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Uselessly

adverb
1.
In a useless manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Uselessly" Quotes from Famous Books



... the garrison was now truly critical. The shots uselessly fired had expended several of the few rounds, now of such inestimable value. The lieutenant, on making inquiries, found that some of the men had only a single charge apiece; none had more than two. Should another attack be made, what hope had they of beating off the ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... and now, in a sudden passion of blind fear for him she sprang from the cab-step and tried to beat him back with her naked hands, foolishly, uselessly, for she knew that if once together MacNutt and he would fall on one another and fight ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... ma'am," he said emphatically, "unless you have a special desire to be miserable. If you want to know how Christians love one another and how to be made limply and uselessly wretched, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... first and stopped. They could see he was not as young as Fido, but that he was wise and did not bark uselessly at anybody, so they knew that he must be friendly to people. Soon the boys stood face to face, and the strange boy, whose dress indicated that he was not from that section, greeted them in a friendly manner. He asked them what they ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy

... not devoid of human understanding simply because they are poor, and they judge precisely as we do. As the first thought that occurs to us on hearing that such and such a man has gambled away or squandered ten or twenty thousand rubles, is: "What a foolish and worthless fellow he is to uselessly squander so much money! and what a good use I could have made of that money in a building which I have long been in need of, for the improvement of my estate, and so forth!"—just so do the poor judge when they behold the wealth which they need, not for caprices, but for the ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... were great numbers of them all along the bank, and the enemy could have crossed a mile higher up, at the spot where I took my men over, and so fallen on our rear, therefore I withdrew to save them from being cut up or captured uselessly." ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... to see, and his intelligence made no more progress than his vanity. If, by chance, he made some discovery, he could not communicate it, not recognizing even his own children. The art perished with the inventor. There was neither education nor progress; the generations multiplied uselessly; and, as all started from the same point, the centuries went by with all the rudeness of the first age; the species was already old, and man still remained ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... loitering uselessly in the ball-room, at once sought the chancellor's cabinet. He wanted to be alone. He made known his business to the chancellor's valet who admitted him. He stopped just across the threshold. To his surprise the room was already tenanted. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving

... ought to have been the open entrance, stillness met me, instead of a rush of wind; piled rock met my groping hands, instead of piled snow. I was in Thompson's abandoned stope all right,—only Macartney had sealed up the only way I could ever get out! I shoved, and dug, and battered, as uselessly as a rat in a trap, and suddenly knew that was just what I was! Macartney had not even taken the trouble to kill me,—not to avoid visible murder at this stage of the game, when only the enemy was left, if you did not count a duped woman and a captured one; but ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... backwards and forwards from Rachel to Mr. Bruff in such a frenzy of rage with both of them that he didn't know which to attack first. His wife, who had sat impenetrably fanning herself up to this time, began to be alarmed, and attempted, quite uselessly, to quiet him. I had, throughout this distressing interview, felt more than one inward call to interfere with a few earnest words, and had controlled myself under a dread of the possible results, very unworthy of a Christian Englishwoman who looks, not to what is meanly ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... love another. I had not thought of him much of late; but in this life we cannot always stand by the grave of those who have gone before. He had loved Gretchen with a love perhaps less selfish than mine, for he had sacrificed his life uselessly for her that she might—be mine! Mine! I thought. And who was I that she should love me instead of him? All the years I had known him I had known but little of him. God only knows the hearts of these men who rove ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... they are allowed to go into the forests and kill the finest trees by 'ringing' them. Often the trees thus dealt with are left to die as they stand and disfigure the forest. In this way an enormous quantity of valuable timber seems to be uselessly destroyed. The rail-splitters remind me of squirrels, who nibble off nuts before they are ripe, and then take a dozen away to their winter's nests; or of a vixen, who will bite the heads off twenty chickens and only carry ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... before the outward evidence of the lesson he had learned had left him; while the impression upon his mind was one that was to remain with him for life. Never again did he uselessly tempt fate. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... helpless ignorance that lay behind the twins' assumption a of severe dignity, and took them in hand and got seats for them in the parlour car. As they knew nothing about cars, parlour or otherwise, but had merely and quite uselessly reiterated to the booking-clerk, till their porter intervened, that they wanted third-class tickets, they accepted these seats, thankful in the press and noise round them to get anything so roomy and calm as these dignified arm-chairs; and it wasn't till they had ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... bravery shown was superb, and the manner in which officers and men rode back into the struggling mass, to rescue comrades, beyond all praise; but the charge should never have been made, and the lives were uselessly sacrificed. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... when trains were limping into terminals hours behind time, when call after call was going forth to summon aid for the stricken systems of Missouri, when double-headers, frost-caked wheels churning uselessly, bucked the drifts in a constantly losing battle; when cattle trains were being cut from the schedules, and every wire was loaded with the messages of frantic officials, someone happened to wonder what that big boob ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... observed, 'Having bade the king make our meals ready, we have come hither for a bath. But how, O regenerate Rishi, can we eat anything now, for our stomachs seem to be full to the throat. The repast hath been uselessly prepared for us. What is the best thing to be done now?' Durvasa replied, 'By spoiling the repast, we have done a great wrong to that royal sage, king Yudhishthira. Would not the Pandavas destroy us by looking down upon us with angry eyes? I know the royal sage Yudhishthira to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... man, and as a boy was skilful in throwing. He once killed a hare sitting in the flower-garden at Shrewsbury by throwing a marble at it, and, as a man, he once killed a cross-beak with a stone. He was so unhappy at having uselessly killed the cross-beak that he did not mention it for years, and then explained that he should never have thrown at it if he had not felt sure that his old skill had ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... necessary or desirable to run the pieces up on the firing-line in the open, and participate in the trench-firing, which was the only fighting done on July 2d and 3d. It was considered that the battery was too valuable as a reserve to sacrifice any of its men uselessly. Some very well-meaning officers urged that the battery be rushed up on the hill and put into action, but this was stubbornly refused, under the third clause of the instructions given on the 1st of July, "to make ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... Almagro could not obtain permission from Los Rios, the successor of Avila, to make new levies, for he had no right, Los Rios said, to allow a greater number of people to go and perish uselessly in a rash enterprise; he even sent a boat to Cock Island to bring away Pizarro and his companions. But such a decision could not be pleasing to Almagro and De Luque. It meant expense thrown away; and it meant the annihilation of the hopes which the sight of the ornaments ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... a faint voice, "I still have courage to die; but I no longer have any to suffer uselessly. Leave ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... advantage can you gain by such a course?" inquired his visitor. "Why uselessly expose yourself to disagreeable notoriety, which must, of course, place Mrs. Fitzgerald in ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... By some mishap I was hurled head foremost out of the door; but so intent were the savages upon the battle within, that they did not once notice me, as they rushed forward to the scene of action. Seeing that all was lost, and that to remain would only be throwing away my life uselessly, I sprang to my feet and slipping around the corner of the house I made my way over the old fortification[2] and soon left the noise far behind me. Much has been written and said of grief, but how little ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... and when the vicissitude of disaster took its turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith and friendship. The greatest skill conducting the greatest military apparatus has been employed; but it has been worse than uselessly employed, through the false policy of the war. The operations of the field suffered by the errors of the cabinet. If the same spirit continues when peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it will be ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... follows: "The Universal Exhibition, for whom who comes there for the first time, is a true chaos in which it is impossible to direct and recognize one's self without a guide. What wants the stranger, the visitor who comes to the Exhibition, it is a means which permits him to see all without losing uselessly his time in the most part ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... and Fort Orange hold him in esteem," said Antonia, betraying pride. "I have heard he can do more with the Iroquois tribes than any other man of the New World." She uselessly wiped her eyes. She was ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... kept with them, he resigned in the dispairing hope that his action might turn them from a purpose which he considered lunatic, or, at least, by restraining a number of his followers from rising, he might limit the tale of men who would be uselessly killed. ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens

... which enters it," as he expressed it. This was Watt's guiding principle, as it has been that of all his successors in the improvement of the economic performance of the steam engine and of all other heat engines. The great source of waste is the dispersion of heat, uselessly, which should be applied to the production of work by its transformation, thermodynamically, into the latter form of energy. The second form of waste is that of power thus produced in the unprofitable work of moving ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... must get up and walk. If he did not go home, they would think he had run away again, for fear of meeting Dolly's aunt. At that thought he set off to crawl homewards upon his hands and knees, with suppressed groans, as his foot trailed uselessly along the ground. Yet he knew he could not advance very far in this manner. What if he should have to lie all night upon the hard paving-stones! for he could not remember ever having seen a policeman in these back streets; and there did not seem to be anybody else likely to pass that ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... me warmly. A few, I understand, in Africa, in writing home, have styled my efforts as 'wanderings.' The very word contains a lie coiled like a serpent in its bosom. It means traveling without an object, or uselessly. I am now performing the duty of writing you. If this were termed 'dawdling,' it would be as true as the other.... I have actually seen letters to the Directors in which I am gravely charged with holding the views of the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... indeed, an old man, half resting on his rake. He was very rugged and weather-beaten, and although near the shelter of the trees, apparently unmindful of the rain that was falling on his bald head, and the limp cap he was holding uselessly in one hand. He was staring at her, yet apparently unconscious of her presence. A sudden instinct came upon ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... this is no lark, young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales. Mr. Ramsay is in a—he's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see you're lying uselessly." ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... BEFORE every nation in the whole world for the sweetness, purity and modesty of its women! That it has become one with less enlightened races in the deliberate unsexing and degradation of womanhood does not now, and will not in the future, redound to its credit. But I am prolonging a discussion uselessly,— " He waited a moment. "I shall trouble you no more with my opinions, believe me,—nor shall I ever again intrude my presence upon yourself or your guests,"—he continued, slowly,—"As I have already said, I am sorry to have offended YOU,—but I am not sorry to have spoken my mind! ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... The moon made the best of this, which stands in a wide open space, and contrived, with an Italian skill in the arrangement of light, to produce an effect of undeniable splendor. On the morrow, we found out by the careless candor of the daylight what a uselessly big head Columbus had, and how the sculptor had not very happily thought proper to represent him with his ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... great continent is like going to sea, they must have a compass, some friendly directing needle; or else they will uselessly err and wander for a long time, even with a fair wind: yet these are the struggles through which our forefathers have waded; and they have left us no other records of them, but the possession of our farms. The reflections I make on these new settlers recall to my mind what ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... complicated deshabille, his blackbearded head wrapped in an old scarlet handkerchief that made him look like a retired pirate in reduced circumstances. He being accounted for, I vainly traversed the shrubberies, returned to the western piazza, watched awhile uselessly, and went home with Severance, a ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... had been uselessly exhausted to persuade Marble from his design, it only remained to do all we could to make him comfortable and secure. Of enemies, there was no danger, and care was not necessary for defence. We ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... evident that he did not wish uselessly to discuss the matter of the lost keepsakes. Janice, young as she was, realized that her father was growing more grave and more serious every day. She did not believe that this change was altogether due to business anxieties, or even to ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... million roubles. He could not make up his mind what to do with the money, and tore his hair over it. He trembled with fear that somebody would rob him, and at last he decided to bury it in the ground. I persuaded him that, instead of putting it all away uselessly underground, he had better melt it down and make a golden coffin out of it for his starved child, and then dig up the little one and put her into the golden coffin. Surikoff accepted this suggestion, I thought, with tears of gratitude, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of Garth—the book of love—was closed, but there were many other volumes in life's library, and Sara did not propose to go through the probable remaining fifty or sixty years of her existence uselessly bewailing a dead past. She would face life, gamely, whatever it might bring, and as she had already sustained one of the hardest blows ever likely to befall her, she would probably make a success ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... pious. Coutances was proud of its fete. But Coutances was also a thrifty city. Once the cortege had passed, it was high time to snuff out the tapers. Who could stand by and see good candles blowing uselessly in the wind, and one's money going along with ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... his case with the elder sister,—very uselessly indeed, as he was aware; but having fallen on the subject of his love it was impossible for him to change it for any other,—when Clarissa came into the room swinging her hat in her hand. She had been over at Miss Spooner's house ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... those of an animal; Nature has had enough of work—she kicks over the traces. Ah! why have I debts? Why must I work whether I wish to or not? I am so unhappy, so tormented, so despondent, that I refuse to be hopeless; you must surely see that I am more than ever yours, and that I pass my life uselessly away from you, for the glory gained by inspired work is not worth a few hours passed with you! In the end I trust only in God and in you alone: in you who do not write me a word more for that; you who might at least console me with three ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... lowered to the point of extinction, and, after a set period, as suddenly raised again. The chief superiority of this form of intermittent light is economy in the consumption of the gas. In the original design, of course, the oil continues uselessly to illuminate the interior of the screens ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... removed all of those which he had placed previously in a position to oppose a crossing at Studianka and sent them too down to Oukoloda. He had now abandoned the place where the Emperor intended to build a bridge, and had concentrated his force, uselessly, six leagues downstream. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... wretched luck! Dear me, I can't stand here all night. How black it is ahead there. Oooh! Really, now, it does seem a bit terrifying. If I only had a lantern it wouldn't be so—" her gaze fell upon the laborers' lantern that clattered aimlessly, uselessly against the stake. An instant later she had jerked it from its fastening with a cry of joy. "I'll send it back when they go for my trunks. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... some who would fain have acted with more discretion, by watching the issue warily and out of harm's way. Of this class was our stout-fisted friend Darby Grim, who, though of a well-composed valour when fairly tested, was yet slow to move, and cared not to thrust his fingers uselessly into a broil. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... uselessly spent, when at length Bombay returned, his attendants dressed in cotton jumpers and drawers, presents given them by Petherick's outposts, though Petherick himself was not there. The journey to and fro had been performed in fourteen days' ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... warranted an earlier retreat. The capitulation he justified on the ground that resistance could not change the result, though it might protract the issue. Because ultimate surrender could not be averted, he characterized life lost in postponing it as blood shed uselessly. The conclusion does not follow from the premise; nor could any military code accept the maxim that a position is to be yielded as soon as it appears that it cannot be held indefinitely. Delay, so long as sustained, not only keeps open the chapter of accidents for the particular ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... no one at home," he said quietly and emphatically. "The landlady has gone out, and it's waste of time to shout like that. You are only exciting yourself uselessly." ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... quite spread myself on him, and she was no end of a girl, quite the best I've done. And I'd got him right up to the fence, and I'm hanged if I could get him over. He perorated, he posed like a shop-walker, you could see him hanging limp like a broken puppet, and me behind with beads on my forehead uselessly jerking the wires." ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... days and nights, pining for his home, is at length brought into the theatre. As his crouching and feeble form is strapped upon the table, HE LICKS THE VERY HAND THAT TIES HIM! He struggles, but in vain, and uselessly expresses his fear and suffering until a muzzle is buckled on his jaws to stifle every sound. The scalpel penetrates his quivering flesh. One effort only is now natural until his powers are exhausted—a vain, instinctive resistance to the cruel form that ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... to make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men. Zenobia and Priscilla! These, I believe (unless my unworthy self might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his mission; and I spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to conjecture what Hollingsworth meant to do with them—and they ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... would brighten up the house so, to have a child in it again!" sighed the Mistress as she and her husband discussed the matter, uselessly, for the fiftieth time, after one of these scenes. "I looked forward so much to his coming here! But he's—oh, he isn't like any child I ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... persons who had voted against the question to be sent to him, and he often consulted it. They proved to be not Royalist, but for the most part staunch Republicans. To my knowledge many Royalists abstained from voting at all, not wishing to commit themselves uselessly, and still less to give their suffrages to the author of the Duo d'Enghien's death. For my part, I gave my vote in favour of hereditary succession in Bonaparte's family; my situation, as may well be imagined, did not ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... appeared utterly inaccessible; and even supposing I could have discovered a landing-place, I was in great doubt whether I should have availed myself of it, as the island appeared to produce nothing which could have added to our comfort, while delay would only have uselessly consumed our provisions. There did not appear to be a living creature on the island, and the danger of approaching to find ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... by the tumultuous shouting of the crowd. A thousand hats were thrown into the air, ten thousand voices joined in the roar, and meanwhile the cause of all this outcry was still sitting on the ground, smiling, it is true, but very pale, and with one of his arms dangling uselessly from ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a strained voice. "But, Mac, I don't think men like those are afraid to die. It's dying uselessly they fear. Tell 'em—tell 'em they've defended not alone Mars, but all the system, in holding up the Strangers on Mars. We here on Luna have been safer because of them. And tell—Mac, tell them that in the meantime, while they defended us, and gave us time to work, we have begun to ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... accustomed to woods, and run naked amongst underbrush, shrubs, and trees, like wild boars, heedless of obstacles. The Spaniards, on the contrary, were hindered amongst this undergrowth by their shields, their clothes, their long lances, and their ignorance of the surroundings. After a night passed uselessly in the woods the Adelantado, realising the next morning that they could catch nobody, followed the counsel of those islanders who are the immemorial enemies of the Ciguana tribe, and under their guidance marched towards the mountains where the King Maiobanexius ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... natural wisdom and experience to beat his head uselessly against bars. He would remain quiet, preserving the strength of both body and mind, until the time for action came. Meanwhile he was using his eyes. He saw some of the chiefs pass, always accompanied by white officers. But he saw ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... they think of their girls; and men know it, too, when they have to deal with their daughters. Girls, too, now acknowledge aloud that they have learned the lesson; and Saturday Reviewers and others blame them for their lack of modesty in doing so,—most unreasonably, most uselessly, and, as far as the influence of such censors may go, most perniciously. Nature prompts the desire, the world acknowledges its ubiquity, circumstances show that it is reasonable, the whole theory of creation requires it; but it is required that the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... diametrically opposite, and consequently two parties equally dissatisfied at not being able to crush each other, neutralizing them, in short, by its immense influence in the employment of their strength, when they bewilder or exhaust themselves uselessly for its interests; but I could not touch on these matters, without travelling out of the domain of literature, which is the only one that is at present familiar to me, in order to enter into yours, where you have not leisure to direct ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... trail which showed the way a wounded man had taken. A little farther they found the body of Bill Haney, flat on its face, with arms spread out on either side. A coyote slunk away as they appeared, dragging its hinder parts uselessly. ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... to breathe and rest, the dash is broken, shattered. At the advance, very few will start. There are ten chances to one of seeing the attack fail, of turning it into a joke, with cries of "Forward with fixed bayonet," but none advancing, except some brave men who will be killed uselessly. The attack vanishes finally before the least demonstration of the foe. An unfortunate shout, a ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... uselessly. Hohine and Mupui had advertisement of their last mortal residence, but not Gauguin. We found an earring on one little tomb where a mother had laid her child, and on several those couronnes des perles, stiff, ugly wreaths brought from France, with "Sincere ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... fully and in the kindest manner. It seems to me now high time that I should be somewhat forgotten, or, at least, placed very much in the background. My name has been too frequently spoken of; many have taken umbrage at this, and been uselessly annoyed at it. While "paving the way for a better appreciation," it might be advisable to regard my things as a reserve corps, and to introduce new ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... Speech and the guillotine sufficed them. Their speeches were childish. "Never a fact,'' says Taine, "nothing but abstractions, strings of sentences about Nature, reason, the people, tyrants, liberty: like so many puffed-out balloons uselessly jostling in space. If we did not know that it all ended in practical and dreadful results, we should think they were games of logic, school exercises, ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... satisfaction of others: they preserve an austere silence when it is unnecessary, and at other times talk incessantly of the things of God. A wife has scruples about pleasing her husband, entertaining him, walking with him, or seeking to amuse him, but has none about speaking uselessly for two hours with religious devotees. This is a horrible abuse. We ought to be diligent in the discharge of all duties, whatever their nature may be; and even if they do cause us inconvenience, we shall yet find great profit in doing this, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... time-allotment, our students, roughly speaking, keep pace with Northern students because they are older and somewhat more serious, because the course is shortened by the elimination of uselessly perplexing topics in arithmetic like compound proportion and cube root, but chiefly because the utility of mathematics is made vivid, and vigorous interest aroused by its immediate application in class-room and shop to problems arising ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... stir the soldiers. My opinion is, you can't break through a wall with your forehead. Bayonets in their hands, off they go—where? They don't see—they're going against themselves. Yes, he's suffering. And Ignaty worries him uselessly." ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... DeLancey who repeated his offices in this case, as in the other; and he repeated them in the same way, patting the broad, throbbing young shoulders—reiterating with twitching lips, his "There, there, boy! There, there, there!"—reiterating it uselessly—and knowing that it was uselessly that he reiterated—and yet helpless in the vast profundity of ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... will see the wisdom of permitting me to pass unmolested," I said, "for it would avail you nothing to die uselessly in the rocky bowels of Barsoom merely to protect a hereditary enemy, such as Thurid, Dator of the ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... being considered cowards causes them to plunge into it blindly without taking the trouble to reflect. They always overshoot the mark, exposing themselves quite uselessly and achieving a result that is entirely valueless to themselves or ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... orange, turned to use As golden balls with laughter lightly tossed, Lay burst and drained of their sweet juice, Uselessly ripened and for ever lost; All glowing as they lay upon the ground, As envious of their fellows, Who, piled in luscious reds and yellows, Enriched the tables all around, The tables low, Sheltering the reclining grace; Here, through the ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West

... prevent my coming out there uselessly. He must have sent the wire quite an hour before you left. It was very thoughtful ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... bridge of his flag-ship, the Olympia, as she stood daringly in, followed in line by the Baltimore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, and Boston. As they came up, the shore batteries opened fire, followed by the Spanish ships, while two submarine mines, exploded before the Olympia, tossed a shower of water uselessly into the air. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... hide like a beaten cur; he must put leagues between him and all who had ever known him; he must sink his very name, and identity, and existence, under some impenetrable obscurity, or the burden he had taken up for others' sake would be uselessly borne. There must be action of some sort or ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... at last presented himself; and with him I worked a long time uselessly upon nails, made of cinabar, or vermilion. I was also acquainted with a foreign gentleman newly arrived in Paris, and often accompanied him to the shops of the goldsmiths, to sell pieces of gold and silver, the produce, as he said, of his experiments. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... debates on the address, but on the 4th of March Mr. Hume brought the subject forward in a formal manner. Mr. Hume, however, so mixed up the subject with the Russo-Dutch loan, that his resolutions as far as regarded Cracow were impracticable, and he withdrew them after uselessly occupying the time of the house by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the local groups, will give greatest attention to popular education with regard to this particular. It will create a fruitful soil for many powers which now wither uselessly away. Whoever shows a genuine desire to work will be suitably employed. Beggars will not be endured. Whoever refuses to do anything as a free man will be ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... the entire establishment being kept running purely on his account. Usually he did not mind the solitude; he was well taken care of in their absence, and he felt that they were coming back some day. This time he knew it was different. He would not be consoled. He wandered listlessly and uselessly about the house; into the mother's room, into his master's room; and one morning he was found in a dark closet, where he had never gone before, dead—of ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... mean or no uses: and it is hardly to be conceived that our infinitely wise Creator should make so admirable a faculty as the power of thinking, that faculty which comes nearest the excellency of his own incomprehensible being, to be so idly and uselessly employed, at least a fourth part of its time here, as to think constantly, without remembering any of those thoughts, without doing any good to itself or others, or being any way useful to any other part of the creation. If we will examine it, we shall not find, I suppose, the motion of ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... definite objective. We will not put into our establishment anything that is useless. We will not put up elaborate buildings as monuments to our success. The interest on the investment and the cost of their upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced—so these monuments of success are apt to end as tombs. A great administration building may be necessary. In me it arouses a suspicion that perhaps there is too much administration. We have never found a need for elaborate ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... stubble through which I walk in the September fields—the rotting wastage of harvests long since gathered in. At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercing conflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some too strong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn. I hear the angry talk of our farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of our statesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a human creature calling himself a divine.) The troubled ebb and flow ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... increase of population, in a race which has had, from the beginning, the abnormal and truly monstrous habit of slaughtering each other, not for food—for in a race of normal cannibals, the ratio of increase or decrease might easily be calculated—but uselessly, from rage, hate, fanaticism, or even mere wantonness? No man is less inclined than I to undervalue vital statistics, and their already admirable results: but how can they help us, and how can we help them, in looking at ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... west coast of King William Land have been named after the unfortunate ships. At the shore of the northern, Erebus Bay, the strength of the English seamen was so weakened that they had to abandon two of the boats, together with the sledges on which they had been drawn so far uselessly. At their arrival at Terror Bay the bonds of comradeship were no longer strong enough to keep the party together, or it may be that they agreed to separate. They were now less than a hundred men. At any rate, they divided into two parties, probably of nearly ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... and this time uselessly. His bullet struck squarely, but the shock of its impact was apparently nullified by the protective blue film. He emptied his gun in a last crashing fusillade, but without effect of any kind upon the film-guarded nuclei of ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells

... for which time is given, and life bestowed, are very momentous; no time is given uselessly, and for nothing; time is no more to be unemployed, than it is to be ill employed. Three things are chiefly before us in the appointment of our time: 1. Necessaries of nature. 2. Duties of religion, or things relating ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe

... pass the Biesbos, and capture Dordrecht. But the army of the right experienced in the meantime the most alarming reverses on the Lower Meuse. The Austrians assumed the offensive, passed the Roer, beat Miazinski at Aix-la-Chapelle; made Miranda raise the blockade of Maestricht, which he had uselessly bombarded; crossed the Meuse, and at Liege put our army, which had fallen back between Tirlemont and Louvain, wholly to the rout. Dumouriez received from the executive council orders to leave Holland immediately, and to take the command ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... do you not know that it is forbidden to throw away powder uselessly, before sallies or attacks are made, merely to have the pleasure of killing a boy not worth your match? It was in this very place that Charles the Fifth threw the sleeping sentinel into the ditch and drowned him. Do your duty, or ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... for some tens of thousands of guests, whom he even maintained at his own cost for some time after. So true it is that wickedness and vice argue a want of due balance and proportion in a man's mind, which leads him to acquire wealth dishonestly, and then to squander it uselessly. ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... that he was a private soldier, under discipline, Hal let his hands fall uselessly at his side, while a hot flush of shame mounted to ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... been through the experience can realize the anxiety of the private soldier respecting the character and capacity of his commanding officer. His life is in the general's hand. Whether he shall be uselessly sacrificed, may depend wholly upon the coolness or readiness for an emergency of the commander; whether he has had two drinks or three; whether he has had a good night's rest, or a good cigar. The private soldier regards a new and unknown commander very much as a slave does a new ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney

... the spiral is raised to a red heat, and lights the gas, and the flame rises and finally lights the burner. It goes without saying that on continuing the motion the contact is broken, so as not uselessly to waste the pile and so as to stop ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... ground as you walk and so make it possible for you to push yourself forward. The drive wheels of machinery rub against the belts and pull them along. There is friction between the wheels of a car and the track they are pushing against, or the wheels would whirl around and around uselessly. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... went on muttering and looking not at his Lord, but at the bag, "How well the value of that uselessly wasted ointment would have lain therein! how long we could have lived on ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... Margaret the incessant care of scrupulously adjusting the claims of the mother and the child. The evils arising from faulty temper may be borne, may be concealed, but can never be fully repaired. Happy they whose part it is to endure and to conceal, rather than to inflict, and to strive uselessly to repair! ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... 1150.). v. When the experiment is completed, the acid can be at once poured from between the plates, so that the battery is never left to waste during an unconnected state of its extremities; the acid is not unnecessarily exhausted; the zinc is not uselessly consumed; and, besides avoiding these evils, the charge is mixed and rendered uniform, which produces a great and good result (1039.); and, upon proceeding to a second experiment, the important effect of first contact is ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... it without power to try a prince of the blood. The Parliament then reopened the trial, at the request of the Guises and the queen-mother. Lasagne's papers had already been given to Catherine, who burned them. The giving up of these papers was a first pledge, uselessly made by the Guises to the queen-mother. The Parliament, no longer able to take cognizance of those decisive proofs, reinstated the prince in all his rights, property, and honors. Christophe, released during the tumult at Orleans on the death of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... crowds of recruits, thousands of enormous cannon, they can keep millions of men under arms, with every sort of modern improvement, without becoming bankrupt. But to poor countries, their only remaining course is to hold their tongues, or to rage uselessly, as the disinherited do against those in possession of their property. The most cowardly and sedentary people on the face of the globe may become invincible warriors if they have the money. The bravery of chivalry came to an end with the invention of powder, and the pride of race has ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... account of these occurrences entered my mind; but I can trust my memory for the main events. If my little narrative should for only a few furnish not merely entertainment but admonition, I shall not have gone through quite uselessly my varied and painful experience ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... the young man's face was full of smothered wrath and disappointment. How he hated himself, for his weakness, for his cowardice! He was not all bad. Knowing that he was being watched and followed, he could not go to Versailles and compromise her, uselessly. And devil take the sleek demon of a woman who had prompted him to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... others, bolder than myself, the fantastic idea of taking these annular exudations for a digestive fluid which will reduce the captured Midges to soup and make them serve to feed the Silene. Only I warn them that the insects sticking to the plant do not dissolve into broth, but shrivel, quite uselessly, in ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... moon's imperfect round, Shedding so faint a light, at every tread One's sure to stumble 'gainst a rock or tree! An Ignis Fatuus I must call instead. Yonder one burning merrily, I see. Holla! my friend! may I request your light? Why should you flare away so uselessly? Be kind enough to show us up ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... blows in the death of her husband, after forty-five years of unbroken married happiness, and of her eldest son. On both occasions she recovered her serenity and even cheerfulness with marked rapidity, not certainly from any want of feeling, but from her constitutional incapacity for dwelling uselessly upon painful emotions. She had indeed practised cheerfulness as a duty in order to soothe her husband's anxieties, and it had become part of her character. The moral equilibrium of her nature recovered itself spontaneously as wounds ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... give to gain an entrance into this pure but so obstinate soul for this truth as certain to me as the existence of the sun,—that all the categories of political economy are contradictions! Instead of uselessly exhausting himself in reconciling practice and theory; instead of contenting himself with the ridiculous excuse that everything here below has its advantages and its inconveniences,—M. Dunoyer would seek the synthetic idea which solves all the antinomies, and, instead of the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... country's honour, respect for the religion of his fathers, loyalty of mind and valour for the right. Had he lived in other times, like some of the old Boisseys and de la Molles, who were at Honham before him, he would probably have died in the Crusades or at Cressy, or perhaps more uselessly, for his King at Marston Moor, or like that last but one of the true de la Molles, kneeling in the courtyard of his Castle and defying his enemies to wring his secret from him. Now few such opportunities are left to men of his stamp, and they are, perhaps as a consequence, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... were the events of that summer to Charles of Burgundy. Not only had he lost in allies, not only had he squandered life and money uselessly in his reckless expedition over the north of France, but his own retinue was diminished and weakened by the men whom Louis had succeeded in luring from his service. The loss that Charles suffered was not only for the time but for posterity. Among those convinced that there ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... thousand dollars, to effect this object, our country would still have been the gainer, both by the preservation of the national faith and the national treasure—for the former was wantonly violated, and the latter uselessly squandered. The contest with Black Hawk and his party, destroyed the lives of four or five hundred Indian men, women and children—about two hundred citizens of the United States—and cost the government near two ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... certainly they had cause for exultation, not only at being rid of their cruel and semi-barbarous oppressors, but in the persevering gallantry they had displayed throughout the whole campaign, during which many errors were committed and many lives uselessly sacrificed, but of which the close was nevertheless so glorious to those engaged in it. Unskilled in military tactics, without discipline or resources, the stubborn courage of a handful of American backwoodsmen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... wives and children, and they were extremely unwilling to go away and leave them to so cruel a fate as they knew would await them if the fleet were to be withdrawn. The Corinthians, on the other hand, considered Athens as already lost, and it seemed madness to them to linger uselessly in the vicinity of the ruin which had been made, while there were other states and cities in other quarters of Greece yet to be saved. The Corinthian speaker who had rebuked Themistocles at first, interrupted him again, angrily, ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... preparations have already reached Egypt; they take us for spies, and will be sure not to let either Zopyrus or his deliverers escape, if they can help it. It would be a criminal rashness to expose ourselves uselessly to danger. Bartja, you must take this message yourself, and must marry Sappho this very day, for, come what may, we must leave Naukratis to-morrow. Don't contradict me, my friend, my brother! You ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lack the coordinated response which comes of long, varied and rigorous exercises, their combat losses will be excessive, they will lack cohesion in their action against the enemy, and they will uselessly expend much of their initial velocity. In the United States service, we are tending to forget, because of the effect of motorization, that the higher value of the discipline of the road march in other days wasn't that it hardened the muscles, but that, short of combat, it was the best ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... have to be stopped at dawn, although the engineers protest against the masses of stores which uselessly fill the depot. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... affair; yes, like me, she will at once comprehend that your position is a cruel one; and she will do with joy, with happiness, with thankfulness, that which I would do, if, alas! I could do anything more than uselessly consume myself ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Restoration was surrounded and cannonaded. Her guns were so badly served that they inflicted little or no damage, while her own sails and rigging were badly cut about. During the night, the action was fitfully continued, her ammunition being lavishly and uselessly expended. Toolajee himself was present, and had a number of European gunners with him. At noon the next day his grabs edged down again, fell aboard the Restoration, and boarded. On this, the colours were struck, Leake ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... grant; but better than the sea itself. All we can do now is to try and keep the men sober, and if we can do so it will be better than to fatigue them uselessly; they'll want all their strength before they put foot again upon dry land—if ever they are so fortunate. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... Nipples. For the infant to be able to nurse properly the nipples of the breast must be in good condition. If the nipples are sunken, depressed, it is torture for the child to nurse. It uses up a lot of energy uselessly, becomes exhausted, and gets very little milk; while if the nipples be tender or cracked the process of nursing is a torture for ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... smiled at me sadly "we won't do all this uselessly" he said "this is a very costly trick if you think it a trick at all, because I have to pay to the servants double the amount that others pay in this village—otherwise they would run away. You can sleep at the door and see that ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... getting Lord Morganic out of his difficulties; but it led to no material result; merely inflicting new injuries on certain spars that were sufficiently damaged before, and killing and wounding some fifteen or twenty men quite uselessly. As soon as the vice-admiral saw what was likely to be the effects of this episode, he called off Captain O'Neil of the Dublin, by signal, he being an officer of a "hot temper," as the soldier said of himself at Waterloo. The compliance ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the unhappy state my heart is in," T'an Ch'un observed. "But as we're called upon to squander money right and left, and as the things purchased are half of them uselessly thrown away, wouldn't it, after all, be better for us to eliminate this monthly allowance to the compradores? This is the first thing. The next I'd like to ask you is this. When they went, during the new year festivities, to Lai Ta's house, you also went with them; and what do think of that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... protuberance upon a tooth—have already created a wonderful confusion in the family of the goats. Not contented with viewing them all as belonging to a single genus, they have divided them into five genera—though to most of the five they ascribe only one species!— thus uselessly multiplying names, and rendering the study of the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... Hispanization, for assimilation, for equal rights. By that road you will become only a poor copy, and the people should look higher. It is madness to attempt to influence the thoughts of the rulers—they have their plan outlined, the bandage covers their eyes, and besides losing time uselessly, you are deceiving the people with vain hopes and are helping to bend their necks before the tyrant. What you should do is to take advantage of their prejudices to serve your needs. Are they unwilling that you be assimilated with the Spanish people? Good enough! Distinguish yourselves then by revealing ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... outhouse. Neptune might have broken loose, found his way to my room, and, finding the door imperfectly closed, have pushed it open and entered. I breathed more freely as this harmless interpretation of the noise forced itself upon me. It was—it must be—the dog, and I was distressing myself uselessly. I resolved to call to him; I strove to utter his name—"Neptune, Neptune," but a secret apprehension restrained me, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... law, because many of these lines crossing high hills, swamps or lakes, were impracticable for road-purposes: many thousand pounds consequently were entirely and uselessly thrown away: besides, it opened ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... "Break-'em-tear-'em" csarda, fresh guests were approaching that inhospitable hostelry. These were the companions of the carriage that had come to grief by sticking fast in the mud of the cross-roads, for, after the men and beasts belonging to it had striven uselessly for three long hours to move it from the reef on which it had foundered, the gentleman sitting alone inside it had hit upon the peculiar idea of being carried to the csarda on man-back instead of on horseback. He mounted, therefore, on to the shoulders of his huntsman, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... the heart's communion, keep it for woman and for God. Do not hawk its treasures in the bazaars of society or of politics, where trumpery will be offered in exchange for them. Believe the voice which commands you to be noble in all things when it also prays you not to expend your forces uselessly. Unhappily, men will rate you according to your usefulness, and not according to your worth. To use an image which I think will strike your poetic mind, let a cipher be what it may, immeasurable in size, written in gold, or ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... the boy," Colonel Hitchcock concluded. "I'm afraid everything I do is wrong. I get angry. I have no patience with his polo, his spending so much money uselessly—he spends ten times as much money as any man among my ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... replied the chevalier, "your courage is so well known, that the explanations you offer me are a proof of delicacy for which I thank you; but these explanations would only delay us uselessly, and we have no time ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... The canvas fluttered uselessly down and fire showered thick upon it. Timbers and beams crumbled like paper things and were no more. The whole flimsy structure ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... offer," said Wade, "but I can't accept it. It's not merely a case of lack of the sinews of war. It's a case of a huge corporation against a few individuals with as little influence as they have money. You might put up law costs to an enormous extent uselessly. You see, you would be bucking Western Airline. Your respected uncle might do ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... It was but too true. The strain under which the ANTHONY had been put when the machinists increased the speed, had been too much for the frame. Two wings broke, and now hung uselessly down, one on either side. The ANTHONY shot ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton

... Perot—are empty. Betimes the tide will roll in in one broad unretreating wave, surging and shouldering its way over the expanse, filling all the rivers, and dashing against the protecting barriers under our feet; but before sunset the rivers will be emptied again, the bridges will uselessly hang in the air over the deserted channels, the beach will yawn wide and bare where a ship of the line might have anchored. Sometimes a stranger schooner from New England, secure in a safe distance from shore, drops down ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... the shield had been developed into forms unknown to Homer. In Fig. 3 (p. 131) we see one warrior with a fantastic shield, slim at the waist, with horns, as it were, above and below; the greater part of the shield is expended uselessly, covering nothing in particular. In form this targe seems to be a burlesque parody of the figure of a Mycenaean shield. The next man has a short oblong shield, rather broad for its length—perhaps a reduction of the Mycenaean door- shaped shield. The third warrior ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... perceive that it is hardly worth while to hire men at exorbitant prices to deface articles which they cannot read and condemn books which they cannot understand; and the common sense of Russia has long since revolted against a system which is still as uselessly and childishly vexatious as when pilloried in imperishable language ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... wall and street, became a protective receptacle of refuse; cigar ends, and oyster shells, and the like, such as an open-handed English street-populace habitually scatters from its presence, and was thus left, unsweepable by any ordinary methods. Now the iron bars which, uselessly (or in great degree worse than uselessly), enclosed this bit of ground, and made it pestilent, represented a quantity of work which would have cleansed the Carshalton pools three times over;—of work, partly cramped and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... hours an English author should lie on the desk. When the head grows wearied, instead of uselessly goading the tired jade or consuming brain tissue on that most fatiguing of occupations, day dreaming, sip a page or two of English. You rest your brain, and while doing so store up knowledge, silently develop ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, 470 Impressed upon all forms the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea? Not uselessly employed, 475 Might I pursue this theme through every change Of exercise and play, to which the year Did summon ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... night attack and of his treating with Hamilton is bombastic. If his account of the incessant "blaze of fire" of the Americans is true, they must have wasted any amount of ammunition perfectly uselessly. Unfortunately, most of the small western historians who have written about Clark have really damaged his reputation by the absurd inflation of their language. They were adepts in the forcible-feeble style of writing, a sample of which is their rendering him ludicrous by calling him "the Hannibal ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. The sail flapped uselessly against the mast, and the men labored at the oars, while streams of sweat ran ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... never stirred, and Tom was fearing more and more that his chum had made his last flight. As for the Hun aviators, after using up a drum or so of bullets uselessly, they ceased firing and urged their machine on to ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach



Words linked to "Uselessly" :   usefully, useless



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