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More "At best" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are of legislative origin; others are judge-made laws, brought out by the exigencies of special cases which came before the courts for determination. Some day they will, perhaps, become mere curiosities of jurisprudence; the "black laws" will be bracketed with the "blue laws," and will be at best but landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation. But to-day these laws are in active operation, and they are, therefore, worthy of attention; for every good citizen ought to know the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... require great address indeed; and it is too much practised both by men and women. Out of the abundance of the heart how few speak! So few, that I, who love simplicity, would gladly give up politeness for a quarter of the virtue that has been sacrificed to an equivocal quality, which, at best, should only be the polish ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... tacitly, at least, accepted in Greece, during the period of her constructive vigour. But it is a conception constantly open to attack. For law, at any given moment, even under the most favourable conditions, cannot do more than approximate to its own ideal. It is, at best, but a rough attempt at that reconciliation of conflicting interests towards which the reason of mankind is always seeking; and even in well-ordered states there must always be individuals and classes who resent, and rightly resent it, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... at the warped, cold, unhappy, suspicious natures we see about us, when we reflect upon the number of unwished-for, unwelcomed children in the world;—children who at best were never loved until they were seen and known, and were often grudged their being from the moment they began to be. I wonder if sometimes a starved, crippled, agonized human body and soul does not cry out, ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... condemned as prize by rebel tribunals, and which now added the aggravating circumstance that she carried an armament sufficient to destroy a merchantman but not to encounter a frigate, he would have had before him at best a long imprisonment, at worst a trial for high treason and a halter. Horace Walpole gave the news that "Dr. Franklin, at the age of seventy-two or seventy-four, and at the risk of his head, had bravely embarked on board ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... laws, and ethics were identified with obedience to custom; filial piety was the basis of social order, and loyalty itself was derived from filial piety. But this Western creed, which taught that a husband should leave his parents and cleave to his wife, held filial piety to be at best an inferior virtue. It proclaimed that duty to parents, lords, and rulers remained duty only when obedience involved no action opposed to Roman teaching, and that the supreme duty of obedience was not to the Heavenly Sovereign at Kyoto, but to the Pope at Rome. Had not the Gods and the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... resources may have decisive weight toward victory, yet it is France, England, Italy, Russia against whom the enemy has spent his strength. Our Allies have brought the war already to its turning point, and we can at best only add completeness to their achievement. Furthermore, while we aid France and her Allies, we are defending ourselves also. We went to war because Germany was killing our citizens, was plotting against the peace and security of our nation, because ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... allow the thing to go farther. His reply was that, though he then specifically heard of the whole project for the first time, he could by no means share their instantaneous alarm. Kingship was nothing in itself, at best "a mere feather in a man's hat"; but it need be no bugbear, and at least ought to be no new thing to them. Had they not offered it to him at the institution of the Protectorate, though the title of Protector had been then preferred? Under that title he ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... buckled on for the strife of life by feminine sympathy, the fight is apt to be a sorry one at best; since ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... to pronounce upon the infinitely complex materials with which they are called upon to deal. We must confess that the expression of racial and national characteristics, by means of only one art, such as literature, or by all the arts together, is at best imperfect, and is always likely to be misleading unless corroborated by ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... derided them. The democratic politician remains exactly as Plato described him; the physician is still the credulous impostor and petulant scientific coxcomb whom Moliere ridiculed; the schoolmaster remains at best a pedantic child farmer and at worst a flagellomaniac; arbitrations are more dreaded by honest men than lawsuits; the philanthropist is still a parasite on misery as the doctor is on disease; the miracles of priestcraft are none the less fraudulent and mischievous because they are now called scientific ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... not a courier had come in. But could anything have dared to move to us? Even the Tsung-li Yamen, affrighted anew at this storm of fire which it can no longer control, had not dared or attempted to communicate with us. We were abandoned to our own resources. At best we would have to work out our own salvation. Was it to be the last night of this insane Boxerism, or merely the beginning of a still more terrible series of attacks with massed assaults pushed right home on us? In any case, there was but one ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... rain-clouds gather on the mountains and there are frequent showers. At one point the mist became so thick that I could scarcely discern the figure of my chauffeur and we were compelled to advance with the utmost caution, for at many points the road, none too wide at best, falls sheer away in dizzy precipices. But as suddenly as it came, just as suddenly did the mist lift, revealing the great plain of Pasuruan, a mile below, stretching away, away, until its green was blended ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... certain plants. I have jotted down a few notes, and you will see when I expand them that at any rate the idea calls attention to the movements themselves, some of which seem never to have been noticed at all, or certainly at best very inadequately. You will see that this brings in the bamboo-garden and Buddha, and so keeps to the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of the astounding stupidity of the West Indian rank and file, a stupidity amusing if you are in an amusable mood, unendurable if you neglect to pack your patience among your bag of supplies in the morning. Tropical patience, too, is at best a frail child. The dry-season sun rarely even veiled his face, and there were those among the enumerators who complained of the taxing labor of all-day marching up and down streets and stairs and Zone hills beneath it; but to me, fresh from tramping over the mountains of Central ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... when any point needs clearing up," he said. "It's a blind trail at best. You've the right to see it as plain as I can make it—with Slade's help. Cut right in with your questions: There'll be plenty to answer and some ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... slatternly woman stood in the back doorway, a woman who might possibly have been a pretty girl once but whose passing charms had long been utterly sponged out. A perceptible growth of hair lent a somewhat repulsive appearance to a face which at best had a great deal of the virago in it. Yet there was, in spite of her furrowed skin and faded eyes and drab dress, an air of good-heartedness about her, made somewhat ferocious by the muscularity of ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... and a large proportion of those manuscripts are in Spain. To deal as fairly as I can with the public, I have all along deposited my Spanish transcripts, as soon as I have done with them, in the British Museum. The reading of manuscripts, however, is at best laborious. The public may be inclined to accept as proved an uncontradicted charge, the value of which they cannot readily test. I venture therefore to make the following proposal. I do not make it ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... National Executive in any reasonable temporary State arrangement for the freed people is made with the view of possibly modifying the confusion and destitution which must, at best, attend all classes by a total revolution of labor throughout whole States. It is hoped that the already deeply afflicted people of those States may be somewhat more ready to give up the cause of their affliction, if, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... of Ulster set too much fruit in spite of efforts to control the crop by pruning; two undesirable results follow, the bunches are small and the vines, lacking vigor at best, fail to recover from the overfruitfulness. These defects keep the variety from becoming of importance commercially or even a favorite as a garden grape. The quality of the fruit is very good, being much like that of Catawba, and under favorable conditions it is an attractive green with ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... Hadn't had for a week or more. Haven't any now. May not get any more at all. They're a scarce sort, at best, and specially so ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... peace!—was on earth, there lived near him a poor but remarkably religious man, who had for many years supported himself and his wife by the daily occupation of cutting wood for his richer neighbours, four small copper coins being the reward of his toil, which at best afforded the poor couple but a scanty meal after his day's exertions. One morning the Prophet Musa, passing the woodcutter, was thus addressed: "O Musa! Prophet of the Most High! behold I labour each day for my coarse and scanty meal. May it please thee, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... them are only fragments of the perfect friendship. They bring us only little cupfuls of blessing. Their gentleness is marred by human infirmity, and sometimes turns to harshness. Their helpfulness at best is impulsive and uncertain, and ofttimes is ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... rooted prejudices touching the people of Biblical story will be happiest if they can think of some other than the Scriptural Solomon as the prototype of Mosenthal and Goldmark, for in truth they make of him a sorry sentimentalist at best. The local color of the old story has been borrowed from the old story; the dramatic motive comes plainly from "Tannhuser"; Sulamith is Elizabeth, the Queen Venus, Assad Tannhuser, and Solomon Wolfram. Goldmark's music is highly spiced. At times ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... given the passion place, allowing it to become a rule, and finally an imperious governor, the resolves and impulses of former days faded imperceptibly out of being, and at last almost out of recollection. It is at best so easy to forget our youth; in his case it was but natural that his own sufferings and the mystery darkening the fate of his family should move him less and less as, in hope at least, he approached nearer and nearer ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... your taste were classical you would discover in Lamb a continual fascination; whereas what you in fact do discover in Lamb is a not unpleasant flatness, enlivened by a vague humour and an occasional pathos. You ought, according to theory, to be enthusiastic; but you are apathetic, or, at best, half-hearted. There is a gulf. How to ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... six-fingered men, porcupine men, Ancon sheep, Niata cattle, etc.; and as they are widely different in character from natural species, they throw very little light on our subject. Excluding such cases of abrupt variations, the few which remain would at best constitute, if found in a state of nature, doubtful species, closely related to ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... a region of broken ground, carved and ridged with coulees and low hills, worthless save for range purposes. There Casey decided that he would turn back. At best it was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Chance only could serve them. Suddenly ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... women, it is, for the former, an instinct, a need, to serve rather than be served: their desire is for a shining image superior, at best, to both lust and maternity. This consciousness, grown so dim that it is scarcely perceptible, yet still alive, is not extinguished with youth, but lingers hopeless of satisfaction through the incongruous ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... are bad habits at best, and in their coarser forms highly disgusting to pure and refined people, and especially to ladies. You have the same right to smoke, take snuff, and chew that you have to indulge in the luxuries of a filthy skin and soiled garments, but you have no right, in ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things that round out a man's life, make it full ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... was what he had been expecting. He knew it would have to come; in fact he had wished for nothing more than an opportunity for making all the amends that were possible under the circumstances. But the possible amends were very, very inadequate at best, and now that the opportunity was here, his courage failed, and he would have shirked it if he could. Besides, for the last five minutes, Ruth had been innocently stirring memories that made his ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... than letting this house for the spring, as must be done, and moving you girls into poky lodgings. That, at least, we have hitherto managed not to do. And then the strain on your poor mother being up alone with me in London—so dreary for her too. And at best to think that a partial, temporary cure is all we can hope for. No, my child, I cannot see that it is worth it. I am happy at home, and more than content to bear what must be, after all not so very bad. And I may not get worse. Do, darling, try to make ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... governor, deputy governor, and four assistants, regularly elected, and provided that all laws should be made by the freemen or the major part of them, "orderly assembled." In the system thus established we can see the influence of the older colonies and the beginning of a stronger government, but at best the experiment was half-hearted, for each town reserved to itself complete control over its own affairs. In 1647 Portsmouth withdrew "to be as free in their transactions as any other town in the colony," and the spirit of separatism ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... words, And all the graces a good ear affords, Made rhyme an art, and Dante's polish'd page Restored a silver, not a golden age. 20 Then Petrarch follow'd, and in him we see What rhyme improved in all its height can be: At best a pleasing sound, and fair barbarity. The French pursued their steps; and Britain, last, In manly sweetness all the rest surpass'd. The wit of Greece, the gravity of Rome, Appear exalted in the British loom: The Muses' empire is restored again, In Charles' reign, and by Roscommon's pen. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... duties. But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale was of an element that had entered into conditions. It had never occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor's arrival. To Pine Cone a "furriner" aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community that could not possibly have anything in common with him? So it was that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing sight of him at once, concluded that ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... Hindu occupied the position of honor in the social stage, Norris found it hard to keep his attention fixed on that bird of paradise, who, at best, was sure to be but a temporary interest in these western states of America, where facts, not theories, loom large. The new young man's eyes wandered to the audience, made up of people like himself. The unknown catches us for an instant, but our own kind are ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... cried Pembroke with some asperity. "Lay wagers more fit at best, and let us have no more of this thumb-biting. Gad! the first we know, we'll be up for fighting among ourselves, and we all know how the new court ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... formulate any definite plans. Ptronelle, poor old soul, her only confidante, was not of the stuff that heroines are made of. Juliette felt impelled by duty, and duty at best is not so prompt a counsellor as ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... conciliating the Border States. In point of fact, the side which those States might take in the struggle between Law and Anarchy was of vastly more import to them than to us. They could bring no considerable reinforcement of money, credit, or arms to the rebels; they could at best but add so many mouths to an army whose commissariat was already dangerously embarrassed. They could not even, except temporarily, keep the war away from the territory of the seceding States, every one of which had a sea-door open to the invasion of an enemy who controlled the entire ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... I allowed a long vacation to intervene; the pupil was quite contented, and had no desire for the piano, or, if so, only jingled a little. At last we began again, but we spent our time without much result; he was nevertheless still musical, but he finally ranked at best with dozens of other players, and ended as an ordinary piano teacher. Similar halts in progress occur in fact with all pupils, especially with female scholars; but they are not usually so lasting, so discouraging, or so significant of exhaustion. They are surmounted, after a short interval, by the ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all mens suffrage. But these wayes Were not the paths I meant vnto thy praise: For seeliest Ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right; Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're aduance The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance; Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise, And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd to raise. These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore, Should praise ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... barrier to progress. He could not plant new crops on his strips in the grain fields, for custom forbade it; he could not breed his cows scientifically, while they ran in with the rest of the village cattle. At best he could only work hard and pray that his cows would not catch contagion from the rest, and that the weeds from his neighbor's wheat- patch might not spread into his own, for between such patches there was neither ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... explanation may lie in the change of the ether waves sent out by the vibrating molecule; indeed, the fact that the waves of radiant heat and those of light differ only in amplitude lends color to this latter supposition. So the explanation of the changed color of the cooled substance is at best a dubious one. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... avow as much, are heartily tired of them. Like cursing and swearing, they are merely unmeaning expletives to supply the lack of sense, to gain time, and to give a man the satisfaction of sometimes hearing his own voice. With all the assistance of cards, music, dancing, and champagne, society is at best but a dreary business, and it requires no little animal spirits to undergo the infliction with decency. Are you admitted on terms of familiarity to the domestic hearth of your friend, that privilege confers on you the opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with the faults of ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... are deficient in those; and this utility any one who reflects may easily convince himself of; for whatsoever is external has its boundary, as a machine, and whatsoever is useful in its excess is either necessarily hurtful, or at best useless to the possessor; but every good quality of the soul the higher it is in degree, so much the more useful it is, if it is permitted on this subject to use the word useful as well as noble. It is also very evident, that the accidents of each subject take place of ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... manner and expression. But when thrown from his self-possession, he can do nothing better than mechanically string together words, while there is no soul in them, because his mental powers are spell-bound and imbecile. He stammers, hesitates, and stumbles; or, at best, talks on without object or aim, as mechanically and unconsciously as an automaton. He has learned little effectually, till he has learned ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... Chatanga. With our dogs and snow-shoes we should be able to go far and wide; so the year would not be a lost one as regarded geography and geology. But no! I could not reconcile myself to it! I could not! A year of one's life was a year; and our expedition promised to be a long one at best. What tormented me most was the reflection that if the ice stopped us now we could have no assurance that it would not do the same at the same time next year; it has been observed so often that several ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... naturalised for the first generation, should have votes in any of our elections. But as the case stands, it seems against the nature of right government that strangers (who may be spies, and who may have an interest opposite to that of England, and who at best ever join in one link of obsequiousness to the Ministers) should be suffered to intermeddle in that important business of sending members to Parliament. From their sons indeed there is less to fear, who by birth and nature may come to have the same interest ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... right or left, he escapes at a tangent. If I try to interfere and to bring him back to the path of my choosing, he persists in his refusal, shrivels up, does not budge, and soon the whole procession is in confusion. We will not insist: the method is a poor one, very wasteful of effort for at best ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... me! True, it was I who was dead, not they; but, whether by their life or by my death, we were divided! They were alive, but I was not dead enough even to know them alive: doubt WOULD come. They were, at best, far from me, and helpers I had none ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... two or three hours of leisure, which he employed in reading and taking notes from the volumes borrowed by him every morning at a reading-room on the Rue Rorer-Collard; for he had already learned that one leaves college almost ignorant, having, at best, only learned how to study. He left the office at nightfall and reached his room through the Boulevard des Invalides, and Montparnasse, which at this time was still planted with venerable elms; sometimes the lamplighter would be ahead of him, making the large gas-jets ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... would have a reminiscence unknown to them—the knowledge of the years in which it strove to mold itself to the likeness of the wheat before rebellion woke within it. I know! I know! I know Bohemia—love Bohemia—but at best I am only a naturalized Bohemian. I can live on a crust with these good creatures, or I can send my gold flying with theirs, but I'm hanged if, for instance, I can sin in quite the delicious, child-like, whole-hearted way that is their prerogative! I have done most of the things that ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... X-ray and radium are quite one and the same. Radium possesses this advantage, however, that no elaborate apparatus is necessary for its use. And, in addition, the emanation from radium is steady and constant, whereas the X-ray at best varies slightly with changing conditions of the current and vacuum in the X-ray tube. Still, the effects on the body are ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... you have not told me how you are going to begin in the work you were talking of last night. How are you to get a start?—It's not very paying at best: the least lucrative of all the arts—because it's the highest, I suppose. Now, old fellow, I understand your general stand; but, for Heaven's sake, don't hurt me by refusing to let me lend you a rouble or two, till you get started—have made a ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... not the same influence on public opinion as in France. At best its declarations are the barometer by which to gauge how much can be printed according to the Russian press-laws, but they do not obligate the Russian government or His Majesty the Emperor of Russia in any way. In contrast with the voices of the Russian press ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... stranger. It is worth a thousand pounds; but as the dealer is an honest man, he will sell it first for two hundred, then for one, and finally for fifteen or even ten. But no second-hand dealer shows a "genuine Velazquez." He knows that at best it could only appeal to artists, and he knows them for strange folk endowed with much enthusiasm, little money, and an embarrassing measure of knowledge of the methods by which genuine old masters are created to ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... wild country where the Government, at best, had an insufficient force of troops, and where the agents of the company went heavily armed, it was distinctly recognized, and accepted as a fact, that no possible competitor's men, or individual trader, ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... (though well you may doe too In other Spheres:) For Fletchers flourishing Bayes Must never fade while Phoebus weares his Rayes. Therefore forbeare to presse upon him thus. Why, what are you (cry some) that prate to us? Doe not we know you for a flashy Meteor? And stil'd (at best) the Muses Serving-creature? Doe you comptroll? Y'have had your Jere: Sirs, no; But, in an humble manner, let you know Old Serving-creatures oftentimes are fit T' informe young Masters, as in Land, in Wit, What ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... And tug my forelock, like a lousy tinker; And whine God bless the master of this house, Likewise the mistress, too ... By gox, I've come To charity—Jim Barrasford's come to mooch For charity at Krindlesyke! Shanks's mare's A sorry nag at best; and lets you down, Sooner or later, for certain—the last straw, When a man can't trust his feet, and his own legs Give under him, in his need, and bring him down A devasher in the ditch as the dogs are on him! You're sorry? I don't know. How can I tell? You're sly, you faggit; but don't get ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... feeling of uneasiness, almost of insecurity, left in my mind since recalling the incident of the young man who had visited the china factory. How did I know but that some harm had really come to him in this very place? There was certainly nothing about the landlord to inspire confidence. At best it was a strange and unpleasant coincidence. The evening before I had half thought of inquiring of the landlord or his wife, or even of Lieschen, if any English had ever before stayed at the "Katze." If assured by them that we were the first, ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... Tchoudes, a people who came from the Altai Mountains. The Esthonians, the Ogris or Ulgres, the Finns, and perhaps even the Celts, are supposed to be branches of the same ethnological tree. This is however quite a recent idea, and at best ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... of various heavy-duty tools which might be employed as weapons to force the janandra into submission and haul it off for confinement elsewhere in the ship. Not impossible, but a highly precarious and time-consuming operation at best. Then another thought occurred: the storage vault lay directly against ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... in his boyish way he often wondered at their exceeding sameness. When he told them where his home was they would ask jovially, "Pretty hot down there?" and John would muster a faint smile and answer, "It certainly is." His response would have been heartier had they not all made this joke—at best varying it with, "Is it hot enough for you down there?" which ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a cloudy, winter's afternoon, and the place seemed dull and gloomy. The Boston Music Hall is, at best, bare and vast, and by daylight is particularly unattractive. The great organ pipes appear cold and lustreless, and the light tints on the walls are not very comforting. The orchestra of the Harvard Musical Association were upon the stage, ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... now rested in possession of half the island, Washington of all above Harlem Heights, Howe of all below. His conquest was, however, near proving a barren one, at best, for within a week a third part of the city was laid in ashes, some say by incendiaries, ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... instantaneous vision of the household thus thrown open to him. Such opportunities for falsity, artificiality, downright humbuggery, for plutocratic upholstery and indecorous statues and light-minded paintings, for cynical and insolent servants, for the deployment of vast gains got by methods that at best were questionable! Could he accept such hospitality ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... towns, but none like this. The towns of Lorraine were blown up, burnt down, deliberately erased from the earth. At worst they are like stone-yards, at best like Pompeii. But Ypres has been bombarded to death, and the outer walls of its houses are still standing, so that it presents the distant semblance of a living city, while near by it is seen to be a disembowelled corpse. Every window-pane ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no stamen. It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has 'de nier ce qui est, et d'expliquer ce ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... between them. Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the stones, an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in by mountains; rocky footpaths, practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the outer world of France; and the men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, like that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... means of production. This is a large programme, and certainly no community as yet has recognised all its items without qualification. Obviously they are not all of the same quality, nor are they of independent validity; and at best they but roughly describe certain factors, considered by various agitators as desirable, of an ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... heart. He hated the whole business, and yet he admitted to himself that he must know the truth ere he invested a fortune in other folks' business game. Yet, weighed down by the sickening feeling that, at best, he was about to play the spy, Mr. Emerson presently called up ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... believe too much in happiness! We are never brought up with the idea of fighting, of striving, of suffering. And, at the first shock, our hearts are broken; we look forward, with blind faith, to cascades of fortunate events. What does happen is at best but a partial happiness, and thereupon we burst out sobbing. Happiness, the real happiness that we dream of, I have come to know what that is. It does not consist in the arrival of great bliss, for any great bliss that falls to our share ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... more temperate climates at such a season. It was fiercely bright against the melting snows, with a steely chill that entirely lacked the gracious promise of budding trees and tender shooting grass. At best it spoke of the final passing of the wastes of ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... what in the South is termed a "bully"—that is, he was free to use his pistols on the slightest occasion, when among his equals, but when in the presence of his superiors he was a cringing sycophant and coward. He was a real coward, at best, in all places. He did not want me on the plantation; and he was determined that he would so harrass me that I would become as reckless and devilish as himself, and thereby compel my master to send me to a slave-market ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... hand. A rush was made for life preservers, while the crew of five or six men vainly endeavored to extinguish the flames. The captain ordered boats to be lowered, but, the men being excited, and badly drilled at best, the boats were successively swamped, leaving the poor terrified creatures only a choice of ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... to inspection. When she got better acquainted with the men, and while there were good and bad among them, she liked them all, except Stone. His face did not seem kindly. At times agreeable enough, he was only tolerable at best and when even slightly in liquor he was irritable. His low forehead, over which he plastered his hair, and his straight yellow eyebrows and hard blue eyes were not confidence inspiring; even his big mustache was harsh and lacked a generous curve—his normal outlook seemed one of ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... lingered behind to examine the place wherein the women had concealed themselves. The boughs of the vine-maple, together with other slender shrubs constituting the underbrush, had been rudely woven together, forming, at best, but a very inefficient shelter from the wind, which swept in freezing currents through the valley. Had it rained, they must soon have been drenched, or if snow had fallen heavily, the 'wickey' house and its ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... frowned sourly. "Had I been Master Franois and black Louis not been by I should have tried to mend my luck with a cudgel. At best and worst she would have had something to curse for after ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 'I am quite angry when our girls go out to service, they will get such horrid places—public houses, or at best farm houses, where they have a whole train of babies to look after, ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jennie, know that men are silly things at best. Of course I am grateful to Dr. Grant for looking after me so nicely, but why should he deserve such a lot of credit for it? Don't all the nice young men like to look after girls? They enjoy it ever so much. But somehow this ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... shrugged. "Wild things' lives are brief at best—fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or man. But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides," he added, laughing, "ours is not a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... little time to spare, again for a few moments he thought deeply. His face flushed and went pale; then entered into it a great resolve. "I don't like doing it, for it is against my vow, but the chance is good. She is safely married, and at best she would be very troublesome hereafter, and might bring us to justice or to the galleys since others seek her wealth," he muttered with a shiver, adding, "as for the spies, we are well rid of them and their evidence." Then, with swift resolution, stepping to the door ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... creative moral god of the 'plain man,' the germ of such a god or being in the creeds of the lowest savages is by anthropologists denied, or left out of sight, or accounted for by theories contradicted by facts, or, at best, is explained away as a result of European or Islamite influences. Now, as the problem is to account for the evolution of the highest conception of God, as far as that conception exists among the most backward races, the problem ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Testament to the very words of the Lord. That we have them with a difference, I cannot doubt. For one thing, I do not believe he spoke in Greek. He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and would speak their natural language, not that which, at best, they knew in secondary fashion. That the thoughts of God would come out of the heart of Jesus in anything but the mother-tongue of the simple men to whom he spoke, I cannot think. He may perhaps have spoken to the Jews of Jerusalem ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... whole army. Not a tent nor a single person was to be seen. Those canvas houses, which had concealed the growth of the traverse from the view of the enemy, were now protected and hid in their turn. The prospect of smoking us out, was now at best but very faint. But as neither general Proctor nor his officers were yet convinced of the folly and futility of their laborious preparations, their batteries were opened, and five days were spent in arduous cannonading and bombarding, to bring them to this salutary conviction. A tremendous ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... son of Parmenio, one of Alexander's intimate friends and companions, and there reproved him severely, and reproached him bitterly, that he should be so degenerate, and unworthy of the power he was to leave him, as to desire the alliance of a mean Carian, who was at best but the slave of a barbarous prince. Nor did this satisfy his resentment, for he wrote to the Corinthians, to send Thessalus to him in chains, and banished Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemy, his son's friends ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the "Shepherdess" by Millet the attraction of two alleys which the eye might take is largely regulated by the subordination of one of them by proportional size and a lowering of the tone of the sky. At best, however, it is a case of divided interest, though the deepest dark against the highest light helps to control the situation. If for the balance of the pines in the snow scene a small tree on the right were added, the objection ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... for promising to give you this or that, or such and such a privilege, if you will do thus and so; and when the time of fulfilment comes, and one claims the promise, they, forsooth, recollect nothing of the kind: and you are, like as not, taunted with being a LIAR; or, at best, the slave is accused of not having performed his part or condition of the contract.' 'Oh!' said she, 'I have felt as if I could not live through the operation sometimes. Just think of us! so eager for our pleasures, and just foolish enough to keep feeding and feeding ourselves ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... that there exists at a point on the earth's surface, which unluckily I cannot define, strong corroborative proof of my story. Nevertheless, the first persons who heard it utterly ridiculed it, and were disposed to treat me either as a madman, or at best as an audacious trespasser on that privilege of lying which belonged to them as mariners. I told it afterwards to three gentlemen of station, character, and intelligence, every one of whom had known me as soldier, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... urgent, was determined to keep both parties in awe, by maintaining still an ambiguous conduct; and she rather chose that the people should run the hazard of contingent events, than that she herself should visibly endanger her throne, by employing expedients, which, at best, would not bestow entire security on the nation. She gave, therefore, an evasive answer to the applications of the commons; and when the house, at the end of the session, desired, by the mouth of their speaker, further satisfaction on that head, she could ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... knowledge. It is synthetic judgments alone which extend knowledge, while analytic judgments are explicative merely.[1] A priori judgments alone are perfectly certain, absolutely universal, and necessarily valid; while a posteriori judgments are subjectively valid merely, lack necessity, and, at best, yield only relative universality.[2] All analytic judgments are a priori, all empirical or a posteriori judgments are synthetic. Between the two lies the object of Kant's search. Do synthetic judgments a priori exist, and ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... an extreme as to assert that we can never know the truth of anything that we have asserted, no, not even the truth of this very assertion itself. "We assert nothing," said they; "no, not even that we assert nothing." They declared that the system of induction is at best only a system of probability, for an induction can only be certain when every one and all of the individual things have been examined and demonstrated to agree with the universal. If one single exception ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... be confessed, that by the weakness and indiscretion of busy (or at best, of well-meaning) people, as well as by the malice of those who are enemies to all revealed religion, and are not content to possess their own infidelity in silence, without communicating it to the disturbance of mankind; I say, by these means, it must be confessed, that the doctrine ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... party into deeper consternation than before. The little ex-burglar was not a fluent talker at best, but he now excelled himself in brevity. In three minutes he had concluded his story, and preparations were well under way for ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... can't tell whether th' three in th' front yard is blue or green? Make an author iv him! Does Miranda prisint no attraction to the young men iv th' neighbourhood, does her over-skirt dhrag an' is she poor with th' gas range? Make an authoreen iv her!' That's it, Kit, it's a poor sort of life at best, no manliness about it. Picture the contrast, girl—those fine fellows who stood at attention by their gun at Colenso when it was all up with them, and your blessed brother tinkering away at a pink and white muslin heroine that never was on ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... votaries, there are some—the moral commandments, properly so called—which do in point of fact, and in defiance of the philosophical assumption of legalism, appeal to the better nature of Man. But these are at best an insignificant minority; and their relative importance will necessarily diminish with the development into its natural consequences of the root idea of legalism. For legalism, just so far as it is strong, sincere, and self-confident, will try ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... greasy, social horror—inevitable! It amounted to barbarism, Hilda thought in her revolt. She turned from it with loathing. And yet nobody else seemed to turn from it with loathing. Nobody else seemed to perceive that this business of domesticity was not life itself, was at best the clumsy external machinery of life. On the contrary, about half the adult population worshipped it as an exercise sacred and paramount, enlarging its importance and with positive gusto permitting it to monopolize their existence. Nine-tenths ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... back and pulled out the little wooden plug in the gasoline tank. Then away they went again, leaving a little wet line in the dust of the road. Pauline stared straight ahead. Harry's attempts at conversation fell on the stony ground of silence, or at best brought forth only the briefest and most colorless answers. Soon Harry's practiced ear caught the preliminary warning of waning gasoline, and a moment later, half way up a gentle hill, with a sob from all its six cylinders the car ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... priests will feel that is not enough: he must be honored uncritically: so uncritically that, whatever his message, it must be deemed the Whole Truth. Some of his message they themselves will have garbled; and it was not, at best, final; but still it will be made into a fixed creed and given his name. Truth will be given his name. All men who thereafter seek truth must find only his kind, else they won't be his "followers." (To be his ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... who has hunted over the same chronicles for the mere purpose of finding startling incidents. The one will present his readers, as Mr. MacCabe has done, with a picture uniform in style and consistent in colouring, while the other will at best only exhibit a few brilliant scenes, which, like the views in a magic lanthorn, will owe as much of their brilliancy to the darkness with which they are contrasted as to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... countries at this rate, and at home the Classes will be competing with you, being obliged to have recourse to manual labour. They said that was just what they wanted, everybody to labour with his hands. I answered that many of the Classes, a poor lot at best (cheers), would come on the Parish. Who was to pay the rates when everybody was working, and nobody was buying what was made? If there were no markets, where were you to sell your produce? They said they would live on the land. I answered that the land ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... At best, however, A Curse for a Nation can hardly help impressing one as a little forced. In rather higher poetic vein is the other poem, The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point. This was contributed to The Liberty Bell, a publication issued by the Boston Anti-Slavery ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... speak words of appreciation. When people please you, let them know it. When people do well, or even when they try to do well and fail, you can show that you appreciate their efforts. You can be cheerful and courteous and kind. That will make sunshine for others. There are enough clouds in life at best in this world of sorrow. Be a sunshine-bearer. Drop a little good cheer into every life you touch. No matter what you are by nature, you can form the habit of being cheerful and encouraging. Even when you have heavy burdens ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... remits the penalty, but this 11:6 may be no moral benefit to the criminal, and at best, it only saves the criminal from one form of punishment. The moral law, which has the 11:9 right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitu- tion before mortals can "go up higher." Broken law brings penalty in order ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... their faith, thrusting his own, with its mysteries which puzzle even theologians, upon them, they will be but as whited sepulchres, or, at best, parrots. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... she had been riveted in admiration of the scene before her. "And you are in the right, my dear uncle. The ideas which are inspired by the contemplation of such a spectacle as this are far—oh, how far!—superior to those excited by the mere works of art. There I can, at best, think but of the inferior agents of Providence; here the soul rises from nature ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... conventional he may be, but he still is a leader of men. In Apollonius, on the other hand, he plays a curiously inconspicuous part; he is, in fact, the weakest feature of the poem; he is in despair from the outset, and at no point shows genuine heroic qualities; he is at best a peerless wooer and no more. Here, however, he is exalted by the two great battles of Cyzicus and Colchis; it is in part his prowess in the latter battle that wins Medea's heart. In this connexion we may ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... knowledge about the jug, then also want of knowledge as a separate entity has to be accepted, which amounts to the same thing as the admission of the want or negation of the jug. Whatever attempt may be made to explain the notion of negation by any positive conception, it will at best be an attempt to shift negation from the objective field to knowledge, or in other words to substitute for the place of the external absence of a thing an associated want of knowledge about the thing (in spite of its being a visible object) and this naturally ends in failure, for negation as a ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... myself worthy your trust, Madame," I said somewhat stiffly, for it hurt to realize that this emotion arose from her husband's peril. "At best I am only an adventurer, and rely upon those means with which life upon the border renders me familiar. Such may prove useless where I have soldiers of skill to deal with. However, we have need of these minutes flying past so rapidly; they might be ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
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