"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entrancing beauties of the "Russian Valley" ought to be thrashed with his own raw-hide. We heard Foss bamboozling a group of travelers with the idea that on the other route the roads were dangerous, the horses poor, the accommodations wretched and the scenery worthless. We came up in time to combat the statement with our own happy experiences of the Russian Valley, and to save his passengers from the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... lover arrives at dawn, having failed to come in the night, the girl (another nayika, 'one who has been deceived') upbraids Krishna for wandering about like a crow, picking up worthless grains of rice, wasting his hours in bad company and ruining houses by squatting ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... but with some amendments. Mr. Harris and I are under contract with the Molino Company to report upon their properties along the Boque river. I am informed by Don Rosendo that he is acquainted with these alleged mines, and knows them to be worthless. Be that as it may, I am obliged to examine them. But I will agree to take this girl to New York, under the protection of my wife, upon the consideration that when I reach my home city I be allowed to form a company to take over this mine, returning to the girl ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... statements of Mrs. Stowe to be untrue, for the following reasons. First, because Shelby had a number of slaves from whom he could select; and I know from personal observation, that it is a universal practice among slaveholders to sell their most worthless and vicious slaves to negro traders. If they are forced to sell such a negro as she represents Tom to be, some neighbor who is acquainted with the slave, will give a higher price for him than a negro trader will. A negro trader ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... form consists, above all things, in keeping silent Intimate friend, whom he has known for about five minutes My good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure Society people ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... are tireless after those dollars—you will be a big man of dollars, it is plain." Into his voice came a touch of bitterness. "I also was marked out. Why do I carry a cane? why do I not buy a farm and raise steers? I am the most worthless thing alive. I have the touch of genius without the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... worthless as last year's nests. My lover," she laughed scornfully, "is quite safe even from your malevolence. If indeed 'one touch of nature makes the whole world kin,' one might expect some pity from the guild of love swains; and it augurs sadly for Miss Gordon's future, that ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Buddir ad Deen, "what do you mean to do with a stake?" "Why, to impale you," replied Shumse ad Deen, "and then to have you carried through all the quarters of the town, that the people may have the spectacle of a worthless pastry-cook, who makes cream-tarts without pepper." This said, Buddir ad Deen cried out so ludicrously, that Shumse ad Deen could hardly keep his countenance: "Alas!" said he, "must I suffer a death as cruel as it is ignominious, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... spiritual condition acceptable in the sight of God. Following this aim with feverish intentness, and tortured by a conscience of extreme tenderness, the Puritans naturally cast aside the pleasures of this life as likely to interfere with the attainment of future happiness, and as worthless compared to it. It was no time for gaiety and trifling when the horrors of hell were staring ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... pass on to the last evidences offered by Paley, which necessitate a closer investigation into the value of the testimony borne by the patristic, to the canonical, writings, it will be well to put broadly the fact, that these Fathers are simply worthless as witnesses to any matter of fact, owing to the absurd and incredible stories which they relate with the most perfect faith. Of critical faculty they have none; the most childish nonsense is accepted by them, with the gravest face; no story is too silly, no falsehood too glaring, for them to ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... suppressed, but, as it appeared to me, intense anger, 'I have lived long enough to know that COLDNESS and discouragement, and such terms, form the common cant of a worthless coquette. You know to the full, as well as I, that COLDNESS AND DISCOURAGEMENT may be so exhibited as to convince their object that he is neither distasteful or indifferent to the person who wears this manner. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... not familiar with mineral specimens should not carry off from the various localities a variety of worthless stones, etc., which are frequently more or less attractive to an inexperienced eye, the following ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... possible was done to make it a splendid funeral—a rosewood coffin and velvet pall, crape streamers and funereal plumes, an elegant hearse, and an almost unending line of carriages—pitiable, senseless pride, that would cast away as worthless the priceless jewel, and bestow tender care and pompous honor on the perishable casket ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... caution which we ought to carry with us more and more as we get in view of the coming period of open book trade, and of demand practically boundless. Noble works ought not to be printed in mean and worthless forms, and cheapness ought to be limited by an instinctive sense and law of fitness. The binding of a book is the dress with which it walks out into the world. The paper, type and ink are the body, in which its soul is domiciled. And these three, soul, body, and habilament, ...
— On Books and the Housing of Them • William Ewart Gladstone
... similar English conquest of France. But the chances of fate are many. Both Henry and his insane father-in-law died in the same year, and while Henry left only a tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and the English captains in the name of their baby King took possession of one fortress after another, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to revive the law of Lycurgus, which forbade a child, male or female, to be brought up without the approbation of public officers appointed ad hoc. One of the curses of the 19th century is the increased skill of the midwife and the physician, who are now able to preserve worthless lives and to bring up semi-abortions whose only effect upon the breed is increased degeneracy." [534] He thought with Edward FitzGerald and many another sympathiser with the poor, that it is the height of folly for a labouring man ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... like to starve, a lot of these worthless dogs could be killed for them to eat," said Donovan. "It wouldn't hurt my feelings to slaughter the ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... for two volumes, to the great annoyance of the blameless prig, who is, however, to be kept carefully below swearing-point, for the whole time. If he once boils over into any natural action or exclamation, he is forthwith worthless, and you must get another. Next break the wife's reputation into small pieces; and dust them well over the blameless prig. Then take a few vials of tribulation and wrath, and empty these generally over the ...
— Every Man His Own Poet - Or, The Inspired Singer's Recipe Book • Newdigate Prizeman
... Church rulers endorse the credentials of the candidate, and sanction his appearance in the character of an ecclesiastical functionary. But these rulers may themselves be incompetent or profane, so that their approval may be worthless; or, by mistake, they may permit wolves in sheep's clothing to take charge of the flock of Christ. The simple fact, therefore, that an individual holds a certain position in any section of the visible Church, is no decisive ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... world, had entered precipitately into a causeless war, now lost his life in fictitious combat at the celebration of peace. On the tenth of July, Henry the Second died of the wound inflicted by Montgomery in the tournament held eleven days before. Of this weak and worthless prince, all that even his flatterers could favorably urge was his great fondness for war, as if a sanguinary propensity, even when unaccompanied by a spark of military talent, were of itself a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... carpet-knights make bold to laugh, while inwardly thanking their stars that they live in the peaceful age of the policeman. Such men as this ran their thick simple heads against many a windmill, couched lance over many a far-fetched insult, and swung a sword in honour of many a worthless maid; but they made England, my masters. Let us ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... when conquered crouds confess thy sway, When ev'n proud wealth and prouder wit obey, My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust, Alas! 'tis hard for beauty to be just. Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ; Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy: With his own form acquaint the forward fool, Shewn in the faithful glass of ridicule; Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, ) No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, ) So shall Belinda's charms improve ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... left as soon as it stopped raining," said Solomon Owl to himself. "He might at least have waited to thank me for giving him a day's lodging. It's the last time I'll ever bring any worthless vagabond into my house. And I ought to have known better than to have anything to do with a crazy person like ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... have principles! Isn't that frightful? But I just simply love you so! And you're so good, and so great, and so very wise! I'm so afraid that you might, sometime, discover—when I say something foolish, or do something—that it's all a mistake, that I'm much too silly for you ... I'm really as worthless and as silly ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... shall never make an aristocracy of ignorance understand that intellect ennobles. If I have not sufficient influence to compel them to accept M. David Sechard, I am quite willing to sacrifice the worthless creatures to you. It would be a perfect hecatomb in the antique manner. But, dear friend, you would not, of course, ask me to leave them all in exchange for the society of a person whose character and manner might not please me. I know from your flatteries ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... ... Odoric de Pordenone" (edited by Henri Cordier). English translations of Rubruquis and Pordenone also appear as an appendix in Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited by A. W. Pollard (1900). Sir John Mandeville is worthless as an historical source, as his genuine material is all drawn from these sources and from Marco Polo, and there is no probability that he ever travelled in the East. His own additions are usually mendacious. The standard ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Whetstone the reins and galloped after Vesta, who was already over the hill. As he rode he began to realize as never before the smallness of this fence-cutting feud, the really worthless bone at the bottom of the contention. Here Philbrook had fenced in certain lands which all men agreed he had been cheated in buying, and here uprose those who scorned him for his gullibility, and ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... least as many persons who testify they have seen apparitions as there are men of science who have examined the microbe. You and I, who have seen neither, must perforce take the testimony of others. The evidence for the microbe may be conclusive, the evidence as to apparitions may be worthless; but in both cases it is a case of testimony, not of ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... deplorable a blindness! But did not a Pagan lady feel the insufficiency of earthly things for happiness? No; because any feeling tending in that direction would be to her, as to all around her, simply a diseased feeling, whether from dyspepsia or hypochondria, and one, whether diseased or not, worthless for practical purposes. It would have to be a Christian lady, if something far beyond, something infinite, were not connected with it, depending on it. But if this were by you ascribed to the Pagan lady, then that is ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... man, and relied occasionally on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some time—particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to replace a discarded suitor—for the choice of young men is not excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, ...
— Different Girls • Various
... honour of one of the sons of Francis the First. He visited Hochelaga, and attempted to pass up the river beyond the village, but was stopped by the dangerous rapids now known as the St. Louis or Lachine. He returned to France in the spring of 1542, with a few specimens of worthless metal resembling gold which he found among the rocks of Cap Rouge, and some pieces of quartz crystal which he believed were diamonds, and which have given the name to the bold promontory on which stand the ancient ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... seem more bitter to your taste Than herb Sardinian, rougher than the broom, More worthless than strewn sea-weed, if to-day Hath not a year out-lasted! Fie for shame! Go home, my cattle, from your ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... surplus population. (SCROOGE hangs his head in shame.) Man, if man you be in heart, forbear that wicked cant. Will you decide what men shall live, and what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... at him. What a handsome, good-natured, worthless dog he was. A few days later, he told me the rest of his history. After a great many wanderings, he happened home one day just as his master's yacht was going to sail, and they chained him up till they went on board, so that he could be an amusement ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... with, particularly as the allied fleet was divided between the ports of Spain and France, and under dual command. But in efficiency the French and Spanish navies were vastly inferior to the British. Spanish efficiency may be dismissed at the outset as worthless. For the French officer the chief requisite was nobility of birth. The aristocracy of England furnished the officers for its service also, but in the French navy, considerations of social grade outweighed those of naval rank, a condition that never obtained in the British. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... second Irene imitated only the virtues of her predecessor. Instead of conspiring against the life or government of her son, she retired, without a struggle, though not without a murmur, to the solitude of private life, deploring the ingratitude, the vices, and the inevitable ruin, of the worthless youth. Among the successors of Nero and Elagabalus, we have not hitherto found the imitation of their vices, the character of a Roman prince who considered pleasure as the object of life, and virtue as the enemy of pleasure. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... question depends very much, for good or for evil, the future of this country of which we are citizens, and which we all regard and love so much. You have had enough of military reputation on Eastern fields; you have gathered large harvests of that commodity, be it valuable or be it worthless. I invite you to something better, and higher, and holier than that; I invite you to a glory not 'fanned by conquest's crimson wing,' but based upon the solid and lasting benefits which I believe the Parliament of England can, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... property an owner had in his gang—that is, how many were actually slaves, and how many were in progress of becoming free. Thus well disposed and industrious slaves would soon become freemen. But the idle and worthless would still continue slaves, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Professor and his sister, and put an end to conversation for a few moments. It soon burst forth again, however, the topic being Benedetto's discourse. There ensued such a confusion of senseless remarks, of worthless opinions, of would-be wise sayings devoid of wisdom that the lady in black proposed to Signora Albacina, in whose company she had come, that they should take their departure. But at that point the Marchesa Fermi, having discovered a ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... honors. He is not only the most accomplished young fellow I know, but a fellow of inexhaustible modesty and amiability, and I think it was singularly malicious of destiny to pick him out as a victim, when there are so many worthless young men (the name of John Flemming will instantly occur to you) who deserve nothing better than rough treatment. You see, I am taking point-blank ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... English which he cannot attain in German throughout a high school and college course. The conditions under which a pupil begins the study of German in a high school and the study of English composition are entirely dissimilar; and a conclusion based upon a fancied analogy is worthless. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Captain Georges were still more modern than those of Urbain, and suited his mother better. She was angry with Urbain for forsaking her business and hurrying off to Paris in search of his worthless son; she was especially angry that he went without giving her notice, or offering to do any of the thousand commissions she could gladly have given him. However, these faults in Urbain only made Georges more valuable; and it was with something not far short of fury that she refused to ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... time a worthless fellow, whose name was Berry, persuaded Mr. Lincoln to help him buy a store in New Salem. Mr. Lincoln had no money, but he gave his notes for the value of ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... are very good and of some value in my country, though worthless here. Know you where they are ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... hardest obstacles, by "the sweat of toil," to borrow his own vigorous phrase. While waiting for that desired epoch, when he would be able to be himself and nothing else, he was forced to continue to turn the millstone that ground out the worthless grain. In 1823, his productive power seems to have fallen off, either because he had exhausted the patience of his publishers, or for some other reason. During that year he published nothing excepting The Last Fairy or the New Wonderful Lamp, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... for poetry to root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: so that our children will be less prodigal than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the "Windy Camp" had proved so worthless and the traps had yielded no small mammals new to our collection, we decided to cross the mountains toward the Chung-tien road ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... good deal into society. What did I see? I saw that the women of England were in the main a mass of useless, purposeless butterflies. I saw that the great mass of the young men of our class were mere empty-headed, worthless parasites. The whole country was given over to money getting and pleasure seeking. I didn't realize it then; but I do now. On every hand they were craving for unnatural excitement, and doubtless there ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... body of Captain Sturms, Once "food for powder," now for worms, At the battle of Meida he lost his legs, And stumped about on wooden pegs. Naught cares he now for such worthless things, He was borne to Heaven on ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... simply waywardness of character? We regard those rich and powerful natures as like the tree of knowledge, producing good and evil at the same time; a double branch, always blooming and fruitful, of which those who wish to eat know how to detect the good fruit, and from which the worthless and frivolous die who have eaten of it—a circumstance which is by no means to be regarded as a great misfortune. Madame, therefore, who had a well-disguised plan in her mind of constituting herself the second, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Might. These metaphysical athletes with guns and sabres were accustomed to consider themselves the paladins of a crusade of civilization. They wished the blond type to triumph definitely over the brunette; they wished to enslave the worthless man of the South, consigning him forever to a world regulated by "the salt of the earth," "the aristocracy of humanity." Everything on the page of history that had amounted to anything was German. The ancient Greeks had been of Germanic origin; German, too, the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... which lay on her table, and thought that they were her own for life, and that Anne Clifford's dress would now be laid aside and useless for ever after the archery prize, if she had won it, would be worthless, and the admiration, had she valued it, passed from her ears, she could not feel, for one instant, that it had been a sacrifice. Then again came his words, "every thing in this world is nonsense, except ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... earning her own bread, it should not deprive her of that right most needed for her protection. If the 40,000 drunkards' wives in this State have the necessary functions to provide food, clothes, and shelter for worthless husbands and helpless children, they have the necessary functions to go to the polls and vote for such social and sanitary laws as shall ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... at the door, when the 'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where he had been sitting, and, rudely seizing his step-daughter by the arm, broke out with a torrent of insulting reproaches that she should dare to be walking alone at night by the side of the most worthless ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... information on the subject, the Autobiography (alleged) of Lola Montez, first published in 1859, is worthless. The bulk of it was written for her by a clerical "ghost" in America, the Rev. Chauncey Burr, and merely serves up a tissue of picturesque and easily disproved falsehoods. A number of these, by the way, together with some additional embroideries, are set out at greater length in other volumes ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... living from the incursions of their neighboring enemies. Perhaps nowhere in the world are to be found in such close proximity two such striking evidences of the waste of human labor when undirected by scientific knowledge. The wall is to-day, and was from the first, as worthless for the purpose it was intended to serve as the temples are for obtaining immortality for the bodies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... too fond of pondering When it's so necessary to proceed, And on to worthless topics wandering To which my friends will pay but little heed, All those I mean who take my book and read Those matters that they studied long ago, Who of such information have no need And want to hear of something ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... East than in London. In Greek lands copper coins may be bought by weight, and picked over at leisure, and the worthless coins rejected. For single coins fix a price, say half a franc, and offers of large numbers may come in, from which the best can be chosen and the ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... public opinion was setting in most strongly against them. It must not be forgotten that Hamilton, whose name Justice Holmes invokes in his somewhat too grudging encomium of Marshall, had pronounced the Constitution "a frail and worthless fabric." ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... recently-imported species from North America. Like many other things which have proved worthless as decorative flowers, this was highly praised, but for a while its weedy-looking foliage caused suspicion; after becoming well established, it flowered, and, I am glad to say, proves a most distinct and useful Starwort. Its small white flowers much resemble ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... Academus. Mr. Grey's two axioms were, first, that no one so young as his son should settle in the metropolis, and that Vivian must consequently not have a private tutor; and, secondly, that all private schools were quite worthless; and, therefore, there was every probability of Vivian not receiving any ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... child still remains in him, his instability, for instance. He might well say of himself, "my name is legion." In the remainder of his young life everything that is trifling and worthless all comes to the surface, just as it does in the fermenting liquor, the strong and sweet are all hidden below the froth. You cannot see it. You can very easily do him injustice. You must sympathize with him. Remember your own foolish youth when you were his age; remember your own ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... in black and white A prating thing, a magpie height, Majestically stalk; A stately, worthless animal, That plies the tongue, and wags the tail, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... worthless, trifling cowhand and you'll never be anything different. I ought to fire you—ought to of done it long ago; but I fire my own men—they don't fire ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... finished one for the last ten years without expressing entire resignation to the will of God,—as if she couldn't be resigned without so often saying so. She speaks to her confidential friends of young men as a very worthless, insignificant race of beings; she is, however, prepared to take the very first that may be unfortunate enough to come in her way; she has no ideas of her own, but is quick enough at borrowing those of other people; she considers herself a profound theologian; ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... was to observe, the six correspondents, Robinson, Thomas, Gibbs, Philips, Russell and myself, went and came always with a sense of incapacity and sometimes with a feeling that writing was a worthless business when others were fighting. The line of advance on the big map at our quarters extended as the brief army reports were read into the squares every morning by the key of figures and numerals with a detail that included ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of this in so far that the leading and favorite papers of Vienna, Pest, Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, London, etc.—which abhor my humble compositions and have declared them worthless and objectionable—shall be relieved of all further outward trouble concerning them. What is the good of performances to people who only care ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... published with a preface by the late Mr. W.T. Stead. It does not seem to have reached the British military authorities, nor was it published in England with an instructive intention. As an imaginative work it would have been considered worthless and impracticable. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... no history—not one page; My book of life is but a blotted blank. Let it be sealed; I would not open it, Even to one who saved a worthless life, Only to add a few more leaves in blank To the blank volume. All that I now am I offer to my country. If I live And from this cot walk forth, 'twill only be To march and fight and march and fight again,' Until a surer aim shall bring me down Where ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... traditions which still exist at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy on the state of the rock now concealed by the little chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. But the indications by which, under Constantine, it was sought to identify this tomb with that of Christ, were feeble or worthless (see especially Sozomen, H.E., ii. 1.) Even if we were to admit the position of Golgotha as nearly exact, the Holy Sepulchre would still have no very reliable character of authenticity. At all events, the aspect of the places has been ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... their empty arrogance, some persons look upon everything as worthless which is born outside of the walls of the city, except only the childless and the unmarried. Nor can it be conceived with what a variety of obsequious observance men without children ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... my dear! Keep still. Don't you use up your bit of strength for a worthless old woman, no good to any body. There ain't nobody in the world as cares for me, child. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... words signifying 'without return.' The popular etymology is valuable as confirming the proposition to place Belili in the pantheon of the lower world. From its original meaning, the word became a poetical term in Hebrew for 'worthless,' 'useless,' and the like, e.g., in the well-known phrase ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... I said—to please you—that I did what I did ever so little for your sake, I lied as men always lie to women. You know how much I have lived with worthless men—aye, and worthless women too. Well, they could all rise to some sort of goodness and kindness when they were in love. (The word love comes from him with true Puritan scorn.) That has taught me to set very little store by the goodness that only comes out red hot. What I did last night, I ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... through the old lumber rooms, picking out here and there some generally broken and always worthless piece of furniture, pleading for it timidly, and strangely delighted when he nodded, granting her every request. She asked him to pull out what she had chosen from the dbris, and a curious collection they made in the passage—dim and worm-eaten pictures, ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... favorite daughter, yet she of all creatures was the one to thwart me most; and I did not forgive. I left her to pine for the luxuries to which she was accustomed from her birth, and could not then procure. She was delicate. I let her wear her heart out waiting for a worthless pardon. And what a heart it was! Then I would not forgive; now—now I crave forgiveness. Oh, that the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... able greatly to modify many vegetable productions. Witness the comparatively recent changes in the potato plant. The small, almost worthless tubers of the wild potato have changed, under the force of intelligent cultivation, to the large, starchy, nutritious vegetables, which furnish so many people a large portion of their food. Mind has been at work; mind and nature ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... thou wouldst not cherish—breathe, One claim for Memory in a heart like mine; Yet, all it-all its hopes for Heaven, or Earth beneath. Were worthless, if ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... and if they do not work satisfactorily, the lessees of the prison have made no complaint of them; therefore, they do work satisfactorily; for the lessees are not likely to pay the State for the privilege of feeding worthless hands. But as for vagabond Jim, if anybody thought of him at all, it was something after ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... sensible hearers, who complained that they were almost driven out by this utterly cold, threadbare songlet (cantilena), being extremely chagrined that the ears of the Emperor should be molested with such a lengthy array of worthless things masquerading under the name of Catholic doctrines." (St. L. 21a, 1539.) August 4 Brenz wrote to Isemann: "The Emperor maintains neutrality; for he slept both when the Augustana and when the Confutation was read. Imperator neutralem sese gerit; ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... whom he had been bargaining, made a dive for the bit of metal, calling on his companions to look at it. After a swift examination the owner of the barong, to the officer's intense surprise, offered him the knife in exchange for the worthless bauble. Noting the American's hesitation, and misinterpreting it, the Moro added an embroidered turban to the knife, and waited in breathless expectation for ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the otter-skins, Carry?" the elder sister said, laughing; and the younger one retired, baffled and chagrined, but none the less resolved that before Gertrude White completely gave herself up to this blind infatuation for a savage country and for one of its worthless inhabitants, she would have to run the gauntlet of many a sharp word ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... assuming the mantle of Brutus, or liberator, stabbed Alessandro to death while he was keeping an assignation in the house that then adjoined this palace. Thus died, at the age of twenty-six, one of the most worthless of men, and, although illegitimate, the last of the direct line of Cosimo de' Medici, the Father of his ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... examined my pass, which was good only for Tapiau and return. I decided to miss the train back, however, and push on in the wake of the army to Wehlau. Outside of Tapiau I was challenged by a sentry, who, to my amazement, did not examine my now worthless pass when I pulled it from my ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... was a true Christian, and therefore refrained from selling to the Indians such things as might harm them. They were like children, and would have given in exchange for worthless beads and trinkets the most expensive and valuable furs. In this way, Mr. Bradley could have made much money, but his heart was not covetous, and he tried his best to teach the Indians what articles were really of ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... elastic band with vigor and made up his mind to tell Colonel Dodd the next morning that chasing that worthless fellow around or thinking that such a fellow could do anything to interfere with Colonel Dodd was poppycock. Peter Briggs hoped he would dare to call it "poppycock" in the presence of his master—for he was thoroughly sick of being a sleuth in ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... hundred miles, to lay in their winter supply of berries. Many thousands of barrels are now annually shipped from this region; and thus this vast area, which to the stranger looking upon it would appear utterly worthless, is as valuable as the richest farming lands in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... poor fellow!" said Marillac, with tears in his eyes; "it is not very manly I know, but I can not help it—Oh! these women! I adore them, of course; but just now I am like Nero, I wish that they all had but one head. It is for these little, worthless dolls that we ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... might treat us with cold disdain, and European bankers might pronounce our securities worthless, but there was one quarter of the world from which even worse measure was meted out to us. Of all the barbarous communities with which the civilized world has had to deal in modern times, perhaps none have made so much trouble ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... custom in the earlier time to dedicate a portion to the deity but to use the greater part in sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course allowed also in one way or another to participate. But he does not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of flesh. "Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came (that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while the flesh was in seething, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... know that for all points of detail and for keeping a correct account of time, tradition is worthless."—The History of Rome, by Rev. Thomas Arnold, D.D., ...
— Japan • David Murray
... first wife in the year 1755; but although it is asserted that she brought her husband 5000l. a-year, her name is not given. She died in 1782, and in 1791 "he married Emma Harte, the fascinating, mischievous, and worthless Lady Hamilton." Pettigrew, in his Memoirs of Nelson, says, that this marriage took place at St. George's, Hanover Square, on the 6th of September, 1791. TEE BEE will find a full account of Lady H. in the above-mentioned work ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... journeys, I had spared no toil nor exertion, to make my examination as complete and as useful as possible, though my labours were not rewarded by commensurate success. The great mass of the peninsula is barren, arid, and worthless; and although Port Lincoln possesses a beautiful, secure, and capacious harbour, with a convenient and pretty site for a town, and immediately contiguous to which there exists some extent of fine and fertile soil, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour. Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger, and healthier, and wiser, and better, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dismounted and humbly begged the old witch who lived there to give her some food. Moved by the distress of the stranger, the sorceress bade her dry her garments at her fire, and while the lady was sitting there the witch's son, a lazy worthless fellow, suddenly entered. To see Florimell was to love her, so the uncouth rustic immediately began to court her with fruits and flowers which he sought in the forest. Fearing lest he should molest her finally, Florimell escaped from the hut on her palfrey, which ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... contents of this house. I inherited a great deal, and by the methods I have adopted—not the methods, my dear Faversham, I may say, that you have been recommending to me to-night. I have more than doubled it. I have given nothing away to worthless people, and no sloppy philanthropies have stood between me and the advantages to which my knowledge and my brains entitled me. Hence these accumulations. Now, the question is, what is to be done with them? I am alone in the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... action he may take with those who have not shown sufficient anxiety for his return, or have in other ways incurred his resentment. One thing is clear, to send the king back to Zululand is to restore the status in quo as it was before the war. There can be no half measures about it, no more worthless paper stipulations; a Zulu king must either be allowed to rule in his own fashion or not at all. The war would go for nothing, and would doubtless have to be fought over again with one of ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... Dr. Green said cautiously, "your mother is not at present quite accountable for her opinions. The shock which she has undergone has, I think, unhinged her mind. Worthless as I believe him to have been, this man had entirely gained her affections. She has not risen from her ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... another." Mazatlan, San Bias, Manzanillo, San Salvador, Panama City—at each of these we touched, and visited sometimes an hour, sometimes two or three days. Le Mire was loading the yacht with all sorts of curious relics. Ugly or beautiful, useful or worthless, genuine or faked, it mattered not to her; if a thing suited her fancy she wanted it—and ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... and ugly such objects were, when the feeling that had made them precious no longer existed! The debris of human life was more worthless and ugly than the dead and decaying things in nature. Rubbish... junk... his mind could not picture anything that so exposed and condemned all the dreary, weary, ever-repeated actions by which life is continued from day to day. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... friend Mrs. Graham knew I had sent it to England for publication, and when she read the anonymous "Doctor's Family" she was sure it was mine, and was delighted with it. When I read of the brave Australian girl Nettie, taking on herself the burden of the flabby sister and her worthless husband and their children, I wished that I had written such a capital story. In a subsequent tale of Mrs. Oliphant's, "In Trust," a father disinherits the elder girl from a fear of an unworthy marriage, but he leaves a letter to be opened when Rosy is 21, which—should Anne not marry Cosmo ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our pleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which are ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We are, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless and cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in the meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their hopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our souls ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... few, and these were among the knowing and peculiarly observant ones of Gorman's intimates, said that "D" stood for "deep." But then, many of those who thus pronounced their opinion, were comparatively worthless characters, given to scandal and slander; so the reader must not allow himself to be biassed too ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... on duty. So the uniform remained at Portsmouth, and Edmund conjectured that before Fanny had any chance of seeing it, all its own freshness and all the freshness of its wearer's feelings must be worn away. It would be sunk into a badge of disgrace; for what can be more unbecoming, or more worthless, than the uniform of a lieutenant, who has been a lieutenant a year or two, and sees others made commanders before him? So reasoned Edmund, till his father made him the confidant of a scheme which placed Fanny's chance of seeing the second lieutenant ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... English orchards are crowded with innumerable varieties of cider apples, many of them worthless, a committee composed of members of the Herefordshire Fruit-Growers' Association and of the Fruit and Chrysanthemum Society was appointed in 1899 to make a selection of vintage apples and pears best suited to Herefordshire and the districts adjoining. The following is the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... fell;— "Dropt as she pass'd the place. Well Ceres knew "The sight, and then—as then her loss first known, "Tore her dishevell'd tresses, beat her breast "With blows on blows redoubled. Still unknown "The spot that holds her, every part of earth "Blaming, ungrateful, worthless of her fruits. "But chief Trinacria, in whose isle was found "The vestige of her loss. For this she breaks "With furious hand the glebe up-turning plough: "And angry, to an equal death she dooms, "The tiller and his ox: forbids ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... thee, gracious Lady!" replied the peasant; "but oh! if a poor and worthless stranger might presume to beg a minute's audience farther; am I so happy? the casement is not shut; might I venture ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... up a tube of Indian red, squeezed it on the crusted palette, loaded a brush with it, and dashed it across the sketch. It was a feeble piece of bravado, and he felt it, but he must convince her in some way that the thing was worthless to him. ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... parts at sixpence, the cost to the subscriber would be practically the same as that of a monthly magazine, only that the reader would accumulate at the rate of twelve volumes a year—and read at the rate of one a month—the works of Scott, or Dickens, or Thackeray. Of course much worthless literature, fiction of the trashiest, has been circulated in the same way—much more perhaps than of the better class. But even so, the reading matter was superior to that previously accessible, and the vital fact still remains that the people acquired ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... rights which he is forced to receive in lieu of his hunting grounds, with which he is very loath to part, no matter what be the terms or consideration offered. The inference which he draws is, that he can use these presents as he pleases. Money, in the hands of wild Indians, is almost worthless to them, and paying it for their lands by way of annuity, is extreme folly. Some of them in time, as they have become half civilized, begin to appreciate the value of money. Such only, should be allowed to receive or accept it. They sometimes ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... miserable," she said, bitterly, "a drunken, worthless scamp, but until now I did not know you were a murderer. Yes, comrades, this man with whom you sit and smoke is a miserable assassin. Yesterday evening he tried to take the life of Arnold Dampierre here, whom you all ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... to the King of the Belgians, "the Chartist meeting and procession have turned out a complete failure. The loyalty of the people at large, has been very striking, and their indignation at their peace being interfered with by such wanton and worthless ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... ten, called peace-pledges or frith-borhs. It is at least possible that the "Hundred" was a further association of ten frith-borhs as a higher and more responsible unit for the administration of justice. But the landless man was worthless as a member of a frith-borh, for the law had little hold over a man who had no land to forfeit and no fixed habitation. So the landless man was compelled by law to submit to a lord, who was held responsible for the ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... bean was grated upon the cigars, or a single bean was placed between the cigars in the box." At this time some little taste was evinced for colors, and cigars of a "bright cinnamon red," and afterwards, of a dark brown, were considered the finest, while leaf that was black was considered worthless for wrappers. A kind of cigar which is distinctly American and which is made to a considerable extent, is called a seed cigar, and is made from tobacco grown in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio. These cigars have but little ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... my dear, but your own. I often see people making martyrs of themselves for some worthless character on whom the sacrifice is utterly wasted. I object to this, as I would object to throwing myself or my friend into a blazing house, unless I were morally certain there was a life to be saved. Is ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... England the estate would have vanished field by field until nothing but the house was left; but the outer land at Roscarna was of no marketable value, and when Sir Jocelyn succeeded to the property in the year 1870, he found himself master of many worthless acres and a ruined house that he was powerless to repair. It was no wonder that he went to the dogs like his father before him, for the passage of every generation had made recovery more difficult. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... No, not a bit of it. Of all the worthless women that I know, I think Madeline Croston is the most worthless. Look how she ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard |
