"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannot tell,—cold isolations would suddenly seize upon him, wherein he would ask himself—that oracular cave in which one hears a thousand questions before one reply—"What is the use of it all—this study and labour?" And he interpreted the silence to mean: "Life is worthless. There is no glow in it—only a glimmer and shine at best."—Will my readers set this condition down as one of disease? If they do, I ask, "Why should a man be satisfied with anything such as was now within the grasp of Alec Forbes?" And if they reply that a higher ambition would ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... of his book which, considered abstractedly, are most utterly worthless, are delightful when we read them as illustrations of the character of the writer. Bad in themselves, they are good dramatically, like the nonsense of justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, or the misplaced consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... states are only valuable when subject to the free control of those to whom they appertain, and utterly worthless if to be determined by the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... died, while the invalid Charles II still clung to his tottering throne. Louis ceased hoping to occupy it himself and claimed it for his son, then for his grandson, Philip. Not until 1700, after a reign of nearly forty years, did Charles give up the worthless game and expire. He declared Philip his heir, and the aged Louis sent the youth to Spain with an eager boast, "Go; there are no longer any Pyrenees." That is, France and Spain were to be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the crushed ore will not mix with the quicksilver, and this is treated to a bath of cyanide, a peculiar acid that melts the gold as water does a lump of sugar. So all of value is saved, and the worthless "tailings" go to the dump. Even the black sands on the ocean beach have gold in them. In the desert also there is gold, which is "dry-washed" by putting the sand into a machine and with a strong blast of air blowing away all but the ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the way easy for their ugly bodies, but in so doing defiled the fruit for human use. So much is the basis in fact. Knowing this one can feel the poet's stinging denunciation of the one who cast the beautiful girl in the way of the heartless Guido instead of "putting a prompt foot on him the worthless human slug." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... have been placed here. They were a bad breed, and few of them deserved any better monument than a dunghill; and yet they have this grand chapel for the family at large, and yonder grand statue for one of its most worthless members. I am glad of it; and as for the statue, Michael Angelo wrought it through the efficacy of a kingly idea, which had no reference to the individual whose name ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Pot, a mine three miles from town, where intermittently for months he had been raising worthless rock in the hope of striking the extension of the Mollie Gibson vein. It was not quite true, as Bleyer had intimated, that his lease was merely a blind to cover ore thefts, though undoubtedly he used it for that ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... limbs, nor the chill of the twilight that crept through vein and bone. For one sick second she believed herself to be dying, and would not have stirred a muscle or spoken a syllable to save the life which had suddenly grown worthless—worthless, since she was never to see Frederic again; be no more to him than if she had never laid her head upon his bosom; never felt his kisses upon lip and forehead; never lived upon his words of love as rapt mortals, admitted in trances to the banquet of the gods, eat ambrosia, and ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... rather in the age than in the man; and we have the pain of thinking that, while many of the valuable writings by Manetho are lost, the copiers and readers of manuscripts have carefully saved for us this nearly worthless poem ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... sergeant has already pointed out," Mason said, "our arms would be worthless to you. And, more importantly, we wish no more part in warfare. I am afraid, in that respect, you must excuse us, sir.... It has been a ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... won't until you lay the ghost that has come out of its grave. But whatever you do or wherever you are, I want you to remember that I stand ready to help you in every way I can. All this"—she swept her arm about the richly furnished room—"is worthless to me now that Jim is gone, unless I can do some good for those I like. Please, Code, will you feel free to call on me if ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the First Empire, though its decorations date from the Restoration, and the ceiling, and furniture, apparently of the best of Renaissance times, are merely copies made by Louis Philippe, who did not hesitate, on another occasion, to blue-wash the Salon de Saint Louis, and who hung worthless third-rate paintings, which even provincial museums of the meanest rank have since refused to house, in the admirably decorated apartments of the period of ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... 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
... so much a month out o' what he made, but seemed as if he couldn't get along to do it. My husband, sir, drinks a good deal, and he couldn't do it on that account; so, a year or two ago his master sent for him, and told him that he was worthless, and unless he could buy himself in three years he would sell him. He said he might have himself for five hundred dollars, and he could have earned it, if he hadn't loved whiskey so, but 'pears as if he can't do without that. We aint got no children, thank God! so when the Abolitionists ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... farther back, and seeks to get hold of the little ones before they hare had a taste of street life and become contaminated. A policeman brings one sometimes, having found it in a low lodging-house, forsaken by its worthless, drunken parents. Christian ladies are ever on the look-out for the little ones in their work among the poor, and many a child has been taken straight from the dying bed of its only remaining parent to Miss Macpherson. "Rescued from a workhouse life" might be written on many a bright ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... whole American fleet was almost inevitable; for Perry's force was totally inadequate to its defence, and the regiment of Pennsylvania militia, stationed at Erie expressly for the defence of the fleet, refused to keep guard at night on board. 'I told the boys to go, Captain,' said the worthless colonel of the regiment, 'but the boys won't go.'" Like American merchant ships, American militia obeyed or disobeyed as they pleased. Two hundred soldiers, loaned by Dearborn when the Black Rock flotilla came round, had been recalled July 10. On ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... is a pleasure, for careful thought, combined with artistic skill, is everywhere apparent. You open the cover and find the same loving attention inside that has been given to the outside, all the workmanship being true and thorough. Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless book has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its outward aspect; and many a real treasure has come to a degraded end and premature death through the unsightliness of its outward case and the irreparable damage done to it ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... numerous and refined enjoyments into the soul, is to be considered of the greatest worth; and that, which has a tendency to bring upon us the most alarming miseries, misfortunes and woes, is of course the most worthless. The one is to be fondly chosen and pursued in proportion to its worth in administering to our enjoyments, and the other is to be avoided in proportion to its unhappy effects in multiplying our sorrows. This being an undeniable fact, the superlative value of a ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... this century, the piano attained such conspicuous excellence and increased power, greater technical skill could not fail to be called out; but, after a few years, this degenerated into a heartless and worthless dexterity of the fingers, which was carried to the point of absurdity and resulted in intellectual death. Instead of aiming to acquire, before all things, a beautiful, full tone on these rich-sounding instruments, ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the nature of promissory notes, issued by the authority of the state, and on the credit of the state, and put in circulation by the continental congress and the states as money. This paper money, having no funds set apart to redeem it, became almost worthless. Bank bills issued upon the credit of private individuals, do not come under the prohibition. It is also held that the prohibition does not apply to the notes or bills of a state bank, drawn on the credit of a particular fund set ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... had assured him that the United States was not concerned; that the matter had to do only with a phase of the Balkan question. But such assurances were worthless and given only to deceive, and, further, were so understood by both of them. Maybe her story was true—only the future would prove it. Meanwhile you trust at your peril, caveat emptor, your eyes are your market, or words to similar effect. Of course he could cause her to be apprehended ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... think that is a very important point. Some time ago I said that our wild hazel drove the cows out of the pasture. It is a worthless weed with us in Connecticut and it is an important thing for us to transform our hazel pasture lands that are full of thickets of this weed over into good bearing propositions. I grafted a lot of hazelnut bushes with European scions. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... worthless poems remain in MS.; but with these and one or two other unimportant exceptions, the present edition of the Poetical Works may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... accompanied by some gift, trifling it may be, but always the best the poor nun had to bestow. The tender grace of these endearing communications was all the more precious to him from the fact that the rest of Galileo's relatives were of quite a worthless description. He always acknowledged the ties of his kindred in the most generous way, but their follies and their vices, their selfishness and their importunities, were an incessant source of annoyance to him, almost to the last day of ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... present panic has proven that the currency of the country, based, as it is, upon the credit of the country, is the best that has ever been devised. Usually in times of such trials currency has become worthless, or so much depreciated in value as to inflate the values of all the necessaries of life as compared with the currency. Everyone holding it has been anxious to dispose of it on any terms. Now we witness the reverse. Holders of currency hoard it ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... lives of Napoleon, Wellington, and other great commanders, and came to the conclusion that a committee is an excellent thing to receive and carry out instructions from a masterful man who knows what he wants, but otherwise they are worthless. He persuaded those of his colleagues who had unbounded belief in him, and whose sole concern was the progress of the Mission, to accept the military organisation with himself as Commander-in-Chief, and with his driving power and the inspiration ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... some scholastic furniture and a vast number of worthless knick-knacks in poker-work, fret-work, leathern applique-work, gummed shell-work, wool-work, tambour-work, with crystoleum paintings and drawings in chalk and water-colour. On a table in front of the window stood a cage with five ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... midst of all the wild commotion his father sat, unmoved and silent, his agonized face lifted in an attitude of supplication, his lifeless hands lying heavily upon the now worthless papers, since for him there would ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... dearly bought, With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware; Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought Who shouldst my mind to higher ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... entrance-room of the Louvre, filled with the luxurious orfevrerie of the sixteenth century, types perfect and innumerable: Satyrs carved in serpentine, Gorgons platted in gold, Furies with eyes of ruby, Scyllas with scales of pearl; infinitely worthless toil, infinitely witless wickedness; pleasure satiated into idiocy, passion provoked into madness, no object of thought, or sight, or fancy, but horror, mutilation, distortion, corruption, agony of war, insolence of disgrace, and misery ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Sir Mulberry had regarded him with no other feeling than contempt; but, now that he presumed to avow opinions in opposition to his, and even to turn upon him with a lofty tone and an air of superiority, he began to hate him. Conscious that, in the vilest and most worthless sense of the term, he was dependent upon the weak young lord, Sir Mulberry could the less brook humiliation at his hands; and when he began to dislike him he measured his dislike—as men often do—by the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... which have hitherto lived in comparative security beside great powers. They will be absolutely at the mercy of the stronger, even if protected by treaties guaranteeing their neutrality and independence. They will not be safe, for treaty obligations are worthless "when they do not correspond to facts," i.e., when the strong power finds that they stand in its ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... them who spat upon the Flag that protected their worthless lives, and cut it down; sworn servants of the State who openly proclaimed their sympathy with the State's enemies; carefully protected, highly privileged subjects of the Crown, who impishly slashed at England's robes, to show her ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... paradise make tourists in Southern California wildly enthusiastic? They actually see fulfilled before their eyes the prophecy of Isaiah, "The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." The explanation is, however, simple. The land is really rich. The ingredients are already here. Instead of being worthless, as was once supposed, this is a precious soil. The Aladdin's wand that unlocks all its treasures is the irrigating ditch; its "open sesame" is water; and the divinity who, at the call of man, bestows the priceless gift, is the Madre of the Sierras. A Roman conqueror once said that he had ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... determined to leave no means untried, possible or impossible, to discover the retreat of the Lady Cornelia, and convince the duke of their sincerity and uprightness. They dismissed Santisteban for his misconduct, and turned the worthless Cornelia out of the house. Don Juan then remembered that they had neglected to describe to the duke those rich jewels wherein Cornelia carried her relics, with the agnus she had offered to them; and they went out proposing to mention ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... doubts," that doubts but never dies—no never. The jealousy that pains, only sustains it; it lives on, now happy in the honeyed conviction of triumph, now smarting under real or fancied scorn—on, on, so long as its object is accessible to sight or hearing! No matter how worthless that object may be or become—no matter how lost or fallen! Love regards not this; it has nought to do with the moral part of our nature. Beauty is the shrine of its worship, and beauty ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... merciful God permits some to hug a worthless hope when they think of their dead treasures, since it can do no harm to those who are gone; but I am not one of that class of people. Besides, I am appearing to you, and everybody, in a false light. I am tired of it. Marion, Mr. Wayne was not to me what he ought to have been, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... Lilburne were laughed at for a time and forgotten, the country confessed the failure of its striving, disavowed its aims, and flung itself with enthusiasm, and without any effective stipulations, at the feet of a worthless king. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... having, in a moment of excitement, asked her to marry Richard Harrington. While praying to be delivered from temptation he was constantly keeping his eyes fixed upon the forbidden fruit, longing for it more and move, and feeling how worthless life would be to him without it. Still, by a mighty effort, he restrained himself from doing or saying aught which could be constrained into expressions of love, and their interviews were much like those which had preceded ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... gratitude, and the causes of it, must be decidedly unique. In a speech, delivered in Glasgow, on Dec. 3d, Lord Roseberry declared that he thought "Ireland had shown great ingratitude toward Mr. Gladstone." Considering that, in addition to a worthless Land Bill, Mr. Gladstone's principal gifts to Ireland consisted of five years of the most grinding coercion government, under the operation of which some two thousand of the best and purest men ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... first, and do not lie to please the tongue. But if he wrongs you first, offending either in word or in deed, remember to repay him double; but if he ask you to be his friend again and be ready to give you satisfaction, welcome him. He is a worthless man who makes now one and now another his friend; but as for you, do not let your face put your heart to ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... who owned a large number of negro slaves, and I was brought up to the age mentioned among the negro children of the place, without schooling, but cuffed and knocked about more like a worthless puppy than as if I were a human child. I never saw the inside of a school-house, nor was I taught at home anything of value. Drake never even undertook to teach me the difference between good and evil, and my only associates were the little negro boys that belonged to Drake, or the neighbors. The ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... back from the brink of that rest by a vision of George Kent, tall, young, good-looking, vigorous, with all the world, its opportunities and rewards, before him, and of himself almost on the verge of middle age, a legless, worthless, hopeless piece of wreckage. He liked Kent, George was a fine young fellow, he had fancied him when they first met. Every one liked him and prophesied his success in life and in the legal profession. Then why in ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... fell in love so hopelessly that his kingdom and his life seemed worthless to him without her. He took the counsellor aside and said: "Counsellor, I simply must see her. Remember that I shall die if I do not. I bow to my fate. I will take the journey which you took. You must not refuse me nor accompany me. I shall go ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... Antioch; and at Corinth he thought joyfully, "Here, at last, he must find me. Here he is sure to touch, whichever way he goes." But before another year had passed, the illness had come from which he had risen with body and mind so shattered that he was worse than worthless to his owners, except for the sake of the ransom that did not come. Then, as he sat helpless in the morning sunlight, he began to think, "Tito has been drowned, or they have made him a prisoner too. I shall see him no more. He set out after me, but misfortune overtook ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... that manner in his colouring, it may be seen from a panel which he began but did not finish, not being satisfied with it, how much he imitated that painter. This panel remained in his house during his lifetime as worthless: but after his death it was sold as a piece of old rubbish to Sinibaldo Gaddi, and he had it finished by Santi Titi dal Borgo, then a mere boy, and placed it in a chapel of his own in S. Domenico da Fiesole. In this work are the Magi adoring Jesus Christ, who is in the ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... let out in sleeping places, so that fifteen to twenty persons are packed, one on top of the other, I cannot say accommodated, in a single room. These districts shelter the poorest, most depraved, and worthless members of the community, and may be regarded as the sources of those frightful epidemics which, beginning here, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... found that they knew nothing of farming—and besides, were making money at trades they did not really care to abandon. They engaged a man to work the farm for them: and then another. They were told that the land they had chosen was—for farming purposes—worthless. Their capital ran short; and they tried to make money by keeping a tea-garden. The original proposer of the scheme wrote to Ruskin, who sent L100:—the others returned the money. Ruskin declined to take it back, and began to perceive that the Communists were trifling. They had made no attempt ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... parallels of latitude from 30 deg. to 40 deg. that chart must be used when you are in one of those latitudes. When you move into 41 deg. or 29 deg., you must be sure to change your plotting chart accordingly. In very high latitudes and near the North pole, the Mercator chart is worthless. How can you steer for the North pole when the meridians of your chart never come together at any pole? For the same reason, bearings of distant objects may be slightly off when laid down on this chart in a straight line. On the whole, however, the Mercator chart answers the mariner's ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... source of great anxiety to the widow, lest her boys, deprived of a father's watchful authority, would, as they grew up, wander off at night, fall under bad influences, learn evil habits, and grow up worthless, dissipated men. But thus far she had been successful in keeping Eric and Alfred at home with her and their little sister, and now, just when the restlessness common to their age might have drawn them away, a new interest ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... event. Some journals summarized and commented it approvingly, until it was discovered to be a skit on the transient conditions in France, whereupon the "admirable expose based upon convincing evidence" and the "forcible arguments" became worthless.[37] ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... resources,—namely, human experience. How many problems that are well solved have to be solved again and again because the experience has not been crystallized in a well-tested fact or principle; how many experiences that might be well worth the effort that they cost are quite worthless because, in undergoing them, we have neglected some one or another of the rules that govern inexorably the validity of our inferences and conclusions. That is all that the scientific method means in the last analysis: it is a system of principles that enable us to make our experience ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... all on ye, as fit agen the King, is beggars naow, or next door tew it. Everybudy hez a kick fer a soldier. Ye'll fine em mosly in the jails an the poorhaouses. Look at you fellers as wuz a huntin me. Ther's Meshech on the floor, a drunken, worthless cuss. Thar ye be, Abner, 'thout a shillin in the world, nor a foot o' lan', yer dad's farm gone fer taxes. An thar be ye, Peleg. Wal Peleg, they dew say, ez the ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... of 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 ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... hand, and see what you have drawn from the grab-bag. It may be a silly, but nutritious cod, gaping in surprise at this curious termination of his involuntary rise in the world; or a silvery haddock, staring at you with round, reproachful eyes; or a pollock, handsome but worthless; or a shiny, writhing dog-fish, whose villainy is written in every line of his degenerate, chinless face. It may be that spiny gargoyle of the sea, a sculpin; or a soft and stupid bake from the mud-flats. It may be any one of the grotesque products of Neptune's vegetable garden, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... privations at Belle Isle and other places were, with few exceptions, in a very sad plight, mentally and physically, having for months been exposed to all the changes of the weather, with no other protection than a very insufficient supply of worthless tents, and with an allowance of food scarcely sufficient to prevent starvation, even if of wholesome quality; but as it was made of coarsely-ground corn, including the husks, and probably at times the cobs, if it did not kill by starvation, ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... cipher in which the secret of the authorship of these works was infolded, and in which it was found, but not found in these earlier plays,—plays in which these so perilous secrets are still conveyed in so many involutions, in passages so intricate with quips and puns and worthless trivialities, so uninviting or so marred with their superficial meanings, that no one would think of looking in them for anything of any value. For it is always when some necessary, but not superficial, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the width of the straws to vary, and when a new gauge is made there is always more or less variance in the position of the new notches. This method is very slow, as but one strip can be cut at a time; and, until the operator becomes expert in the use of the gauge, many of the strips are worthless. When used in the school room, each pupil has to prepare his own material. This causes waste of materials and a constant ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... people of the first quality, cannot, for that reason, be called good company, in the common acceptation of the phrase, unless they are, into the bargain, the fashionable and accredited company of the place; for people of the very first quality can be as silly, as ill-bred, and as worthless, as people of the meanest degree. On the other hand, a company consisting entirely of people of very low condition, whatever their merit or parts may be, can never be called good company; and consequently should not be much frequented, though by no ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... this time?" "I wonder what's between them." "I can tell you. Silas is what he is—we wouldn't mind him— But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide. He never did a thing so very bad. He don't know why he isn't quite as good As anyone. He won't be made ashamed To please his brother, worthless though he is." "I can't think Si ever hurt anyone." "No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge. You must go in and see what you can do. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... itself out or yielded to the changes and ameliorations of the times, the owners and all dependent upon it will stand appalled and prostrate, as the sot whose liquor has been withheld, and nothing but the bad and worthless habit left to remind the country of its ruinous effects. The political economist, as well as all wise statesmen in this country, cannot think of any measure going to discharge slavery that would not be a worse state than its existence." His own remedy for the depression ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the fallen. At the place where the ferry is, she was rejoiced by hearing positive news of the proximity of the Royal army. There were none to tell her that Charles Albert had here made his worst move by leaving Vicenza to the operations of the enemy, that he might become master of a point worthless when Vicenza fell into the enemy's hands. The old Austrian Field-Marshal had eluded him at Mantua on that very night when Vittoria had seen his troops in motion. The daring Austrian flank-march on Vicenza, behind the fortresses ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that coffee had won the approval of all nations, had almost wholly put down the use of wine, although it was not to be compared even with the lees of that excellent beverage; that it was a vile and worthless foreign novelty; that its claim to be a remedy against distempers was ridiculous, because it was not a bean but the fruit of a tree discovered by goats and camels; that it was hot and not cold, as alleged; that it burned up the blood, and so induced ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... fooled me then; they could fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn't one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respect had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers and those worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," I felt that I was a ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... humility that prevents us recognising the fact. It is our selfishness and stupidity. For the very fact that He has called and chosen you and me and all His Church before we were born shows that everything comes from Him. We are utterly worthless and vile, but when united, as we are united to God, we are transformed into His {82} image, we partake of His life. Only let us be ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... and seck another's shoe. When all is o'er, out to the door they run, With new comb'd sleeky hair, and glist'ning cheeks, Each with some little project in his head. One on the ice must try his new sol'd shoes: To view his well-set trap another hies, In hopes to find some poor unwary bird (No worthless prize) entangled in his snare; Whilst one, less active, with round rosy face, Spreads out his purple fingers to the fire, And peeps, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... with rushes, much that had the peculiar shade of greenish brown familiar to Canadian eyes. There were many roofless cottages standing here and there in the wide clearings. There were bleak bogs of the light colored kind that produce a very worthless turf, that makes ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... but they are extremely pointed. His voice trembles, his eyes flash, his veins swell. Confound his infernal honesty! Supposing I am disgusting and odious to him? What is more natural? I know that I am, but I don't like to be told so to my face. I am a worthless old man, but he might have the decency to respect my grey hairs. Oh, what stupid, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... should be sold and the proceeds applied to the relief of the poor of Paris. A jeweler was accordingly summoned, who, by the application of acids and a file, soon proved conclusively to the authorities that the precious trouvaille was a worthless piece of imitation. Sardou's heroine in his Maison Neuve, who sells her small real diamonds in order to appear at a ball ablaze with paste, is a true character of the epoch, and was evidently sketched from real life. But the disappearance of the masses of clinquante which used to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... and comforted under her sore trial. Everything 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 that once ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... breaches, and employ you in that Temple work which David himself might not be honoured with, though it was in his mind, because he shed blood abundantly and made great wars." The new Protector was a weak and worthless man; but the bulk of the nation were content to be ruled by one who was at any rate no soldier, no Puritan, and no innovator. Richard was known to be lax and worldly in his conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even royalist in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... of the dreadful leprosy of sin, how unable to heal yourself, and beseech Him to do the work for you, to wash you and make you clean and cover you with the robe of His righteousness; give yourself to Him, asking Him to accept the worthless gift and make you entirely and ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... recognize him for what he was part of the time—a seller of hair tonic—I will explain a little further. He made me pose in his cart, before the crowds, as one whose hair had been restored and made long by his worthless stuff. Oh, it was shameful! That is why ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... roguish, bad, naught or worthless. How queerly the cull touts; how roguishly the fellow looks. It ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... that I'm afraid of you—you overmuscled oaf," Kennon snapped. "I can handle you or anyone like you. And if you put your hands on me again I'll beat you within an inch of your worthless life." ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... young Richard had settled the day, And she hoped to be happy for life; But Richard was idle and worthless, and they Who knew him would pity poor Mary and say That she was ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... lightning swift, the lovely Nymph espied, In shining arms, and puffed with empty pride, False Aruns. "Caitiff! dost thou think to flee? Why keep aloof? Turn hitherward!" she cried, "Come here, and die! Camilla claims her fee. Must Cynthia waste her shafts on worthless knaves ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... was always afraid of the less intelligent music lovers "tearing it up by the roots." A vocal arrangement has been made by Herman Hagedorn, but the words are sickly and commonplace in sentiment, and so unnaturally cramped, that the song is artistically worthless. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... frequent thought, but a careless and worthless one, because never acted on, that the same energies, the same will to great vices, had given force to great virtues. Do we provide the opportunity? Do we believe in Good? If we are ourselves deceived in any one, is not all, thenceforth, deceit? if ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... word, the forests of heaven vanished, and the halls of Eblis did not take their place:—a worse hell was there—the cold reality of an earth abjured, and a worthless maiden walking by his side. He stood and turned to her. The shock had mastered the drug. They were only in the little wooded hollow, a hundred yards from the house. The blood throbbed in his head as from the piston of an engine. A horrid sound of dance-music was in his ears. ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... in establishments to get this nitrate, or saltpeter as it is often called, from the worthless material with which it is mixed and railroads to carry it to port. Little towns have sprung up along the seashore where the nitrates make up cargoes of hundreds of ships which carry this fertilizer to all parts ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... Durward, sternly, "to restrain thy ribaldry when thou chancest to be in worthy men's company, a thing, which, I believe, hath rarely happened to thee in thy life before now, and I promise thee, that did I hold thee as faithless a guide as I esteem thee a blasphemous and worthless caitiff, my Scottish dirk and thy heathenish heart had ere now been acquainted, although the doing such a deed were as ignoble as the sticking ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... now New Mexico was at the time of which I am writing considered perfectly worthless. It is a rolling, hilly country with smooth, level valleys between the hills and is proving to be very fertile and is settling as fast as any part of ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... generous partisanship in behalf of friends, such friends, for example, as Sir Robert Howard, his brother-in-law, an interminable spinner of intolerable verse, who afflicted the world in his day with plays worse than plagues, and poems as worthless as his plays. It was to a quarrel for and a quarrel against this gentleman that we are indebted for the most trenchant satire in the language. Sir Robert had fallen out with Dryden about rhyming tragedies, of which he disapproved; and while it lasted, the contest was waged with prodigious acrimony. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... saints guard 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
... Kaiser Ludwig, who is happily the last of these Bavarian Electors. They were an unlucky set of Sovereigns, not hitherto without desert; and the unlucky Country suffered much under them. By far the unluckiest, and by far the worst, was this Otto; a dissolute, drinking, entirely worthless Herr; under whom, for eight years, confusion went worse confounded; as if plain chaos were coming; and Brandenburg and Otto grew tired of each other ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... because of the natural reason stated before; and there is decidedly one great fault in the moderns, that not only do they study models with which they can never become intimately acquainted, but that they neglect, or rather reject as worthless, that which they alone can carry on with perfect success: I mean the knowledge of themselves, and the characteristics of their own actual living. Thus, if a modern Poet or Artist (the latter much more culpably errs) seeks a subject exemplifying ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... or for any trains of systematic research. All men are destined to devour much rubbish between the cradle and the grave; and doubtless the man who is wisest in the choice of his books, will have read many a page before he dies that a thoughtful review would pronounce worthless. This is the fate of all men. But the reading of Pope, as a general result or measure of his judicious choice, is best justified in his writings. They show him well furnished with whatsoever he wanted for matter or for embellishment, for argument or illustration, for example ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... troop—nay, a lieutenant-colonelcy some day, but for his fatal excesses. And now as long as my dear husband will listen to the voice of a wife who adores him—never, never shall he spend a shilling upon so worthless a young man. He has a small income from his mother (I cannot but think that the first Lady Fitz-Boodle was a weak and misguided person); let him live upon his mean pittance as he can, and I heartily pray we may not hear ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I offer you this. Many times I have come bearing flowers such as my garden grew; but now I offer you this poor, brown, homely growth, you may cast it away as worthless. And yet—and yet—it is something better than flowers; it is a SEED-CAPSULE. Many a gardener will cut you a bouquet of his choicest blossoms for small fee, but he does not love to let the seeds of his rarest varieties go out of his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... for the Indians of the Home Guard was decidedly inferior. Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la wanted batteries, "wagons that shoot."[282] His braves, many of them, were given guns that were worthless, that would not shoot at all.[283] In such a way was their eagerness to learn the white man's method of fighting and to acquire his discipline rewarded. The fitting out was done at Humboldt, although Colonel William Weer[284] of the Tenth Kansas Infantry, who was the man finally selected to command ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... and looked 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 - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... do. I used up all my ambiguous terms over that daub he bought in the Piazza di Spagna—'reminiscential' of half a dozen worthless things, 'suggestive,' etc. I can't work them over ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... miles in length was laid from Dover to Calais, only to prove worthless from faulty insulation and the lack of armour against dragging anchors and fretting rocks. In 1851 the experiment was repeated with success. The conductor now was not a single wire of copper, but four wires, wound spirally, so as to combine strength with flexibility; ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... ticket, married and thoroughly reclaimed 14 Ditto, ditto, single men 49 Free from expiration of sentence, but worthless 7 Returned home to England after becoming free 1 Well-conducted men, as yet under sentence 62 Indifferent, not trustworthy 29 Depraved characters, irreclaimable 7 Sent to iron gangs and penal settlements 11 ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... The Chinese peasantry, exploited by the gentry, came to the support of these monks whose Messianism gave the poor a hope in this world. The nomad tribes also, abandoned by their nobles in the capital and wandering in poverty with their now worthless herds, joined these monks. We know of many revolts of Hun and Toba tribes in this period, revolts that had a religious appearance but in reality were simply the result of the extreme impoverishment of these ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... the light by the shortest road; it is the confessions of an ignorance which no honest observer will blush to share. Now that the evolutionists' interpretations of instinct have been recognized as worthless, we all come to that stimulating maxim of Anaxagoras', which laconically sums up the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... for a few centimes, side by side with old weather-beaten books, odd volumes, refuse of libraries, which book-lovers daily finger through in the hope of finding some pearl, some rarity, in the worthless mass. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... and proceeded to the home of Stone Shirt and found the magical bows and arrows that belonged to the maidens, and with their sharp teeth they cut the sinew on the backs of the bows and nibbled the bow strings, so that they were worthless. Togo'av hid himself under ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... importance except the growth of his spirit, and that to us nothing else concerning him is of any moment; which will show him to us illumined, as it were, from within, and which will count any other sort of life-history as vain and worthless. What we need is biography by X-ray, and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... transferred to the continent of Europe, in order to maintain an unnecessary war, in favour of a family whose pride and ambition can be equalled by nothing but its insolence and ingratitude. While the strength of the nation was thus exerted abroad for the support of worthless allies, and a dangerous rebellion raged in the bowels of the kingdom, the sovereign was insulted by his ministers, who deserted his service at this critical juncture, and refused to resume their functions, until he had truckled to their petulant humour, and dismissed a favourite servant, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... civilize the lowliest spot on earth needs something besides wealth for the task. Knowledge is still more necessary; and knowledge, and patriotism, and integrity are worthless unless they are accompanied by a firm determination on his part to set his own personal interests completely aside, and to devote himself to a social idea. France, no doubt, possesses more than one well-educated man and more than one patriot in every commune; but I ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Cistercian monastery. Again, though many of the Welsh chiefs were mere creatures of impulse, there were others who looked to the future. The Lord Rhys was an acute man of the world, who was not averse to improving his property. He possessed great tracts of mountain land, which was practically worthless; he saw Cistercian monks elsewhere, not exactly making such tracts blossom like the rose, but, at any rate, utilising them for pasture land, keeping flocks of sheep, becoming the great wool-growers for all Europe; why should he not hand over his worthless property ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... spring of Canadian loyalty to the monarchical idea. It is not the fat king. It is not any king. It is what the insignificant personality called "king" stands for, like the five-dollar bill worthless as wrapping paper but of value as a promise to deliver ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... A worthless woman can never be reduced to that wretched situation, because she is insensible to infamy; but a woman who has that respectable virtue, a high sense of shame, and a strong desire of being respectable in her character, finding ...
— On the uncertainty of the signs of murder in the case of bastard children • William Hunter
... a noble Roman, of singular constancy and virtue, having been condemned to die by that worthless fellow Caligula, besides many marvellous testimonies that he gave of his resolution, as he was just going to receive the stroke of the executioner, was asked by a philosopher, a friend of his: "Well, Canus, whereabout is your soul now? what ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... become something, it will not stay a withered, unsightly peach; but for souls there is no transmigration out of fables. Once a soul, forever a soul,—mean or mighty, shrivelled or full, it is for you to say. Money, land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, are worthless. It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into life ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... then disrespected by the people thou wouldst do that which would be most disagreeable to me. If, O Sanjaya, thou art about to be stained with infamy and I do not (from affection) tell thee anything, then that affection, worthless and unreasonable, would be like that of the she-ass's for her young. Do not tread the path that is disapproved by the wise and adopted by the fool. Great is the ignorance here. Innumerable creatures of the world have taken refuge in it. If thou, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was filled up by the shouts of the onlookers, who now made up for their previous silence by loudly criticising the deeds of their respective champion, and vociferously calling out their particular favourite worthless instructions how to proceed ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... was unhappy over that, but I wasn't. Really, he didn't mean much to me. What did grieve me, though, was the death of my illusions. He was mercenary—the fault of his training, I dare say—but he had that man-call I spoke about. It's really a woman-call. He was weak, worthless, full of faults, mean in small things, but he had an attraction and it was impossible to resist mothering him. Other women felt it and yielded to it, so finally we went our separate ways. I've seen nothing of him for some time ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... tempest that broke upon France had long been gathering. The rays that emanated from such false suns as Voltaire and Rousseau had already drawn up a moral miasma from the swamps of sensual ignorance: under the shade of a worthless government these noxious mists collected into the clouds from whence the desolating storm of the Revolution burst. It was, however, the example of popular success in the New World, and the republican training of a portion of the French army during the American ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... actually executed is now worthless. And the other codicil remains unsigned until the lawyer can produce Miss Silvester. He has left the house to apply to Geoffrey at Fulham, as the only means at our disposal of finding the lady. Some hours have passed—and he ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... prejudices of those among whom I live. We 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 how easily ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... monotony. The slums vex me far less. There I find adventure and jest whatever the squalor; the marks of the primitive struggle through dirt and darkness towards release. Those horrible lines of moody, complacent streets represent not struggle, but the achievement of a worthless aspiration. The houses, with their deadly similarity, their smug, false exteriors, their conformity to an ideal which is typified by their poor imitative decoration, could only be inhabited by people who have no thought or desire ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Stockton did not believe that if these were finished they would be effective as vessels of war. One great reason for this was the fact that their engines were situated so near the upper deck, that a shot from an enemy might easily destroy them, and so render the vessel worthless. Another objection was that they were side-wheelers, and it would be a very easy thing for a cannon ball to knock an exposed side-wheel into ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... whispered Vavel, "and the documents, and the portraits, and the heap of worthless money. From to-day," he added, in a louder tone, "I begin to learn what it is to ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... Sunday morning found a small boy standing on the Squire's porch with the remains of the book in his hand. When the Squire learned what had happened he spoke his mind freely. He told Abe that he was as worthless as his father, that he did not know how to take care of valuable property, and that he would never loan him another book as long as he lived. The boy faced the music, and when the angry tirade was over, said that he would like to shuck corn for the Squire, and in that way pay him ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... when I see such things—fight with a gun. Because we happened to find gold up here, they think Alaska is an orange to be sucked as quickly as possible, and that when the sucking process is over, the skin will be worthless. That's modern, dollar-chasing Americanism ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... important matter than all these, so far as the economy of maintenance is concerned, is the quality and shape of the iron rails, forming one-eighth of the whole cost of our railways. Where companies, instead of buying rails, are selling bonds, they have no right to complain, if the iron turn out as worthless as the debentures. But where they pay cash, they can insist on good iron, and will get it, if they will pay the price, which will rule from eighteen to twenty dollars per ton over that of the poorest article. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... aboriginal, and probably Turanian races, which previously inhabited portions of Europe, were gradually pushed and pressed aside and upwards, by the more powerful and encroaching Aryans, into districts either so sterile or so mountainous and strong, that it was too worthless or too difficult to follow them further—their remnants being represented at the present day by the Laps, the Basques, and the Esths. Philological Archaeology has further demonstrated that the vast populations which now stretch from the mouth of the Ganges to the Pentland Firth,—sprung, as they ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... and old women To tell us what is to befall, Can't prophesy themselves at all.) The morning came, when Neighbour Hodge, Who long had marked her airy lodge, And destined all the treasure there A gift to his expecting fair, Climbed, like a squirrel to his dray, And bore the worthless prize away. ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... take the theory? Wethermill was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, his face white and contorted with a spasm of pain. But he had the air of a man silently enduring an outrage rather than struck down by the conviction that the woman he loved was worthless. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... suited my powers and would satisfy me. Everything which had formerly withheld me from the pursuits of learning now seemed worthless. It was as if I stood in a new relation to all things. Even the one to my mother had undergone a transformation. I realized for the first time what I possessed in her, how wrong I had been, and what I owed to her. One day during this period I remembered my Poem of the World, and instantly had the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
