"Unproductive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... helped, or requests about those which are trivial; because to be thus disposed with respect to these things is consequent only upon real anxiety about them. Again, he is the kind of man to acquire what is beautiful and unproductive rather than what is productive and profitable: this being rather the part of an independent man. Also slow motion, deep-toned voice, and deliberate style of speech, are thought to be characteristic of the Great-minded man: for he who is earnest ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... the same number of streams in an equal extent of coast frontage, or which has such elevated land so near the sea; and I have seen no other which has so large an extent of good country. It is however bounded both to the north and south by comparatively-speaking unproductive districts; but what the character of the country to the north-east and south-east may be still remains ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... to Farrukhnagar, about twelve miles over an execrable road running over a flat but rugged surface of unproductive soil.[3] India is, perhaps, the only civilized country in the world where a great city could be approached by such a road from the largest military Station in the empire,[4] not more than three stages ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... minerals abound, there is not one collection; and, in all probability, I venture a conjecture, the want of mechanical and chemical knowledge renders the silver mines unproductive, for the quantity of silver obtained every year is not sufficient to defray the expenses. It has been urged that the employment of such a number of hands is very beneficial. But a positive loss is never to be done away; and the men, thus employed, would naturally find some ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... power to control the labor of thousands of individuals and force them to superhuman efforts on an unproductive undertaking, which in its agricultural or strategic results was out of all proportion to the obvious cost, might have been caused by the supreme vanity of a great soldier. On the other hand, the ancient Peruvians were religious rather than warlike, more inclined to worship the sun than to fight ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... pretty well the state of his finances, he began to search his pockets to see if he could not somewhere find a stray dime, or, better still, a quarter, with which to purchase the meal of which he stood so much in need. But his search was unproductive, or, rather, it only resulted in the discovery of ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... years, the colonists were 'not even able to keep themselves in fresh vegetables.' Fortunately, but little encouragement was ever offered to permanent settlers, or the disappointments caused by an unproductive soil and unhealthy climate would have been greatly multiplied. A singular example of the lex talionis occurred among the natives at this place. One of them having been severely wounded in punishment ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... like Al-Fared and Jelal'ud-Deen Rumy, like Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi, Khalid loafs. For can you escape being reproached for idleness by merely working? Are you going to waste your time and power in useless unproductive labour, carrying dates to Hajar (or coals to Newcastle, which is the English equivalent), that you might not be ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... right," began Issy, and stopped short. The lobsterman made other attempts at conversation, but they were unproductive. McKay was gazing at the growing fog bank and thinking hard. To doctor an engine may be difficult, but to get lost in a fog—He took the compass from the glass-lidded binnacle by the wheel, and carrying it into the little cabin, placed it ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... found me as helpless as a child, so overcome was I by the sudden joy which seized upon me, and seemed to turn my melancholy inside out. Those words of hatred had been as a torch illumining the gloom of my despair, for they had shown me that my existence was not altogether barren and unproductive. The life which has known the heaven of true love cannot be called a failure. There is no wall so high, no distance so great, no separation so complete as to defy the ineffable commerce of two loving hearts! Lona, then, was still ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... clear this unfathomable gulph of war, and to land his race for ever on the opposite shore of a self- sustaining peace. Simply, the contemplation of national debts, (as a burthen which never would have existed without war,) and a computation of the waste, havoc, unproductive labor, &c., attached to any single campaign—these, they imagine, might suffice, per se, for the extinction of war. But the other class cannot go along with a speculation so infirm. Reasons there are, in the opposite scale, tempting man into war,—which are ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... into considerable notice; one of the subjects of his published experiments having been the conversion of bar-iron into steel in the crucible by contact with regulated proportions of charcoal. The experiments which he made in connection with this controversy, though in themselves unproductive of results, led to the important discovery by Mr. Mushet of the certain fusibility of malleable iron ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... suffering entire isolation; he has a companion, and the savages are incessantly making inroads around him. It is the European developing the resources of his industry, to contend at once with an unproductive land and the dangers created by ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... are doing what He meant, and what He means should continue! But some men are too valuable to be thrown away on the mission field; they are such successful workers, pastors, evangelists, leaders of thought. They could not possibly be spared. Think of the waste of burying brain in unproductive sand! Apparently it is so, but is it really so? Does God view it like that? Where should we have been to-day if He had thought Jesus too valuable to be thrown away upon us? Was not each hour of those thirty-three years worth more than ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... to cut dye-wood, but was prevented by the governor, and obliged to set sail. He then cruised among the islands, and seizing the natives, carried them home to sell for slaves. He reached Cadiz in June, 1500, but so unproductive was his expedition, that it is said, after the expenses were paid, but five hundred ducats remained to be divided among ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... reasons for throwing up his tenancy, and his adventures were soon noised abroad throughout the town. He was the last tenant of the sombre house. Thenceforward no one could be induced to rent it or even to occupy it rent free. It was commonly regarded as a whisht, gruesome spot, and was totally unproductive to its owners. Its subsequent history has ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... wants to convert the world,' Herbert answered chillily, rolling himself a tiny cigarette, 'he must convince the unproductive as well as the proletariate before he can set things fairly on the roll for better arrangement. The proletariate's all very well in its way, no doubt, but the unproductive happen to hold the key of the situation. One convert like you or me is worth a thousand ignorant ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... than if the stream were flowing well. Pollution itself can affect the utility of water as well as people's enjoyment of it in a stream. A creek watershed that has been ignorantly farmed or roughly assaulted with bulldozers for urban development is an eyesore of erosive destruction, unproductive of crops, wildlife, or poetic appreciation, and can cause both heavier stream flooding in time of storm and lower flow in time of drought by the way its disruption alters the normal behavior of ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... circular flower-bed, extended a short distance on either side of the house. But not too much land was put to such unproductive use; and the small lawn was closely bordered by a corn-field on the one side and on the other by an apple orchard. Beyond stretched the tobacco—and wheat-fields, and behind the house were the vegetable garden and ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... those fearless pioneers of the movement, Mr. and Mrs. Hewat Mackenzie, I am allowed to publish another example of spirit photography. The circumstances were very remarkable. The visit of the parents to Crewe was unproductive and their plate a blank save for their own presentment. Returning disappointed, to London they managed, through the mediumship of Mrs. Leonard, to get into touch with their boy, and asked him why they had failed. He replied that the conditions had been bad, but ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... we had issued the debentures and the guaranteed rediscounts of the Grain Belt Trust Company, the factories, stock yards, terminals, street-car system, and most of our other properties were pretty heavily bonded. Some of them were temporarily unproductive, and funds had from time to time to be provided, from sources other than their own earnings, for the payment of their interest-charges. On the whole, however, we had been able to carry the entire line forward from position to ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... me if my LETTER TO JEAN JACQUES [now an entirely forgotten Piece], which had been printed in the Papers, was really by me? I answered, 'Sire, I am not famous enough to have my name forged' [as a certain Other name has been, on this same unproductive topic]. He felt what I meant. It is known that Horace Walpole took the King's name to write his famous LETTRE A JEAN JACQUES [impossible to attend to the like of it at present], which contributed the most to drive mad that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... that the British had indeed discovered a gold mine in Sydney, by working which with industry, ability, and perseverance, enormous riches have been obtained. When the story of the mine was invented, the land around Port Jackson was unproductive, and the hills wild or barren, but in little more than fifty years from that time the imports into the Port of Sydney amounted in 1840 to L2,462,858, while the amount of goods exported from the same place during that ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... of blossoms as in our villages. You never see the cottager at work among his roses; once his necessary labours are over, he smokes and talks to his neighbours: to grow flowers for aesthetic reasons were too ornamental, too unproductive a hobby. AEsthetically the Dutch are dead, or are alive only in the matter of green paint, which they use with such charming effect on their houses, their mills and their boats. What is pretty is old—as indeed is ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Sea, took to wife Dectera, daughter of Factna the Righteous. She was sister of Concobar Mac Nessa. Sualtam was the King of Cooalney [Footnote: Now the barony of Cooley, a mountainous promontory which the County of Louth projects into the Irish Sea.] a land of woods and mountains, an unproductive headland reaching out into the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... rations. He had missed altogether the Devil's Tooth outfit, and was swinging back now by way of the Lava Beds, where Tom had said that they were going. It was because Tom had named that as his destination that Lance had ridden elsewhere to find him; good reasoning, but so far unproductive ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... into two classes according to the causes which give rise to the desert conditions. In "cold deserts" the want of vegetation is wholly due to the prevailing low temperature, while in "hot deserts" the surface is unproductive because, on account of high temperature and deficient rainfall, evaporation is largely in excess of precipitation. Cold deserts accordingly occur in high latitudes (see TUNDRA and POLAR REGIONS). Hot desert conditions are primarily found along the tropical belts of high atmospheric pressure in which ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... This objection is utterly fallacious. The government lands of our country were remote from the centers of capital and difficult to examine; the French national real estate was near these centers—even in them—and easy to examine. Our national real estate was unimproved and unproductive; theirs was improved and productive—its average productiveness in market in ordinary times being from four ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... king who had any regard for the happiness of his subjects could have consented to it. Khufu must have forced his subjects to labour for a long term of years—twenty, according to Herodotus—at a servile work which was wholly unproductive, and was carried on amid their sighs and groans for no object but his own glorification, and the supposed safe custody of his remains. Shafra must have done nearly the same. Hence an evil repute attached to the pyramid builders, whose names were handed down to posterity ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... it; but not upon such as thou. Hear me, Rebecca—Never did knight take lance in his hand with a heart more devoted to the lady of his love than Brian de Bois-Guilbert. She, the daughter of a petty baron, who boasted for all his domains but a ruinous tower, and an unproductive vineyard, and some few leagues of the barren Landes of Bourdeaux, her name was known wherever deeds of arms were done, known wider than that of many a lady's that had a county for a dowery.—Yes," he continued, pacing up and down the little platform, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... as that he who is circumscribed in this respect, and limited to the cultivation of certain lands with cotton or tobacco by slaves, will in the course of a few years see his estate gradually exhausted and unproductive, refusing its increase, while its black population propagating and multiplying will compel him eventually, under penalty of starvation, to make them his crop, and substitute, as the Virginians have been constrained to do, a traffic in human cattle for the cultivation ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Alleghanies. His own purchases lay near and around the few hundred acres his ancestor took up and where an aged cousin was left in charge of the farm-house. When this tenant died, the house decayed, and the next Penhallow weary of being taxed for unproductive land spent a summer on the property, and with the aid of engineers found iron in plenty and soft coal. He began about 1830 to develop the property, and built a large house which he never occupied and ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... power; they will not buy anything. But, put them all together—ah! the result is magical. You see, it is the aggregate that counts. Now with this theory in view, our company gets to work and canvasses the country and it gathers together thousands of little, useless, insignificant, unproductive funds like yours and mine and joins them together into one vast, giant aggregate which we call a trust fund. I see it is appealing to you. It could not be otherwise. Now, with this aggregate, you, and I, and everyone can own vast estates, buy forty-year debentures, ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... congress for eight years past," say the committee in February, 1786, to whom the subject of the revenue had been referred, "have been so irregular in their operation, so uncertain in their collection, and so evidently unproductive, that a reliance on them in future as a source from whence moneys are to be drawn to discharge the engagements of the confederacy, definite as they are in time and amount, would be not less dishonourable to the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... remained uneasily silent for a moment, and then only said: "Sure it's time we was gettin' home." This they accordingly proceeded to do, and had gone most of the distance before it occurred to anybody that little Terence O'Driscoll was not with them. Then, after a superficial and unproductive search among the scattered stones and bushes, they thought it expedient to run back in a fright, and report that the child had gone and got lost, unless by any odd chance he'd ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... be misled by the difference between the apparent and the real fertility of the soil. What would be a poor soil in Europe may prove to be an excellent one in a tropical country. So the famous "red earth" of Sao Paulo, which in a drier climate would be sterile and unproductive, is there excellent because of its extremely permeable, porous ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... entrance must be on the sunny side, though this is generally best, as the loss of space in the rooms is more than made up by the cheeriness of the approach. For the same reason, unless you are sailing very close to the wind, let your entrance-hall be roomy. It is in no sense an unproductive outlay, for it avails above in chambers, and below in the refuge it affords to the children from the severer rules of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... composition which appeals to the public taste, the more rich and easily worked mines being exhausted, the adventurous author must, if he is desirous of success, have recourse to those which were disdained by his predecessors as unproductive, or avoided as only capable of being turned to profit by ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... better part of four unproductive years had the life of Calico run to commonplaces. Then, early one June morning, came an hour big with events. Being the nigh horse in Uncle Enoch's pair, Calico caught first glimpse of the weird procession which ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... Rhodes, Premier of the British Cape Colony, millionaire, creator and managing director of the territorially-immense and financially unproductive South Africa Company; projector of vast schemes for the unification and consolidation of all the South African States, one imposing commonwealth or empire under the shadow and general protection of the British flag, thought he saw an opportunity to make profitable use of the Uitlander ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... important advantages gained over the southern States. The winter was unproductive of any events in this ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... date tree, the fruit of which is of remarkably fine flavour; but what is yet stranger, whoever ascends it, sees many wonderful objects. If to-day, going to visit this orchard, we gather dates from this tree, and also see the wonders of it, it will not be unproductive of amusement." In short, she so worked upon her husband with flattering speeches and caresses, that nolens volens he went to the orchard, and at the instigation of his wife, ascended the tree. At this instant she beckoned to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... herself with them, hidden them away from a world which she had found unkind. It was for their interests that she had worked harder than any man of her acquaintance, experimenting, studying, managing, until she was recognized as one of the greatest agriculturists of the State, and the unproductive property left by Basil Kildare had become a stock and dairy farm which netted her an income that ran well into five figures. More than wealth, she had given them education, bringing to Storm the best tutors and governesses to be had in the country. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... people. But to this rule there are two exceptions—the discoveries of America and of aerostatics, the advents of Columbus and of Montgolfier." It is not here our duty to inquire how it happened that the discoveries made by these two personages are classed together. Air-travelling may be as unproductive of actual good to society as filling the belly with the "east wind" is to the body, while every one knows something of the extent to which the discovery of Columbus has influenced the character, the civilisation, the destinies, in short, of the human race. We are speaking ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... of country lying between the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, which civilization with its improvements and its rush of progress has not yet invaded. It is mountainous, rocky, and for all agricultural purposes sterile and unproductive. It is covered with dense forests, and inhabited by the same wild things, save the red man alone, that were there thousands of years ago. It abounds in the most beautiful lakes that the sun or the stars ever shone ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... place on the earth but does not shed upon it either good or evil, —for evil is sometimes good the meaning of which is not at once made manifest. It is seldom that old maids of their own motion enter the ranks of these unproductive beings. Now, if the consciousness of work done gives to the workers a sense of satisfaction which helps them to support life, the certainty of being a useless burden must, one would think, produce a contrary effect, and ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... [106:5] Though they had acquired a world-wide reputation for literary culture, it is an instructive fact that their city continued for several centuries afterwards to be one of the strongholds of Gentile superstition. But the labours of Paul at this time were not entirely unproductive. "Certain men clave unto him and believed, among the which was Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman, named Damaris, and others with them." [107:1] The court of Areopagus, long the highest judicial tribunal in the place, had not ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... who lived about five miles from Pretoria just over the pass near to the famous Wonder-boom tree which is one of the sights of the place. Should we need this wagon it could always be sent for; or, if we found the Lydenburg hunting-ground, which he was so set upon visiting, unproductive or impossible, we could return to Pretoria over the high-veld and pick it ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... forests have been cut down, giving place to sterile and malarious ground: the plains and shores formerly covered with wealthy and populous cities are now deserted marshes: Sardinia and other ancient granaries of the Roman Empire are empty and unproductive: two-thirds of the Kingdom are occupied by mountains impossible of cultivation, and the remainder is to a large extent ill-farmed and unremunerative. To call Italy the 'Garden of Europe' under these ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... unproductiveness &c. adj.; infertility, sterility, infecundity[obs3]; masturbation; impotence &c. 158; unprofitableness &c. (inutility) 645. waste, desert, Sahara, wild, wilderness, howling wilderness. V. be - unproductive &c. adj.; hang fire, flash in the pan, come to nothing. [make unproductive] sterilize, addle; disable, inactivate. Adj. unproductive, acarpous[obs3], inoperative, barren, addled, infertile, unfertile, unprolific[obs3], arid, sterile, unfruitful, infecund[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... deceased unitarian minister, author of a work on Theism (1852), in which the use of miracles as an evidence was depreciated. It is hoped that it will not be considered improper to have named a writer, whose sex might be expected to shelter her from remark; but her writings are too able to be unproductive of influence. ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... above. This is not to be mistaken for the prickly greasewood which infests the more alkaline regions; nor the rabbit-brush with its blossom so like the goldenrod, but with a very disagreeable odor. No man who knows will ever buy land where the greasewood grows thickly; it is unproductive because of the large percentage of alkali. But the ancient-looking sage is a pretty sure indication of fertility of soil. Mother Nature is sometimes hard pushed to find dresses for all her poorer areas; of course the better portions of the land east or west, north or south, ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... of truth than the Jacobite baronet. And yet we know of an author—viz. one S.T. Coleridge—who repeated that same doctrine without finding any evil in it. Look at the first part of the Wallenstein, where Count Isolani having said, "Pooh! we are all his subjects," i. e. soldiers, (though unproductive labourers,) not less than productive peasants, the emperor's envoy replies—"Yet with a difference, general;" and the difference implies Sir James's scale, his vine-dresser being the equatorial case between the two extremes of the envoy.—Malthus again, in his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... escaped and the party, after running for two hours, returned without having caught anything, and their horses foaming with sweat. This chase, the greater part of which was seen from the camp, formed a beautiful scene; but to the hunters it is exceedingly laborious, and so unproductive, even when they are able to worry the animal down and shoot him, that forty or fifty hunters will sometimes be engaged for half a day without obtaining more than two or ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... of Mrs. Mac-Candlish, Sampson picked up some other scholars—very different indeed from Charles Hazlewood in rank, and whose lessons were proportionally unproductive. Still, however, he gained something, and it was the glory of his heart to carry it to Mr. Mac-Morlan weekly, a slight peculium only subtracted to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... plains, deep ravines, trickling brooks, and grand old forest-trees between Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The road winds along the hillsides, over the plains, and descends into the ravines. There are but few farm-houses, for the soil is unproductive and the forests remain almost as they have been for hundreds of years. The few farmers who reside there live mainly on hog and hominy. They cultivate a few acres of corn, but keep a great many pigs, which live in the woods and fatten upon ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... we rode into the forest (which was dry and very unproductive), and thence along the river-banks, through Acacia Catechu, belted by Sissoo, which often fringes the stream, always occupying the lowest flats. The foliage at this season is brilliantly green; and as the evening advanced, a yellow convolvulus burst into flower like magic, adorning the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... not greatly changed, both will be the natural tendency of the capitalist, and both are abhorred by the governmental worker. He has no right to run risks, but does not feel it his duty to avoid an unproductive luxuriousness. He wastes in the routine where he ought to economize, and is pedantic in the great schemes in which his imagination ought to be unbridled. The opponents of socialism have often likened the future state to a gigantic prison, where every one will be forced to do the work ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... three years of Mr. Browning's married life had been unproductive from a literary point of view. The realization and enjoyment of the new companionship, the duties as well as interests of the dual existence, and, lastly, the shock and pain of his mother's death, had absorbed his mental energies for the time being. But by ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... the number of laborers, by securing a larger return from those now employed, and by the permanent occupation of the fertile soil of the South by a large portion of the Union army, as settlers and cultivators, who have heretofore spent their energies upon the comparatively unproductive soil ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... round the camp, and a four-pounder was placed on the top-gallant forecastle and another on the poop of the Runnymede, in order to keep the natives off if they should prove aggressive. There appeared to be no chance of receiving any assistance from them. The island appeared to be wholly unproductive, neither fruit nor vegetables having been discovered, but ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. [13:7]And he said to his vine dresser, Behold, I have come three years seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none; cut it down; why should it make the ground unproductive? [13:8] And he answered and said to him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I dig about it, and put on manure; [13:9]and if it bears fruit, well; but if not, at a future time you ...
— The New Testament • Various
... subdue the land and replenish it; and instead of shutting the gates deliberately on rival labour, would draw the stranger to her coasts and pour population on vast tracts of land which now lie barren and unproductive, but only wait for the hand of man to break into beauty ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... the Son, hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him?" This were to run into the very error which the bulk of professed Christians would be most forward to condemn, of making an unproductive faith the rule of God's future judgment, and the ground of an eternal separation. Thus not unlike the rival circumnavigators from Spain and Portugal, who setting out in contrary directions, found themselves in company at the very time they thought themselves farthest from ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... is included for two reasons: Mediaeval English literature is easily accessible to those readers for whom this book is prepared; during the special period in which the best mediaeval literature was developed, England was comparatively unproductive. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... colors, and we present to all interested in this important, and practically unknown and misunderstood, problem the result of a number of years extended and scientific experiments which, we confess, were disheartening and unproductive for a long time, but which ultimately resulted in success, the following rules to be observed, known as "The St. Botolph ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... tramp, forcing their way through the blackthorn thickets; clambering over and under the dead-falls and debris of the slashings; climbing the side hills with the straight, silvery shafts of the poplars; wandering down the narrow aisles of the old logging roads; plodding doggedly across the unproductive fields that lay between patches of cover; always lured on in the hope of more game farther on, picking up a bird here, a bird there, each an adventure in itself. And occasionally, once in a great ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... it is not of high value in agricultural wealth, being at present divided up to a considerable extent into large unproductive estates, and it is quite unable to feed its teeming population, depending for this on its large commerce in food products. Its annual imports amount to about $3,000,000,000, ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... cordially recommend the American Chesterfield to general attention: but to young persons particularly, as one of the best works of the kind that has ever been published in this country. It cannot be too highly appreciated, nor its perusal be unproductive ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... action we call mechanical, it is easy enough to understand how sand was formed. This represents one of the great divisions of soil—sandy soil. The sea shores are great masses of pure sand. If soil were nothing but broken rock masses then indeed it would be very poor and unproductive. But the early forms of animal and vegetable life decaying became a part of the rock mass and a better soil resulted. So the soils we speak of as sandy soils have mixed with the sand other matter, sometimes clay, sometimes vegetable matter or humus, ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... is not commerce—it deserves not the name of commerce—it does not contribute to public welfare—it does not augment the elements of public prosperity—it is but immoral GAMBLING, which transfers an unproductive imaginary wealth from one hand into another, without augmenting the stock of national property:—that is not commerce: and it is a degradation of the character of a nation, when the interests of that speculation have the slightest ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... for usury, knowing that money is unproductive itself, call it a tool for production, and as it can be readily transformed into any tool, they try to avoid the logical conclusion that the taking of interest on money is unjust ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... one farmer has steadily continued to plough his acres on the plain near the racecourse. He reminded one of the French peasant ploughing at Sedan. His three ploughs went backwards and forwards quite indifferent to unproductive war. But to-day the Boers deliberately shelled him at his work, the shells following him up and down the field, and ploughing up the earth all wrong. Neither the farmer nor his Kaffir labourers paid the least attention to them. The plough drove on, leaving ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... as Gautama hath told me this, I do not venture to go there, for (while) there, if I were to advise what is good and calculated to secure piety and the fulfilment of one's desires, they would contradict me with words unproductive of any good. But I approve of any counsel and will go there; Vainya will give me ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... from the most finished of Irving's productions, "Knickerbocker" manifests the most original power and is the most genuinely national in its quaintness and drollery. The very tardiness and prolixity of the story are skilfully made to heighten the humorous effect. The next few years were unproductive. Upon the death of his father, Irving had become a sleeping partner in his brother's commercial house, a branch of which was established at Liverpool. This, combined with the restoration of peace, induced him to visit England ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... cut down the forest of Waignies. The ground has not been cleared and is therefore unproductive. As for your farms at Orchies, the rents scarcely suffice to pay the interest of the sums ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... nor am I an agent for these wares. Rather I speak as a friend who, having many such hidden sorrows, offers you a word of comfort. To a desponding Hamlet I exclaim, "'Tis common, my Lord." I have so many friends that have had an unproductive fling toward letters, that I think the malady is general. So many books are published and flourish a little while in their bright wrappers, but yours and theirs and mine waste away ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... head of the Logen—was I solicited for alms. A portion of this route, after passing Sinclair's Monument, is rudely fenced in, so as to render available every foot of the narrow valley. The road passes directly through the little farms, which at this stage of the journey are poor and unproductive. The climate is said to be very severe in this district, in consequence of its altitude, and the sharp winds which sweep down from the mountain gorges. At every gateway a gang of ragged little children always stood ready to open the gate, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... at this rate in less than a thousand years there would literally not be standing-room for his progeny. Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced only two seeds—and there is no plant so unproductive as this—and their seedlings next year produced two, and so on, then in twenty years there would be a million plants. The elephant is reckoned the slowest breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its probable minimum rate of natural ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... advantage of the United States. The old world has been convulsed by wars, a military emperor has had the sway of Europe, and broken kingdoms into fragments; blood has flowed in torrents, and thousands of millions have been wasted for unproductive purposes and on royal vanity. Since the fall of the Great Soldier the nations have incessantly risen against their rulers, and more than a million of men now stand in arms to restrain the people and serve the passions of monarchs and their cabinets. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... into a way of contenting himself with meeting the requirements of the college curriculum. The effects of this curriculum upon the professors are deeper and farther-reaching than is usually perceived. It is in accordance with facts to call American professors, as a class, unproductive. But it would be unjust and inconsiderate to ascribe this want of productivity to the disposition called laziness. Laziness is not a national fault of Americans. On the contrary, we are pushing, active, restless: we yearn, Alexander-like, for something ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... reasonably expect employment and make themselves useful to the new community; as will also a limited number of house-carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, black-smiths, tailors, shoemakers, and common labourers, the latter being required to assist in building habitations; but the unproductive class, or idlers, had better wait a few years before they embark for a country where, as yet, there is neither hut nor hovel, and where the "fruges consumere nati" have unquestionably no place in society. We cannot forget what happened, when, a few years ago, the government resolved to send ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... animal failed to heal the aching void of his pockets, and drinking deeply, swearing eloquently and glaring defiantly at all mankind, were equally unproductive of coin. ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... northeasterly course, and by four o'clock leads me to the base of a low pass over a jutting spur of the mountains. At the base of the spur, a cultivated area, consisting of several wheat-fields and terraced melon-gardens, has been rescued from the unproductive desert by the aid of a bright little mountain stream, whose wild spirit the villagers of Lasgird have curbed and tamed for their own benefit, by turning it from its rocky, precipitous channel, and causing it to descend ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... attempts are made to grow crops. The choice of hay may be one between a crop of beggar weed and no crop at all. All are agreed as to the renovation which it brings to soils; hence, when grown or allowed to grow on unproductive soil for a few years and then plowed under, the soil becomes productive. Since it grows late rather than early in the season where the seed is in the land, it will not interfere with the growth of the corn, but will come on later, and thus exert ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... Pope Paschal [*Paschal II] says (cf. I, qu. iii, cap. Si quis objecerit): "Whoever sells one of two such things, that the one is unproductive without the other, leaves neither unsold. Wherefore let no person sell a church, or ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... physical and mental discomfort of his situation he was not actually hurt, and at length he felt himself come to rest. The Baron, worn out by his unproductive labours, was thinking. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... decline of Italy must be attributed to other causes. These I believe to have been the extinction of commercial republics, the decay of free commonwealths, iniquitous systems of taxation, the insane display of wealth by unproductive princes, and the diversion of trade into foreign channels. Florence ceased to be the center of wool manufacture, Venice lost her hold upon the traffic between East and West.[242] Stagnation fell like night upon the land, and the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... he was in another sort of contemplative mood perhaps more common in the young men of our day—that of questioning whether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I mean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of questioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which somebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a splendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be hampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... lately back from their wedding-trip. Adrian, after several years of unproductive traffic in exotic literature, had finally made a hit; he had been able not only to lay a telling piece of work at the dear one's feet, but also—by a slight discounting of future certainties—to put a good deal of money in his purse. He had at last ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... has exceeded 1,500,000 miles annually, and that 1,040 new post-offices have been established. It hence appears that under judicious management the income from this establishment may be relied on as fully adequate to defray its expenses, and that by the discontinuance of post-roads altogether unproductive others of more useful character may be opened, till the circulation of the mail shall keep pace with the spread of our population, and the comforts of friendly correspondence, the exchanges of internal traffic, and ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... mistake, it must surely soon perceptibly modify in our favor. Our opponents "triumph far more than they conquer us," as Tacitus says. They will not be able to hold their narrow, malicious, negative, and unproductive thesis much longer against our quiet, assured, positive progress in Art-works. A consoling and significant symptom of this is that they are no longer able to support their adherents among living and working composers, but devour them critically while the public is so indifferent. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... quantity for cooking. When this material is wanting, the rein-deer lichen and other mosses that grow in profusion on the gravelly acclivities of the hills are used as substitutes. Three more of the hunters arrived with meat this evening, which supply came very opportunely as our nets were unproductive. At eight P.M., a faint Aurora Borealis appeared to the southward, the night was cold, the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... the family is secured, in the event of death, and the insured has a guarantee for himself when he reaches life's unproductive years. ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... forbade the use of water for gardening purposes. But the reminder only furnished the workers with a fresh incentive; it made their work a real as well as an ideal pleasure. The possibility of breaking the "Law" (with impunity) was worth a deal of productive, or unproductive, labour. The bread ordinance had not increased our respect for "benevolent" despotism. Any chance of setting at naught the absolute prepensities of our legislators (with a watering-can or by judicious keyhole stuffing, to hide the light) was duly ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... constantly said in the world, and yet so much division and hatred prevail between those who say it. It is the blind belief in our own faultlessness, it is the hard and assuming spirit of correction, which excite the temper, and make the truth unproductive of good. Why should we present truth in a disfiguring dress, when she is in herself so pure and beautiful? I know, my dear girl, that you only wish to do that which is right and good, and whoever aims rightly at that object will not fail of the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... theory of capital as consisting of implements of production, which are embodiments of past labour, and his theory of modern capitalism as representing nothing but a gradual abstraction by a wholly unproductive class, of these implements from the men who made them, and who alone contribute anything to their ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... resources; there is an immense amount of road-building that could be projected in many parts of, if not throughout the entire country; there are great irrigation projects that could be carried on in the far West and Southwest, reclaiming millions upon millions of acres of what are now unproductive desert lands; all these could be carried on and made even to pay, keeping busy a large number of men for half ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... which must be learned before any great life-work can be done. He had learned the value of systematic industry, of putting in so many hours every day at faithful work. The weak artist, whether in stone or paint or ink, always contends that he must wait for inspiration, and so excuses long periods of unproductive idleness, during which he grows weaker and weaker for lack of exercise. The great artist compels inspiration by whipping himself to his work and setting grimly about it, knowing that the "inspiration," so-called, will come. For inspiration is only seeing a thing clearly, and the one way ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... is 250 kilometres (about 155 English miles), and its superficial extent is 30,000 sq. kilometres (about 18,630 English sq. m.). It comprises two distinct zones, a maritime zone and an inland zone. In the centre there are two plateaus, partly covered with landes, unproductive moorland: the southern plateau is continued by the Montagnes Noires, and the northern is dominated by the Monts d'Arree. These ranges nowhere exceed 1150 ft. in height, but from their wild nature they recall the aspect of high mountains. The waterways of Brittany are for the most part of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... against that. Or, at least, it did not seem that fighting was any use. One may punch a bag, but the bag does not mind, and at last one grows weary of unproductive quarrelling. One shrugs one's shoulders, settles to the collar, and accepts whatever destiny the gods, in their wisdom, have ordained. Is life the anvil upon which the gods beat out their will? It is not so. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... of course, were early on the ground, for in spite of the father's contention that they could ill afford, at the moment, to tie up more money in unproductive properties, the son had argued that they must have "protection," ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... commodity imported into England, and as the quantity of money coined at the Tower of London is still more positively known, the leading facts do not admit of controversy. Either, therefore, the commerce of England is unproductive of profit, or the gold and silver which it brings in leak continually away by unseen means at the average rate of about three-quarters of a million a year, which, in the course of seventy-two ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... not raised by them must be purchased extravagantly dear. It is, indeed, surprizing how this immense city, said to contain three millions of inhabitants, is contrived to be supplied at any rate, considering the very sterile and unproductive state of the country for many miles around it. It might not, however, be a matter of less astonishment to a Chinese, nor less difficult for him to conceive, in what manner our own capital receives its daily supplies, especially after he ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... inability of his land to eject the braggart astonished and mortified him. Landlords had no bowels of compassion. There was no kindliness of heart among them, nor any wish to assist those whose whole existence was engaged on their behalf. He saw them as lazy unproductive gluttons who cried forever "Give, give," and who gave nothing in return but an increased insolent tyranny. Many employers came into the same black category. They were people who had disowned all duty to humanity, and ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Equally unproductive of advantage to the professors of the reformed faith was the alliance for mutual defence between Francis and Henry the Eighth of England. Both monarchs were inspired with the same hatred of the emperor, and each had equal reason to complain of the insatiable ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... modern civilization. For this reason the question of transportation is just as important to a community as the industries of agriculture, mining, and manufacture. Food-stuffs are of no use unless they can be transported to the people who want them; nor can peoples remain in unproductive regions unless the food-stuffs are ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... V. lychnitis, whilst the plant was temporarily kept under a net, produced four capsules, which contained five, one, two, and two seeds; at the same time three flowers were fertilised with pollen of V. thapsus, and these produced two, two, and three seeds. To show how unproductive these seven capsules were, I may state that a fine capsule from a plant of V. thapsus growing close by contained above 700 seeds. These facts led me to search the moderately-sized field whence my plant had been removed, and I found in it many plants of V. thapsus and lychnitis ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... was not this tower his? Febrer replied with a smile. Bah! Four old stones that were falling apart; an unproductive hill, which would be worth something only if the peasant should cultivate it. But the latter insisted; there was the property in Majorca, which, even though it were somewhat ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... year, while doing some of his most important work. Here he wrote his treatise On Monastic Vows, declaring that they are wrong and invalid and urging all priests, nuns and monks to leave the cloister and to marry. In thus freeing thousands of men and women from a life often unproductive and sterile Luther achieved one of the greatest of his practical reforms. At the Wartburg also Luther began his translation of the Bible. The New Testament appeared in September 1522, and the Old Testament followed in four parts, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... latter up, to where it took a sudden sharp turn, and a little farther. Then he crossed it, and was in a lonely nook of the glen, with steep braes about him on all sides, some of them covered with grass, others rugged and unproductive. He threw himself down in the clover, a short distance from the stream, and straightway felt as if he were miles from home. No shadow of life was to be seen. Cottage-chimney nor any smoke was visible—no human being, no ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... upon acres of equally sterile soil, all sand and gravel, descending in a gentle slope to the embankment of the railway line. It was indeed a stretch of country lost to culture, where the few good patches of loam remained unproductive, inclosed within the waste land. But the spot had all the beauty and exquisite wildness of solitude, and was one that appealed to healthy minds fond of seeing nature in freedom. And on that lovely night one could nowhere have found more perfect ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... "Concours Academique," and both were mentioned with praise by the Sous-Prefet at the public distribution of prizes. Besides, what was still more important, Stephen had successfully passed his examination for the "Baccalaureat." Lastly, there had been an expensive and unproductive journey, and there was the prospect of another. All this in the same year somewhat alarmed me. The gig was not an important concern, being made, like the four-wheeled carriage, from designs of my husband's, by ordinary wheelwrights ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... agreeing in its prevailing skull-forms with the Mediterranean race of N. Africa, was settled in the Aegean area from a remote Neolithic antiquity, but, except in Crete, where insular security was combined with great natural fertility, remained in a savage and unproductive condition until far into the 4th millennium B.C. In Crete, however, it had long been developing a certain civilization, and at a period more or less contemporary with Dynasties XI. and XII. (2500 B.C.?) the scattered communities of the centre of the island coalesced into ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Confolens a piece of property rented for 2,956 livres in 1665, brings in only 900 livres in 1747. On the confines of la Marche and of Berry a domain which, in 1660, honorably supported two seigniorial families is now simply a small unproductive tenant-farm; "the traces of the furrows once made by the plow-iron being still visible on the surrounding heaths." Sologne, once flourishing,[5127] becomes a marsh and a forest; a hundred years earlier it produced three times the quantity of grain; two-thirds of its mills are gone; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of their existence, suppressing all accidental limits. No doubt this transcendental procedure will remove us for some time from the familiar circle of phenomena, and the living presence of objects, to keep us on the unproductive ground of abstract idea; but we are engaged in the search after a principle of knowledge solid enough not to be shaken by anything, and the man who does not dare to rise above reality ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... heat from the cracked, baked, clay-plains in the interior; and thus it is, that at different seasons the same country produces such opposite effects. But although the general state of the interior is barren and unproductive, as I imagine, I do not suppose that it is entirely so. I believe there are many cases of good pasture land in the midst of this sterile country; fertile spots, small when compared with the vast area of indifferent country around them, but large in themselves. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... to the disposable surplus. The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt whenever the freedom and safety of our commerce shall be restored merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? Or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union under the powers which Congress may already possess or such amendment ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... she was speedily provided with an efficient coadjutor. The Catholic church had for some time been unproductive of miracles, and as heresy was raising its head and attracting converts, so opportune an occurrence was not to be allowed to sleep. The archbishop sent his comptroller to the Prior of Christ Church at Canterbury, with directions that two monks whom ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... Mr. Edwin Bartlett, near Tarrytown, exhibits strong evidence of the fertilizing power of guano upon the poor, unproductive hill sides of Westchester Co. That place, now so luxuriant, was noted a few years ago, as too poor to support grasshoppers. It was the poverty ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... cold arithmetical seers, with nothing but millions in their imagination; and whose choicest works of art are spinning-jennies, have valued the intellectual tasks of the library and the studio by "the demand and the supply." They have sunk these pursuits into the class of what they term "unproductive labour;" and by another result of their line and level system, men of letters, with some other important characters, are forced down into the class "of buffoons, singers, opera-dancers, &c." In a system of political economy it has been discovered that "that ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... welcome present [it is below the dignity of the Epopee to say goose and sausages] which reached me on Sunday, and the note which you were so kind as to send with it, I can only repay you in this the old paper of unproductive thanks, but the sincerity of them will be held in some estimation by the mind actuated by the kindness that has excited them, and, therefore, flimsy as they are, I venture to beg your acceptance of them. I have nothing new, Madam, to send you for ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... "values," but the grandeur of this connection was brought home to me neither by the high lopsided stoop of its very, very East Side setting, nor by the appearance of a terrible massive lady who came to the door while I was in quite unproductive parley with an unmistakably, a hopelessly mystified menial, an outlandish young woman with a face of dark despair and an intelligence closed to any mere indigenous appeal. I was to learn later in the day that she's a Macedonian Christian whom the Chataways ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... machinery, exceeding even the Watt engine in complexity. When the rare man was revealed, and the engine under his direction had proved itself the giant it was reputed, ensuring profitable return upon capital invested in works hitherto unproductive, as it often did, the sagacious owner would not readily consent to let the engineer leave. He could well afford to offer salary beyond the dreams of the worker, to a rider who knew his horse and ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... occupation! The driver bathes the raw shoulder of a horse whose collar does not fit, but when men make their misfits and the heart is sore society does not soothe, but with whips it scourges the man to his fruitless task. This large class may be counted unproductive. John Stuart Mill placed the industrial mismatings among the heavier losses ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... unproductive capitalists, men who have shares in and reap profits out of a business which they never meddle with. The first reason is, because this position of the productive, and still more that of the unproductive capitalist, is a prize for past industry expended upon production. To understand this, we must recollect once more that men work, not as individuals, but as heads of families. Every working man, from the sailor to the shop-boy, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the year, those of Wroxeter and Corbridge, yielded little; they were both concerned with remains which had to be explored in the course of a complete uncovering of those sites but which were not in themselves very interesting. The lesser sites, too, were somewhat unproductive, though at least one, Traprain Law, is full of promise for the future, and good work has been done in the systematic examination of the fort at Ambleside and of certain rubbish-pits in London. In one case, that of Holt (pp. 15-21), where ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... one of his father's unfortunate speculations had been the purchase of certain shares in some Welsh mines. The money thus invested had remained, for the last nine years, wholly unproductive. Mr. Woodstock explained that things were looking up with the company in question, who had just declared a dividend of 4 per cent. on ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... therefore he has conscientious scruples against himself for not immediately committing suicide. I believe, if he did exactly what he thought was abstractly right, he'd go away and cut his own throat incontinently for an unprofitable, unproductive, useless citizen.