"Usefulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will perhaps pardon my ignorance, which includes other drawbacks of my disposition. But when death is in question, I am always much interested,—having spent all my days in trying to find out ways and means of combating man's chief enemy on his own ground. Because,— though I fully admit the usefulness of death as a cleanser and solvent; and as a means of clearing off hopelessly-useless persons, I am not at all sure that it is an advisable way to get rid of the healthy and the promising. I speak as a physician ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the schoolmaster, and it is perhaps less hopeful to appeal to the actual schoolmaster of to-day than to the possible schoolmaster of to-morrow. As are our schools, so will be our Parliaments and our Civil Service, and some at any rate who have mapped out for themselves a career of political usefulness and honour in Westminster, Whitehall, or abroad, might bethink themselves first ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... only stain on my life record... the only one. My life has been an open book but for that. I was only a boy—and I made a slip. Ought that to spoil my whole life, a splendid career of usefulness for the city and the state? Ought I to be ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... poisonous: a fine specimen of a man, though his usefulness in the economy of things is not apparent, at least upon the surface. He dislikes steady, hard work, is a dreamer with a deeply religious tinge, but all the same cruel and remorseless in the pursuit of any object. We were well into the region that ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... affect the character, beauty and usefulness of the stone to a remarkable extent, and at the same time form a means of ready and certain identification ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... grotesque figure approaching camp. It was Herman, the fat cook, on Hunks, a gaunt, ugly old horse, whose days of usefulness under the saddle were past and who had degenerated into a workhorse. The disgrace of it seemed to be driving him into a decline, but he stumbled along bravely under his heavy load. A string of a dozen sage chickens swung on one side, ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... collection contains the work of some of the more prominent American silversmiths, but most of the pieces are by lesser known makers and are in the collection because of historic interest rather than artistic merit. The chief usefulness of the collection lies in its value as a social document and in the mute evidence it gives of the taste and craftsmanship of the periods covered. The collection is also helpful in dating type specimens that do not have specific associations with persons and dates. Perhaps even more interesting than ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... other knowledge which led to it, is an heirloom to you from men whose bodies are now mouldering in the dust, but whose spirits live for ever before God, and whose works follow them, going on, generation after generation, upon the path which they trod while they were upon earth, the path of usefulness, as lights to the steps of youth and ignorance. They are the salt of the earth, which keeps the world of man from decaying back into barbarism. They are the children of light whom God has set for lights that cannot be hid. They are the aristocracy of God, into which not many noble, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... father and mother's last pet, was to summon up courage, tear herself away from familiar and dear surroundings, and carry her gifts and acquirements out into the world, in order to win for them the best distinction of usefulness. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... doubtless, its lovable qualities," Beric said smiling. "It is softer and gentler and better mannered than the lioness, though, perhaps, the lion might not think so. But truly your Roman ladies are beyond comparison with ours. Ours live a life of usefulness, discharging their duties as mistress of the household, intent upon domestic cares, and yet interested as ourselves in all public affairs, and taking a share in their decision. Your ladies live a life of luxury. They are shielded from all trouble. They are like delicate plants by the side ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... due to the same cause. The great aim of the girls' schools in China is, rightly, to furnish such training as shall prepare their students to be worthy wives and mothers, and the large majority of those who attend the schools find their highest subsequent usefulness in the home. But in China, as in other countries, the life of the woman in the home remains, for ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... commission in the army, his yacht, which he had named the Warrenia, in honor of his "sister," was returned to him with the thanks of the United States government, and he was then ready to carry out the stipulation of his father, that he should bring the craft around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Her usefulness when in the naval service, required her presence in the Atlantic, but she was now free to go whither her owner willed. Thus the perilous voyage had been postponed for a ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... English History referred to in the Short List of Books on page xxxvi. Professor Cannon's volume contains "exact references to some two thousand of the most useful and accessible works on English history." No other single volume can compare with it for usefulness in ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... laboratory. The work was not well paid, but the association with the students, which aroused his intellectual appetites, had given him a new spur. What saddened her was that it was all entirely beyond her sphere of influence, of usefulness to him. Living, as they should, in an almost savage isolation, she dreaded his absorption in anything apart from her. There were other reliefs, consolations, and hopes than those she held. He was slipping away into a silent region—man's peculiar world—of thought and dream and speculation, an intangible, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... ideas. How far do they change with time? 8. His ideas on modern political economy and modern life. How far are they reasonable? (Perhaps 'Munera Pulveris' or 'Unto This Last' states his views as well as any other one of his works.) 9. Compare with Carlyle in temperament, ideas, and usefulness. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... miscreant, could put the forest telephone out of commission for hours at a time. He rejoiced to think that no one could tamper with the air and that he could always get a connection with his wireless. More and more he saw the possibilities of usefulness for the wireless in ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... soon to multiply. Nor was Father Vincent's reputation for sanctity confined to Catholics. Even Protestants not only acknowledged the heroism of his virtues, but also sought to possess some earth from his grave, and one of them, J. H., still living, was restored to health and usefulness by the application of this relic to ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... History ranks first in dignity, power and usefulness; but who will say that at her court the Prime Minister is not the Novel which by its lightness, grace and address has popularized history ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... to insure the widest possible influence, and consequently usefulness, we are prepared to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... Out of the dark soil springs the perfect plant. But a volcanic eruption is sterile, the ruin of the fertile ground. And am I, who love my country—who have nothing but that to love and put my faith in—am I to have my future, perhaps my usefulness, ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... ought not to be the one to say so, but that really, speaking of ordinary middle-society, he thought there were few ghosts who could look back upon a life of more sustained usefulness. ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... its usefulness will be gone and it warns me that mine is going," he said, and quoted ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... performed, if it only can be got through with. They have not waked to the consciousness that we have no right to do anything badly, because whenever we do so we impair our own faculties, and thereby diminish our powers of usefulness; while, if the act concerns any one beside ourselves,—as almost all acts ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... of M. d'Ernonville, which is to make men sensible of the exhaustless charms of nature, to lead them back to their simple and original tastes, to promote the variety and resources of a country life, and to unite its usefulness with its embellishment."[59] ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... his watch, took off his spectacles, and dusted them carefully with a soft yellow handkerchief; then restored them to their double sphere of usefulness, and perused, with some diligence, the time of day. By the law which compels a man to sneeze when another man sets the example, Sir Duncan also drew ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... her apprenticeship at that, but simply to force herself to realize vividly just how matters stood with her. Those columns and pages of closely printed offerings of work! Dreary tasks, all of them—tasks devoid of interest, of personal sense of usefulness, tasks simply to keep degrading soul in degenerating body, tasks performed in filthy factories, in foul-smelling workrooms and shops, in unhealthful surroundings. And this, throughout civilization, was the "honest work" so praised—by all who don't do it, but live pleasantly ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... what mighty mischiefs, he asked, had followed the admission? Was the university less orthodox in its principles? or less a Protestant foundation than before? Had the zeal of its public instructors been lessened, or their sphere of usefulness narrowed by this interference? It should be remembered that those on whom the exclusions fell were men of active and stirring spirits, men who wrould excite and probably guide the councils of those with whom they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... [Footnote: Campanella held its purpose to be the contemplation of the wisdom of God; cp., for instance, De sensu rerum, Bk. iv. epilogus, where the world is described as statua Dei altissimi (p. 370; ed. 1620).] The end of the sciences is their usefulness to the human race. To increase knowledge is to extend the dominion of man over nature, and so to increase his comfort and happiness, so far as these depend on external circumstances. To Plato or Seneca, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... made an offer of marriage, during the preceding year, but nothing had then been settled, Elizabeth Gurney being afraid that any change at that time might interfere with her spiritual welfare and her newly-formed plans of active usefulness. But after some correspondence, when the proposal was renewed, she felt it right to give her consent. It was the custom more generally prevailing than now for the junior partner to reside in the house of business, and in accordance with this, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... declined, the more the people wished him to accept, and at last his father argued with him that a martial people needed one who should teach them moderation and religion; that he ought to recognize the fact that the gods were calling him to a large sphere of usefulness. These arguments proved sufficient, and Numa accepted the crown. After making the appropriate offerings to the gods, he set out for Rome, and was met by the populace coming forth to receive him with joyful acclamations. Sacrifices were offered in the temples, and with impressive ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... organization. In 1771, when he was made Governor of Bengal, he had attempted much and succeeded in much. He fought hard with the secret terror of dacoity. Having given Bengal a judicial system, he proceeded to increase its usefulness by drawing up a code of Mohammedan and Hindu law. For the former he used the digest made by command of Aurungzebe; for the {258} second he employed ten learned Pundits, the result of whose labors was afterwards translated into English by Halhed, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to be on the alert all the time, and Eben proved his usefulness by finding out all about the men before Allen ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... knows, I do not seek to judge your duty in this gravest moment of your lives, nor assume to tell you what you must or must not do. But by hurrying into service now, without careful thought or consideration, you may impair the extent of your possible usefulness to the very cause you are so anxious to serve. Hundreds of you are taking technical courses which should be completed—at least to the end of the term in June. Instructors from the United States Army are already on ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... from the lime and salt mixture, that this mixture exerts a more powerful decomposing action than lime alone. Where salt is cheap and wood ashes scarce, the mixture may be employed accordingly to advantage. Of its usefulness we have the testimony ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... reflecting telescope was nearly three hundred inches in diameter, and was powerful enough to spot a spaceship leaving Sator. Its military usefulness, however, was practically nil, since painting the ships black ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... doubtless, that according to the sincerity of our desire that our friends may be true, and our companions wise,—and in proportion to the earnestness and discretion with which we choose both,—will be the general chances of our happiness and usefulness. ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... from home and friends, and, for the pioneer, days of unspeakable loneliness, are the missionary's portion. The necessity of sending children to America, so that they may escape disease and immorality among the heathen, is an agony which only the affectionate parent can know. Opportunities for usefulness which cannot be seized, because of lack of reenforcement from the homeland, involve a "hope deferred ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... turned away and began walking again over the strip of carpet which led from the door to the window. In the yard the dried stalks of last year's flowers looked so lonely in the midst of the dirty snow, that she felt a sudden impulse of sympathy. Poor things, they had outlived their usefulness. The phrase occurred to her again, and she remembered how often her father had applied it to women whose children had all married and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... that Satyavan liveth.' And Apastamba said, 'From the manner in which the voices of birds and wild animals are being heard through the stillness of the atmosphere on all sides, and from the fact also of thy having regained the use of thy eyes, indicating thy usefulness for earthly purposes once more, there can be no doubt that Satyavan liveth.' And Dhauma said, 'As thy son is graced with every virtue, and as he is the beloved of all, and as he is possessed of marks betokening a long life, there can be no doubt ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... little Keats may now be saved to a life of usefulness and not be hanged for murder, thanks to his brother's brave action. Of course Bugs himself is set in his ways, and will adorn only positions of a certain kind. He's fine here, for instance, just at this time ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... entered on life, not as he might have expected, independent and with court favour on his side, but with his very livelihood to gain—a competitor at the bottom of the ladder for patronage and countenance. This great change in his fortunes told very unfavourably on his happiness, his usefulness, and, it must be added, on his character. He accepted it, indeed, manfully, and at once threw himself into the study of the law as the profession by which he was to live. But the law, though it was the only path open to him, was not the one which suited his genius, or his object in life. To the ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... supply of fifty to that important town, where last summer I nearly lost my life in a burning fever. I am expecting every day a fresh order from Salamanca, and hope that, as the circle widens in the lake into which a stripling has cast a pebble, so will the circle of our usefulness continue widening until it has embraced the ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... me from beginning my career of usefulness and charity to-night? The hour is late—but misery sleeps not, and 'tis never too late to alleviate the sufferings of distressed humanity. Yes, I will go forth, even at the midnight hour, and perchance I may encounter some poor fellow-creature worthy ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the breakfast-table. It was the first time he had done such a thing in his life, and a little honest pride in the possession of such a cough would not be denied. Dim possibilities of its vast usefulness suddenly occurred ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... shrieked the king, stamping his foot in passion. "You've outlived your usefulness! You're a coward! You're a traitor! ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... it seemed, doubtless in a great degree subconsciously, to the man who had wagered all his wealth on the usefulness of the poor to the rich and the dependence of the rich on the poor. The time came at last when the rather reckless breeding in the abyss below ceased to be a supply, and began to be something like a wastage; ceased to be something like keeping foxhounds, ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... that teachers, in pursuing such studies, will be led astray from the acquirement of more important but less attractive knowledge? And, even if they can learn something of science without prejudice to their usefulness, what is the good of their attempting to instil that knowledge into boys whose real business is the acquisition of ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... a brace of revolving pistols in his coat pocket, with seven barrels a-piece. He also carried, amongst other trinkets, a sword-stick, which he called his 'Tickler.' and a great knife, which (for he was a man of a pleasant turn of humour) he called 'Ripper,' in allusion to its usefulness as a means of ventilating the stomach of any adversary in a close contest. He had used these weapons with distinguished effect in several instances, all duly chronicled in the newspapers; and was greatly beloved for the gallant ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of 'Our Fathers have told us,' now submitted to the public, is enough to show the proposed character and tendencies of the work, to which, contrary to my usual custom, I now invite subscription, because the degree in which I can increase its usefulness by engraved illustration must greatly depend on the known number of ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... acquiring this happy and cheerful dignity comes from the desire to be admired, which is a tendency inborn in the great majority of women. It stands in the way of their greatest strength and usefulness, because it takes away their real independence and keeps them thinking about themselves instead of about others. It is a form of bondage which makes them vain and self-conscious and renders impossible the truest and happiest companionship ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... shifty, insidious title in its go-to-meeting sense, every Christian is prima facie a gentleman; taking it in its every-day sense, no 'gentleman' can be a Christian; for Christianity postulates initial equality, and recognises no gradation except in usefulness. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... stag and fallow-deer are other examples; so, too, the wild white cattle maintained in a few parks. In a measure the rook owes its existence to protection; for although naturalists have pointed out its usefulness, the rook is no favourite with agriculturists. Woodcocks, again, are protected, and are said to have increased, though it is open to question if their increased numbers may not be due to other causes. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... they usually remain, obstructing the free passage of the blood through the openings of the heart, thereby inducing secondary changes, which take place slowly at first, but ultimately seriously impair the animal's usefulness. What was but a slight obstruction to the circulation during the first few weeks after the subsidence of the cardiac inflammatory attack becomes in process of time so much increased as to induce increased growth in the muscular structure of the heart, constituting ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... any great degree of accuracy should be arrived at. Yet the translator hopes that what trifling deviations from the text or corrections in foot notes he is responsible for, will have done a little towards the increased usefulness of the work. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... and outlets into the vale of Annan. The minister alone remained at his post continuing in ejaculatory prayer, and resisting all persuasion even to take advantage of the adjoining cairny cave. In vain did Walter Gibson delay till the last moment, and talk of his farther usefulness. Mr Lawson's only answer was—"I am in the hands of a merciful Master, and, if he has more service for me, he himself will provide a way for my escape. I have neither wife nor child, nor, I may say, relation, alive. I am, as it were, a stranger ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... your secret service," he repeated. "Did even your Majesty know me, my usefulness would be at an end." He pointed toward the two policemen. "If you desire to be just, as well as gracious, those are ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... had contained none of these elements of permanence. On the contrary, much of the time she had been a nomad, the mining settlements that gave her shelter being frankly regarded as temporary halting places to be abandoned whenever their usefulness should become exhausted. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... hereinafter directed, a horse may be shod without violation of nature's laws; foot disease, under fair conditions, will become almost impossible, and the useless refuse-stock, broken down by the old method, may be restored to usefulness. ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... money; go on rising in value in your business; and after a little you'll rise clear out of the sphere you're now in. You'll command your own time; you'll build your own little home; and life and happiness and usefulness will be fairly and broadly open before you." Richling gave heed with a troubled face, and let his companion draw him into the shadow of that "St. Charles" from the foot of whose stair-way he had once been dragged away as ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... pleasant home there, and live an easy, natural life, while here it will be years before you can expect to accomplish much, and you will spend your life in a nervous strain. Think well, young man, before choosing the great city as your sphere of usefulness." ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... people he was sent to rule. Surely, with such a type-man for ruler, there would seem to be but a smooth and even road over which he might lead the people whose character he represented into the new region of national happiness and comfort and usefulness, for which that ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... the boy's graceful figure disappeared through the door, Mr. Rose drew his arm-chair to the fire, and sat and meditated long. He was imagining for Eric a sunny future—a future of splendid usefulness, of reciprocated ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... eye, the first I had ever seen, and which we see so often occurring in his descendants. I owned a grandson of his named "Gus," 48136, who was almost a reproduction of him, with eyes fully as large. Unfortunately he jumped out of a third-story window in my kennels and permanently ended his usefulness. Chief among the direct descendants from Hooper's Judge were the noted stud dogs, Ben Butler, Hall's Max, O'Brien's Ross, Hook's Punch, Trimount King, McMullen's Boxer, and Ben, Goode's Ned, and Bixby's Tony Boy. The two dogs that impressed me the most in that group were Max, a fairly good sized, ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... Our fathers did not denounce the telephone as an "American humbug," but they did describe it as a curious electric "toy" and ridiculed the notion that it could ever have any practical value. Even after Alexander Graham Bell and his associates had completely demonstrated its usefulness, the Western Union Telegraph Company refused to purchase all their patent rights for $100,000! Only forty years have passed since the telephone made such an inauspicious beginning. It remains now, as it was then, essentially ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... one of rare usefulness for young readers, and trust it will become a formidable rival for much of the fiction now in circulation ...
— Sunny Boy in the Big City • Ramy Allison White
... Mulford and in all that belonged to him. Jack Tier was useful on board a vessel, though his want of stature and force rendered him less so than was common with sea-faring men. His proper sphere certainly had been the cabins, where his usefulness was beyond all cavil; but he was now very serviceable to Mulford on the deck of the schooner. The first two days, Mrs. Budd had been left on the islet, to look to the concerns of the kitchen, while Mulford, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... gave the customary call, and the mastiff mounted the stage with a grave deliberate step, as if conscious of the dignity and usefulness of the life he led, and like a dog accustomed to the friendly notice of man. The appearance of this well-known and celebrated brute caused another stir in the throng, many pressing upon the guards to get a nearer view, and a few casting fragments of food from their ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... horse-race or a transaction on the stock exchange the permanent welfare, sometimes even the very subsistence, of his wife and children or others depending on him; or, if he loses, he cuts short a career of future usefulness, or he renders himself unable to develope, or perhaps even to retain, his business or his estates, and so involves his tenants, or clerks, or workmen in his ruin, or, perhaps, he becomes bankrupt and is thus the cause of wide-spread misery amongst ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... to the principle thus laid down would heavily shackle the activity and seriously impair the immediate usefulness of Mr. Forster and his coadjutors in the Endowed School Commission, I am exceedingly sorry, but not in the least shaken in my conviction that the principle ought to be rigidly adhered to. If parochial or other communities ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... one of the earlier types of submarines by an under-water hand-grenade or lance bomb depended entirely upon what part of the vessel happened to be struck. Their sphere of usefulness was, from the first, very limited, and the advent of the big cruiser submarine, with armoured conning-tower and ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... anything, and all that we claim for Phrenology follows logically and as a matter of course. In the light of this demonstration of known facts, it follows that character can be read, and if read, then it can be assigned to the position of its best usefulness in the profession, trade or avocation suitable to the employment of the talents demonstrated to exist. If Phrenology gives the index to your character, as we have proved it does, then it also forms the key to the solution of the problem of matrimony ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... address is not to be published)—as I consider my duty to the Public rendered it imperative that I should do so, for I should not think much of any woman who allowed a paltry consideration of domestic obligations to weigh against the pursuit of a career of usefulness. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... exhausted these, yet always with some degree of quiet, including intervals of repose. I was tired of all the great foolishnesses of youth, and had thought myself done with them. Now I found myself plunged into more uproarious waters than I had ever known I, who had hoped to begin a life of usefulness and peace, was forced to dwell in the midst of a ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... that exist in the human heart, but they are none the less real. Indeed, they are in a sense more potent, lying thus in immortal embryo, than they could be as tangible institutions. Institutions are brought into being, perfected, kept past their time of highest usefulness and finally discarded. The hopes of men spring eternally, spontaneously. They ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... important rivers and harbors should be promoted by the necessary appropriations. Care should be taken that the Government is not committed to the prosecution of works not of public and general advantage and that the relative usefulness of works of that class is not overlooked. So far as this work can ever be said to be completed, I do not doubt that the end would be sooner and more economically reached if fewer separate works were undertaken at the same time, and those selected for their greater general interest were more ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the professors, as a rule ranking below the salaries of some of our clerks. To save for old age with these men is impossible. Hence the universities without pension funds are compelled to retain men who are no longer able, should no longer be required, to perform their duties. Of the usefulness of the fund no doubt can be entertained.[48] The first list of beneficiaries published was conclusive upon this point, containing as it did several names of world-wide reputation, so great had been their contributions to the stock of human knowledge. Many of these beneficiaries and their ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... rapid flight, sea-birds, and marsh-birds are differentiated. Insects are classified according to habit; those that attack plants, animals, clothing, or wood. Vegetables seem to be classified according to their usefulness. One tablet enumerates the uses of wood according to its adaptability for timber-work of palaces, or construction of vessels, the making of implements of husbandry, or even furniture. Minerals occupy a long series in these tablets. They are classed according to their qualities, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... constantly told of the usefulness of the dogma of life hereafter. It is pretended that even if it should be a fiction, it is advantageous, because it imposes upon men and leads them to virtue. But is it true that this dogma renders men wiser and more virtuous? The nations where this fiction ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... agitators, became completely unmanageable. When Yashka herself opened fire on some Germans who were walking openly through No Man's Land, the Russians on her flanks turned their machine guns against the women and prepared to mow them down. The usefulness of the Battalion was at an end and the lives of the girls were in danger from the Russian soldiers. It became necessary to take them to the rear. Even there, however, when quartered in reserve barracks, they were not ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... choice at the eastern end of London, purchased on the spot two suits of mourning—one for Rob the Grinder, which was immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver; which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in connexion with the instrument business. In their several garments, which the vendor declared ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... are ready so far as usefulness goes, but people have preferences in color. Some prefer bronze, some gray, and some black; so off the pens go to the tempering-room, their last trip, and there are heated in a revolving cylinder till the right ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... Another secondary cause is the premature explosion of shell within the bore, a defect which should be also remediable. Indeed, the "Parrott" shell were at first notoriously defective, often bursting too soon or not at all, and thus losing much of their usefulness; though this defect has now been, in a great degree, remedied. The discussion of the whole subject in this book seems reasonable and unprejudiced, and a letter from the maker of the guns, at the end, gives with equal candor his side of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... rid of unnecessary regulations and making them more sensible. The programs and regulations that have outlived their usefulness should go. We have to cut yesterday's Government to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... be written called The Hitching Post, about those thousands of little cast-iron negro boys who stand so patiently on the green grass strips along village streets waiting to hold long-forgotten bridle reins. They lost their usefulness a decade or more ago, and so, by the same token and at the same time, did all that army of people who lived and moved and had their being by ministering to the needs of the horse. The gas engine was to them what the mechanical ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... dear," the young woman asserted with profound conviction, "you know that I'm right, because you're a real woman. The men don't know it—poor things!—but the ruling passion of a woman's life is usefulness. And isn't it much nicer to work for a husband whom you love ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... now no longer useful, but they once were so, and were therefore once purposive, though not so now. They are the expressions of a bygone usefulness; sayings, as it were, about which there was at one time infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expression should best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouths of those who used them, though they have become such mere shibboleths and cant formulae to ourselves ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... superior to a certain crimson flush of indignation, as she held her head into the grate, and thought of Ethel, Flora, and Blanche, criticized by Mr. Henry Ward. Little ungrateful chit! No, it was not a matter of laughing, but of forgiveness; and the assertion of the dignity of usefulness was speedily forgotten in the toilette of the small light skin-and-bone frames, in the course of which she received sundry compliments—'her hands were so nice and soft,' 'she did not pull their hair like their own Mary,' 'they wished she ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and much respected by his master. The governor was well pleased to see him, shook hands with him very cordially, and told him that he who was resolute enough to turn back from vicious ways, into the paths of virtue and usefulness, deserved even more respect than one ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... placed the four cartridges on the table and turning his attention to the handkerchief examined it minutely. It was one of those filmy scraps of muslin and lace which ladies call a handkerchief—an article whose cost is out of all proportion to its usefulness. Gabrielle, who was watching him keenly as ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... center than as a shipping point, on account of the fact that the surrounding lands are as yet unirrigated. It has a population of about 1,800, and is just now enjoying new vigor and much building in anticipation of its future usefulness as a commercial center for distribution of both ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... necessary in this way, is not subject to human judgment, wherefore human law is not concerned with necessity of this kind. Again a thing may be necessary for an end: and this necessity is the same as usefulness. Therefore it is superfluous to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... and parallels of latitude at every ten degrees, and the substitution of names for reference numbers, will add to the usefulness ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... elevated cast, taking a comprehensive glance at all the bearings of good and evil—being of the sort of love which induces the parent to correct the child, that the lesson of present suffering may produce the blessings of future respectability and usefulness. Acting on these principles, he gradually grew more estranged from his species in appearance, a sacrifice that was probably exacted by the severity of his practical reproofs for their growing wickedness, and the austere policy that was necessary to enforce ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and friend, Henry Clarke Warren. In him were united not only the will and the ability to establish such a publication as this, but also the learning and insight which enabled him to forecast in a general way its possibilities of usefulness. He knew that the East had many a lesson to teach the West; but whether the lesson be repose of spirit or hygiene of the soldier in the field, whether it be the divine immanence or simplicity of life or the overcoming of evil with good, he knew that the first lesson ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... common schools, and of inspiring confidence in their redeeming power, when improved as they may be, constituting, as they do, the only reliable instrumentality for the proper training of the rising generation. These labors, which were hailed as promising great usefulness, and which were prosecuted in every county of the state, were every where received with unexpected favor, and constitute the foundation of the present volume. Many of the subjects then discussed ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... enterprises. There are women who have a special outside mission, and do not dare to interpret me as derisive of their important mission. But my opinion is that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life and rear her children for positions of usefulness is doing more for God and the race and her own happiness than if she spoke on every great platform and headed a hundred great enterprises. My mother never made a missionary speech in her life, and at a missionary meeting ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... informed by Senator Jones that it will be reintroduced. Its purpose is of great public importance, and the indorsement of the very intelligent directors of the Sierra Club in California argues well for its form. Every person interested in the development of our National Parks to fullest usefulness and the proper conservation of their natural beauty should work for the ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... was the Rev. Thomas Gowles in his home ministry. Circumstances called him to that wider field of usefulness, the Pacific, in which so many millions of our dusky brethren either worship owls, butterflies, sharks, and lizards, or are led away captive by the seductive pomps of the Scarlet Woman, or lapse languidly into the lap of a bloated and Erastian ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... should have been satisfied to go on forever with nothing else in her life; but in a little while they would grow up and begin to lead their own intense personal lives, while she, having outlived her usefulness, would be left with only her work, with only dressmaking and millinery for a life interest. "Something is wrong with me," she thought sternly; "the visit to the judge must have upset me. I don't usually have such ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... to stand up for this poor lady, whose usefulness in the world is apparently problematical. She seems to me like a picture which has fallen from its gilded frame and lies, face downward, on the dusty floor. The picture never was as needful as a window ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... — N. use; employ, employment; exercise, exercitation[obs3]; application, appliance; adhibition[obs3], disposal; consumption; agency &c. (physical) 170; usufruct; usefulness &c. 644; benefit; recourse, resort, avail. [Conversion to use] utilization, service, wear. [Way of using] usage. V. use,.make use of, employ, put to use; put in action, put in operation, put in practice; set in motion, set to work. ply, work, wield, handle, manipulate; play, play off; exert, exercise, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... neither has been given any authority over the other. At the same time each depends upon the other, neither being able to do its own work without the other's assistance. They should work hand in hand, each assisting the other in every possible way to realize its largest usefulness to the community and the State. In general, the high school should send its students to the university well equipt to do the lines of work for which they respectively apply. And the university, knowing in each case just what that work is to be, and the difficulties it ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... curtains are always in line with the wind movement, and the structure is held taut by a cord, the lateral effect, when used on a machine which does not at all times move in line with the moving air current. A condition is thus set up which destroys the usefulness ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... this way to me. It is out of the kindness of your heart—for you have a soft old heart behind all that professionalism. But it does not look reasonable to me that a man who has really lived, can ever drag along like you say. Who wants to live, anyway, beyond the time of usefulness? I don't. I want to pass out like old Prince—you remember my good ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... incorporation of the British consular service in the civil service there have been several proposals to "reform" the system with the view of increasing its usefulness, more particularly from the point of view of providing assistance to British trade abroad (see Reports of Special Committees of the House of Commons on the Consular Service, 1858, 1872, 1903). It has been frequently urged that British consuls in their commercial knowledge and intercourse with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... intervals out of the saddle were brief and given mainly to meals and sleep. As he plunged into books to extract from them whatever facts or philosophy they might hold which he needed to enrich his personality and his usefulness, so he plunged into the life of the Bad Lands seeking to comprehend the emotions and the mental processes, the personalities and the social conditions that made it what it was. With a warm humanity on which the shackles of social prejudice already hung loose, he moved ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... The usefulness of economic geology was first recognized in relation to mineral resources,—and particularly in relation to metallic resources, their discovery and development,—but the science has been found to have much wider practical application. The practice of the economic ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... that all orders and all parts of Germany were in a state of ferment. The next manifestation of the revolutionary spirit was the rebellion of the knights. This class, now in a state of moral and economic decay, had long survived any usefulness it had ever had. The rise of the cities, the aggrandizement of the princes, and the change to a commercial from a feudal society all worked to the disadvantage of the smaller nobility and gentry. About the only means of livelihood left them was freebooting, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... usefulness of the laws is in calling the attention of the farmer to the mistake that he may be carelessly committing, and in placing over him a fear of possible disgrace in ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... twofold: he was to move south by the valley, no matter where Early might be, or what he might be doing, in full confidence that Early would surely be found in his front; and he was to devastate the valley so far as to destroy its future usefulness as a granary and a storehouse of the ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... the moaning of the words, the unabashed lawyer, who in his life had been a dramatic actor, replied with his accustomed readiness and effrontery. A young man unacquainted with mobs would have descanted indignantly and with many theatrical flourishes on the dignity and usefulness of the player's vocation; an ordinary demagogue would have frankly admitted the discourteous impeachment, and pleaded in mitigation that he had always acted in leading parts and for high salaries. Sergeant Wilkins took neither of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... "All my usefulness has been dragged out of me. I don't care about the place or about the people. I am ill already, and shall become worse. I think I will go abroad for four or five years. I've an idea I ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the stalks of maize, clover and alfalfa hay and other leguminous forage crops would not have sufficient value to pay for raising if animals were not kept to convert them into useful products. In fact, the usefulness of a given animal may be judged by the economy with which he converts these otherwise useless products into food or other materials for the use of man. The most profound studies are being made to determine the conditions under ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... more proof of the usefulness of your publication, that I am thus enabled to strengthen the illustration of a totally different subject by the incidental authority ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... Some time or other I hope to visit you, and suffer my present prepossessions to be confirmed by actual experience.' . . . WE have received and perused with gratification the last report of the 'New-York Asylum for Deaf Mutes.' The institution is in the most flourishing condition, and its usefulness greatly increased. We are sorry to perceive, by the following 'specimen of composition' of a pupil in the eighth class, that the 'Orphic Sayings' of Mr. A. BRONSON ALCOTT are taken as literary models ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... however, much more difficult to handle, for while they are hardy, strong, intelligent, and willing, they do not make good servants. All their training cannot entirely tame them, and they have certain ways and habits which lessen their usefulness. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the more content she was with the outside of it. Where doubtless many children had played, on the knowe below a single shrub of fir-wood beside the loch, Nan spread out the remains of her breakfast again and they prepared to make a meal. Gilian gathered the dry heather tufts, happy in his usefulness, thinking her quite content too, while all the time she was puzzling as to what was next to be done. Never seemed a bleak piece of country so lovely to him as now. As he rose from bending over the heather and looked around, seeing the moor in its many colours stretch ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... reviewing), shall long live in these pages, embalmed in unfading youth, to win and to guide many to Him, at whose feet she sat and learned to "choose the better part." Her pleasant voice will be heard in our homes, assuring our daughters that "there is no sphere of usefulness more pleasant than this;" bidding them believe that "it is a comfort to take the weight of family duties from a mother, to soothe and cheer a wearied father, and a delight to aid a young brother in his ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... nature, the spirit of God, is a total stranger to such conceptions as harmfulness and usefulness," replied Benda in a tone of serious reflection. "He lives, and that is about all you can say. So far as I am concerned, I have not the slightest reason to defend a Doederlein in your presence." He was silent for a moment and took a deep breath. "I cannot speak more distinctly; somehow ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... machine, though a somewhat expensive one, might be very useful in war to enable one to discover the position of the enemy, his manoeuvres, and his marches; and to announce these by signals to one's own army. 1 believe that at sea it is equally possible to make use of this machine. These prove the usefulness of the balloon, which time will perfect for us. All that I regret is that I did not provide myself ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion |
