"Tool" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell. He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a poor tool ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... Martin, is a very earthly paradise. That night, the moon being high and bright, I came to that stretch of silver sand beside the lagoon where they lay together rigid and pale and, though I had no other tool but his dagger and a piece o' driftwood, made shift to bury them 'neath the great pimento tree that stood beside the rock, and both in the same grave. Which done, I betook me to a dry cave hard by a notable fall ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... you," said I, "who ought to restrain these rascals, to be at their head? How came you, who ought to shun the society of men like Constantine Stefanopoulos and his tool Vlacho, to be ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... for making a Dyak boat of this kind is the Dyak axe or adze (bliong). This is a most excellent tool, and is forged of European steel, which they procure in bars. In shape it is like a small spade, about two and a half inches wide, with a square shank. This is set in a thin handle of hard wood, at ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... of the water, he brings with him filth and impurity clinging to his clothes, or to his person. Cerizet, the once opulent friend and protector of Theodose, was the muddy mire still clinging to the Provencal, and the former manager of the joint-stock company saw very plainly that his tool wanted to brush himself on entering a sphere where ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... be established, that every machine should be so designed and constructed that when once made true it will so remain, regardless of wear and all external influences to which it is liable to be subjected? One tool maker says that it is right, and another that it cannot be done. No matter whether it can or cannot, is it not the thing wanted, and if so, is it not an object worth striving for? One tool maker says that all machine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... military turn, and had begun fortifications near the kitchen garden which she was incompetent to carry out) a new idea struck me. I announced that letters properly written and addressed to the little Russians, 'Reka Dom, Russia,' and posted in the old rhubarb-pot by the tool-house, would be duly answered. The replies to be found in a week's time at ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... others, and these were placed in such a manner as to look very agreeable to the eye. Some of the hewn stones were 4 feet 7 inches by 2 feet 4 inches, and 15 inches thick, and had been squared and polished with some sort of an edge tool. On the east side was, enclosed with a stone wall, a piece of ground in form of a square, 360 feet by 354, in this was growing several cypress trees and plantains. Round about this Morie were several smaller ones, all going to decay, and on the Beach, between them and the sea, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... breast of a mare," quoth he; and in like manner he dealt with her back, belly, croup, thighs, and legs. Last of all, the work being complete save for the tail, he lifted his shirt and took in his hand the tool with which he was used to plant men, and forthwith thrust it into the furrow made for it, saying:—"And be this a fine tail of a mare." Whereat Gossip Pietro, who had followed everything very heedfully to that point, disapproving that last particular, exclaimed:—"No! Dom Gianni, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... little puzzled. An instant's reflection was sufficient to convince Marguerite that the whilom actress of the Varietes Theatre was obviously ignorant of the events to which Chauvelin had been alluding: she was, therefore, of no serious consequence, a mere tool, mayhap, in the ex-ambassador's hands. At the present moment she looked like a silly child who does not understand the conversation ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... household out of Mrs. Luttrell's room. She remembered that she had seen a light in a bed-room near Hugo's own—the room where Stevens usually slept. Should she rouse him and ask for his assistance? No: she knew that this man was a mere tool of Hugo's; she could not trust him to help her against her husband's will. There was nothing for it but to do what she could, without help from anyone. She would be brave for Mrs. Luttrell's sake, although she had not been ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "They are making a tool of you, my poor Gascon," said M. de Florac, who saw Madame d'Ivry's eyes watching the couple. She presently took the arm of the noble Count de Punter, and went for fresh air into the adjoining apartment, where play was going on as usual; and Lord Kew ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Forster was far too honest to be the tool of Mr. Gladstone's Hibernian dishonesty. He was perfectly fearless, but, beneath his rugged exterior, deeply sensitive. He winced under 'buckshot,' and many other epithets; but abuse and danger alike never ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... moved, in conjunction with the troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian czar was, by securing his footing on the Mediterranean and at the same time encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople on both sides, on the earliest opportunity. Austria was merely to serve as a blind tool for the attainment of his schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the purpose of bringing about a general rising in Southern Italy against the French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bonaparte probably ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... goods which they need. I have heard it said, in fact I believe it is quite a current thought, that we have taken skill out of work. We have not. We have put in skill. We have put a higher skill into planning, management, and tool building, and the results of that skill are enjoyed by the man who is not skilled. This I ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... Within a fortnight after the City had signified its assent to the last loan the nation was suddenly surprised by some words let drop by Dr. Tonge, the weak and credulous rector of St. Michael's, Wood Street, and the tool of the infamous Titus Oates. A Popish plot was, he said, on foot and the king's life in danger, in proof of which he produced documentary evidence. Oates, the prime mover in starting the idea of a plot, was ready in the most shameless way with depositions ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... shop the attorney stopped and looked up and down the street, smiling. He felt that he had done well, so far, setting both the mayor and Skinner against the editor, making a tool of the mayor, and inflaming the butcher against the Colonel. He would have liked to go to the Colonel and set him against the editor and Skinner, but he neither dared nor felt it really necessary. If ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... had occasion to make me several visits. 2. Sometimes they would find, upon arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and talk—always by the hour. 3. I do not know but it is a habit to have something wanted at the shop. 4. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions on ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... hater, and few men have been more cordially hated in return. He was imperious, insolent, hot-tempered. He could brook no equal. He had also the fatal defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station. Adroit intriguers burned incense to him as a god, and employed him as their tool. And now he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld, while he hated Sir John Norris with a most passionate hatred. Wilkes, the English representative, was already a special object ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Philotas, and encouraged all his enemies to say boldly that it was folly of the king to imagine that an obscure man like Limnus would have ventured to form a conspiracy against his life, but that Limnus was merely a tool in the hands of some more powerful person; and that if he wished to discover the real authors of the plot, he must seek for them among those who would have been most benefited by its success. Finding that the king lent a ready ear to suggestions of this kind, they soon furnished him ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... nothing of the sort," cried the girl hysterically. "When you used me as a tool in your enterprises in Washington, you played upon my patriotism for my conquered country. I thought I was undertaking a heroic act. I didn't dream of the villainy, the cold-blooded murder that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... thirty years. If it be asserted that this was accomplished by the secular arm, I reply that sentence of death was pronounced upon so-called heretics by the church and that the secular power was simply a tool for carrying the barbarous sentence into execution. We can not forget that the pope applauded Charles IX of France and his infamous mother, Catherine de Medici, for their part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... employing him on the new designs for our coins, sometimes he alluded to the work awaiting him in his studio. Oh! how homesick we both were! Perhaps he felt the near approach of the hour when his cunning hand must drop its tool. I know the thought came to me, creating a tenderer feeling toward him. I saw him in a sorrowful light. He drew nearer to me, seeming more like a friend ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... records show them as an incapable and degenerate family. As a political power Kaiser Karl is the same menace to his subject Slavs as his predecessors. Above all, however, he is of necessity a blind tool in the hands of Germany, and he cannot possibly extricate himself from her firm grip. The Habsburgs have had their chance, but they missed it. By systematic and continuous misgovernment they created a gulf between the Slavs and themselves which nothing on earth can remove. Every Habsburg believes ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... fury of Michael Rust at seeing himself thus bearded by one whom he had been used to see truckle to him, whom he considered the mere tool of Craig, and whom he had never thought it worth while even to consult ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... astounding negligence of women. There were Nellie (his wife), his mother, the nurse, the cook, the maid—five of them; and in his mind they had all plotted together—a conspiracy of carelessness—to leave the inexcusable tool in his lobby for him to stumble over. What was the use of accidentally procuring three ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... sometimes suffer severely from the malice with which they have themselves inspired their familiars. Joe Englehart having been a convenient tool thus far thought it quite time to torment Miss Bangle a little; so, having stolen the letters at her bidding, he hid them on his own account, and no persuasions of hers could induce him to reveal this important secret, which he chose to reserve ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... much the cause whereof no wise they know, Men think Divinities are working there. Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods. Suppose all sprang from all things: any kind Might take its origin from any thing, No fixed seed required. Men from the sea Might rise, and from the land the scaly breed, And, fowl full fledged come bursting from the sky; The horned cattle, the herds and all the wild Would haunt with varying ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... moving on when we observed the profile of a human face and head cut out in a sandstone rock which fronted the cave; this rock was so hard that to have removed such a large portion of it with no better tool than a knife and hatchet made of stone, such as the Australian natives generally possess, would have been a work of very great labour. The head was two feet in length, and sixteen inches in breadth in the broadest part; the depth of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the earliest days of the Gospel, and there have been persecutors in every generation since. The Pharisees plotted that they might put Jesus to death: Saul of Tarsus at a later date was their willing tool in a desperate effort to quench the life of the infant Church in the blood of its members. After he was turned, and the mighty stream of his life compelled to flow like a river of water in the opposite direction, a constant succession of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... ff.] and labored for the triumph of his religion not only in his own dominions and in France, but also in Poland, in England, and even in Scandinavia. In Spain he strengthened the Inquisition and used it as a tool of royal despotism. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... demands again. From a place directly before the Bema a well-known figure, the elderly general, Iphicrates, is rising. At a nod from the president, he mounts the Bema and assumes the myrtle. He has not Timon's smooth tones nor oratorical manner. He is a man of action and war, and no tool of the Agora coteries. A salvo of applause greets him. Very pithily he observes that Byzantium will be safe enough if the city will only be loyal to the Athenian alliance. Athens needs all her garrisons nearer home. Timon surely knows the state of the treasury. Is he going to propose a ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... elements of greatness; but greatness itself is lacking. Nevertheless, after watching a convoy train tool along over the green-flecked yellow veldt at the rate of six miles a day, after seeing nothing but an occasional isolated farmhouse, the little town appeared like a centre of civilization and excitement to the bored troopers, as they rode up the main street ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... satisfaction that he discovered in his pocket an excellent knife, whose leather case had kept it from the sea-water. This knife, with blade, gimlet, hook, and saw, was a valuable instrument under the circumstances. But besides this tool, Godfrey and his companion had only their two hands; and as the hands of the professor had never been used except in playing his fiddle, and making his gestures, Godfrey concluded that he would have ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... up to the porticoed front door, I observed in front of it, beside the tennis lawn, the black tool-house and the pedestalled sundial with which we had such strange associations. A dapper little man, with a quick, alert manner and a waxed moustache, had just descended from a high dog-cart. He introduced himself as Inspector Martin, of the Norfolk Constabulary, and he was ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not with men whose worst weapon was words, but with brutes who lusted for broken heads. Some of the faces he knew—he had seen them hanging about saloons. And he saw, too, in that swift scrutiny, that many of the men had weapons; some had seized crowbars and sledges from a near-by street tool-chest which was being used by laborers; others had sticks; some had stones. An ominous sound came from the mob, something winged with doom and death, like the rattling of a venomous snake, with head raised to strike, ready fangs and glittering ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... reaches its highest grade of objectivation in the human brain. Want, the struggle for existence, the necessity of procuring and selecting sufficient food for the preservation of the individual and the species, has at last developed a suitable tool, the brain, and its function, the intellect. With the intellect appear consciousness and a realm of rational life full of yearning and desires, pleasures and pain, hatred and love. Brothers slay their brothers, conquerors trample down the races of the earth, and tyrants ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... exhausting, and nothing could redeem it but an overmastering sense of duty and self-respect. The worst passions of humanity were set on fire among the Whigs by this provoking insurrection against their party as the mere tool of slavery, while animosities were engendered that still survive, and which many men have carried to their graves. This is only a single illustration of the spirit of the canvass, for similar conflicts marked the struggle in Ohio, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... to the royal family or the court; and he felt a moment's embarrassment. Even his audacity and lack of scruple did not go to the extent of doing without the king altogether, or even of dispensing with having him for a tool; and he had seen too much of the Parisian populace not to know how precarious and fickle was its favor. He determined to negotiate with the king's party, and for that purpose he sent his brother-in-law the Count of Hainault, to Tours, with a brilliant train of unarmed ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I found him, M'sieu," Maren Le Moyne was saying sadly, "in that low mound, cared for and worshipped by these peaceful beings who till the land and follow his teachings. They were his people. He taught them purity and peace, the use of plough and tool, the creed of love and kindness. Here was his dream of empire, his plan of progress. He of the Good Heart they called him, these Indians who were his people, and mourn him as a chief. That was his castle yonder, the older cabin to the east. Here is the fruit of his labour." ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... passages of the hotel, felt his anger rousing up within him. He was indignant to think that yonder old gentleman whom he was about to meet, should have made him such a tool and puppet, and so compromised his honour and good name. The old fellow's hand was very cold and shaky when Arthur took it. He was coughing; he was grumbling over the fire; Frosch could not bring his dressing-gown or arrange his papers as that d——d ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is one of the first tools a plumber has to master. This tool is sometimes called a "copper bit" as it is made of copper; and so throughout this book the words "soldering iron," "copper bit," "iron," and "bit" are used synonymously. There are several different-shaped irons in common use today, but an iron shaped like the ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... strictness, resolved that they should grow up examples of virtue and piety. Our stables adjoined, and were separated only by a thin wall in which was a doorway closed up by some boards, as the two stables had formerly been one. One night I had occasion to go to our stable to search for a garden tool I had missed, and I heard a door open on the other side, and saw a light glimmer through the cracks of the boards. I looked through to ascertain who could be there at that late hour, and soon recognized the stately figure of one of the daughters, F.F. was tall, dark and handsome, but had never ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... exercise is good for me, Dabney," answered father with all the dignity and command come back into his voice. "Put both those hoes in the tool house this time, and I'll not tell Mr. Goodloe you left one down by ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... humble tool of Providence in much good work,' said Saxon, with a bow. 'I have fought with the Swedes against the Brandenburgers, and again with the Brandenburgers against the Swedes, my time and conditions with the latter having been duly carried out. I have afterwards in the Bavarian service fought ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have looked out by it. He had no curiosity to do so, and he lay still. He saw that the walls of his prison were not of stone. They were adobe bricks, and the embrasure enabled him to tell their thickness. There was no great strength in them either. A determined man, with an edge-tool and time to spare, could make his way through them easily enough. So Carlos reflected: but he reflected, as well, that he had neither the edge-tool nor the time. He was certain that in a few hours—perhaps minutes—he would be led from ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... and scraping in the night, and his eyes sought for some tool with which it might be possible to break a hole through a wall. He noticed the strong iron trestles which supported the bed when it was let down; it might perhaps be done with one of them. But no. Up by the window the thickness of the wall ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... would be more risk than credit in meddling with him. You had more need to think of making up to Miss Lucy Ashton the disgrace that's like to fall upon her than of interfering with a man too old to fight, and on too high a tool for your hand ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... out. They had nothing, save the clothes which they were wearing at the time of the catastrophe. We must mention, however, a note-book and a watch which Gideon Spilett had kept, doubtless by inadvertence, not a weapon, not a tool, not even a pocket-knife; for while in the car they had thrown out everything to lighten the balloon. The imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe or of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Raynal shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez and on the archipelago of the Aucklands, were never ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... maturer years, When Man himself is but a tool; When Interest sways our hopes and fears, And all must love and hate ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... brings forth lies that endeavor to cover up, or to justify, this conflict of interests, and corrupt all with falsehood, hypocrisy and malice. We maintain that a society that regards man only as a tool for its enrichment is anti-human; it is hostile to us; we cannot be reconciled to its morality; its double-faced and lying cynicism. Its cruel relation to individuals is repugnant to us. We want to fight, and will fight, every form ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... He had shifted from the principle on which Roman law was generally administered, and they saw that it was only a question of bringing sufficient pressure to bear on him, and they could make him a tool for the accomplishment of the fell purpose on which their heart was set. The proposal, therefore, was swept ignominiously away, and Pilate could never regain the position he ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... damaged." In connection with this subject Mr. Layard, in his "Life of Charles Keene," compared a photogravure and a wood-block of one of the Punch pictures, with the principal, though unintended, result of proving how indulgent are wood-engraving and the tool of the skilled craftsman to the artist who inconsiderately persists in using grey inks of varying intensities and subtle lines of indefinite thicknesses on paper of various colour-patches, when reproduction upon wood ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... aristocratic-featured gentleman was a dummy director and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... not been appeased. But thou knowest not this. For a Brahmana's heart is soft as new-churned butter, even though his words bear a sharp-edged razor. It is otherwise in respect of these with the Kshatriya. His words are soft as new-churned butter, but his heart is like a sharp-edged tool, such being the case, I am unable, because of the hardness of my heart, to neutralise my curse. Then go thou thy own way.' To this Utanka made answer, 'I showed thee the uncleanliness of the food offered to me, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... sent to him, The dark Dictator's tool— Whatever happens, sink or swim, We Will Not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... where, strange to say, it procured me consideration—of which, as may be supposed, I was little inclined to avail myself. Mr. Aminadab, however, in his frequent visits to the Fleet, persisted in saying that I was a poor-spirited creature, a mere tool in Brough's hands, and had not saved a shilling. Opinions, however, differed; and I believe it was considered by the turnkeys that I was a fellow of exquisite dissimulation, who had put on the appearance of poverty in order more effectually ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was a more extensive array of wood- and metal-working tools, some of which the brothers had bought with money earned at odd jobs when they were still small boys. Since, they had added to their set from time to time, as they needed this tool or that, until now few professional mechanics could boast of ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... four hours yet before dawn, Ranjoor Singh took out his fountain-pen and executed the stroke of genius that made what followed possible. Without Abraham I do not know what he would have done. I can not imagine. Yet I feel sure he would have contrived something. He made use of Abraham as the best tool available, and that is no proof he could not have done as well by other means. I have learned this: that Ranjoor Singh, with that faith of his in God, can do anything. Anything. He is a true man, and God puts ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... is no plough, nor delving tool, He, who would till with it, is but a fool. For us, neither grass nor grain doth grow, Houseless the soldier is doomed to go, A changeful wanderer over the earth, Ne'er knowing the warmth of a home-lit hearth. The city glances—he halts—not there— Nor in village meadows, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... led through deeper wilds, and more impenetrable thickets. This happened so often, that a new alarm came upon the unfortunate pilgrim, which suggested other motives of terror. Was she not the confidant, and almost the tool of some artful design, laid with a view to an extensive operation, which was destined to terminate, as the efforts of Douglas had before done, in the surprise of his hereditary castle, the massacre of the English garrison—and finally in the dishonour and death of that Sir ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... hounds met at Patten Brig, but Jim was sure they'd go down-stream!" she cried breathlessly. "They're coming up! I think they're at the pool below the village! Get two poles—you'll find some in the tool-shed—and ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... believe, were her enemies at heart. Accordingly, a misunderstanding soon happened among them, which was fomented by the malice of one of her sisters-in-law. Divers scandalous reports of her misconduct, to which the empty pretensions of a vain wretched coxcomb, who was made use of as an infamous tool for that purpose, gave a colourable pretext, were trumped up, and transmitted, with many false and aggravating circumstances, to her husband in Ireland; who, being a giddy, unthinking man, was so much incensed at these insinuations, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... distrust of literature prevented him from paying more than a penny for it. From the stationer's he went to an ironmonger's and bought a saw, a brace, a gimlet, a screw-driver and two gross of screws—his tool-box had long needed refilling. Then they mounted their machines proudly (they had learned to ride on the machines of acquaintances) and rode home. After their visit to the confectioner's they ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... Art thou her tool? Shall I by thy hand fall? Stain not thy soul with guiltless blood. Take all I have, if money be thy greed. But know Without a struggle I'll not ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... here note down what I heard at Rome nine years later from the mouth of a tool of the Jesuits. The Cardinal Tamburini was at the last gasp, and the conversation turned upon him, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... servant is an instrument, as it were, of his master, the servant's action is his master's, just as the action of a tool is the workman's action. But it may happen that the servant's action result from his master's good will, and is therefore good: and from the evil will of the servant, and is therefore evil. Therefore the same action can be both good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... living depends almost entirely on a continuance of this product-multiplying process. A single man maintaining himself in isolation would gain by everything that made his efforts fruitful, and society, as a whole, is like such an isolated man. It gains by means of every effective tool that is devised and by every bit of added efficiency in the hands that ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... told him of this retreat in the mountains and they had brought their prisoner here. But the existence of the prospect hole at the foot of the Devil's Slide was unknown to him. From the convict's revenge he had hitherto saved Luck. Blackwell was his tool rather than his confederate, but he was uneasily aware that if the man yielded to the elemental desire to kill his enemy the law, would hold him, Cass Fendrick, guilty ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... be defined as a place where Man is passive and the rest of Nature active. Till quite recently Nature had her own sanctuaries, where man either did not go at all or only as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now, in this machinery age, there is no place left where man cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. He can strangle to death all the nobler wild life in the world to-day. To-morrow he certainly will have ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... methods of selling that are most effective, it will be well to get rid of a mistaken idea that is all too common. A great many people regard reasoning power, or the force of pure logic, as an important selling tool. There are so-called salesmen who attempt to "argue" prospects into buying. Unthinking sales executives sometimes instruct their representatives to employ certain "selling arguments." But the methods and language of the debater ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... afternoon. She saw, in the crude light of that revelation which had already become a part of experience and to which the very frailty of the vessel in which it had been offered her only gave an intrinsic price, the dry staring fact that she had been an applied handled hung-up tool, as senseless and convenient as mere shaped wood and iron. All the bitterness of this knowledge surged into her soul again; it was as if she felt on her lips the taste of dishonour. There was a moment during which, if she had turned and spoken, she would ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... he has been hanging round Amber, making what mischief he can. He must have heard your party was coming, and got sneaking round for a chance to score off you. Young Ramanund, priest of Kali's shrine, is one of those he has made his tool, the way he made me. If he is in Amber, I shall find him. You can take your oath on that." He stood up, straight and virile, instinct with purpose as a drawn sword. "I am going now, Roy. But not one word ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... inhabitant; above all, when she undertook to come and give her counsel and support for that first tremendous undertaking—the dinner-party. Lady Kenton was equally helpful at their next; and Sir Edward gave much good advice to his lordship as to not letting himself be made the tool of the loud-voiced squire, who was anxious to be his guide, philosopher, and friend in county business—advice that made Frank's heart sink, for thus far he felt only capable of sitting ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... centuries. Away at one end of the ranch, sheltered to north and west by low hills, was the ranch house itself, surrounded by young orchards, the stables, the corrals, the granaries, the cattle sheds, tool and implement houses. At that distance, in the clear, dry air, they looked like toys, miniatures, sharply defined in angle and shadow. So, too, the stock grazing in the fields ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... them all, Tachibana Hiromi occupied the most important position until the day of his downfall. He practically managed the affairs of the Court under Yozei, Koko, and Uda. Fujiwara Sukeyo, a greatly inferior scholar, served as his subordinate, and was the willing tool in contriving his degradation. It did not cause the Fujiwara any serious concern that in compassing the ruin of Hiromi, they effectually alienated the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... four men, the kapala seated himself on the stump of a tree. The hair was first cut away above the ears, a long board was placed upright behind and against his right ear, and the operator adjusted his tool—an empty rifle cartridge of small calibre, which was encased in the end of a small piece of wood. After having carefully ascertained that all was in order he struck the tool, using a loose axe-head with sure hand, two or three times. The supporting board was removed and a bamboo cylinder of ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... came fumbling to his in the dark and gave him the tool. He began on one of the oak ribs, uncovered when the boarding had been removed. It was difficult and tedious work, for he could use only the tip of the saw, because the ribs were so close together. But he toiled on steadily, and at last the sound of his diligence appeared ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... real as that of the eyeball with light, and knows Him with a certitude as reliable as that which sight gives. 'Seeing is believing,' says sense; 'Believing is seeing' says the spirit which clings to the Lord, 'whom having not seen' it loves. A bridge of perishable flesh, which is not myself but my tool, connects me with the outward world. It never touches myself at all, and I know it only by trust in my senses. But nothing intervenes between my Lord and me, when I love and trust. Then Spirit is joined to spirit, and of His presence I have the witness in myself. He is the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Mark Sullivan, John Treacy, and myself, all of Hudson County, representing the liberal wing of our party, were bitterly opposed to this effort. We suspected that the "Old Gang" was up to its old trick of foisting upon the Democrats of the state a tool which they could use for their own advantage, who, under the name of the Democratic party, would do the bidding of the corporate interests which had, under both the "regular" organizations, Democratic and Republican, found in New Jersey their most nutritious ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... they seemed not unequal to the diplomats of Europe. They were, however, weak before the superior knowledge of the white men. In all their long centuries in America they had learned nothing of the use of iron. Their sharpest tool had been made of chipped obsidian or of hammered copper. Their most potent weapons had been the stone hatchet or age and the bow and arrow. It thus happened that, when steel and gunpowder reached America, the natives soon came to despise their primitive ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... tailor, had allowed himself to be made a tool of to bring to the notice of the authorities the denunciation against the young sailor which Danglars had dictated and ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... extraordinary emergencies that the senate, with the consuls, assumed the responsibility of inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the senate was armed with the power of criminal jurisdiction; and as the senate was the tool of the imperator, he could crush ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Irish peasantry clamour for 'Repeal,' never considering that did they get it, no essential change would be made in their social, moral, or to say all in one word, political condition; they would still be the tool of O'Connell and other unprincipled political ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... fork grew out of the chopstick, the spoon was probably suggested by the ladle, a form of implement employed alike by the baker and the cook; for the early tool which we see in the hands of the operative in the oven more nearly resembles in the bowl a spoon than a shovel. In India nowadays they have ladles, but not spoons. The universality of broths and semi-liquid substances, as well as the commencement of a taste for learned gravies, prompted a recourse ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... tremendous blow on the upper panel. The result was not in the least what any of them anticipated. There was no cracking or rending of wood—only a dull sound, as if the solid wall had been struck. The man dropped his tool with a shout, and began rubbing his elbow. His cry drew their eyes upon him for a moment; then Anderson looked at the door again. It was gone; the plaster wall of the passage stared him in the face, with a considerable gash in it where the crowbar ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... I had done the other day. Then it came to me that at least I had no reason to be angry with Erpwald, who could know little or anything about me, being a newcomer, and it was not his fault if the girl made a tool of him to scare me away, and after that I found my senses again, rather sooner than before, perhaps. It was plain that the ealdorman took it for granted that I had no feeling now in that direction, ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... she whispered eagerly. "I can take care of myself. And now, be patient. I must leave you. The only way to release you seems to be through the house itself. I have no saw or file, but wait! There is a saw and file in the tool box on my machine. How stupid of me! I'll be back in a jiffy. Don't ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Unless we were in action or in a locality where we momentarily expected to be under fire from rifle or machine-gun, the officer commanding the car and his N.C.O. stood in the well behind the turret, steadying themselves with leather loops riveted to its sides. On long runs the tool-boxes on either side of the well formed convenient seats. When the car became engaged the crew would get inside, pulling the steel doors shut. The slits through which the driver and the man next him looked could be made still smaller when the ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... compulsory military service; and at the same time Hartwig, the Russian Ambassador in Belgrade, organized that Balkan Conference, the purpose of which was, first, to break the backbone of Turkey, and, secondly, to serve as a tool for the overthrow of Austria. The introduction and adoption of the German military program made it evident to all the world that we had recognized correctly, and betimes, the dangers which threatened the peace of the world, and in particular the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard shelves, sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed milk, poured a spoonful of the thick ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... concluded, "in the way of argument, or as an agent of reason, but as a master, coarse, corrupt, tyrannical and vile; the instrument of selfishness, instead of the right, and when not employed as the promoter of personal interests, to be employed as the tool of personal passions." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... brought up another wire, to the end of which were attached two small anchors and some pieces of scrap steel from the tool room. ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... who had stepped on a similar snare and been jerked off his feet. This was quite enough. The party retreated to the ship. On the way back they saw trees that had been cut not very long since, and Sebastian picked up a wooden needle such as fishermen used in making nets, yet not like any English tool of that sort. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... to Richard in the evening, and asked him to accompany him as his guide. Richard readily consented, and the arrangements for the journey were made. They adjusted the king's dress again to complete his disguise, and Richard gave him a bill-hook—a sort of woodman's tool—to carry in his hand. It was agreed, also, that his name should be Will Jones so far as there should be any necessity for designating him by a name in the progress ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... glare, but are seldom warm. Those strokes of minute circumstantiality which he loved so dearly, show that even in moments when his imagination might seem to be moving both spontaneously and ardently, it was really only a literary instrument, a fashioning tool and not a melting flame. Let us take a single example. He is describing the trial of Warren Hastings. 'Every step in the proceedings,' he says, 'carried the mind either backward through many troubled centuries to the days when the foundations ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... or two of the so-called 'kings of finance'—then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool. So I just cast off ropes like a ship, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... threatening them with their rifles if they showed signs of falling from fatigue, or if they failed to maintain the expected rate of progress. To such old men, who probably had never lifted the smallest and lightest tool for many years, if ever, it was a back-breaking task. However, they clung dutifully to their work until the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... born of Quaker parents, in Upper Darby, Delaware county, Pa., on the 21st of August, 1789, on a farm still in the possession of the family. His father, though a farmer, had been a scythe and edge-tool maker, and Thomas learned of him the trade, and his knowledge of it afterwards proved of ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... with suddenly developed histrionic skill, was, by a Spartan self-sacrifice in submitting to Absalom's love-making, overcoming his wrath against the teacher. Absalom never suspected how he was being played upon, or what a mere tool he was in the hands of this gentle little girl, when, somewhat to his own surprise, he found himself half promising that the teacher should not be complained of to his father. The infinite tact and scheming it required ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... handy, whatever your trade is; (Except it be Cabinet-making;—no doubt, In that delicate service they're rather worn out; Tho' their owner, bright youth! if he'd had his own will, Would have bungled away with them joyously still.) You see they've been pretty well hackt—and alack! What tool is there job after job will not hack? Their edge is but dullish it must be confest, And their temper, like Ellenborough's, none of the best; But you'll find them good hardworking Tools, upon trying, Were't but for ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... their death; and there is a place where the sun is abominated and darkness adored. We are only ingenious in using ourselves ill: 'tis the real quarry our intellects fly at; and intellect, when misapplied, is a dangerous tool! ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Sandy Toddle. "I gaed into the kitchen on purpose to make sure o' the matter with my own eyes. I let on I wanted to borrow auld Gourlay's keyhole saw. I can tell ye he had a' his orders—his tool-chest's the finest I ever saw in my life! I mean to bid for some o' yon when the rowp comes. Weel, as I was saying, I let on I wanted the wee saw, and went into the kitchen one end's errand. The tumbler (Johnny Coe says it was a bottle, however; ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... there was a long silence, and I had begun to fear that it was a false alarm, when a stealthy step was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a moment later a metallic scraping and clinking. The man was trying to force the lock! This time his skill was greater or his tool was better, for there was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. Then a match was struck, and next instant the steady light from a candle filled the interior of the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all riveted upon the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... artist, when he was a young man, painted an unusual picture of Jesus. He represented him as a little boy in the home at Nazareth. He has cut his finger on some carpenter's tool, and comes to his mother to have it bound up. The picture is really one of the truest of all the many pictures of Jesus, because it depicts just such a scene as ofttimes may have been witnessed in his youth. Evidently there was nothing in his life in Nazareth that ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... "A customer ain't a tool!" he groaned, "it's a fellow-man; and no one will come in to-night, because it's Sunday. (Don't ask me what Sunday is, because you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you!) And I don't carry on my business up here, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... cried, "no frivolity! You shall at least say I kept my word about the trees to-day." And they started at once for the scene of action, Minturn obtaining on the way a shovel from the tool-room. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... of the world, In sullen humor locked his charms all up Within a diamond casket, firmly clasped, And threw the key into the sea, and died. The manikins here tried with all their might; In vain! no tool can pick the flinty lock; His magic arts still slumber, like their master. A shepherd's child, along the sea-shore playing, Watches the waves, in hurrying, idle chase. Dreaming and thoughtless, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... would be incalculable. Fancy what would become of the virtue of patriotism if officers and men had no higher ambition than to make money! As a patriotic army is the strongest defence of a nation's rights, so a mercenary army is a dreadful danger to a people's liberty, a ready tool in the hand of a tyrant; as heroism with consequent glory is the noble attribute of a patriot, so a mercenary spirit is a stigma on the career of any public officer. We find no fault with an artisan, a merchant, ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... not reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... the shed with his fellow prisoners, he took with him, secreted in a fold of his dhoti, a small piece of clay. It had been given him overnight by the Babu. An hour or two later, happening to be for a moment alone in the tool shop, he took out the clay and examined it carefully. It was a moment for which he had waited and longed with feverish impatience. The clay was a thin strip, oval in shape, and slightly curved. In the middle of it was the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... negligently, much as he might watch a struggling calf. To him the boy was not an enemy—merely a tool which he could use for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be made to suffer through her ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... United States Bank come from this "McDonough" of the Chronicle, when we know him to be the veriest lick-spittle that Nicholas Biddle, in his day of pride and power, ever retained in his service? As the friend of Nicholas Biddle, as his purchased tool and agent, rather, Mr. Reed has never, for an instant, hesitated to sacrifice to the promotion of the interests of the Bank, every public trust which for the time being was confided to his keeping. Why is it that Mr. Reed has never yet explained away or ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... solid mass of metal, either of iron or brass; they are then bored by being placed upon a machine which causes the whole mass to turn round very rapidly. The boring tool being pressed against the cannon thus revolving, a deep hole is made in ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... lived—black or white or red, robber or beggar or adventurer? Some of us were walking in the woods one day when we saw a bone sticking out of the ground. Luckily we had a spade, and we set to work digging. Not one moment was the tool idle. First one bone and then another came to light and among them a perfect horse's skull. We felt as though we had rescued Captain Kidd's treasure, and we went home ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... Christian was some time in doubt whether he should keep the carpenter or his mates; at length he determined on the latter and the carpenter was ordered into the boat. He was permitted but not without some opposition to take his tool chest. ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... hand, I am fain to do their work for them: so may be, they would protect me whether I were virtuous or no. Maybe they would not, however: for it is a point still disputed as to whether a saint might use an evil tool to do good work. But, in short, I am here to tell you what Privy Seal ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... best to prevent all knowledge of the new manufacturing machinery from crossing the Atlantic. The Act 21 George III., c. 37, denounced upon anyone who should aid toward giving America any tool, machine, or secret relating to manufacture in any branch, a penalty of 200 pounds and one year's imprisonment. In vain. Partly by smuggling, partly by invention, the new arts soon flourished here as there. Some Scotch artisans who came ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... gardener's boy left outside the tool-house. I—I—well, I put it on Fritz's head for a hat, you know. He did look so funny, but he tossed up his head and ran away, and it fell, and it is smashed to bits. I have got the bits outside the door on the mat. ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... feet in height and having a spread of one hundred fifty feet. The wood of the pecan is similar to that of the hickory in both toughness and specific gravity, although for practical purposes, such as being used for tool handles, the shagbark hickory is enough harder and tougher to make it the ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... man in the western lands, both of yore and now-a-days, among those men who had no higher rank than himself." Sweyn was, in fact the greatest man of his time. For he robbed whom he pleased, made and undid jarls and earls as he chose, and was the friend or tool of more than one ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... one special thing that year. He had bought some costly tool, When we wanted our boy to learn to read—he was five years old, you know; He went to his class with cold, bare feet, till at last he came from school And gravely said, "Don't send me back; ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... worked hard at the gun, and by the time that I had sent all the church-roof gutters, so far as I honestly could cut them, through the red pine-door, I began to long for a better tool that would make less noise and throw straighter. But the sheep-shearing came and the hay-season next, and then the harvest of small corn, and the digging of the root called "batata" (a new but good thing in our neighbourhood, which our folk have made into "taties"), and then the sweating ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Garrick's Answer (p. 27) that "it ought to be known that when this Letter was carried to Mrs. Clive, and her Name to it desired, she had the Honour and Spirit to refuse, upon any Consideration, to be made so ridiculous a Tool to ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive |
