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Unimportant   /ənɪmpˈɔrtənt/   Listen
Unimportant

adjective
1.
Not important.  "The question seems unimportant"
2.
Devoid of importance, meaning, or force.  Synonym: insignificant.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unimportant" Quotes from Famous Books



... a moment without speaking. Sommers could see that his blundering words had placed him in a worse position than before. At the same time he was aware that he regretted it; that "views" were comparatively unimportant to a young woman; and that this woman, at least, was far ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... over gin and whisky, and whose word is an indisputable veto against even a smaller, is no unimportant personage in that feverish neighbourhood. In this instance, Richards's doctorship was of the double utility of delivering us from the threatened pint-glasses, and of causing us to be considered as privileged guests—no small ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... not but arrest attention, and all the other girls immediately owned to a sense of inferiority in her presence. But Irene was so endowed with nature's grace that she could not do an awkward thing; and then the child who accompanied her, the small unimportant child, was as beautiful in her way as Irene was in hers. So charming a pair did they make, those two, each of them dressed in the purest white, that Rosamund, who was considered quite the handsomest girl in the school, seemed ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... observations. I do not forget that to the advocacy of the "New Dispensation" are devoted many men of earnestness and a few of ability. It is possible that the facts they build upon may render mine exceptional and unimportant. What is here set down is but a trifling contribution to that mass of human testimony and human opinion from which the truth must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... admirable letter of "AN OLD SOLDIER" in your paper this week, there are a few unimportant errors due, no doubt, to your Correspondent's age, and the shortness of memory consequent upon it that mar, in a measure, the trenchant force of his criticism. I feel sure he will pardon my reminding him that the Coldstream Guards do not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various

... serfs were captured by the conquerors; this would indicate a population of at least some 4-5 millions. This seems a possible number, if we consider that an inscription of the tenth century B.C. which reports about an ordinary war against a small and unimportant western neighbour, speaks of 13,081 free men and 4,812 serfs taken ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... was but an unimportant incident in the naval annals of the colonies. It was followed quickly by an ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... these objects as described; constituted as our bodies are, such a constant and regular succession of heat and cold is just such as the necessities of the human frame require. The alternations of day and night, of winter and summer, are far from being merely incidental and unimportant circumstances in the general adaptation of the earth to man's constitutional wants; neither do they bear reference solely to the productions of the earth for his use. They exert a continual and direct influence on his constitution, calculated to ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various

... name in every country that he visited. The Chaldeans, for instance, give us his story, merely altering his name into Xisuthrus—a trivial alteration, which to an historian skilled in etymologies will appear wholly unimportant. It appears, likewise, that he had exchanged his tarpaulin and quadrant among the Chaldeans for the gorgeous insignia of royalty, and appears as a monarch in their annals. The Egyptians celebrate him under the name of Osiris; the Indians as Menu; the Greek and Roman writers ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... the farm, Maurice the hard-working farmer and old Timothy the father. But the father, too, is far from what he should be, as one must suspect, not believing that education alone can account for so many gone wrong. Timothy burns down some unimportant farm buildings for the insurance upon them. This practice is so common in all parts of the world civilized sufficiently to have insurance that I wonder insurance companies take risks on backwoods farms ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... application and the same unchangeableness as the measure of length, which is determined by astronomical calculation, we should be able, not only to clearly understand all the data relating to value, that is to say, a not unimportant portion of historical science, but we should, moreover, have a practical means to condition and fix even perpetual annuities, in such a way, that they would always afford the same economic and purchasing power to the person receiving them. No wonder, therefore, that ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... and Lawson had nothing more to say to one another. Philip was no longer interested in art; it seemed to him that he was able to enjoy beauty with greater force than when he was a boy; but art appeared to him unimportant. He was occupied with the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of life, and the materials with which he worked seemed to make preoccupation with pigments and words very trivial. Lawson had served his turn. Philip's ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... torrents, but the end was worth the cost. Would it hurl a hundred thousand men into bloody graves? That was unfortunate, but unavoidable. Would the struggle frighten and horrify the world? It was possible. But these things were unimportant. The rebellion must be crushed. The sledge-hammer must strike until Lee's keen rapier was shattered. Hammer and rapier were matched against each other—the combat was a l'outrance—the hammer must beat down the rapier, or fall from the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... come in, Annie," said Jean, as if she had been interpreting his words. But she detained her nevertheless to ask several unimportant questions. At length the voice of Thomas rousing her once more, she hastened to ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... with Siam which had been stopped or postponed several years in consequence of some misunderstanding before. He became acquainted with certain parts of English language and literature, and certain parts of Hindoo or Bengali language, as sufficient for some unimportant conversation with English and Indian strangers who were visitors of Siam, upon the latter part of the reign of his royal father; but his royal father did not know that he possessed such knowledge of foreign language, which had been concealed to the native persons in republic affairs, whose ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... great city, the capital of the Bohemian Crownland, the centre of a not unimportant nation, the focus in which are concentrated the hottest, if not the brightest, rays from the fire of regeneration kindled within the last half century by the Slavonic race. There is an ardent furnace of life hidden beneath ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... and crumble rapidly on being exposed to the weather; while granite, marble, and other rocks will last for a long time without perceptible change. The causes of this crumbling are various, and are not unimportant to the agriculturist; as by the same processes by which his soil was formed, he can increase its depth, or otherwise improve it. This being the case, we will in a few words explain some of ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... deduced therefrom will assume quite a different form when managed by Officers who have learnt to understand and to judge operations on a large scale. Without such training only isolated facts will be reported—deductions will not be drawn. There will be no discrimination between important and unimportant details, and the Officer himself will not be able to come to a correct decision as to the direction in which to pursue his mission. But this is exactly what it is most important that all Officers should be relied ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... MSS. some single words have been erased, or rubbed off, at the top and the foot of the page. The blanks are indicated, and as a rule, but not quite invariably, explained in footnotes. MSS. X and H are printed entire, with two unimportant omissions, one in each, which are noted and explained, and as regards MS. H, with the exception of some detached pages of accounts, and a catalogue of some books. Of these it was thought that the Appendix contains enough. From MS. K only extracts are given. The remainder ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... confidence of the Leichardt's Land Executive Council and to have taken up his abode for the winter session in the Seat of Government, though he seemed to regard his recent election for a Northern constituency as an unimportant episode in a career ultimately consecrated to the elucidation of far-reaching ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... had told her she was pretty and irresistible, but she thrilled to his praise, nevertheless. It was the first compliment she had ever received from any man but the commonplace and unimportant friends her brother had brought home occasionally before he had been introduced to society; he took good care to bring home none ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... to the Oxford here described—the Oxford where Gibbon and Adam Smith wasted the best years of their lives, and many of their unremembered contemporaries followed in their steps with issues not less disastrous to themselves, however unimportant to others—to the Oxford where young men swore to observe laws which they never read, and renewed a solemn promise when they had discovered the impossibility of keeping it—that Wesley, about a score of years after his entrance to the University, poured forth from the pulpit of Saint ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... introduce that tide of French diction which flowed on to the close of the Middle Ages. By that time the new words were so numerous and so strongly ingrafted on the native stock that all subsequent additions are unimportant. The dictionaries of modern English are said to contain about 38,000 words, of which about 23,000 or five eighths of the whole number, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... to teach, it should also convey to the more educated reader some intimations of a deeper knowledge on the part of its author. The choice of a word, the turn of a phrase, the order in which facts were arranged, the occurrence here and there of a sentence which an ordinary reader would pass over as unimportant, would to such a person be indications of trains of thought far more profound than those which appeared on the surface. And this recognition would be proportional to two things—the amount of scientific knowledge possessed by the reader, and his mastery of the ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... Voltaire was a flippant, hasty reviler of Christianity, without originality in the material of his works, without depth of soul: Rousseau was serious, fresh, full of pathos. Voltaire either had no creed, or thought one unimportant, and was actuated by malignant hatred against Judaism and Christianity: Rousseau had a firm creed, and spoke with decency of the religion which he rejected. Voltaire was devoid of taste for ancient literature, witty under a mask, a selfish sycophant to the ancient political ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... any other nation, including Spain itself, and our citizens are in habits of daily and extended personal intercourse with every part of the island. It is therefore a great grievance that when any difficulty occurs, no matter how unimportant, which might be readily settled at the moment, we should be obliged to resort to Madrid, especially when the very first step to be taken there is to refer it back ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... Although Jim was as old in years lived as himself, he seemed very young. He began to be a little afraid of the man. He could not understand why the money, nearly twenty-five hundred dollars he had put in the bank during the two years Jim had been with him, seemed so unimportant and the twelve hundred dollars he had earned slowly after twenty years of work seemed so important. As there was much repair work always waiting to be done in the shop, he did not go home to lunch, but every day carried a few sandwiches to the shop ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... weakly boy, all forehead and no muscle—have not clothes and shoes been from time immemorial the appointed work of such? The fact that that weakly frame is generally compensated by a proportionally increased activity of brain, is too unimportant to enter into the calculations of the great King Laissez-faire. Well, my dear Society, it is you that suffer for the mistake, after all, more than we. If you do tether your cleverest artisans on tailors' shopboards and cobblers' benches, and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... when one morning, as I was overlooking some workmen who were employed about my house, I was accosted by a constable, who informed me that he was sent to request my immediate appearance before a neighbouring bench of magistrates. Concluding that I was merely summoned on some unimportant business connected with the neighbourhood, I felt no surprise, and forthwith departed in company with the officer. The demeanour of the man upon the way struck me as somewhat singular. I had frequently spoken to him before, and had always found him civil and respectful, but he was now ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... nearly related to the Christmas roses, and, like them, flowers in winter, the bright golden blossoms suddenly appearing during sunshine close to the earth. A little later the involucrum becomes developed, and is no unimportant feature. It forms a dark green setting for the sessile flower, and is beautifully cut, like the Aconite. There are other and very interesting traits about this little flower that will ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... had deliberately chosen the least frequented side of his palace, but even that was more frequented than he liked. But there was no particular chance of officious or diplomatic pursuit, for his exit had been a sudden impulse. All the full-dressed diplomatists he left behind were unimportant. He had realized suddenly that he could ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... which rendered it unnecessary and unimportant to commence hostile operations on the part of the United States being now terminated by the peace with Great Britain, which opens the prospect of an active and valuable trade of their citizens within the range of the Algerine cruisers, I recommend ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson

... intermittently, and the harvest bug (bete rouge we call him here) gets in his work unintermittently on me. If things were normal this introduction to the bete rouge would have seemed to me a tragedy. As it is, it is unpleasantly unimportant. I clean house intermittently; read intermittently; write letters intermittently. That reminds me, do read Leon Daudet's "Fantomes et Vivantes"—the first volumes of his memoirs. He is a terrible example of "Le fils a papa." I don't know ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich

... that unknown woman surged up within her. Surely her burden of remorse must be almost more than she could endure! And Magda—to whom penalties and consequences had hitherto been but very unimportant factors with which she concerned herself as little as possible—was all at once conscious of an intense thankfulness that she had not been thus punished, that she had quitted Stockleigh leaving husband and wife still together. Together, they ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... of Tenuchtitlan. The settlements at Iztapalapan, Huntzilopocheo, and Mexicaltzinco were but military stations— outworks, guarding the issues of the causeways to the South. Tepeyacac (Guadalupe Hidalgo) was a similar position—unimportant as to population—in the north. Chapultepec was a sacred spot, not inhabited by any number of people and only held by the Mexicans for burial purposes, and on account of the springs furnishing fresh water ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... unimportant incidents, in order to show that our exploration of the palace was not impeded by any attempt at concealment. We were even admitted to her ladyship's own room—on a subsequent occasion, when she went out to take the air. Our instructions recommended us to examine his lordship's ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... the rate of morbidity in different trades affect the cost, but these are relatively unimportant in the unions considered. A more important cause of difference in cost is the extent to which the unions are able to prevent the sick benefit from becoming a pension to members incapacitated by old age and disease. The heavy ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy

... smiling at some pleasantry of Ruez who was close to her side, and now again regarding for a moment the tall, manly figure of an officer near the proscenium box, who was on duty there, and evidently the officer of the evening. This may sound odd to a republican, but no assembly, no matter how unimportant, is permitted, except under the immediate eye and supervision of ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... or chemistry, a science of experiment. While the amount of experimental instruction (not involving vivisection or experiment otherwise unsuitable) that may with propriety be given in the high school is neither small nor unimportant, the limitations to such experimental teaching, both as to kind and as to amount, are ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... entirely unexpected to herself and the Buckleys. Dulcibel indeed had wondered, when walking through the village in the morning, that several persons she knew had seemed to avoid meeting her. But she was too full of happiness in her recent betrothal to take umbrage or alarm at such an unimportant circumstance. A few months now, and Salem, she hoped, would see her no more forever. She knew, for Master Raymond had told her, that there were plenty of places in the world where life was reasonably gay and sunny and ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... though th' king wud have to be cawrnated be a glazier. They cudden't find th' tickets high or low. It wudden't do to cawrnate him in a glass hat, an' there was gr-reat thribylations, but Pierpont Morgan come along at th' right moment an' give thim a handful iv his unimportant jools an' th' hat was properly decorated. Fr'm that time on we saw that if we were to get th' worth iv our money, we'd have to do th' job oursilves, an' ivrybody turned in to help our depindant cousins. ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne

... enough," said Valerie, very pale. "He could not love me as I care for him; it is not in a man to do it, nor in any human being to love as I love him. You don't understand, Rita. I must be a part of him—not very much, because already there is so much to him—and I am so—so unimportant." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... of Colonel Telfair's residence in Jackson, Miss., whence you hail, and you will not be set upon. But in New York you must be either a New Yorker or an invader of a modern Troy, concealed in the wooden horse of your conceited provincialism. And this dreary preamble is only to introduce to you the unimportant figures of ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... surprised and indignant when, after carrying on what seemed to her a long conversation with Mr. Clark upon various unimportant subjects, her father left with nothing more definite than that they were pleased with the rooms and would let him know their decision ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... combine human and animal forms in a less noble and artistic way than is done in the Egyptian representation of the Sphinx. There are also small figures of animals in terra-cotta, principally dogs and ducks. But the large and small statues of the Assyrians are their most unimportant works in sculpture. It is in their bas-reliefs that their greatest excellence is seen, and in them alone their progress in art can be traced. This sort of sculpture seems to have been used by the Assyrians just as painting was used ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... must be carefully considered. Very often unaccented syllables are made unduly prominent and unimportant words are over-emphasized through lack of attention to this principle. The careful appreciation of rhythm, or the movement of syllables in enunciation, gives a flowing, easy, well-proportioned clearness that is indispensable to beauty. This should be practised in connection with ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... her to allow him to escort her, which was obviously the proper thing. When she refused again, and went off, like any nobody, alone, he returned to his chambers, leaving Rosalie to the unimportant persons whose business it was to ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... wide-spreading chestnuts, or the stately beech—all is harmony to perfection; nothing is wanting to complete the fascination of the whole. The enlarged and cultivated minds which conceived these vast yet minute arrangements, did not consider minor details as unimportant; every tree, and brake, and bush; every ornament, every path, is exactly in its right place, and seems to have ever been there. Nothing, however great, or however small, has escaped consideration; there ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... approach an epoch in the history of parties which materially involves the consistency of Mr. Tazewell as a politician. Although he had not been in public life since his withdrawal from Congress, he held no unimportant place in popular estimation. His course in the House of Delegates during four troublous years, and in the House of Representatives where he had taken an active and fearless part in the fierce strife for the election of a President, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... shipping about one-third of the lard which we produce, and large quantities of oleo oil for oleomargarine. Although the exports of butter in 1917 have almost been doubled since the preceding fiscal year, it is relatively unimportant, representing only about 1 per cent of the production. We are shipping cottonseed oil also, but this requires tank-steamers, which are scarce. In general, as the oils are much more difficult to handle and impossible for the armies to use, we must ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker

... as Dupont de Nemours named them, the physiocrats, formed a not unimportant wing of the philosophic phalanx, now in harmony with the Encyclopaedic party, now in hostility. The sense of the misery of France was present to many minds in the opening of the century, and with the death of Louis XIV. came illusive hopes of amelioration. The Abbe de Saint-Pierre ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... him, if he will be consistent with himself, to hold that every institution connected with marriage that has universal validity, or forms an integral part of the main line of development, is rooted in instinct, and that institutions which are not based on instinct are necessarily exceptional and unimportant for ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... an integral, and I believe invaluable element of Scripture. I have deliberately ignored many questions of great interest and difficulty, because I had no satisfactory solution of them to offer; but I have said at the same time that those questions were altogether unimportant, compared with those salient and fundamental points of the Bible history on which I was preaching. And therefore I have dared to bid my people relinquish Biblical criticism to those who have time for it; and to say of it with me, as Abraham of ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... she resolved to deliver France. She knew nothing of war; she had not been accustomed to equestrian exercises, like a woman of chivalry; she had no friends; she had never seen great people; she was poor and unimportant. To the eye of worldly wisdom her resolution was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... He had chosen a husband for his cousin Arabella before. It was a natural presumption that he would not object to her marriage now. But if Elizabeth was jealous, he was suspicious. A foolish plot was made by some unimportant individuals to get rid of the Scottish king and place Arabella on the English throne. A letter to this effect was sent to the lady. She laughed at it, and sent it to the king, who, probably, did ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Bishop would probably have passed on without investigating the matter. A head of a house hates above all things to get a name for not minding his own business in unimportant matters. Such a reputation tells against him when he has to put his foot down over big things. To have invaded the senior day-room and stopped a conventional senior day-room 'rag' would have been interfering with the most cherished rights of the citizens, the freedom which is ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... 28th, with Robinson as the hero, Schroeder-Hanfstngl as Mathilde, Slach as Gemmy, Staudigl as Gessler, Koegel as Walter, Udvardi as Arnold, and Brandt exemplifying a new spirit in opera by her assumption of the unimportant part of Tell's wife; "Lohengrin," on December 3d, with Krauss, Brandt, Schott, and Staudigl in the principal parts; "Don Giovanni," on December 10th, with Schroeder-Hanfstngl as Donna Anna, Hermine Bely as Zerlina, Brandt as Elvira, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... chiefly occupied, to our view, in rushing round the sun; but perhaps found from another angle to fill quite another part in the cosmic scheme. And on this apparently unimportant speck, wandering among systems of suns, the appearance of life and its slow development and ever-increasing sensitization; the emerging of pain and of pleasure; and presently man with his growing capacity for self-affirmation and self-sacrifice, for rapture and for grief. Love ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... leaving behind Ropey's gun, which was unimportant as it had only one notch, and Pete's precious companion of many campaigns with its six notches, lying on ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... it may not be amiss to give some description of persons destined to play a not unimportant part in ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking together; it was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly ...
— The Lady, or the Tiger? • Frank R. Stockton

... he kept as he did all others, whether of a public or a private nature. After the usual exchange of stipends and tributes, Roderick returned to his home in the west; and thus, with the treaty of Ferns, ended the comparatively unimportant but significant campaign of the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... made in 1860 instead of 1836, Mr. Adams would not have been compelled to rely upon these comparatively trivial and unimportant instances of interference by Congress and the President for the support and protection of slavery. For the last twenty years, the support and protection of that institution has been, to use Mr. Adams's words at ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various

... is comparatively unimportant. Charlotte certainly was under no illusion; and we who revere her to-day as one of the greatest of Englishwomen need have no illusions. It is sufficient that, if not beautiful, Charlotte possessed a singular charm of manner, and, when interested, an exhilarating flow of conversation ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... brought the tea at that moment, and the conversation passed to unimportant topics till ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... in The Debater must have been little less surprising to any master who had merely watched him slumbering at a desk. His historical romance "The White Cockade" is immature and unimportant. But essays on Spenser, Milton, Pope, Gray, Cowper, Burns, Wordsworth, "Humour in Fiction," "Boys' Literature," Sir Walter Scott, Browning, the English Dramatists, showed a range and a quality of literary criticism alike surprising. Perhaps most surprising, however, is the fact that all ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... holy, there's Dick a-hallooing," said Cox, forgetting at once the comparatively unimportant affairs of Newton Priory in the breaking of this unexpected fox. "Golly;—if he ain't away, Squire." The hounds had gone at once to the whip's voice, and were in full cry in less time than it has taken to tell the story ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... related to one another can only be determined by internal evidence. The smaller works, chiefly on alchemy, are unimportant, and the dates of their composition cannot be ascertained. It is known that before the Opus Majus Bacon had already written some tracts, among which an unpublished work, Computus Naturalium, on chronology, belongs ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... returned Paganel. "The word is quite unimportant; I will not even try to find out its meaning. The main point is that AUSTRAL means AUSTRALIE, and we must have gone blindly on a wrong track not to have discovered the explanation at the very beginning, it was so evident. If I had found the document ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act. The great struggle for independence and national honour occupied all minds; and those who were agreed as to the duty of maintaining that struggle with vigour might well postpone to a more convenient time all disputes about matters comparatively unimportant. Strongly impressed by these considerations, Pitt wished to form a ministry including all the first men in the country. The Treasury he reserved for himself; and to Fox he proposed to assign a share of power little inferior ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Archivio Storico Italiano, in which it is represented by the editor to be more correctly copied from the manuscript, and amended in its language where it seemed corrupt; but such corrections are few and unimportant. In all cases in which the letter is now made the subject of critical examination, the passages referred to are given, for obvious reasons, according to the reading of ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy

... that I am saying nothing about advertising. One would think from the pharmaceutical papers, with which I am not unfamiliar, that the druggist's chief end was to have a sensational show window of some kind. These things are not unimportant, but I do not dwell on them because I believe that if a druggist realizes the importance of his profession; if he makes himself a recognized expert in it; if he sticks to it and magnifies it; if he makes his place indispensable to the community around him, the first point ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... that it was introduced to occupy the minds of worshippers during the long wait, on a summer's day, between the afternoon and evening services. Whatever the reason for this custom may have been is immaterial and unimportant; but what is of importance is that, by this excellent practice, a whole body of moral dicta—each one summing up with remarkable conciseness a life's experience and philosophy, each one breathing the spirit of piety, saintliness, justice, ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text

... have seen or feel what you have felt, or forget what you have had to forget. I know it. And after all that, can't you—won't you—forget the strange manner in which I came aboard this ship? It is such a simple, little thing to put out of your mind, so trivial, so unimportant when you look back—and ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... worship, and took the initial steps for the establishment of an institution of learning. It is not too much to say that the hour that witnessed these enactments witnessed the triumph of the popular over the court party; in no unimportant sense, the first triumph of the American colonists over kingly prerogative. Looking through the mists of the mighty past, Mr. Speaker, to the House of Burgesses, over which your first predecessor presided, would it be out of place to apply ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... post-Raffaelite picture of extremest quality, wherein the girl's hair alone, as the focus of observation, was depicted with intensity and distinctness, and her face, shoulders, hands, and figure in general, being a blurred mass of unimportant detail lost in haze ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... to the interests of the British colonies; and it does not appear that even Great Britain herself has received any equivalent for inflicting so serious an injury on a portion of the empire by no means unimportant. The Canadians and Nova Scotians found a market for their surplus produce in the West Indies, for which they took in return the productions of these islands—thus a reciprocal advantage was derived to ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it were a ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... gone, with its various changes, and the mother of the Collingwood Street household felt each day that the short life of Marmaduke Viscount Fordham had not been an unimportant ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of a steamer? I think not. However, I do not deny that a steamer has many and great advantages over a ship. The chief advantage, and the only one to which I need allude, is the prosaic but not unimportant one of better food, and this with many people would decide in favour of a steamer. Perhaps we were exceptionally unfortunate in this respect. The Hampshire is a barque of 1,100 tons, and belonging to Captain Hosack, of Liverpool. She is most commodious; the cabins are much larger than is usual in ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... swearing were more picturesque than they are now, and when women loved and worked samplers. This sort of story can be read best in front of the Christmas log; it is of the past, and comes naturally into a Christmas number. I shall not describe its plot, for that is unimportant; it is the "stap me's" and the "la, sirs," which matter. But I may say that she marries him all right in the end, and he goes off happily ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne

... religious teaching without love, and conducted under the exclusive influence of fear, may and must be barren—nay, worse than barren—we ask you to leave this part of our duty as a parent entirely to ourselves. Our duty it is, and to you we delegate no part of it; and this, not because we deem it unimportant, but because we deem it important in the highest degree, and are solicitous that no unkindly element should mar it in its effects. Now where, we ask, is the ecclesiastical office-bearer who, in his official ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... question. They always proceeded cautiously and gradually. For instance, they at first accepted the Declaration of London in principle, but made several alterations which to the public, who did not realize the extent of their effect, seemed unimportant and which yet formed the basis for the gradual throwing overboard of the Declaration of London. After public opinion had grown accustomed to the English encroachments and the interests affected had been pacified by the Allied contracts, the blockade ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... deal more, which, if he had a high opinion of woman, even his anxiety to make his character of Adam consistent would not have demanded. An amiable temper on the part of a wife, with her own natural softness, and an inclination to yield in unimportant matters, will not only increase love, but power; for in this respect, agreeably to the opinion of Prince Eugene, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... no means unimportant consideration was whether to remain and meet results with the command, or for each man to shift for himself. Setting out from Richmond on the preceding Sunday, with no accumulation of vigor to draw on, we had passed a week with food and sleep scarcely sufficient for one day; and to cope with ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... in-door business, and makes himself very useful, in a quiet sort of way, in keeping things straight—no unimportant position in a business house, let me ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens

... indebtedness was, and anxious as he might be to acknowledge it, he was as a humourist keenly alive to certain glaring defects of the great German writers; to their frequent tendency to lose themselves among the mere minutiae of erudition, and thus to confuse the unimportant and the important; to their habit of rising at times into the clouds rather than above the clouds, and of there disporting themselves in regions "close-bordering on the impalpable inane;" to their too conspicuous want of order, system, perspective. The dramatic machinery of "Sartor Resartus" ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... mistake, and answered their questions in his dry, witty way, and assured them that his instructions were to bring them home as soon as possible. Accordingly, they embarked on the steamer on the following Saturday; and, passing over the unimportant incidents of their voyage, we come back to our starting point, where all three were within a day's ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... its people fled from the raiders of Baybay. The master-of-camp having returned from his expedition among the friendly villages, set out for Baybay, under guidance of Simaquio. This latter guided them, not to the chief city, where the prisoners from Mandam had been taken, but to the small and unimportant village of Caramucua, which was found deserted. At the town of Calabazan the Spaniards were duped by the few natives found there, who claimed to be natives of Cebu, and asked the invaders to wait two days and they would bring ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair

... this charity of thought is not merely to be exercised towards the poor; it is to be exercised towards all men. There is assuredly no action of our social life, however unimportant, which, by kindly thought, may not be made to have a beneficial influence upon others; and it is impossible to spend the smallest sum of money, for any not absolutely necessary purpose, without a grave responsibility ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... an enemy in the world, almost everyone wished her well, but in very few cases was there any marked enthusiasm about her inheritance. "Ridiculous," was the most frequent comment: or "Fancy that little thing!" It seemed absurd that such an unimportant person should have had such a large ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... the tables for Apothecaries' weight and Troy measure, Complex and Compound Fractions;[Footnote: For a more complete list of such topics, see Teachers College Record, Mathematics in the Elementary School, March, 1903, by David Eugene Smith and F. M. McMurry.] in geography, the location of many unimportant capes, bays, capitals and other towns, rivers and boundaries; in nature study, many classifications, the detailed study of leaves, and the study of many uncommon wild plants. The teaching of facts that cannot function in the lives of pupils directly encourages the mere ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... making experiments of some interest at South Kensington, and hoped that I had perfected a small but not unimportant discovery, when, on returning home one evening in late October in the year 1893, I found a visiting card on my table. On it were inscribed the words, "Mr. Geoffrey Bainbridge." This name was quite unknown to me, so I rang the bell ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... the colonies and at home, a more sound and true conception of their duty than was ever shown by their predecessors? Such hopes, undoubtedly, are entertained by a portion of the British public, not unimportant either in numbers or in moral and political influence. Nevertheless, the zealously attached members of the Church of England need not to be reminded of a truth which is frequently brought before them in the circle of its daily service. They know that "it is better to trust in the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... of that sort had been seen, and he presently went away. And Brereton, after an unimportant word or two, went away too, certain by that time that the death of Stoner had some sinister connexion with the ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher

... occasion when the salt boats had arrived, but that it was impossible to please the Governor, for last year he was angry because the salt was refused, and now he was angry because it was taken. After some further unimportant observations, a violent storm came on ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kashan, hung strings of fine pearl, disposed with an air of studied negligence;—nor did the exquisite embroidery of his sandals escape the observation of these fair critics; who, however they might give way to FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion and government, had the spirit of martyrs in everything relating to such momentous ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... trusting to luck to bring it to an end. You must know all about the end and the middle before thinking, even, of the beginning; the beginning of a riddle story, unlike those of other stories and of other enterprises, is not half the battle; it is next to being quite unimportant, and, moreover, it is always easy. The unexplained corpse lies weltering in its gore in the first paragraph; the inexplicable cipher presents its enigma at the turning of the opening page. The writer who is secure in the knowledge that he has got a good thing coming, and has ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... one. "The city once the abode of the flower of Andalusian nobility," says the intelligent O'Shea in his Guide to Spain, "is inhabited chiefly by administradores of the absentee senorio; their 'solares' are desert and wretched, the streets ill paved though clean, and the whitewashed houses unimportant, low, and denuded of all art and meaning, either past or present." Baedeker gives like reasons for thinking "the traveler whose expectation is on tiptoe as he enters the ancient capital of the Moors ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... each with something to sell. And thus we have the woman who goes in for advanced wisdom of the sort on draught in women's clubs—in brief, the sort of wisdom which consists entirely of a body of beliefs and propositions that are ignorant, unimportant and untrue. Such banal striving is most prodigally on display in the United States, where superficiality amounts to a national disease. Its popularity is due to the relatively greater leisure of the American people, who work less than any ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... idea," replied he, "we have here only a scrap of unimportant paper; the name of the legatee is not indicated, and even were it indicated, the testament would still be without force, being ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... hospitably received, as though your presence had been desired; and after having had many questions put to you, and having been forced to tell a number of lies, you will wonder, since the man had never seen you before, that one of high rank should pay such attention to you who are but an unimportant individual; so that by reason of this as a principal source of happiness, you begin to repent of not having come to Rome ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... scene—the jump, in the dusk of the afternoon, from foggy London and his familiar studio to a centre of festivity in the middle of Hertfordshire and a drama half acted, a drama of pretty women and noted men and wonderful orchids in silver jars. He observed as a not unimportant fact that one of the pretty women was beside him: a gentleman sat on his other hand. But he went into his neighbours little as yet: he was busy looking out for Sir David, whom he had never seen and about ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... that De Launay considered extremely artistic. His boots were small and fairly new, and not over adorned with ornamentation. There was also a buckskin waistcoat which was aged and ripened. The other accessories were unimportant. Such things as spurs, bridle, and saddle De Launay had bought when ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... the curiosities, pictures, &c., collected by Mr. Croker at 'Rosamond's Bower,' which it is unnecessary further to refer to; indeed, although intended for private circulation only, it was not completed, as Mr. Croker was led to believe it might appear but an egotistical description of an unimportant house. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... and reciprocally beneficial improvements is obviously gaining ground in France, and I am assured of the disposition of that Government to favor the accomplishment of such an object. This disposition shall be met in a proper spirit on our part. The few and comparatively unimportant questions that remain to be adjusted between us can, I have no doubt, be settled with entire satisfaction and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... harm. But—there might come the terrible moment when she had to face Richard with the confession. Yes, she had known him before. Yes, they had entered into a tacit compact. Yes, she had kept from Nina's father a secret that, while it might be unimportant, certainly should ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... committed no outrage upon person or property—and were actually engaged in entertaining some guests with a dog-feast, when the Illinois militia approached their camp, and killed the bearer of a white flag, which Black Hawk sent to them, in token of his peaceable disposition. These may be unimportant omissions, in the opinion of the Secretary, but in looking to the causes which led to this contest, and the spirit in which it was conducted, they have been deemed of sufficient importance, to receive a passing notice, when referring to ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... Roberts sprang up in her mind, and she wondered if there could be any connection between his determined hanging around the camp and the disappearance of the articles. Might not the taking of the unimportant things at first be a deliberate blind? Calling Sahwah she made her put all the things from Canada in the trunk and locked it securely, after first weighting it down with stones so that it could not be carried away bodily by less ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... more Isabelle had learned from Cairy, who had heard the gossip among men. Woodyard was too unimportant a man to occupy the public eye, even when it was a question of a "gigantic steal," for more than a few brief hours. By the time the Woodyards had returned from that journey to Europe, so hastily undertaken, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... anecdotes here, because I can vouch for their authenticity, and though individually unimportant, they may serve to throw additional light upon the manners, customs, and traditions of the Aborigines of Australia; but to all really interested in the subject, I would recommend a perusal of Captain Grey's second volume. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... sneer was curling on the young man's lip; the mariner's face had resumed its stern expression. 'The details of my escape from Botany Bay are unimportant. Suffice it, that I once more reached America, and devoted my energies to tracing the fate of my child. In Savannah I was fortunate enough to meet with the attendant of your grandmother. She had accompanied ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite

... scholars, so accurately that the variations of such things as would correspond to the crossing of a t, or the dotting of an i, in English, have been carefully enumerated; yet the result of the whole of this searching scrutiny has been merely the suggestion of a score of unimportant alterations in the received text of the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses of the New Testament. This is a fact utterly unexampled in the history of manuscripts. There are but six manuscripts of the Comedies ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... Lola's parents were the much spoken-of Rolf, the so-called "thinking" or "speaking" dog, and Jela, no longer owned by the Moekels. Jela seems to have been an unimportant little animal, not even very affectionate as a mother. The litter Lola was dropped at consisted of twelve pups; of these one died at once, and after the vicissitudes puppies are heirs to, those that remained and have become known to us, are Heinz, Harras, ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... some unimportant exceptions, confined to five small fields in Eastern Pennsylvania, as shown in the following list. These fields are given in ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... by Madame Odintsov is shown in the most subtle manner. To Bazarov, women were all alike, and valuable for only one thing; he had told this very woman that people were like trees in a forest; no botanist would think of studying an individual birch tree. Why, then, should this entirely unimportant individual woman change his whole nature, paralyse all his ambitions, ruin all the cheerful energy of his active mind? He fights against this obsession like a nervous patient struggling with a dreadful depression that comes over him like a ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... if not upon the actual townsites of thriving villages, and for years numerous fragments have been collected by (or for) tourists and exhibited as fossil wood. The quantities hitherto obtained, though apparently so vast, are wholly unimportant in comparison with those awaiting the researches of geologists throughout the Rocky Mountain region. I doubt not that many hundreds of tons will eventually be exhumed." Rather a startling prophecy to make within eighteen months of their discovery, ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... Conduct of the Society, censuring the Society not only for intruding itself into New England, but for being the champion of the proposed episcopate, which he denounced. This was in 1763. For two years the controversy raged. There were four replies to Mayhew. Two were unimportant, a third presumably from Rev. Henry Caner, and the fourth, Answer to the Observations, an anonymous English production, really by Archbishop Seeker. Mayhew wrote a Defense, and Apthorpe summed up the whole controversy ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... continued his march. The opening of a road for the passage of the troops and artillery, necessarily consumed much time; and while it was in progress, small parties of the enemy were often seen hovering near, and some unimportant skirmishes took place; and as the army approached the Indian villages, sixty of the militia deserted in a body. To prevent the evil influence of this example, General St. Clair despatched Major Hamtrack at the head of a regiment, to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... ever so correct in principle, it must lack adaptation to the momentary and most pressing wants of the pupil and to his particular frame of mind; it is too Procrustean to be of any ultimate use to anybody, except in comparatively unimportant matters. It is well enough for those who need only amusement in their drawing, and whose highest idea of Art is copying prints and pictures; but for those who want assistance from Art in order to the better ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... one sees newspapers of serious reputation and politicians deemed not to be unimportant ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... times as this critical one, the smiling destiny which held the fate of Peter Moore in the hollow of her precious hand was ever watchful, and the white water-jug caromed from his peaceful figure with no more than an unimportant thud. The jug bounded to the floor and ended its career against the hard wall. Peter Moore sat up, rubbing ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... evident that an increasing number of women in the West are ready to assert that their difference from men is unimportant. The reason for the vehement utterance of such a paradox cannot be ignored. It is a rebellion against a necessity, which is not equal ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... tremendous importance, therefore his exceeding amount of thought. When he is in the ineffable presence, he is there as an actor in a tragedy, or as a tenor in an opera. He has almost counted his hairs; he certainly counts the winkings of his eyelids! Can any detail be unimportant in an undertaking of such measureless risk? It is no wonder, then, that a young man who is giving as much thought as this to a young, thoughtless girl is not worth much in his business for the time being! In fact, it is a ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... pernicious, the fatal error, that little things are of no consequence: little sums of money, little fragments of time, little or trifling words, little or apparently unimportant actions. On this subject I cannot help adopting—and feeling its force too,—the language of a friend of temperance in regard to those who think themselves perfectly secure from danger, and are believers in the harmlessness of little things. 'I tremble,' ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... unimportant things—these small jars and clashes of habit and opinion. But to Nan, who had been used to such absolute freedom, they were like so many links of a chain which held and chafed her. She fretted under them as a caged bird frets. Gradually, too, she was awakening to the limitations of the life which ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... chief evils of the present system? I do not think that mere inequality of wealth, in itself, is a very grave evil. If everybody had enough, the fact that some have more than enough would be unimportant. With a very moderate improvement in methods of production, it would be easy to ensure that everybody should have enough, even under capitalism, if wars and preparations for wars were abolished. The problem of poverty is by no means insoluble within the ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell

... one of Shakespeare’s most striking characteristics will not be denied by any competent student of his works. Nor will any such student deny that, exquisite as his lyrics are, they are too few and too unimportant in subject-matter to set beside his supreme wealth of dramatic picture, and his wide vision as a thinker and a ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... mother dissolved home bonds and he soon left Hof forever, though still for a time maintaining diligent correspondence with the "erotic academy" as well as with new and more aristocratic "daughters of the Storm and Stress." The writings of this period are unimportant, some of them unworthy. Jean Paul was for a time in Leipzig and in Dresden. In October, 1798, he was again in Weimar, which, in the sunshine of Herder's praise, seemed at first his "Canaan," though he soon felt himself out of tune with Duchess Amalia's literary court. To this time ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... say "Oh, Miss Michin—how kind!" to begin with. Then she unwrapped the paper and saw a dainty pair of brown kid gloves with ever so many buttons. This matter of the buttons was not unimportant in Nancy's eyes. Had her mother given her the money, she thought, she could never have bought gloves with more than ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... group that maintains capitalist government consist, as radicals suggest, merely of a handful of large capitalists, nor of these aided by certain cohorts of hired political mercenaries—nor yet of these two groups supported by the deceived and ignorant among the masses. Unimportant elections may be fought with such support, but not revolutionary "civil wars" or "the upheavals of the centuries." In every historical instance such struggles were supported on both sides by powerful, and at the same time numerically important, ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... the war and denounced it, as they would have denounced any other war, on general principles, no matter what the issues involved might be, but their number and their influence were small and quite unimportant. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... well afford to confess utter ignorance of matters outside his own sphere. But how few of mankind are ever willing to own themselves mistaken about any subject under the sun, unless it be bimetallism or some equally unfashionable and abstruse (though not unimportant) ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... fleet in the neighborhood of Georgetown, I would turn upon Wilmington or Charleston, according to the importance of either. I rather prefer Wilmington, as a live place, over Charleston, which is dead and unimportant when its railroad communications are broken. I take it for granted that the present movement on Wilmington will fail. If I should determine to take Charleston, I would turn across the country (which I have hunted over many a time) from Santee to Mount Pleasant, throwing one wing on ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... to admit? There were twenty persons besides myself present at the scene from which I pretend to derive such entire conviction. Not one of them saw it in the light that I did. It either appeared to them a casual and unimportant circumstance, or they thought it sufficiently accounted for by Mr. Falkland's infirmity and misfortunes. Did it really contain such an extent of arguments and application, that nobody but I was ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... strangely disguised angel, bore witness in favor of Woman, but interpreted her claims no less ignorantly than those of Man. Its idea of happiness did not rise beyond outward enjoyment, unobstructed by the tyranny of others. The title it gave was "citoyen," "citoyenne;" and it is not unimportant to Woman that even this species of equality was awarded her. Before, she could be condemned to perish on the scaffold for treason, not as a citizen, but as a subject. The right with which this title then invested a human being was that of bloodshed ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... possibly fattening on the thing. But even the oldest experience dealing with his novels (which were practically all early) may find itself considerably tabuste, as Rabelais has it, that is to say, "bothered" with faults which are mitigated in the Genie du Christianisme, comparatively (not quite) unimportant in the Voyages, and almost entirely whelmed in the Memoires d'Outre-Tombe. These faults are of such a complicated and various kind that the whole armour of criticism is necessary to deal with them, on the defensive in the sense ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... the work, even in a translation; the multitude of its actors; the Norse sagaman's habit of interweaving endless side-plots, and the persistence with which he introduces the genealogy and adventures of the ancestors of every unimportant character, are none of them to the taste ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... that, Sir? In spite of everything we still have hearts of oak. We have not changed since the time of NELSON and Trafalgar. We can still run up the rigging (there isn't any but that is an unimportant detail) like kittens, and reef a sail (there's not one left, but what does that matter?) in a Nor-Wester as our ancestors did before us. And if you don't believe me, go to any public dinner when response is being made ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... on, echoes of the life and bustle of the town reached the ears of the quiet people in Overcombe hollow—exciting and moving those unimportant natives as a ground-swell moves the weeds in a cave. Travelling-carriages of all kinds and colours climbed and descended the road that led towards the seaside borough. Some contained those personages of the King's suite who had not kept pace with him in his journey from Windsor; ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... by the comparatively unimportant part played in this action by that "dark horse" of modern naval warfare, the dreaded and much-discussed torpedo. Both squadrons had several torpedo-boats present, though, as I have shown, those on the Chinese side did not enter the action until it had been proceeding more than an hour. The Japanese ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... sauces madame wishes me to make for her guests? Ma foi! Trunks—references—one is as unimportant as the other. Is it not enough for the present if I cook for madame? Afterward—" She ended with the ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... strong men recognize her books as rarely excellent, because they show the divinity in all things, keep close to the ground, gently inculcate the firm belief that simple people are as necessary as great ones, that small things are not necessarily unimportant, and that nothing is really insignificant. It all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... doubt he would see the advancement of professors of these arts, of men skilful and cunning in design and decoration, the builders, the sculptors, and the musicians, whose place in the great cathedral could never be unimportant. A Churchman could promote and honour such public servants in the little commonwealth of his cathedral town with greater freedom than might be done elsewhere; and James, a studious and feeble boy, not wise enough ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... other, with a confidential interchange of ideas, where they had been during the day. The messenger of Fortune had only executed a few unimportant commissions, such as saving a new bonnet from a shower of rain, etc.; but what she had yet to perform was ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... an excessive purity of morals and of doctrine, and accused the Jesuits of preaching a relaxed morality. The Jansenists, in fact, were Catholic Puritans, if two contradictory terms can be combined. During the Revolution, the Concordat occasioned an unimportant schism, a little segregation of ultra-catholics who refused to recognize the Bishops appointed by the authorities with the consent of the Pope. This little body of the faithful was called the Little Church; and those within its fold, like the Jansenists, led the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... especially in and about the town of Evora that this is seen, and that too although the cathedral built at the end of the twelfth century is, except for a few unimportant ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... It was a sign that the council was not yet assembled, and especially that the religious chiefs had not made their appearance. Those who were present assumed any posture imaginable, provided it gave them comfort. They talked and conversed about very unimportant matters, and laughed and joked. There was no division into separate groups, foreshadowing the drift of opinions and of interests; for no lobbying was going on. Every one seemed to be as free and easy ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... summits of the loftiest mountains. This is the general rule. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental fires. To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Theresa, the descendant of the Caesars, was the butt, in saloon and cafe, of merriment and song. Maria was beautiful and graceful, and winning in all her ways. But this imperfect education, exposing her to contempt and ridicule in the society of intellectual men and women, was not among the unimportant elements which conducted to her own ruin, to the overthrow of the French throne, and to that deluge of blood which for many years rolled ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... population, no one can tell who will not be called upon to brave the vicissitudes of "flood and field;" and to show how perils may be surmounted, and privations endured with energy and patience, is to teach no unimportant lesson. ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... set before itself, steadily and ruthlessly, as Rome did of old, the idea of conquest. Even now, waging war as she has done, as it were, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] thinking war too unimportant a part of her work to employ on it her highest intellects, her flag has advanced in the last fifty years over more vast and richer tracts than that of any European nation upon earth. What keeps her from the dream which lured to their destruction ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley

... illumined" as she awaits her saviour. He appears and they are married. Alas! The pillow of the nuptial couch becomes a swan that carries off Lohengrin weary of the tart queries made by his little bride concerning love and sex and other unimportant questions of daily life. This Elsa is a sensual goose. She is also a stubborn believer in the biblical injunction: "Crescite et multiplicamini," and she would willingly allow the glittering stranger Knight to brise le sceau de ses petites solitudes, as the ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... still exists in that town at the present day. Up to the eighteenth century all the important factories on the coast were in our hands. After that date, just as in India and America, where also we had been the earliest colonists, everything began to go to ruin, and our possessions dwindled to the unimportant posts I had just been to see. Since my visit an effort has been made to recommence some extension of our factories and trade in the locality. The question is whether it will be successful, and, above all, whether, amidst the vicissitudes ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... flattery poured forth. For all of this Zut cared less than nothing. In the midst of her mistress's sweetest cajolery, she simply closed her sapphire eyes, with an inexpressibly eloquent air of weariness, or turned to the intricacies of her toilet, as who should say: "Continue. I am listening. But it is unimportant." ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various



Words linked to "Unimportant" :   slight, fragile, fiddling, potty, significant, petty, lilliputian, picayune, nonmeaningful, nickel-and-dime, significance, important, hole-in-corner, light, meaningless, trivial, piddling, niggling, inappreciable, piffling, hole-and-corner, inconsequent, immaterial, little, unessential, superficial, unimportance, thin, flimsy, footling, indifferent, small-time, importance, lightweight, inessential, tenuous, inconsequential



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