"Worthless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... please don't be!" I went on quickly. "I want you to be kind to us. We—oh, we do, do so wish to be happy, and we are both so young, and life will be so utterly blank and worthless for all those years to the end ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... hear some word of it down in Toy's shop, now I come to think," said Cai. "But if the land's worthless—" ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... religious sensibility. As a rule, they have no other means of measuring the consideration in which they are held by the world, or the success in life of those to whose fortunes they are linked, than by using a trivial and worthless social standard. Men, whose training is wider, estimate both their male and their female friends pretty fairly according to their merits. But the majority of women, from their youth up, seldom think of anybody without contrasting his or her social status with their own. Success signifies to them ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... who has rightly perceived that the law as stated by philosophers is worthless, nevertheless continues to suppose that it is used in science. ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... work, it was enough; it filled the measure of a man and the promise of a boy. A useful tree was therefore the best tree. He had no use for white or gray birches, for they were neither timber nor vendible firewood. He often ridiculed them, and if there was a worthless fellow in town, he was, in his comparison, a gray birch, good for nothing but to hoop the cider barrels, of which the fellow was too fond; if a too gay girl, she was a white birch, dressed in satin, frizzled and beribboned, dress over dress of the same stuff to her innermost petticoat. ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... song too taught him; fear to be Worthless the dear love of the wind and sea That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared In rocks of man's foot feared, Where nought of wingless life may sing or shine. Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had When all the life in all his limbs was glad And all the drops in all his veins were ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... me, With his deep, impassioned eyes, Stealing my soul from me? Surely a high emprise For such an one as he To smile an hour on me— To win a worthless prize, Would he might let me be! Proud am I—proud as he For my name as his is old— What should he say to me? I have neither lands nor gold. Ah, a merry jest 'twill be To win my heart from me— (The tale will be soon told!) Would he might let ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... rummaging of this lumber-room come the odors: dry smells from musty old trunks packed with bundles of faded letters and worthless deeds tied with red tape; musty smells from dust-covered chests, iron bound, holding mouldy books, their backs loose; pungent smells from cracked wardrobes stuffed with moth-eaten hunting-coats, riding-trousers, and high boots ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... want to take up poetry in its most delightful and playful mood, I take up the verses of that remarkable girl of the sixties and seventies, Emily Dickinson, she who was writing her little worthless poetic nothings, or so she was wont to think of them, at a time when the now classical New England group was flourishing around Concord, when Hawthorne was burrowing into the soul of things, Thoreau was refusing to make more pencils and took to sounding lake bottoms and holding converse ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... dear! Who could have been imposing such a tale upon you? Aline Lebrun lives for Victor, and for Victor alone. She has spoiled him into the worthless creature he is. She worships him and the ground he walks on. Robert is very well in a way, to give up all the money he can earn to the family, and keep the barest pittance for himself. Favorite son, indeed! I miss the poor ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it, I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know; I am a bankrupt trader—dear eyes, do not deny it, I could have bought your love, dear, but that ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit
... as a curiosity, near the other lions and tigers of London. It was not until the restoration of peace in 1633, that Champlain was reappointed Governor of Canada, which, by the treaty of 1632, was surrendered back to France, on the supposition that it was almost worthless. This time colonization was systematically undertaken by the Jesuits, who only arrived in Canada in time to supply the loss of Champlain, a man of exemplary perseverance, of ambitious views, and of wonderful administrative capacity, for a layman of that day, who died in December, 1635. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... that a time is coming when war, the duel of nations, will be regarded as an infinitely graver crime. The day is surely over when sophists like Treitschke and callous soldiers like Bernhardi could sing the praises of war. The pathetic picture drawn by our great novelist of a worthless young lord lying at the feet of his opponent touched England profoundly and hastened the end of the duel in this country. If England, if the civilised world, be not even more deeply touched by the descriptions we have read, week after week, of tens of thousands of braver and more innocent men ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... In the counties of King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, Lancaster, in the northern neck, as the peninsula between the Potomac and Rappahanock is termed; thousands of acres of land so poor and worthless a few years ago, it was barely rated as property, are now annually producing beautiful crops of wheat, corn and clover, solely by the application of Guano. In the meantime, the discovery of such an easy means of improving a worn out and barren soil, has increased the money value ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... whelk's eggs, and mermaid's purses, and zoophytes, and hermit-crabs, and bits of plocamium or coralline, and asking me all I could tell him about them, you would not have thought him a stupid or worthless boy." ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... stopped the crier, and said to him: "Let me see that apple, and tell me what virtue and extraordinary properties it has, to be valued at so high a rate." "Sir," said the crier, giving it into his hand, "if you look at the outside of this apple, it is very worthless, but if you consider its properties, virtues, and the great use and benefit it is to mankind, you will say it is no price for it, and that he who possesses it is master of a great treasure. In short, it cures all sick ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... he knew that she had been married before—knew that years and years ago, before she had really known her own mind, she had married a man—a worthless waster—who had left her within a few months of their marriage. She had told him this herself, quite straightforwardly. Told him, too, that the man ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... to observe, the six correspondents, Robinson, Thomas, Gibbs, Philips, Russell and myself, went and came always with a sense of incapacity and sometimes with a feeling that writing was a worthless business when others were fighting. The line of advance on the big map at our quarters extended as the brief army reports were read into the squares every morning by the key of figures and numerals with a detail that included ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... did not at first recognize an old acquaintance, but wondered what those golden crowns and images could be. There were likewise drums and other toys for small children, and a variety of showy and worthless articles for children of a larger growth; though it perplexed me to imagine who, in such a mob, could have the innocent taste to desire playthings, or the money to pay for them. Not that I have a right to accuse the mob, on my own knowledge, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... accumulations of the past twelve years, were distributed by the relatives of the deceased among the people. In this distribution, strange to say, valuable fur robes were frequently cut and torn to pieces, so as to be rendered worthless. A lavish display and reckless destruction of wealth were deemed honors due to the shades of the departed. [Footnote: See the Relation for 1636, p. 131. A most vivid and graphic description of these extraordinary ceremonies is ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... expected. A batch of colored folks had drifted into the place under the impression that a certain planter was going to give them work at big wages. They were a worthless lot, the scum of other plantations, and nobody ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... made no fine speeches—but, I will tell you a secret, grandmother. I have liked and admired him from the first time he came here. I have looked up to him and reverenced him; and I must be a very foolish girl if my judgment is so poor that I can respect a worthless man.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... with a worthless Italian nobleman. I believe, on the whole," he said, with what was an extreme complaisance for the first citizen, "that I have reason to congratulate myself upon Robert's choice. I have made inquiries about you, and I find that I have had the pleasure of knowing your mother, whom I respected ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... settled after the usual local methods, it gave no further concern thereto. But presently it was rumored that the "Amity Claim" was in litigation, and that its possession would be expensively disputed by each of the partners. As it was well known that the claim in question was "worked out" and worthless, and that the partners, whom it had already enriched, had talked of abandoning it but a day or two before the quarrel, this proceeding could only be accounted for as gratuitous spite. Later, two San Francisco lawyers made their appearance in this guileless Arcadia, ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Piotr Andreitch said to his wife every time she ventured to try to incline him to mercy. "The puppy, he ought to thank God for ever that I have not laid my curse upon him; my father would have killed him, the worthless scamp, with his own hands, and he would have done right too." At such terrible speeches Anna Pavlovna could only cross herself secretly. As for Ivan Petrovitch's wife, Piotr Andreitch at first would not even hear her name, and in answer to a letter ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... thrown away? But now she would no longer judge the dead. The money which he had filched from her, Fate and a murderous hand had quickly taken back from him, crushing beneath those chalk boulders his many desires, his vast ambitions, a worthless life ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... we left, Eagle Hawk Gully had been condemned as a "worthless place," and a change decided on. The when and the where were fixed ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... Little Elsie here, yes. I love her too. But that's different. You are a boy, and will be a man; and a man whom I destine to do for me what it has been the object of my life to achieve. Let us be friends. We will—we must be friends; and when old Doctor Grim, worthless wretch that he is, sleeps in his grave, you shall not have the pang of having parted from him in unkindness. Forgive me, Ned; and not only that, but love me better than ever; for though I am a hasty old wretch, I am not altogether evil ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stately mausoleum; but only two—those of Ferdinand I. and Cosmo II.—seem to 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 ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... explored ten miles by the Leader, and the question as to whether he should choose that route, or follow the river was decided for him. The banks were either utterly barren or clothed with spinifex, and the country on either side the same worthless tea-tree levels. He was therefore determined to take the cattle back on to the river, which was not much better, and led them away from their course. The prospects of the Brothers were rather dispiriting. To attempt striking north was out of the question, ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... attracted towards me by pity, and by a generous desire to relieve my distress. It was not the mere impulse of a moment; your kindness has been constant and unwavering—and now you have crowned all by saving my life. I hardly know whether or not to thank you for what was so worthless to myself; but I do thank you from the bottom of my heart for the friendly and generous feeling which actuated you. You shall know the cause of the sorrow that weighs upon my heart; I would not that one to whom I owe so much should look upon me with ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... If Democritus and Heraclitus could walk arm in arm through one of these crowds, the first would be in a broad laugh to see the multitude of young persons who were rejoicing in the possession of one of these useless and worthless little commodities; happy himself to see how easily others could purchase happiness. But the second would weep bitter tears to think what a rayless and barren life that must be which could extract enjoyment from the miserable flimsy wand that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... who does not know all that her son is doing thinks the worst; that is, if a mother loves as much and is as much beloved as Fanny. But perhaps all other mothers would have trembled now as she did. The patient care of twenty years might be rendered worthless. This human masterpiece of virtuous and noble and religious education, Calyste, might be destroyed; the happiness of his life, so long and carefully prepared for, might be forever ruined ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in Massachusetts, the ministers left off preaching the Trinity, and the consequence was, that the people became Unitarian. Unitarianism in New England was not diffused by preaching: it came of itself, as soon as the clergy left off preaching the Trinity. This shows how worthless, empty, and soulless the doctrine was and is. Instead of this formal ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... had, nobody would have looked for him. His father was at home bending over the model of the wonderful lamp which was to make his fortune, and over which he had been bending for fifteen rolling years. It had come to him, at about the time that he fell in love with Aladdin's mother, that a certain worthless biproduct of something would, if combined with something else and steeped in water, generate a certain gas, which, though desperately explosive, would burn with a flame as white as day. Over the perfection of this invention, with a brief honeymoon for vacation, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... heterogeneous triflings which now, I am very sorry to say, occupy so much of our time, will be neglected; fashion's votaries will silently fall off; dishonest exertions for rank in society will be scorned; extravagance in toilet will be detested; that meager and worthless pride of station will be forgotten; the honest earnings of dependents will be paid; popular demagogues crushed; impostors unpatronized; true genius sincerely encouraged; and, above all, pawned integrity redeemed! And why? Because enfranchised woman then will feel ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Bothwell, "the scene I have this day witnessed is enough to make a traitor of me. I could forswear my insensible country—I could immolate its ungrateful chieftains on those very lands which your generous arm restored to these worthless men!" He threw himself into a seat, and leaned his ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of Bergamo permission to inspect the famous masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious Pincini, probably the work of some pupil whom he had employed in his declining years. The evidence of Deplis on the subject was obviously worthless, as he had been under the influence of the customary narcotics during the long process of pricking in the design. The editor of an Italian art journal refuted the contentions of the German expert and undertook to prove that his ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Espana to the said Filipinas Islands. Delivered in the city of Manila, they cost your Majesty more than thirty-two reals apiece; but, with thirty-two reals, they can make forty pikes in the city of Manila. It is a weapon that is worthless in those islands, and it is not used in them. And even if they were used, there are shafts in the forests of those islands, and the native Indian smiths can make ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... Old Riddler, "that wont do. It's of no use at all to give an answer that is nearly good enough. It must be exactly right, or it's worthless. I am afraid, young girl, that you don't ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... of American citizens would not be led astray by these foolish promises, or by others equally absurd—recalling how political and common crimes, theft, murder, arson, perjury, worthless currency, blasphemy and political corruption have ruined Socialist Russia and made it a hell on earth—a dreadful revolution would be necessary to compel our countrymen to surrender their cherished rights. The Socialists, if victorious, after having set up a new form of government, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... beginning and end of the whole thing? It all comes down to a worthless little Montmartroise? For a little thing of rien du tout, the artist, the philosopher, the English public school man will throw over his friend, his partner, his signed word, his honour? Mon Dieu! Well go—I can easily—No, I'll not say what I ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... "There," said I, addressing my feet, to whose separate skill I had learned to trust night and day on any mountain, "that is what you get by intercourse with stupid town stairs, and dead pavements." I felt degraded and worthless. I had not yet reached the most difficult portion of the canyon, but I determined to guide my humbled body over the most nerve-trying places I could find; for I was now awake, and felt confident that the last of the town fog had been shaken ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... with good manners; and had formed an intimate acquaintance with a lewd, debauched young fellow whom he found at Paris, and who was the son of Dr Merrit, a physician. The governor had cautioned his young nobleman against creating a friendship with so worthless a person, who would draw him into all manner of vice and expense, and lead him into numberless inconveniences. Merrit, being told of this, took Mr Forbes one day at an advantage in an house, and wounded him dangerously. The earl, instead of manifesting his ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives nothing but worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; 165 But he who gives a slender mite,[16] And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite,— The hand cannot clasp the whole ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... orientals are accustomed to have, the men like the women, among which we saw many plates wrought from copper, by whom it is prized more than gold; which, on account of its color, they do not esteem; wherefore among all it is held by them more worthless; on the other hand rating blue and red above any other. That which they were given by us which they most valued were little bells, blue crystals and other trinkets to place in the ears and on the neck. They did not prize cloth of silk ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... to plead with Rapaju," he sneered, his Cos tinged with an outlandish accent, "to beg for the worthless lives of your compatriots; for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... more than any other in his century decisively taught caution as to mere medication, and sedulously brought the clear light of common sense to bear upon the practice of his time. It is interesting to note, as his biographer remarks, that his theories were often as worthless as his practice was good. Experience taught him to do that for which he felt forced to find a reason, and the reason was often enough absurd. "The contrast gives a fine light and shadow effect ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... was in the habit, when he regaled himself at an inn, of paying his bill in counterfeit money, which at the time of payment appeared of sterling value, but in a few days after became pieces of horn and worthless shells. [202] ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... poetry is of the highest artistic significance, though the mass of it is worthless ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wild prairie, surrounded by a wily and terribly cruel foe, without transportation of any character but our own legs, and with five hundred miles of dangerous, trackless waste between us and the settlements. We had an abundance of money, but the stuff was absolutely worthless for the present, as there was nothing we ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... freely, because it knows that it has received freely; which communicates knowledge without hope of reward, without jealousy and rivalry, to fellow- students and to the world; which is content to delve and toil comparatively unknown, that from its obscure and seemingly worthless results others may derive pleasure, and even build up great fortunes, and change the very face of cities and lands, by the practical use of some stray talisman which the poor student has invented in his laboratory; - this is the spirit which is abroad among our scientific men, to a ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... this good scene changed. Mary had a foster-sister, Leonora Galligai, and Leonora was married to an Italian adventurer, Concini. These seemed a poor couple, worthless and shiftless, their only stock in trade Leonora's Italian cunning; but this stock soon came to be of vast account, for thereby she soon managed to bind and rule the Queen-Regent,—managed to drive Sully into retirement in less than a year,—managed to make herself and her husband ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... little with the years but to no practical avail; the war in our day has become merely a watching game, we to keep the Germans from coming out, they to keep us from penetrating within gunshot of Berlin; but to gain a mile of worthless territory either way means too great a human waste to be worth the price. Things must go on as they are till the Germans tire of their sunless imprisonment or till they exhaust some essential element in their soil. But wars such as you ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... The fact of Emma is taken with entire seriousness, of course; she is there to be studied and explored, and no means of understanding her point of view will be neglected. But her value is another matter; as to that Flaubert never has an instant's illusion, he always knows her to be worthless. ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... which the favourable exterior of this young man had at first inspired. She accuses herself with finding him so handsome, and seems to fortify her heart against the fascination of his looks. "Barbaroux is volatile," she said; "the adoration he receives from worthless women destroys the seriousness of his feelings. When I see such fine young men too conceited at the impression they make, like Barbaroux and Herault de Sechelles, I cannot help thinking that they adore themselves too much to have a great deal of ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... hope you're right. You were Father's attorney for twenty years—your judgment ought to be good; and mine is not entirely worthless. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... grinned Hicks, thus siding with the famous Eva Tanguay. "You fellows were fooled, too! You were too scared to run, and if it had been Caesar Napoleon, I'd have saved your worthless lives by getting him after me! I'll bet Bildad is snickering now, the old reprobate! Why, Tug, are ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... one naturally asks if the masterpieces of our great authors, which every one should read, are to be mixed up with the worthless novels constantly being published in the condemnation of Fiction; but, to some extent, both Mr. Cowell and Mr. Kay answer this. The first of these gentlemen writes: "As to the better class novels, which are so graphic in their description ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... laughing; and the younger one retired, baffled and chagrined, but none the less resolved that before Gertrude White completely gave herself up to this blind infatuation for a savage country and for one of its worthless inhabitants, she would have to run the gauntlet of many a sharp ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... core of a law, the very law itself; so let it be debated by referring it to a committee to make a report on it.—Not at all—the matter is urgent; a committee might fix the articles as it pleases; they are worthless if the principle is not common sense." Through this expeditious method discussion is stifled. The Jacobins purposely prevent the Assembly from giving the matter any consideration. They count on its bewilderment. In the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... they were eaten up by the fire and nothing remained but dead grey ashes. The thought came to him that that was like his old love. It was burnt out. There had not been the right kind of fuel to feed it. Kate was worthless, but his own self was alive, and please God he would yet see better days. He would go home at once to the child wife who needed him, and whom now he might love as she should be loved. The thought became wondrously sweet to him as he rapidly threw the things into his travelling ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Hawksby, she said—"This bauble has been much talked of, I understand, by your ladyship, but I question whether you have ever yet seen it, or know the truth concerning it. This locket was stolen by a worthless man, given by him to a worthless woman, from whom I have obtained it; and now I give it to the person for ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... of female syringes now manufactured and sold, some of which are quite worthless. Much the most convenient, cleanly, and efficient is the self-injecting india-rubber syringe, which is worked by means of a ball held in the hand, and which throws a constant and powerful stream. They come neatly packed in boxes, occupying small space, and readily transported ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... plant which thrives best in spots where blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: so that our children will be less prodigal than their fathers in sacrificing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... deity but to use the greater part in sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course allowed also in one way or another to participate. But he does not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of flesh. "Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came (that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while the flesh was in ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... 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 ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... sufferings; he must remain in it, to preserve others from suffering like himself. Let him not tell me, that his own prospects are forever closed; the noblest is still entirely open to him, that of brightening the prospects of others!— oh! shame on the selfish being who looks upon life as worthless, while it gives him the power to impart comfort, or to relieve distress; who, because happiness is dead to himself, forgets that for others it still exists; and who loses not the sense of his own heart's anguish while contemplating benefits ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... said the other, contemptuously. "I paid two old frauds five hundred pounds for that thing in London a couple of years ago—it's absolutely worthless from ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... not leave it alive," the woman declared, her eyes showing dilated pupils of resentment, of anger. "I haven't come this far to be thrown aside like a bit of worthless gear!" ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... would have no occasion to do so; for, as she went up to these rooms, she was immediately followed by their future occupants, each of whom came with her arms full of what looked like the most worthless rubbish. ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... went so far as to peg one out. This was on the western edge of the kopje, clean outside the diamond bearing area. But this circumstance was not yet known, for here the red soil lay nearly ten feet deep over the bed-rock. However, we exchanged this worthless site for a piece of ground in No. 9 Road a half claim belonging to Alick McIntosh. The latter piece of ground turned out to ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... away from the subject. The days immediately following the publication of this relic of Milton appear to be peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to his memory. And we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, we be found lingering near his shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering which we bring to it. While this book lies on our table, we seem to be contemporaries of the writer. We are transported a hundred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging; that we see him sitting at the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with jocosity the sternness of adults, and wreathe into smiles the wrinkles of old age. Let him, in a word, be a Merry Andrew,—the patron and promoter of frolicsomeness. To be only this is nothing to his discredit; and to esteem him for being only this is not to pay respect to a worthless mountebank. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... yet the smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments; and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and the bribes which they extorted from those who feared ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... impetuous zeal,) 5 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, The hollow Puppets of a hollow Age, 10 Ever idolatrous, and changing ever Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, 15 Even to the gates and inlets of his life! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, And with a natural ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... from his attic a table very like that of Jack, and exchanged the two. Jack, none the wiser, next morning hitched the worthless table on to his back and carried it home. "Now, father, may I marry ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... fondly dreams that he is free in act; Naught is he but the powerless worthless plaything Of the blind force that in his will itself Works out for him ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... feasts of the Church he held views of an almost grotesque peculiarity. He looked upon each of them as nugatory and worthless, but the keeping of Christmas appeared to him by far the most hateful, and nothing less than an act of idolatry. 'The very word is Popish', he used to exclaim, 'Christ's Mass!' pursing up his lips with the gesture of one who tastes assafoetida by accident. Then ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... his looks that piercing sweetness shed; That port, which so majestic was and strong, Loose and deprived of vigor stretched along, All withered, all discolored, pale, and wan, How much another thing! no more That Man! O human glory! vain! O death! O wings! O worthless world! O transitory things! Yet dwelt that greatness in his shape decayed That still, though dead, greater than Death he laid, And, in his altered face, you something feign That threatens Death he ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Chris's eyes, into her own highest possibility of womanhood. To him she was earnest, honest, only anxious to be good and to be true. He knew the viewpoint of that wiser self that was the real Norma; he knew how wide open those blue eyes were to what was false and worthless in the world ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... lie in the "Charity-Ball" direction; her funds were not lavished in encouraging hypocrisy and improvidence among the idle and worthless; and the quality of her charity was, in fact, as admirable as its quantity. Her chief aim was the extension and improvement of popular education; but there was no kind of misery that she heard of that she did not ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that issue from the sandy bluff on the south side of the flats, kept the ground marshy, and unfit for cultivation. By deepening the channel of the stream, and conducting most of the springs into it, many acres, which were formerly almost worthless, have been made worth 125 dollars per acre. They have also, by deepening the channel, saving the water of the springs, and securing all the fall, made a water privilege, on which they have erected an excellent mill, with several run of stones, leaving besides sufficient power to carry ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... business to hold this life or what you may. When it has gone your structures, your anatomy, your wonderful human machine is worthless. Where has it come from? Where has it gone? I have drunk four glasses of brandy; I have a lease of four short hours. Ordinarily it would bring reaction; it is poison, to be sure; but it is driving back my spirit, giving me life and strength enough to ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... produce trash, and hate my worthless work, which probably wouldn't sell. I haven't it in me, Godfrey." There was a pause.—"By Jove, though, I will write!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... said laconically. "Once a man came to the Blue Chip with pesos ciento and broke the faro bank. Fortune—buena suerte—has smiled on as worthless ones as Sawyer. But you, Tia Juana; what did you do last ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawson flew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down, turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall and be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... care? He loads his fly-by-night outfit into canoes or a York boat, and passes on to lay waste another section, leaving the poor Indians to face the rigours of the coming winter with ruined credit, cheap, inadequate clothing, cheap food, and worthless trinkets, and their hunting ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... the awakening of the latent powers in man, so that all may be guided safely through the danger-zone and be as well fitted as possible to use these new faculties. Effort is made to blend the love without which Paul declared a knowledge of all mysteries worthless, with a mystic knowledge rooted and grounded in love, so that the pupils of this school may become living exponents of this blended soul-science of the Western Wisdom School, and gradually educate humanity at large in the virtues necessary ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... young woman's heart, Is not a stone to carve a posey on! Which knows not what is writ on't—which you may buy, Exchange or sell,—keep or give away, It is a richer—yet a poorer thing! Priceless to him that owns and prizes it; Worthless when own'd, not priz'd; which makes the man That covets it, obtains it, and discards it,— A ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... poverty and disease, his life one continuous struggle, with never a day's respite; how can a man live like that for forty years and keep himself sober and unspotted? [Kissing SONIA] I wish you happiness with all my heart; you deserve it. [She gets up] As for me, I am a worthless, futile woman. I have always been futile; in music, in love, in my husband's house—in a word, in everything. When you come to think of it, Sonia, I am really very, very unhappy. [Walks excitedly up and down] Happiness can never exist for me in this world. ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... of himself, "from throwing the worthless fool overboard and letting him sink?" And the only answer was "Doris. I believe he'd sell his rights ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... the land. The original distribution into kubunden, as we saw, had been partly for purposes of taxation. But now these allotments were illegally appropriated, so that they neither paid imposts nor furnished labourers; and while governors held worthless regions, wealthy magnates annexed great tracts of fertile land. Another abuse, prevalent according to Miyoshi Kiyotsura's testimony, was that accusations were falsely preferred by officials against ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... that the young tramp, as they called him, was billed through to New York, to look after some cattle that were on the train; but that he was a worthless, ugly fellow, who had not paid the slightest attention to them, and whose only object in accepting the job was evidently to obtain a free ride in the caboose. Smiler, whom he had been delighted to find on the train when it was turned over to him, had taken a great dislike to the fellow ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... value he set on life. He truly felt as utterly indifferent toward fate as his words signified. Deeply conscious of a life long ago irretrievably wrecked, everything behind a chaos, everything before worthless,—for years he had been actually seeking death; a hundred times he had gladly marked its apparent approach, a smile of welcome upon his lips. Yet it had never quite succeeded in reaching him, and nothing had been gained beyond a reputation for cool, reckless daring, which he did ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... educated for a calling, and being educated in it. That may be obtained in schools and colleges; this is a work of subsequent life. That is important; this is indispensable. Without that, this may be a grand success; without this, that is next to worthless. Many men are highly educated in their calling who were never educated for it. This is self-culture in its ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... what would fulfil our being and make it worth having is what alone lends value to that being's source. Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things. The gift of existence would be worthless unless existence was good and supported at least a possible happiness. A man is spiritual when he lives in the presence of the ideal, and whether he eat or drink does so for the sake of a true and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Webster, and Dekker in a group, and spoke of the singular profusion of talents devoted in this period to the writing of plays, an observation which is made more explicitly later in the Journal, when he has just been reading an old play which, he says, "worthless in the extreme, is, like many of the plays in the beginning of the seventeenth century, written to a good tune. The dramatic poets of that time seem to have possessed as joint-stock a highly poetical and ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... "You! a worthless tramp like you! A crazy fool!... to dare even hope that Vanna Andrews would ever love you!" In a torrent of tears she asked me never to ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... efficiently in their callings, but would derive therefrom a delight now unimagined except by a very few. Believing thus, I could not be so blind as not to see that the only right course for me to pursue was to destroy a worthless and injurious commodity, rather than sell it at any price to one who would, for gain, either himself defraud his neighbor, or aid another in doing it. The article was not only useless, it was worse than useless. How, then, could I, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... humming-bird who lives in that elder tree, have been my only friends and companions in the muse, until you came. I wouldn't abuse Chupa Rosa's confidence by reading my poem to her. Her lover has turned out a worthless fellow and left her—that was him you saw flying past just now, going up the canyon to sport around with the other hummers—but here is my ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... practical-joking spirit, and so came nearer, probably, to the expression of a genuine village sentiment than anything else that was done. But for all that they were an imported product. Instead of an indigenous folk-art, with its roots in the traditional village life, I found nothing but worthless forms of modern art which left the people's taste quite unfed. Once, it is true, a hint came that, democratic though the club might be, it was possibly not democratic enough. A youth mentioned that at home one evening he and his family had sat round the table singing songs, out of song-books, I ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... worth were thrown back on the hands of the Roxbury Company alone, and the directors were appalled by the ruin which threatened them. It was useless for them to go on manufacturing goods which might prove worthless at any moment; and, as their capital was already taxed to its utmost, it was plain that unless a better process should be speedily discovered, they must become involved in irretrievable disaster. Their efforts were unavailing, however. No better process was found, and ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Shann was beginning to plan now. The Throgs had not blasted the Terran camp out of existence; they had only made sure of the death of its occupiers. Which meant they must have some use for the installations. For the general loot of a Survey field camp would be relatively worthless to those who picked over the treasure of entire cities elsewhere. Why? What did the Throgs want? And would the alien invaders continue to occupy ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... have a fashionable funeral. He must, to the last, bear witness to the power of Mrs. Grundy. It is to please her, that the funeral cloaks, hatbands, scarves, mourning coaches, gilded hearses, and processions of mutes are hired. And yet, how worthless and extravagant is the mummery of the undertaker's grief; and the feigned woe of the mutes, saulies, and plume bearers, who are paid for ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... work for the common gain if the world is to be raised out of its present misery; therefore that claim of the workman (that is of every able man) must be subject to the fact that he is but a part of a harmonious whole: he is worthless without the co-operation of his fellows, who help him according to their capacities: he ought to feel, and will feel when he has his right senses, that he is working for his own interest when he is working for that of ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... usually worthless for my purposes, and yet occasionally they print something I wouldn't miss. I'm the best friend the 'buy your home paper' man has," he ran on musingly, skimming the page and ignoring Deering, who continued to stare in stupefied amazement from ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... 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 ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... for his place in the Academie—where his experience as a man of business was useful in fusing together a number of different elements, with none of which he could well have been classed—your pardon for the amazing success which had raised so high such a worthless winged grub. It was remembered that at an official dinner he had said of himself complacently, as he bustled round the table with a napkin on his arm, 'What an excellent servant I should have made!' And it might have been ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... publisher of the Enquirer, the organ of the government, was in my office this morning, denouncing Mr. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury. He says Mr. M.'s head is as worthless as a pin's-head. He also denounced the rules of admission to our Secretary, adopted by Mr. R. G. H. Kean, Chief of the Bureau, and asked for a copy of them, that he might denounce them in his paper. It appears that Mr. Jacques is to say who can see the Secretary; and to do ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... to say "Hands off!" to her King David, and also able—but Heaven knows how!—to keep up a correspondence with the worthless parallel of the Hittite throughout the period of his detention in an English gaol, or, it may be, on the river hulks, until his deportation in a convict ship to Sydney, from which place occasional letters reached her, which were ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... leave but a worthless residuum; but the prophecies of the Rector of Ars and of Leon Sonrel are more curious and ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... upon his future Academus. Mr. Grey's two axioms were, first, that no one so young as his son should settle in the metropolis, and that Vivian must consequently not have a private tutor; and, secondly, that all private schools were quite worthless; and, therefore, there was every probability of Vivian not receiving any ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... not keep on as they began. They did not. They stopped growing in the prime of life. Only three cucumbers developed, and they hid under the vines so that I did not see them till they were become ripe, yellow, soft, and worthless. They are an unwholesome fruit at best, and I bore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... is five dollars for you'—handing him a five-dollar gold piece. He said: 'You did not hire me to work, and for what little I have done you have paid me a thousand times more than it is worth, in your conduct towards me. You took me, a poor, miserable, worthless, homeless tramp into your home, as if I had been your own brother, and you acted the true sister towards me. Now I wish to play the brother's part by giving you my work. It is the only thing I can do to show you how I appreciate your sisterly kindness toward me. I can earn all the money ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... his own record in full, including his initial venture into the Kyak coal-fields, his abandonment of that project in favor of Hope Consolidated, and an account of his connection with the latter enterprise. Eliza had not hesitated to call the mine worthless, and she showed how he, knowing its worthlessness from the first, had used it as a lure to investors. Then followed the story of his efforts to gain a foothold in the railroad struggle, his defeat at the Salmon River Canon, his rout at the delta crossing, and his final death-blow at Kyak. His ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... almost have let him run on his doom; yet when I recalled the vision in the kitchen last night of Paddy Corkill shouldering the borrowed gun, my humanity reasserted itself. How could I stand idle with a human life, however worthless, at stake? As to his being Miss Kit's father, that at the moment did not enter into my calculations; but as soon as it did, it urged my footsteps to a still more rapid stride as I made across the bleak tract ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... of his oath, was the object to the attainment of which he held all things else as secondary, and who therefore had the power to crown his life-work with the supreme blessing without which it would be worthless, however glorious, for he knew full well that, though he might win Natasha's heart, she herself could never be his unless Natas gave her ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... is she? Why, man alive, she ain't fit to scrape the corral-mud off'n his boots. She's a low-down, deceitful jade, that's what she is, sired by a sheep-stealin', throat-cuttin', ornery, no-'count, worthless cuss! The whole pack of them Temples, he an' she of 'em, big an' little of 'em, ought to be strung up on the firs' tree! The low-down bunch of little prairie dawgs, tryin' to trap a Packard with puttin' a putty-faced fool girl in their snare. I say, Guy Little, ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... always appealed strongly to me. Afterwards I lost two hundred ducats at the same bank to which I had lost money the evening before. The count was in the greatest distress. He did not know that Greppi, whom his proud wife considered so worthless, had a hundred thousand francs of my money, and that I possessed jewellery ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... I will speak. Do you know who the worthless girl was for whom he gave up great wealth ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... testimony that scholarly music may also contain the emotional and spiritual elements to infuse it with abundant life: the pity is that the combination is none too frequent. "A vast proportion of what is printed and sold as music... is meaningless, and therefore worthless."[14] Such music as is composed, or selected, for popular consumption is frankly written for this purpose of pot-boiling, and as such it settles its own fate. We need waste no tears upon it. Nor need we devote much consideration ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... a knight of his kin, named Quencelin; noble man in Rome. This knight answered before the emperor, and thus him said—the knight was wicked:—"Knights, return you back, and make known to your king, that the Britons are bold, but they are accounted worthless; for ever they make boast—their honour is little!" More he thought to say, when Walwain drew his sword, and smote him upon the head, so that it fell in two, and he hastily anon ran to his horse; and they up leapt with grim countenance; and these ...
— Brut • Layamon
... found which is so low, so bad, so ignorant, so stupid, that it is deemed necessary to exclude men from the right to vote merely because they belong to that race, in that case the race shall likewise be excluded from the sum of Federal power to which the State is entitled. If a race is so vile or worthless that to belong to it is alone cause of exclusion from political action, the race is not to ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... ruin is worthless," he went on, calming down as we retired. "It must be leveled, and that hole filled up. It is quite an eye-sore to our new parade. And no doubt it belongs to me—no doubt it does. The fellow who claims it was turned out of the law. Fancy any man turned ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... becomes of the pretence you blame in me? If you knew how paltry it seems—that accusation of dishonesty! I believed the world round, and pretended to believe it flat: that's what it amounts to! Are you, on such an account as that, to consider worthless the devotion which has grown in me month by month? You—I was persuaded—thought the world flat, and couldn't think kindly of any man who held the other hypothesis. Very well; why not concede the trifle, and so at least give myself a chance? I ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Silt. Probably, more drains are rendered worthless, by being filled up with earthy matter, which passes with water through the joints of the tiles, than by ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... looked down into Ninety-third Street and there were closed white folding doors with again a rented piano against them. A pretty screen of Japanese paper with a sprig of wistaria across it shut off a bureau with a layout of much juvenile claptrap of hair ribbons, side combs, and the worthless treasures of childhood. Between the windows a "lady's" desk with hinged writing slab, really Lilly's, but mostly the dangling place for a pair of Zoe's roller skates and its pigeonholes bulging with her daughter's somewhat extraneous matter. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst |