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... these dues were paid by the tenant. A reference to the Promptorinm Parvulorum (a further instalment of which I rejoice to learn, from Mr. Way's communication, in No. 15., is in a state of progress) has been equally unproductive. The editorial note to the communications inserted in No. 17., on the interpretation of Pokership, induces me to send you this query, in the hope of eliciting information, if not from the gentleman ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... up at the colonel. He frowned at her, involuntarily. He was ready to accept Madame Beattie's knowing neither good nor evil, but she seemed to him singularly unpleasant in flaunting that lack of bias. She was quite conscious of his distaste, but it didn't trouble her. Unproductive opinions were nothing to her ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... With the exception of a narrow strip of black mud along the river, the land for ten miles back from the town—called in derision by river men "Mudcat Landing"—was almost entirely worthless and unproductive. The soil, yellow, shallow and stony, was tilled, in Hugh's time, by a race of long gaunt men who seemed as exhausted and no-account as the land on which they lived. They were chronically discouraged, and the merchants and artisans of the town were in the same state. The merchants, who ran their ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... since the establishment of the colony been observed to be so severe. The settlement had indeed, between the fires of the summer, and the floods and gales of the winter, suffered very considerably. Added to these, at this time, were the inconveniences arising from an unproductive harvest, from an exhausted store in the very essential articles of clothing and bedding, from the hostile disposition of many of the natives, and from the annihilation of morality, honesty, and industry in the major ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... in the early centuries of the Christian era, by a singular fallacy,—which arose however from the paucity of economic knowledge in their day,—allowed farm-rent and condemned interest on money, because, as they believed, money was unproductive. They distinguished consequently between the loan of things which are consumed by use—among which they included money—and the loan of things which, without being consumed, yield a product ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Colonial Office that "his talent" had not been laid up in a napkin, but that he had left the colony with an excess of income over expenditure. To obtain this income he fished up all the oysters, ruined the fishery in consequence; and from that day to the present time it has been unproductive. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Diaz as a myth." For the evidence here promised we have searched with a patience of investigation which, if applied to the problem of perpetual motion or squaring the circle, could not, we humbly think, have been wholly unproductive; and these are the results. "The author of 'Bernal Diaz' says the march to Jalapa was accomplished in one day;—a proof that he never saw the country.... Cortez makes the ascent the work of three days, and says he did not reach Sienchimalen until the fourth day." The main discrepancy here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... to behold this unproductive output, no doubt, had it not been a mere foreigner who lost what her own people gained,—money, besides, that could never have benefited her, and that came nearer to benefiting her when spent in that manner than in another. Clotilde, loyal in service, giving more than good measure, offering ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... perhaps, for it would be too bold in me to think that you could form no better wish for yourself than mine. You see, therefore, most kind and charming lady, that I can wish nothing for you on your nameday, because my wishes are too feeble, and therefore unproductive. As for me, I venture to wish for myself your kind indulgence, and the continuance of your friendship, and the goodness that I so highly prize. This is my warmest wish! But if any wish of mine may be permitted, then mine shall become ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... to consummate with my palate the pleasure which the sight of them never failed to give me, I would let it accumulate as my eyes ranged over their gilded expanse, until it had acquired the strength to create in my mind a fresh example of absolute, unproductive beauty; and so it had been from my earliest childhood, when from the tow-path I had stretched out my arms towards them, before even I could pronounce their charming name—a name fit for the Prince in some French ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the pathway of the great caravans which formerly carried on trade between Europe and India. It consists largely of a high plateau, surrounded by mountains. Large parts of the country are sandy and dry from lack of sufficient rain, and therefore are unproductive. The people are a branch of the Aryan race. They doubtless lived a nomadic life, and were obliged to be ever ready to defend themselves. Success in defense against the frequent assaults of their ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... his own resources, he lives by consuming the vital capital provided by others. To use a terminology which is more common than appropriate, whatever work he performs (and he does a good deal, if only in mere locomotion) is unproductive. ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... high as the tide flows. They are called here, though I do not know why, ratoon oysters. The abundance of fish solves the problem which has puzzled many, how the Minorcan population of St. Augustine live, now that their orange-trees, upon which they formerly depended, are unproductive. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... money goes to pay for a ship of war, a regiment of soldiers, or the interest of loans, makes no difference to him who pays the tax; and, indeed, makes little to the general system of national economy, as, in every case, what is paid to the state is employed on unproductive labourers or idle people. That is to say, it is consumed, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... poems—whoever that may be. And why wasting it there? I don't like it. He ought to be earning his bread. He'll be sure to be borrowing money by-and-by. We've got ten thousand too many fellows writing already, and they 've seen a few inches of the world, on the Continent! He can write. But it's all unproductive-dead weight on the country, these fellows with their writings! He says Beauchamp's praise of Miss Denham is quite deserved. He tells me, that at great peril to herself—and she nearly had her arm broken by a stone he saved Shrapnel from rough usage ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the average farmer sets about his house and buildings unproductive oaks, elms and maples, with scarcely a question of a thought that there are as handsome shade trees that will produce pleasure and profit as well. On our lawns and about our door yards we could plant to advantage the Japanese walnut and the hardier types of pecans and Persian ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... gullies down the hillside, which, as they grew larger, became more of a menace to the lands below them. The streams soon grew large enough to take the top-soil from the fields lower down, and in a few years more the whole farm had grown so unproductive that the farmer, tired of the struggle, left the farm and went to the city ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... severe climate, scattered population, and wide expanses of unproductive land have constrained economic development. Economic activity traditionally has been based on agriculture and the breeding of livestock. In past years extensive mineral resources had been developed with Soviet support; total Soviet assistance at its height amounted to 30% of ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... worthless, valueless, priceless; unsalable; not worth a straw &c. (trifling) 643 dear at any price. vain, empty, inane; gainless[obs3], profitless, fruitless; unserviceable, unprofitable; ill-spent; unproductive &c. 169; hors de combat[Fr]; effete, past work &c. (impaired) 659; obsolete &c. (old) 124; fit for the dust hole; good for nothing; of no earthly use; not worth having, not worth powder and shot; leading to no end, uncalled for; unnecessary, unneeded. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... years all trade had been practically stopped, and the only merchants remaining were those who carried on an illicit traffic with the Arabs or, with Eastern apathy, were content to wait for better days. Being utterly unproductive, Suakin had been wisely starved by the Egyptian Government, and the gloom of the situation was matched by ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... most flourishing; immense fields of rice, sugar-cane, and coffee, had taken the place of woods and forests unproductive in themselves. Rich pasture-grounds were covered with numerous flocks; and a fine Indian village stood in the centre of the labouring-ground. Here, there was everywhere to be seen plenty, activity; and ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere |
