"Practical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... necessarily that when the rebellion terminated the several States which had attempted to secede continued to be States in the Union, and all that was required to enable them to resume their relations to the Union was that they should adopt the measures necessary to their practical restoration as States. Such measures were adopted, and the legitimate result was that those States, having conformed to all the requirements of the Constitution, resumed their former relations, and became entitled to the exercise of all the rights guaranteed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... whimsical Mimickry of Reason in a Beast, or whatever appeared remarkable in any Object of the visible Creation. He was able to moralize upon a Snuff-Box, would flourish eloquently upon a Tucker or a Pair of Ruffles, and draw practical Inferences from a full-bottomed Perriwig. This I thought fit to mention, by way of Excuse, for my ingenious Correspondent, who hath introduced the following Letter by an Image which, I will beg leave to tell him, is too ridiculous in so serious ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... stock and farms. Discouragement would have rendered the burdens of many too heavy to carry, had not "work together," and "help your neighbor," become the watchwords of the day. No one was allowed to suffer through lack of practical sympathy. From house to house, by turns, went the strong to help the weak to bridge their troubles. They went, not with cheering words only, but with something in store for the empty cupboards and with ready hands to help to milk, wash, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... should follow His steps." [1 Pet. ii. 22.] Never did man walk more genuinely with men than the Son of Man, whether it was among the needy and wistful crowds in streets or on hill-sides, or at the dinner-table of the Pharisee, or in the homes of Nazareth, Cana, and Bethany. No Christian was ever so "practical" as Jesus Christ. No disciple ever so directly and sympathetically "served his own generation by the will of God" [Acts xiii. 36.] as did the blessed Master. But all the while "His soul dwelt apart" in the Father's presence, and there continually rested and was refreshed, [John ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... the poetic temperament. I doubted if anything would come of the verse-writing myself. At this time it is easy to picture my father, a lawyer of ability, regarding me, nonplused, as the worst case he had ever had. He wanted me to do something practical, besides being ambitious for me to follow in his footsteps, and at last persuaded me to settle down and read law in his office. This I really tried to do conscientiously, but finding that political economy and Blackstone did not rhyme and that the study of law was unbearable, I slipped ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Always practical. Your charm—one of them," says Mr. Beauclerk. But he takes the hint, nevertheless, and presently they draw up before a ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... trying to win them, for obstinacy must be conquered, not coaxed."[1] In this work he is trying to convince the Gnostics of their errors from various passages in the Old Testament. But he never invokes the death penalty against them. On the contrary, he declares that no practical Christian can be an executioner or jailer. He even goes so far as to deny the right of any disciple of Christ to serve in the army, at least as an officer, "because the duty of a military commander comprises the right to sit in judgment upon a man's life, to condemn, to put in chains, ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... insists on his going to her at all hours," made him feel that he was leading the life of the class of men whose existence is coloured by a love-affair, and in whom the perpetual sacrifice which they are making of their comfort and of their practical interests has engendered a spiritual charm. Then, though he may not consciously have taken this into consideration, the certainty that she was waiting for him, that she was not anywhere or with anyone else, that he would see her before he went home, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... this child, in whom the simplicity of practical life and the poetry of imaginative life were curiously blended, she had a fashion of going to her window every night when the moon or stars were shining, to look out for a minute or two before she went to bed; and sometimes the minutes ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of life, may possibly go still further, and rank a willingness to be convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, to concede our own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in the composition of practical wisdom. Monmouth had suffered this flexibility, so laudable in many cases, to degenerate into a habit which made him often follow the advice, or yield to the entreaties, of persons whose characters by no means entitled them to such deference. The sagacity of Shaftesbury, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... more practical intellect, never looked forward, as Mazzini did, to a 'pact of humanity,' which should include even the nations of Europe, and, indeed, always protested against the attempt to conceive of any relation whatsoever, moral or political, as existing ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... clergy of their diocese, seeing that they perform properly their parochial duties, and preserving harmony between the clergy and the laity, and softening the asperities between the Established Church and the Dissenters. For these purposes it is desirable that a bishop should have practical knowledge of parochial functions, and should not be of an overbearing and intolerant temperament. His diocesan duties are enough to occupy all his time, and the less he engages in theological disputes the better. Much mischief has ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... pretty good practical knowledge of mining matters, and so my operations in mines and mining stocks were generally successful. It was n't long until I was a rich, a very rich, man, and a prominent one, too. There is a street named for me in San Francisco. That ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of the policy adopted, and for its appositeness to my purpose—is the institution of the Janizaries, detestable as it was in a moral point of view. I enlarge upon it here because it is at the same time a palmary instance of the practical ability and wisdom of their great Sultans, exerted in compensation of the resourceless impotence of the barbarians whom they governed. The Turks were by nature nothing better than horsemen; infantry they could not be; an infantry their Sultans hardly attempted to form ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... of the educational system of the present and of the recent past, it is quite safe to say, have their place primarily in the higher, liberal, and classic institutions and grades of learning, rather than in the lower, technological, or practical grades, and branches of the system. So far as they possess them, the lower and less reputable branches of the educational scheme have evidently borrowed these things from the higher grades; and their continued persistence among the practical ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... nothing more commonly taken for granted than that there are certain PRINCIPLES, both SPECULATIVE and PRACTICAL, (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be the constant impressions which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and really as they do any ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... his grizzled head had vanished, Sir Harry must needs betake himself to Dr Graham for the easing of his mind. The doctor had known the young man since he was a little lad, and on more than one occasion had given him that practical kind of advice which results from experience; therefore, when Harry was perplexed over matters too deep for him—as he was now—he invariably sought counsel of his old friend. In the present instance—for his own sake, for the sake of Lucy and Lucy's father—he told Graham ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... revelation has supplied the insufficiency, and undeniable defects of the light of nature, refers us to Phil., iv., 1, which he introduces after this pompous manner:—'Let any man of an honest and sincere mind consider, whether that practical doctrine has not, even in itself, the greatest marks of a divine original, wherein whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... Englishman hears it. But the younger generation of Manx folk do not speak Manx, and very often do not understand it. This is a rapid change on the condition of things in my own boyhood. Manx is to me, for all practical uses, an unknown tongue. I cannot speak it, I cannot follow it when spoken, I have only a sort of nodding acquaintance with it out of door, and yet among my earliest recollections is that of a household where nothing but Manx was ever spoken except ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... made it likely that he was the "Man in the Red Tie" whom we remember at the Oxford Commemoration some thirty years ago. In short, he was the very embodiment of all that was most abhorrent to the old traditions of the schoolmaster's profession; and proportionately great was the appositeness of a practical joke which was played me on my second or third morning at Lyonness. I was told to go for my mathematical lesson to Mr. Rhomboid, who tenanted a room in the Old School. Next door to his room was Mr. Grey's, and I need not say that the first boy whom I asked for guidance ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... raised heavy eyebrows, and guffawed so heartily that the candle flickered. "To think of the fellow's putting it on that plea! when he could so easily have written some more verses. That is the trouble with these poets, if you ask me: they are not practical even in their ordinary, everyday lying. No, no, the truth of it was that the rogue wanted a pretext for making a beast of himself, and seized the first that came to hand. Egad, my dear, it is a ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... things. It may regulate the passions, notably desire and fear: the outcome will be the moral virtues of temperance and fortitude. It may direct the understanding, and ultimately the members of the body, in order to the production of some practical result in the external world, as a bridge. Lastly, it may direct the understanding to speculate and think, contemplate and consider, for mere contemplation's sake. Happiness must take one or other of ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... reigned from 1037 to 1040. He gained Godwin to his side, and together they lured the sons of Emma by Ethelred—viz., Alfred and Edward—to town, and, as a sort of royal practical joke, put out Alfred's ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... with the good they do, these faults count for nothing. It is due to them that Europe and the United States know the truth about the Congo. They were the first to bear witness, and the hazardous work they still are doing for their fellow men is honest, practical Christianity. ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... a washing gown," was the decision of her practical Aunt Temperance. "If she's to be any good with the apples, she must not wear her ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... make a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check myself and present a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. But if I could interest myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the number of hours they must daily give to the work that must ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... labor in Niggertown, work off the timber, and have enough money to build the first unit of his school. A number of negro men already had subscribed a certain number of days' work in the timber. It was a modest and entirely practical program, and Peter felt ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... of command and responsibility over a body of his friends and equals, and it was not to be expected that they would easily take to the state of things. Nor was the Chairman himself, like the Secretary, protected and armed by any personal aptitude for practical proceedings. But solely by the certain degree of respect entertained for his character and acquirements. This respect, sincere and even excessive as it frequently was, contrasted somewhat humorously with the common inattention to questions of order, nor could anything be ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... manly uprightness, and perfect disinterestedness. He was a conservative of the truest and best kind, but in his later years went too far in supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too far ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... intimidated the Sovereigns of Europe he had conquered the several Nations. Yet it was natural for a wiser than he was to have fallen into this mistake; for the old despotisms had deprived the body of the people of all practical knowledge in the management, and, of necessity, of all interest, in the course of affairs. The French themselves were astonished at the apathy and ignorance of the people whom they had supposed they ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... material advantage. And eagle-eyed wisdom alone cannot take the lead of human action, which in its nature must for ever remain short-sighted. The trouble of the civilised world is the want of a common conservative principle abstract enough to give the impulse, practical enough to form the rallying point of international action tending towards the restraint of particular ambitions. Peace tribunals instituted for the greater glory of war will not replace it. Whether such a principle exists—who can say? If it does ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... horizon, and, ere yet the conflict was decided, to negotiate some interest for himself with the party most likely to prove victorious. His time-serving disposition was well-known, and excited the contempt of the more daring leaders of both factions in the state. But his talents were of a useful and practical kind, and his legal knowledge held in high estimation; and they so far counterbalanced other deficiencies that those in power were glad to use and to reward, though without absolutely trusting ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... environment or any action of natural selection. The discussion of the problem here given will, I believe, sufficiently expose the fallacy of his contention; but his illustration of the varied and often recondite modes by which practical isolation may be brought about, may help to remove one of the popular difficulties in the way of the action of natural selection in the ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... REVIEW says:—"... Mr Russell's book is a very complete manual and guide for journalist and author. It is not a merely practical work—it is literary and appreciative of literature in its best sense; ... we have little else but praise ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... in which spring and summer are represented by an out-of-door life, in autumn the corner of a house appears, and winter is wholly within doors. We expect a certain change of opinion in the course of years: it is the sign of a veracious character. Neither is it inconsistent for a practical man to sometimes deviate from the rules he has laid ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... bearing of the data which you marshalled so well in defence of your denial. You went far in order to answer why you are content to marry a woman you do not love. Your methods are not the methods of the practical mind. I am glad for that. You idealise your attitude, you go far back in time, you enmesh yourself in theories and generalisations, you ride your imagination proudly, in order to reconcile yourself to something which suggests ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... get horned," went on the veteran cow puncher. For many of the cattle on the range of Bud and his cousins "wore their horns long," so to speak. Gradually the dehorning system was spreading through the west, but such an innovation, found to be most practical from all standpoints, took time ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... separately by different teachers or writers. At the present time, therefore, originality consists only in the classification of the principles into a systematic, progressive whole, and in arranging a simpler and more practical method of applying them, thus making the desired results ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... which treats, in a most practical and fascinating manner all subjects pertaining to the "King of Trades"; showing the care and use of tools; drawing; designing, and the laying out of work; the principles involved in the building of various kinds of structures, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... discovery, by the way, has been fruitful not only in practical humanitarian results. For instance, it has reduced North's laborious "Roman Fever" to something little better than a curiosity. And here, on these deserted shores that were once resplendent with a great civilization—here ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... was very practical, therefore a successful practitioner. Alfred protested that he had prepared the medicine for Hare as per the formula furnished him. Some time after the above argument Alfred was summoned to the doctor's room. Holding in one hand a glass of water, the doctor handed ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... wise old Hebrews said make one feel that one is committing a superfluity when one attempts to say anything along the line of practical advice, since anything that any man can say is nothing more than a very weak dilution of the concentrated thought of the most acute minds of the greatest business people, the most successful material people—yes, and the most idealistic people—who ever lived, the ancient, the mysterious, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... had never thought that, without my knowledge or intent, my heart could slip from me—had never dreamed that I, whose life had always been most commonplace—I, who had had my share of wooing, but had never felt an extra heart-beat because of it—no, never dreamed that I, this I, so practical and sensible, could be carried off my feet by a vision. A vision, was it? Yes, and yet real, too real in some ways, since it revealed my innermost thought. A vision! And yet, even now that it had melted into air, I was clinging to it, and instead of resenting ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... farther side of the Rio Grande the bustle and confusion and hurtful toil of this overpowering nineteenth century—very well can believe himself transported back to that blessed time and country in which the picturesque was ranked above the practical, and in which not the least of human virtues ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... plain, laid out with straight macadamised roads. Not, of course, that he denied the Divine incomprehensibility itself, with certain heretics of old; but he maintained that in Revelation all that was mysterious had been left out, and nothing given us but what was practical, and directly concerned us. It was, moreover, to him a marvel, that every one did not agree with him in taking this simple, natural view, which he thought almost self-evident; and he attributed the phenomenon, which was by no means uncommon, to some want of clearness of head, or twist ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... calculation and mathematics to gardening. Thus, if one cabbage will grow in one square foot of ground, how many cabbages will grow in ten square feet of ground? Ten? Not at all. The answer is one. You will find as a matter of practical experience that however many cabbages you plant in a garden plot there will be only one that will really grow. This you will presently come to speak of as the cabbage. Beside it all the others (till ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... that you had been let into the secret of the woodchuck session. I don't defend the game of politics as it is played, Mr. Wetherell, but all of us who are friends of Jethro's are generally willing to lend a hand in any little manoeuvre that is going on, and have a practical joke when we can. It was not until I saw you sitting there beside Duncan that the idea occurred to me. It didn't make a great deal of difference whether Duncan or Lovejoy got to the House or not, provided they didn't learn ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... course, the General Council will be merged in the Government. Oh, and we're to have Protection, too! It seems rather a lot, doesn't it? but the idea is excellent and, if modified considerably, fairly practical. Griffiths has antiquated notions of economics, however, and some of the things he says prevent me from joining him. His great idea is to attract capital to Ireland by telling capitalists how cheap Irish labour is. That seems to me to be an abominable proposal, likely ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... is to be found in certain of the chapters of Unto This Last. A reader cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful modernness of Xenophon's writing, his love for the country, his simple and genuine piety, his soldierly directness, and his practical common sense. Here is a delightful sidelight on Greek family life, written twenty-three centuries ago, but which might have been spoken yesterday: "My wife," says one of the characters, "often puts me on trial and takes me to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... practical Mrs. Macdonald "I've got several in my mind this moment that I just ache to give a hand to. But only the very rich can help. You can't in decency take from people who have only enough to go on with.... Now, if you'll excuse ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... the conversation of so eminent a person could not be more largely given; for Metternich is less a statesman than statemanship itself. But one remark was at once singularly philosophical and practical. In evident allusion to the miserable tergiversations of our Whig policy a couple of years since, he said, "that throughout life, he had always acted on the plan of adopting the best determination on all important subjects. That to this point of view ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... you no technical equipment, nor leads you into any of those bypaths of knowledge, alluring indeed, of which the benefits are not immediate. For example, in Chapter V it forms into groups words etymologically akin to each other. It does this for an end entirely practical—namely, that the words you know may help you to understand the words you do not know. Did it go farther—did it account for minor differences in these words by showing that they sprang from related rather than identical ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... practical woman of middle age. Not long before she had celebrated her silver wedding and renewed her intimacy with her husband by waltzing with him to Mr. Power's accompaniment. In her days of courtship, Mr. Kernan ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Denominations of this country (the Dutch Church included among them), by experiments in India or any other heathen land, very few of the churches gathered from the heathen, by these various Denominations, have yet arrived at a stage of development sufficient for practical application of the experiment. (See foot-note, page 160.) There are, however, a few mission churches, where the subject is now becoming one of vast practical importance. The Church at Amoy stands ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... essentials of elocution are dealt with in a thoroughly capable and practical way. The chapter on public speaking ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... ballade not three minutes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded a share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom of his gown. In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical existence. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... being done as quickly as possible. She had interviews with Captain Wilson, who commanded the Ida, and Mr. Maurice Phillips, the first officer. She asked them both to dinner. Captain Wilson, a Scot, was taciturn and suspicious. He regarded the job before him as an objectionable kind of practical joke, likely, before it was over, to impair his natural dignity. Mr. Phillips was filled with delight at the prospect. He was a young man with curly fair hair ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... practical; I know what you want, and the name of it is supper. Rien ne creuse comme l'emotion. I am hungry myself, and yet I am more accustomed to warlike palpitations than you, who are but a hunter of hedge-sparrows. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for want of something else to say to express how he was enjoying himself, he made the same remark again, and then laughed aloud. But it was the same sort of laugh as would be uttered by the victim of a practical joke who has suddenly sat down upon a tin-tack ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... her experiences the only ones that mattered had been suffered here, and they had all been of one kind. Even Henrietta's fewer years had been more varied. She had known poverty and been compelled to the practical application of her wits, she had baffled Mr. Jenkins, she had been kissed ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... solid matter, our repast shall be completed with something of a lighter kind. A list of "Divers good proverbs" is curious, as showing the long growth and long endurance of established maxims of practical wisdom. They are written in a distinct and singular hand, not to be traced elsewhere ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... for both philosophers and practical men to ascribe the superior cheapness with which subsistence can be raised in the young state to the old one, to the weight of taxes and of debt, public and private, with which the latter is burdened, from which the former is, in general, relieved. But, without disputing that these circumstances ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... no danger seems specially impending, and to leave in the hands of the trusted and loving friend the charge committed to him. A slight offence, but it has been done in direct violation of conscience, and so in practical abnegation of God. Therefore the flood-gate is opened, and all sweeps swiftly, resistlessly, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... service, none of whom could boast of very much practical experience, were better adapted than Colonel Molineux for this severe task; very quick, energetic, ambitious to do his own duty and to keep every man in his command busy, was the true secret of his success as ...
— History of the 159th Regiment, N.Y.S.V. • Edward Duffy
... differing, the practical engineers were busy making the needful preparations for picking-up—an operation involving great risk of breaking the cable, and requiring the utmost delicacy of treatment, as may be easily understood, for, while the cable is being payed out the strain ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Times existing as an organ of the common satisfied well-to-do Englishman, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. . . . Directly this play of mind wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of practical considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to feel the chain. We saw this the other day in the extinction so much to be regretted of the Home and Foreign Review; perhaps in no organ of criticism was there so much ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... device rested the success or failure of space travel itself. That device and the power it stored were for sale by Interplanetary ... and, to all practical purposes, by Interplanetary only. ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... Perhaps the straitest Baconian will not deny that companies of players visited Stratford, or even that he may have seen and talked with them, and been attracted. He was a practical man, and he made for London, and, by tradition, we first find him heading straight for the theatre, holding horses at the door, and organising a small brigade of boys as his deputies. According ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... treasure to unearth. There may be anything that is wonderful and mysterious. Get busy, Uncle Peter, and get your outfit together; you've boasted that a roundup can beat the army in getting under way quickly, now let us have a practical demonstration. We want to start by six o'clock—all of us, with a cook and four or five men to do the excavating. Bring it to pass!" It was the voice of the girl whom her friends spoke of as "The life of the party;" the ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... violet carry down the name of Theodore Roosevelt to posterity! "Gray should not have named the flower from the Governor of New York," complains Thoreau. "What is he to the lovers of flowers in Massachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers." So completely has Clinton, the practical man of affairs, obliterated Clinton, the naturalist, from the popular mind, that, were it not for this plant keeping his memory green, we should be in danger of forgetting the weary, overworked governor, fleeing from care to the woods and fields; pursuing in the open air the study which above ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Mr. Matthew Weyburn to the microscope of her observation and the probe of her instinct. He proved that he could manage without cajoling a boy. The practical fact established, by agreement between herself and the unobservant gentleman who was her husband, Lady Charlotte allowed her meditations to drop an indifferent glance at the speculative views upon education entertained by this young tutor. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when there would be nobody to tell you so?" said Modeste, with the practical good-sense that never forsook her. "You would be beautiful for yourself alone. You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about that fancy to Monsieur—we should soon see what he would say ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... Court visiter bears his lot with good humour: but, observes he "not small must have been the contemptuous pity felt for me, by those superior intelligences who, on my entering the Dinner Room, I found had already secured their seats, probably by the only practical method—that of taking possession of them overnight! And there is no denying the wit of this proceeding, on the part of those who were in the secret, that the repast was ordered for two hundred individuals, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... of his epoch, he has combined practical skill in the conduct of politics with a steadfast appeal to the highest moral considerations. To a leader of that sort defeats are only stepping-stones, and the end is not in doubt. A phrase once famous among us has sometimes seemed to me fit for English use about Ireland. A great man, a very great ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... ancient times was usually much more ornamental than at present, although it was often the case that their ornaments were rather an inconvenience, and would simply encumber the vessels; in our practical age more importance is placed in the convenience and utility than in beauty. Even their common vessels are not without a certain degree of elegance, both ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... quoted elsewhere under the titles, On the Incarnation of Christ, On the Passion, On the Cross, On the Faith [225:3], though some of these may perhaps represent the same works to which Eusebius refers under other names. Comprising this wide range of subjects, doctrinal, exegetical, practical, and controversial, the works of Melito must have furnished the next succeeding generations with ample data for determining his exact theological position. To them it must have been clear, for instance, whether he did or did not accept the Gospel of St John or the Epistles of St ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the fourth element in this analysis of a devout life is 'He kept the commandments of the Lord.' That is the outcome of them all. Faith, adhesion, aspiration, and progress, all vindicate their value and reality in the simple, homely way of practical obedience. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... watchmaker, in which though the instructions I had received were few, they were eked out and assisted by a mind fruitful in mechanical invention; the other, that of an instructor in mathematics and its practical application, geography, astronomy, land-surveying, and navigation. Neither of these was a very copious source of emolument in the obscure retreat I had chosen for myself; but, if my receipts were slender, my disbursements were still fewer. In this little town I became ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... do be practical. Just think of the price you will get. Think, too, of the eclat. What a queer unworldly sort of creature you are. Any other man would be fairly beside himself with joy ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... animal; the girl brings some in a smaller water-bag. When her mother goes for wood she carries one or two sticks on her back. She pitches her play teepee to form an exact copy of her mother's. Her little belongings are nearly all practical, and her ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... commanding the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, was good enough to let us have a perusal of his Trench Standing Orders. Afterwards he allowed Capt. Simson to make a copy of these, which we always referred to as "Napoleon's Maxims." As a record of practical experience in trench routine they proved invaluable to us later on; when we had to hold trenches of our own we used them as the basis ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... growth of the state made the collision certain. It was a case in which either the Church or the State must give way, but greater moderation of action and demand would have given us a higher opinion of Henry's practical wisdom; and the essential justice of his cause hardly excuses such rapid and violent pushing of his advantage. On the other hand Thomas's conduct, which must have been exceedingly exasperating to the hot blood which Henry had inherited, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... Commonwealth. The district diets, besides electing deputies to the General Diet, instructed them how to vote, and chose local officials (p. 75); they also were bound by the rule of the liberum veto (pp. 182, 304). Under such a constitution the only practical means of reform was through armed rebellion. Hence rebellions, or confederacies, were legalised in Poland; a number of citizens might combine together, choose a marshal (pp. 180, 182, 285), and seek ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... sovereign can be so merciful and gracious, do you suppose that the King of Heaven, who has so wonderfully manifested his love to man, is less merciful and gracious in forgiving those who sin against Him?" said Mr Martin, feeling the importance of not allowing so practical an illustration of the great truth to pass unemployed. "Here is God's proclamation to sinful, rebellious man," he added, lifting his Bible before the eyes of the old trapper. "He declares in this—not once, but ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston
... Government, and our honour and faith with our allies, and yet maintain peace with all nations upon the principles of sound policy, and terms honourable and safe to our country, it will be an acknowledged approximation to that perfection in practical politics, which all people ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... mouth of the Tuba, and the Cossack brought us in his wagon to the first village, where we received the post horses. All except a small minority of the peasants were against the Bolsheviki and voluntarily assisted us. I paid them for their help by treating their sick and my fellow traveler gave them practical advice in the management of their agriculture. Those who helped us chiefly were the old ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... sighed heavily. Leaning against the railing in a studied attitude, and eying wistfully each gay and fashionable equipage, with its often lovely, and sometimes haughty enclosure, as it rolled slowly past him, Mr. Titmouse became more and more convinced of a great practical truth, viz. that the only real distinction between mankind was that effected by money. Want of money alone had placed him in his present abject position. Abject indeed! By the great folk, who were passing ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... therefore not liable to be disturbed by storms unless I chose. It is possible for every human being to live in the sunshine of the soul whatever may be the material surroundings of the body. The so-called 'practical' person would have said to me:—'Why are you happy?' There is no real cause for this sudden elation. You think you have met someone who is in sympathy with your tastes, ideas and feelings,—but you may be quite wrong, and this bright wave ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... of the class, often remarked she would arise long before light rather than to lose the opportunity of hearing the Bible explained in the simple, practical way the ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... be as practical and matter-of-fact as possible, I wiped the moisture from his brow with my handkerchief and patted ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... and unafraid. That has not been my experience either with them or of them. While it is true that cares of a certain type increase with age the knowledge of how to deal with them increases, or ought to increase, in the same progression. With no practical experience to support them the young are up against the unknown and problematical—occupation, marriage, sexual urge, life in general—around which clings that terror of the dark which frightened ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... practical and sez, "Can't you git his mind on some work? Hain't there sunthin' that ort to be done round the farm? ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... facility and promptness for which men had not been prepared even by his rapid changes on the questions of the Russian War and Italian Nationality, and said that the Southern Confederacy would be recognized as a belligerent, which is, to all intents and purposes of a practical character, the same thing as acknowledging it to be a nation. What was the cause of this sudden change? We have only to look at the dates of the events that, followed the fall of Fort Sumter to find an answer. Lord John Russell believed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... my smart friends trying to play a practical joke on my guest. I fooled him. Don't let it happen again, until you send in the party's ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... command of language was extraordinary, tho he had little imagination and his vocabulary was limited; but he possest the faculty of expressing himself in a racy, virile manner, within the apprehension of every reader. As he treated every topic in a practical rather than a philosophical spirit, and with strong feeling rather than infallible logic, so he never wrote above the heads of the public. What he said was plain, clear, striking. His illustrations were quaint and homely, sometimes even vulgar, but they never failed to tell. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... is how one of the most eminent French socialists, M. Albert Thomas, a man who has given abundant proof of his practical experience and actual talents, formerly the French Minister of Munitions, depicts ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... had heard enough to convince him that he was in danger of being once more sacrificed to the insatiable passion of his two old pupils for chaffing and practical joking. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... in Europe after the end of the Dark Ages was the industrial revolution, which led to fundamental changes in the means of production at the same time that advances in natural and social science produced their practical ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... to feel one's self a gentleman again and to associate with one's equals. Ha! ha! how savage Sir Ferdinand is by this time, and the Commissioner! As for the Dawsons, they'll make a joke of it. Fancy my dining at the camp! It's about the best practical joke I ever carried out, and I've ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... political opposition; MUBARAK tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, but moved more aggressively since then to block its influence; civic society groups are sanctioned, but constrained in practical terms; trade unions and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and constituting the indispensable food of plants, his lordship was unacquainted with. The gist of agricultural chemistry with him was, that plants 'are composed of gases with a small proportion of calcareous matter; for although this discovery may appear to be of small moment to the practical farmer, yet it is well deserving of his attention ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... for the theoretical and practical instruction of his officers and noncommissioned officers, not only in the duties of their respective grades, but in those of ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... again. There seems to be no practical way of keeping her out. This time she came breezing in with a friend from East Aurora, a large, elderly woman of about one hundred and ten summers and an equal number of very hard winters. The first thing mother said was to the effect that she was going to see what she could ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... and Abner was faithfully carrying out the course of study he suggested. He was floundering through hours of lectures on the theory of the subject, and conscientiously working in the college settlement to get the practical side of things. He had the distressed look of a person with very short legs who is trying to keep up with a procession of six-footers, although there was nothing short about Abner. His legs were long, and his body was long, his arms ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... or the pound. The last duty laid on strong beer and ale was three shillings per barrel, which, if taken off, would lessen the purchase only half a farthing per pint, and consequently, would not reach to practical relief. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the things of his will—and then he made himself King. He smiled after that when people did not raise their hats to him in the street, as he walked from the station to Business; but he was sufficiently practical for recognize that it was better not to talk of this to those that only knew him as ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... drove in the park, or filled the places of amusement, came to look like children, engaged in frolicsome games. He felt that people who had so little room to breathe in must be small; and before the trial brought him into practical contact with them, he was himself again, and quite ready to meet them in any encounter ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... proceed with the poll, ignoring all that had taken place two days before. The Hall was very crowded, and soon debate arose as to whom belonged the right of adjournment. The opinion of counsel was taken by both parties then and there,(1500) but with little practical result, and the lord mayor further adjourned the Hall until ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... bibliomania[obs3], bibliolatry[obs3]; information, general information; store of knowledge &c.; education &c. (teaching) 537; culture, menticulture[obs3], attainments; acquirements, acquisitions; accomplishments; proficiency; practical knowledge &c. (skill) 698; liberal education; dilettantism; rudiments &c (beginning) 66. deep knowledge, profound knowledge, solid knowledge, accurate knowledge, acroatic knowledge[obs3], acroamatic knowledge[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... from among the common people, used to poverty and self-denial, their duties led them into intimate relations with the natives and they were naturally fitted to adapt the foreign religion and morals to practical use. So, too, in later times, when they came to possess rich livings, and their pious zeal, in general, relaxed as their revenues increased, they still contributed most essentially to bring about conditions, both good and bad, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the Terra di Lavoro, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... think," said Mr. Newberry, "I speak as a practical man, that we ought to do something to get the ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... answered firmly. "I am a practical woman now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... of the Dutch was altogether nineteen ships. De Witt the pensionary then took in person the command of the fleet, which was soon equipped; and he gave a high proof of the adaptation of genius to a pursuit previously unknown, by the rapid knowledge and the practical improvements he introduced into some of the most ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... "George was very practical; I was romantic and my father something of a dreamer. We lived happily at home, but I felt that he needed sympathy that he did not get. I think now my mother knew he longed for the North, and was afraid the longing might grow too strong and draw him back. When he did ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... practical Tu, "it is too plain that the examining magistrates are all in league to ruin him. But let our elder brother remain quietly at home, doing all he can to collect evidence in the colonel's favour, while we will do our best at the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... Street above the Circus is the Polytechnic Young Men's Christian Institute and Day Schools, also the Polytechnic School of Art, founded in 1838, and enlarged ten years later. It was originally intended for the exhibition of novelties in the Arts and practical Sciences, especially agriculture and other branches of industry. Exhibitions were held here and lectures and classes established, but in 1881 the building was sold, and is now used as ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... and smoked in contented silence; Frank said always: "We'll ooze along easy like, for we've all the time there is." Which sentiment, whether from reiterated suggestion, or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy, or charm of its free ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... your "martyr to circumstance" is like a smart felucca in a strong Levanter; and you can watch his course—how he shakes out his reefs or shortens sail—how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his colours—with an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of cleverness—what stores of practical ability—were lost to the world in these out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, play every game well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, especially with the pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass of qualities that win success! and, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... only learn from strangers, or from experience." Let us, then, at least listen to one who admires us and our institutions, and whose complaints, when he makes any, are, that we have not perfected our own glorious plans, and that there are some things yet to be amended. We shall thus furnish a practical proof, that public opinion in this country is not so intolerant as the author may be understood to represent it. However mistaken he may be, his manly appeal to our understandings and to our consciences, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... last twenty-five years Germany has so enormously advanced in commerce that she urgently needs some further outlet on a northern seacoast. This means Holland and Belgium. Hamburg and Bremen are the only two practical harbors that Germany possesses for the distribution of her enormous export. The congestion in both places is such that steamers wait for weeks to load. One-quarter of Germany's exports goes through Antwerp. Germany must have Antwerp. Practically the whole of southern ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... the editor. "There you have it—a practical illustration! Our civilisation has had to come ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... a sermon; not quite such a one as Emily Hotspur had preached, but much more practical, and with less reticence. If he went on living as he was living now, he would "come to grief." He was drinking every day, and would some day find that he could not do so with impunity. Did he know what delirium tremens was? Did he want to go to the devil altogether? ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... makes Shakespeare's plays pleasant reading. It has been edited and produced with that end in view. It contains copious Notes, Comments and Glossaries explaining every difficult passage and obsolete word. For the purpose of acquiring a real and practical knowledge of Shakespeare's works this edition is far superior to any ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... course, is to ask our mothers and Mrs. Hamilton," said Dorothy, who was always practical. "I know mamma will be glad to have me learn, though I'm afraid the cook won't like to have us in ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... referred, clearly, to the custom of "five-o'clock" tea, known to him only by the contemporary novel of manners and the catchy advertisement of table-linen. He had never in his life been present at any such luxurious rite, but he was offering practical indifference to it as a false mark of his sense that his social relation had already risen to his chin. "I gave up my very modest, but rather interesting little old book business, perhaps you know, ever so ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... his profession. Make a friend of him by your good conduct, and you will do well.' The Winchelsea was manned with good seamen, with scarcely a landsman on board; and the first lieutenant, senior master's mate, and boatswain, were all excellent practical seamen; so that the midshipmen and youngsters, to the number of nearly thirty, could not be in a better situation for obtaining a knowledge of practical seamanship. We soon found that the activity of our captain would not allow us an idle hour, and there was so ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... the progress of the pestilence in the people's food have occupied the attention of scientific men. The commission appointed by government, consisting of three of the must celebrated practical chemists, has published a preliminary report, in which several suggestions, rather than ascertained results, are communicated, by which the sound portions of the root may, it is hoped, be preserved from the epidemic, and possibly, the tainted be rendered innoxious, and even partially ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell |
