of the plantation, the blacks have not shown the same efficiency as that of the whites. Some employers report, however, that ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... authorities called on the other side being in most cases unknown men or amateurs of no standing. A number of these self-styled experts possessed no other qualification than presumed familiarity with the handwriting of Dreyfus. It is also worthy of note that several of the experts on both sides proved most inefficient witnesses, obscuring their explanations by the employment of technical phraseology which conveyed little ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... which results from the rule of the specialist is the destruction of the AMATEUR. So real a fact is the tyranny of the specialist that the very word "amateur," which means a leisurely lover of fine things, is beginning to be distorted into meaning an inefficient performer. As an instance of its correct and idiomatic use, I often think of the delightful landlord whom Stevenson encountered somewhere, and upon whom he pressed some Burgundy which he had with him. The generous host ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... entered, and left it open. Mr. Cipher was angry, and spoke to the whole school: "Any one who comes in to-day and does not shut the door, will get a flogging. Now remember!" Being very awkward in his manners, inefficient in government, and shallow-brained and vain, he commanded very little ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... to prevent the oncoming tide of the economic independence of women, but it will not be possible to force the business world to accept permanently the service of the inefficient in place of that of the alert and intelligent. To carry on the economic life of a nation with its labor flotsam and jetsam is loss at any time; in time of storm and stress it ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... had contained the prescription, was seen on the shelf; the long glass tube, that instrument of torture, was in a corner; and among other furniture, the dotor himself was seen seated, unconcernedly enjoying his pipe, and who, having found that human means were inefficient, had had recourse to supernatural, and had prescribed, as a last resource, the talisman, which it was my fate to write. A new dervish excited new hopes, for I saw that I produced much stir as I entered the sick room, I asked for paper with an air of authority, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the iron bar, it seems so easy that every strong man in the crowd thinks he can do as much, until he tries. It needs a Giant of the first class to handle a people in revolution. Miranda was not made of that kind of stuff. He was weak and inefficient, fond of mystery and pomp, easily affected by flattery, loving dearly to hear himself talk, and unable to control his temper. His incessant quarrels with Captain Lewis were one cause of the loss of the schooners off Puerto Cabello. A want of quickness and energy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... or to say. Mistakes, more or less, are occurring all the time. Many of the things we know we have learned by our mistakes. A farmer becomes successful by eliminating the mistakes of the past, by ceasing to do the things that proved to be inefficient. A manufacturer becomes successful by eliminating the weaknesses of his product, by eliminating his mistakes. So with ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... according to its provisions. These magistrates had no power of departing from the fundamental laws, or the laws of the Twelve Tables. The people held them in such consideration, that they rarely enacted laws contrary to their provisions; but as some provisions were found inefficient, others opposed to the manners of the people, and to the spirit of subsequent ages, the praetors, still maintaining respect for the laws, endeavored to bring them into accordance with the necessities of the existing time, by such ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... become tyrannous and stifling; and monarchy, at first an austere necessity, had grown to be, beyond measure, arrogant, selfish, and luxurious. In science, the old methods had proved themselves puerile and inefficient, and the leading scientists were magicians and witches; in literature, no poet had arisen worthy to strike the lyre that Chaucer tuned to music. As for religion, the corruptions of the papacy, and the corresponding degradation ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... we see men who tell us that they despair of democracy; that at any rate, whatever its advantages, democracy can never be "efficient." Efficient for what? Efficiency is a relative quality, not absolute. A big German howitzer would be about as inefficient a tool as could be imagined, for serving an apple-pie. Beside, democracy is a goal; we have not reached it yet; we shall never reach it if we decide that it is undesirable. The path toward it is the path of Nature, which leads through conflicts, survivals, and modifications. Part ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... lighter and more powerful engines and longer runways than by refining the airplane. Fuel economy of an engine has ceased to be the deciding factor. Higher utilization of a high speed Jet at least in part offsets the inefficient use of fuel. The only time the Diesel had a chance was from the middle 20's perhaps on thru WW-2 for certain things due to gasoline shortage. To sum it up, the thing that licked them worst was the use of a single valve for inlet and exhaust ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... The latter sum up in the formation of bureaus of employment in every large city, fixed rates, and full preparatory training. A keen observer of social facts has stated: The intelligence offices of New York alone receive from servants yearly over three million dollars, and are notoriously inefficient. This, or even half of it, would provide a great centre with training-schools, lodgings for all who needed them, and a system by which fixed rates were made according to the grade of efficiency of the worker. Till household service comes under the laws ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... upset his boat and would have drowned his passenger, said public opinion, if the young hero from London—myself—had not plunged in, and at the risk of his life brought the professor to shore. Consequently, he was despised by all as an inefficient boatman. He became a laughing stock. The local wags made laborious jests when he passed. They offered him fabulous sums to take their worst enemies out for a row with him. They wanted to know when he was going to school to learn his business. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... back; unhinge, unfit; put out of gear. unman, unnerve, enervate; emasculate, castrate, geld, alter, neuter, sterilize, fix. shatter, exhaust, weaken &c. 160. Adj. powerless, impotent, unable, incapable, incompetent; inefficient, ineffective; inept; unfit, unfitted; unqualified, disqualified; unendowed; inapt, unapt; crippled, disabled &c. v.; armless[obs3]. harmless, unarmed, weaponless, defenseless, sine ictu[Lat], unfortified, indefensible, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Every six years must I pay an attorney to dispute and quarrel with the curator. I, in conclusion, was obliged to pay. If any affair was to be expedited, I, by a third hand, was obliged to send the referendary some ducats. Did he give judgment, still that judgment lay fourteen months inefficient, and, when it then appeared, the copy was false, and so was sent to the upper courts, the high referendary of which said I "must ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... being fired for some hours. The marksmen went up to the balcony, but, seeing no chance of a shot, were withdrawn, and only the look-out man left there. There was some idea that the enemy might have gone away, and no one would have been sorry; for the wells inside the zereba were very inefficient, the water being soon exhausted, and a tedious waiting entailed before the wells filled again. Already the men had to be put on an allowance, and in that country, where the throat is always parched, any stint of water ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... may be more nearly in point would be that of any one of the countries subject to the Turkish rule in recent times; although these instances scarcely show just what to expect under the projected German regime. The Turkish rule has been notably inefficient, considered as a working system of dynastic usufruct; whereas it is confidently expected that the corresponding German system would show quite an exceptional degree of efficiency for the purpose. This Turkish inefficiency has had a two-fold effect, which should not appear ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... nor as the brother of an enemy, but just like anybody else. Much anxiety was aroused for the safety of the city, where all classes feared danger. The leading members of the senate were old and infirm, and enervated by a long period of peace: the aristocracy were inefficient and had forgotten how to fight: the knights knew nothing of military service. The more they all tried to conceal their alarm, the more obvious it became. Some of them, on the other hand, went in for senseless display, ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... died, and was in effect succeeded by the King of the Romans, though his election to the Imperial throne did not take place for some years. Maximilian, however, remained impecunious and inefficient; Charles VIII. was giving his entire attention to his Italian projects; the whole affair of Perkin Warbeck was carried on mainly below the surface on both sides, by a process of mining and counter-mining. Henry was ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... seemed that such broken English as three or four of them had would be our only medium of intercourse, but later one was discovered who had visited the lower Tanana and the Yukon and who understood Arthur indifferently well, and by the double interpretation, halting and inefficient, but growing somewhat better as we proceeded, it was possible to enter into communication. These preliminaries arranged, the chief made a set speech of dignity and force. He thanked me for coming to them, and regretted he had not been able to wait longer at the Healy River to help ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... about the charge of lese majeste. In that case he is at a disadvantage from the hatred entertained by all classes for him; witnesses against him as damaging as can be: accusers in the highest degree inefficient: the panel of jurors of varied character: the president a man of weight and decision—Alfius: Pompey active in soliciting the jurors on his behalf. What the result will be I don't know; I don't see, however, how he can maintain a position in ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... "Sindiah's rabble,") and the discipline and valour shown in the defence of their positions, were wholly unexpected by their assailants. But the prowess and unflinching resolution displayed at Maharajpoor and Punniar, under all the disadvantages of a desperate cause and inefficient commanders, were worthy of the troops of De Boigne and Perron in their best days, and amply prove that the Mahrattas of the present day have not degenerated from their fathers, whose conduct at Assye won the praise of the great Duke himself.[23] The defeat of British force ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... the fact that she would not be able to go with Laura and Violet to Three Towers Hall, a boarding school to which she had wanted to go all her life. The high school in North Bend was notoriously poor and inefficient, and the girls had set their hearts on attending Three Towers in the fall. And now, because of the broken statue, ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... may be removed from her post and required to keep herself on very little for a considerable period of time before being appointed to another hospital. All this causes a severe drain on the resources of doctors without private means. The staff is also frequently inefficient, and the nursing is sometimes very indifferent, being undertaken by Eurasian girls under partly trained women who have never ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... people who do not know what they want, or what they would be, who complain and complain; disappointed and discontented, at having sunk below their powers and their hopes, and are yet without capability of persevering exertion to emerge from their obscurity. Seebright was now become an inefficient being, whom no one could assist to any good purpose. Alfred, after a long, mazy, fruitless conversation, was convinced that the case was hopeless, and, sincerely pitying him, gave it up as irremediable. Just as he had come to this conclusion, and had sunk into silence, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... when they first stood there as Apprentices; and they do not cultivate Masonry, with a cultivation, determined, resolute, and regular, like their cultivation of their estate, profession, or knowledge. Their Masonry takes its chance in general and inefficient sentiment, mournfully barren of results; in words and formulas ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike |
