"Desirableness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its slates and tiles all shaken and rent, and yet not falling; its desert of brickwork full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a bare brown rock; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty nor desirableness, pride nor grace; yet neither asking for pity; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days; but useful still, going through its own daily work,—as some old fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets: so it stands, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... saw no exit; and her small power of helping them was diminishing day by day as Mrs. Hamley sank more and more under the influence of opiates and stupefying illness. Her father had spoken to her only this very day of the desirableness of her returning home for good. Mrs. Gibson wanted her—for no particular reason, but for many small fragments of reasons. Mrs. Hamley had ceased to want her much, only occasionally appearing to remember her existence. Her position (her father thought—the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Roger Bacon and, indeed, Seneca had foreseen, long before his time, must follow in the train of the advancement of natural knowledge. The burden of Bacon's pleadings for science is the gathering of fruit'—the importance of winning solid material advantages by the investigation of Nature and the desirableness of limiting the application of scientific methods of inquiry to ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... improved as her cheerfulness returned; but her physician dreaded the long, cold winter. About this time appeared a volume entitled Gan-Eden, or Pictures of Cuba, which fell into Mr. Medway's hands. He read it, and was fully impressed with the desirableness of Cuba as a winter residence for consumptives. He suggested the thought to the doctor, and the result was, that Mr. Medway went to the island with his wife and daughter. Edward saw her before her departure, and their plighting was ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress the expediency of establishing a national university and also a military academy. The desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken of the subject that I can not omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... which the school generally entertained for Theodore were brought to their height, when the edict was promulgated that peanuts should be no longer brought within bounds. Being a forbidden fruit, they at once acquired a value and desirableness even beyond that which they had possessed before. By some unexplained process of reasoning, the authorities had arrived at the conclusion that they were the cause of the late disturbance; and so ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... failings of human nature, still urged on the Christian the necessity, or at all events the expediency, of conciliating those intermediate beings who executed the will of the Supreme Being, and might haply have much left at their own will and discretion to give or to withhold; and therefore the desirableness of securing their good offices by prayer. To ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... objected, that man is only bound to self-preservation so long as life is a blessing; that, when the scale of death far outweighs that of life in desirableness, it is cruelty to himself to preserve his life any longer, and a kindness to himself to destroy it; that in such a plight, accordingly, it is not unnatural for a man to put himself, not so much out ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... down at her, holding her hands yet. He felt, unphrased, strong, the overwhelming conviction that she was the most desirable thing on earth. And directly on top of that conviction another, that he would be doing her desirableness, her loveliness less than the highest honor if he posed before her in false colors. At whatever cost to himself he must be honest with her. Also—he was something more now than his own man; he was a soldier of America, and inside ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a few years become wholly self-supporting. The question of their removal has been submitted to them; and they seem inclined to favor the project, but have expressed a desire to send a delegation of their chiefs to the Indian Territory, with a view of satisfying themselves as to the desirableness of the location. Their wishes in this respect should be granted early next season, that their removal and settlement may be effected during the coming year. Notwithstanding their willingness to labor, they have shown but ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... another point of which Authors are frequently not aware—the desirableness of their Manuscripts being written on one side only. The convenience of this is, that any Remarks, Notes, Interlineations or Directions to the Printer, may be inserted on the opposite Blank Pages; and also that ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... an overwhelming majority in favor of good order, and co-operation with him in his plans for elevating the character of the school. But let it be distinctly understood, that this, and this only, has been the object of this chapter, thus far: The first point brought up, was the desirableness of making, at first, a favourable impression,—the second, the necessity of taking general views of the condition of the school, and aiming to improve it in the mass, and not merely to rebuke or punish accidental faults,—and the third, the importance and the means of gaining a general ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... you furnish, yes? The six eggs, they will not make the pudding. The omelet—I do not perceive yet the desirableness of the omelet. And ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... weight or power. The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind master. But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the desirableness of liberty. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... them. What did they give the upper proprietors on the Ribble and the Hodder last season? Little or nothing. When the bill of 1861 was before the House of Commons, I had an opportunity of suggesting (indirectly) to the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis the propriety and desirableness of an extension of the weekly close time for the benefit of the upper proprietors. He replied, "You might as well propose to restrict the shooting of partridges to three days a week as to restrict the netting of Salmon." But with all due deference to so great an authority, there is no analogy ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... and upon this issue the little group of politicians—able and patriotic men, who always opposed his leadership—then arrayed themselves against him, making the most, doubtless, of everything favoring the possibility and the desirableness of a peaceful adjustment of the great dispute. But their opposition to him only produced the usual result,—of arousing him to an effort which simply overpowered and scattered all further resistance. It was in review of their whole quivering ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... it so happened that business began to fall away rapidly from the bank of which his father held the chief country agency, so that he was no longer able to continue to Hector his former subsidy, the announcement of which discouraging fact was accompanied by a lecture on the desirableness of a change in his choice of subject as well as in his style; if he continued to write as he had been doing of late, no one would be left, his father said, to read ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... Hero-worship, the thing I call Hero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally ceased. This, for reasons which it will be worth while some time to inquire into, is an age that as it were denies the existence of great men; denies the desirableness of great men. Show our critics a great man, a Luther for example, they begin to what they call 'account' for him; not to worship him, but take the dimensions of him,—and bring him out to be a little kind of man! ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... abrogating part; it must be that the argument of the opponent and the law are at variance. And then, by way of amplification, it will be proper, both in other parts of the speech, and above all in the peroration, to speak with great dignity and energy about the desirableness of maintaining the laws, and of the danger with which all public and private affairs ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... the boots had arisen in Jem's mind some serious misgivings as to the entire desirableness of donation visits. David and Violet had had them before, but they were not so ready to speak of these things as Jem was; or rather as Jem would have been if his conscience had been quite clear as regarded the matter ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... in, not, and jus, juris, right, law) signifies primarily something done contrary to law or right; hence, something contrary to some standard of right or good; whatever reduces the value, utility, beauty, or desirableness of anything is an injury to that thing; of persons, whatever is so done as to operate adversely to one in his person, rights, property, or reputation is an injury; the word is especially used of whatever mars the integrity of the body or causes pain; as, when rescued from the wreck ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... counsel with the formula, "You'll excuse me," he gave me some excellent advice as we threaded the greasy streets, and jostled the disreputable-looking population of the lower part of the town. General counsels as to my conduct, and the desirableness of turning over a new leaf for "young chaps" who had been wild and got into scrapes at home. And particular counsels which were invaluable to me, as to changing my dress, how to hide my money, what to turn my hand to ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... inactive mind, this was a great hardship. He was not ill-tempered naturally, but this state of confinement made him more ill-tempered than he had ever been before in his life. He sat in the chimney-corner, abusing the weather and doubting the wisdom or desirableness of all his wife saw fit to do in the usual daily household matters. The 'chimney-corner' was really a corner at Haytersbank. There were two projecting walls on each side of the fire-place, running about six feet into the room, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... would naturally result from the desirableness of securing unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole command of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and had been a basileus, with priestly authority, who can doubt that some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus would have been adopted, and thus ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... the project. Mr Brandram wrote to Borrow:- "With regard to forming a Bible Society in Madrid, and appointing Dr Usoz Secretary, it is so out of our usual course that the Committee, for various reasons, cannot comply with your wishes—of the desirableness of forming such a Society at present, you and your friend must be the best judges. If it is to be an independent society, as I suppose must be the case," Mr Brandram continues, and the Bible Society's aid or that of its agent is sought, the new Society must be ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... would not be guilty of throwing herself at him, and withheld dance after dance, and yet was secretly and thrillingly aware that she was pursuing the right tactics. She deliberately demonstrated that she was desirable to other men, as he involuntarily demonstrated his own desirableness to ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... root of this passion is an undying memory of the curse that was inflicted on its citizens, morally and materially, by the fiscal inequalities of the old regime. The article, Privilege, urges the desirableness of inquiring into the grounds of the vast multitude of fiscal exemptions, and of abolishing all that were no longer associated with the performance of real and useful service. "A bourgeois," says the writer, anticipating a cry that was so soon to ring through the land, "a bourgeois ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... old friend of hers back with us to pay her a visit. So I had to sit inside and make myself agreeable to Mrs. Wrightson, while Clarence had plenty of leisure for meditation outside on the box seat. The good lady said much on the desirableness of marriage for Clarence, and the comfort it would be to my ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... system is to vanquish and annihilate all desire for existing things. How is this to be done? By acquiring an intense perception of the miseries of existence, on the one hand, and an intense perception, on the other hand, of the contrasted desirableness of the state of emancipation, or Nirwana. Accordingly, the discourses of Gotama, and the sacred books of the Buddhists, are filled with vivid accounts of every thing disgusting and horrible connected ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... called, were held in the larger cities, beginning at Worcester in 1842. These meetings originated in the Worcester Association of Ministers at a meeting held July 11, 1842, when the association considered the "desirableness of a meeting of Unitarians in the autumn for the purpose of awakening mutual sympathy and considering the wants of the ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... to the value of the book as a lesson, or as an argument. Mr Arnold had started with a strong belief in the desirableness—indeed of the necessity—of State-control of the most thoroughgoing kind in education; and he was not at all likely to miss the opportunity of fetching new weapons from the very arsenals and places d'armes of that system. He was thoroughly convinced that English ways generally, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... come to see the Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen by her, if she found that she was like Lord Coombe, she would not be able to endure the prospect of a future spent in her service howsoever desirable such service might outwardly appear. This desirableness Mademoiselle Valle had made clear to her. She was to be the companion of a personage of great and mature charm and grace who desired not mere attendance, but something more, which something included the warmth and fresh brightness of happy youth and bloom. She would do for her employer ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett |
