"Purposeless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prevent it. On a flat piece of green in front of the rocky kopjes, where the enemy evidently was, I could see men, not running, but walking about in different directions. They were not crowded, but they seemed to be moving about like black ants, only in a purposeless kind of way. "They are Boers, and we've got them between our men and our battery," said a Gordon officer. But I knew his hope was a vain one. Very slowly they were coming towards us—turning and firing and advancing ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... differ for us, according as we consider that the facts of experience up to date are purposeless configurations of blind atoms moving according to eternal laws, or that on the other hand they are due to the providence of God? As far as the past facts go, indeed there is no difference. Those facts are in, are bagged, are captured; ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... hope to become a really great or celebrated novel-reader who does not begin his apprenticeship under the age of fourteen, and, as I said before, stick to it as long as he lives. He must learn to scorn those frivolous, vacillating and purposeless ones who, after beginning properly, turn aside and whiling away their time on mere history, or science, or philosophy. In a sense these departments of literature are useful enough. They enable you often to perceive the most cunning and profoundly interesting touches in fiction. Then I have no doubt ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... early yet for breakfast, and he sauntered about idle and purposeless. Suddenly he came upon the young man upon whose advice he had purchased his ticket. He, too, had a Herald in his hand, but was ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... dominates these and turns them to new ends. I suppose the nature of the activity of the bombarding molecules of gases and liquids is the same in our bodies as out; that turmoil of the particles goes on forever; it is, in itself, blind, fateful, purposeless; but life furnishes, or is, an organizing principle that brings order and purpose out of this chaos. It does not annul any of the mechanical or chemical principles, but under its tutelage or inspiration ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
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