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Profitless   Listen
adjective
Profitless  adj.  Without profit; unprofitable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Profitless" Quotes from Famous Books



... him a train of self-conscious reflections. To him also must have been presented the query as to his own proper character and functions; and, as our author acutely demonstrates, his only choice lay between a profitless life of exile in Syro-Phoenicia, and a bold return to Jewish territory in some pronounced character. The problem being thus propounded, there could hardly be a doubt as to what that character should ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... come—to draw the river's limpid flood, And here am struck to death, by whom?—ah whose this wrongful deed of blood. Alas! and in my parent's heart—the old, the blind, and hardly fed, In the wild wood, hath pierced the dart—that here hath struck their offspring dead. Ah, deed most profitless as worst—a deed of wanton useless guilt; As though a pupil's hand accurs'd[146]—his holy master's blood had spilt. But not mine own untimely fate—it is not that which I deplore, My blind, my aged parents state—'tis their distress afflicts me more. That sightless pair, for many ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... Perhaps not a heavy bill. The indulgence may be worth the while, but if so, find out for yourself beforehand whether others have found it so. If you dare, dare with open eyes and cherish no regrets. For regret is the most profitless thing to cherish. There is nothing more distressing than remorse without will. The only hope in the world is to stop, and by the time that the inebriate comes to realize where he is, it is too ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... agree in deploring the sad results of this traffic. The most crying injustice, the most revolting immorality, the ruin of families, settlements devastated by drunkenness, agriculture abandoned, the robust portion of the population ruining its health in profitless expeditions: such were some of the most horrible fruits of alcohol. And what do we find as a compensation for so many evils? A few dozen rascals enriched, returning to squander in France a fortune shamefully acquired. And let it not be objected that, if the ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... priest Hortotef entered into the body of this infant who was his son, and whose mother was the Witch-Queen; and to-day in this modern London, a wizard of Ancient Egypt, armed with the lost lore of that magical land, walks amongst us! What that lore is worth, it would be profitless for us to discuss, but that he possesses it—all of it—I know, beyond doubt. The most ancient and most powerful magical book which has ever existed was the ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... say it!" suggested Rufus Craig when he had set himself in the path of Ward Latisan, who was coming away from a last, and profitless, interview with the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... No. 1 Royal Street close packed with the stuff of human life, homespun and drab enough, but not altogether profitless, may be, to turn over and examine. So close packed was it that there was scarce breathing space. It was only at immemorial intervals that our pauper alien made a pun, but one day he flashed upon the world the pregnant remark that England was well named, for to the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... year follows year, and the world is passing away. It is of small consequence to those who are beloved of God, and walk in the Spirit of truth, whether they pay or receive honour, which is but transitory and profitless. To the true Christian the world assumes another and more interesting appearance; it is no longer a stage for the great and noble, for the ambitious to fret in, and the wealthy to revel in; but it is a scene of probation. Every soul is a candidate for immortality. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... or a baseball team, the first step is to look about and see what material there is to work with. A baseball team will fail miserably unless the captain places each man where he can play best. Gardening is profitless when the gardener does not know the habits of plants and the possibilities of different kinds of soil. So in planning a health programme we must study our materials and use each where it will fit best. The materials of first ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... the greatest pride. The fortnight in Copse Hill was the first relief from toil that had come to him since death and fire and defeat had done their worst upon him. His biographer says, "He was as eager as ever to pass the night in profitless, though pleasant, discussions when he should have been trying to regain his strength through sleep." To a later visitor Paul Hayne showed a cherished pine log on which were inscribed the names ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... West Point" was, like most cubs, irritable when thwarted. And having been balked of his prey, the deserter, and possibly chaffed by his comrades for his profitless invasion of Wynyard's Bar, he had persuaded his commanding officer to give him permission to effect a recapture. Thus it came about that at dawn, filing along the ridge, on the outskirts of the fire, his heart ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... husband, but I fear it will be profitless. I do not trust that woman. Faithless in all, without doubt she betrays us. Still at the worst you have the sword, and ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... of these gay doings, which were all very well for a time, but rather profitless on the whole, an extremely favourable opening for promotion suddenly occurred. The late Sir Samuel Hood, on being appointed commander-in-chief of the East India station, was applied to by my friends, and ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... Love of ladies, love of bards, Marked forbearance, compliments, Tokens of benevolence. What then, can I love myself? Fame is profitless as pelf, A good in Nature not allowed They love me, as I love a cloud Sailing falsely in the sphere, Hated mist if it ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the world in the end if we don't look out. Anything that can be argued, for and against, from half a dozen different points of view—and most things that men argue over can be—and anything that has been argued about for thousands of years (as most things have) is worse than profitless; it wastes the world's time and ours, and often wrecks old mateships. Seems to me the deeper you read, think, talk, or write about things that end in ism, the less satisfactory the result; the more likely you are to get bushed and dissatisfied ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... visible a still profounder and blacker abyss of crime than that disclosed by the evidence for the crown. Young as I then was in the profession, no marvel that I felt oppressed by the weight of the responsibility cast upon me; or that, when wearied with thinking, and dizzy with profitless conjecture, I threw myself into bed, perplexing images and shapes of guilt and terror pursued me through my troubled sleep! Happily the next day was not that of trial; for I awoke with a throbbing pulse and burning brain, and should have been but poorly prepared for a struggle involving ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... were by his manner. He had cast aside the hero, and however Ripton had obeyed him and looked up to him in the heroic time, he loved him tenfold now. He told his friend how much Lucy's mere womanly sweetness and excellence had done for him, and Richard contrasted his own profitless extravagance with the patient beauty of his dear home angel. He was not one to take her on the easy terms that offered. There was that to do which made his cheek burn as he thought of it, but he was going to do it, even though it lost her to him. Just to see her and kneel to her was joy sufficient ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and their hearts ached for Dan Higgins, his years of hope and work and his profitless mine. As for the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope

... blue sky bends o'er Yarrow Vale, Save where that pearly whiteness Is round the rising sun diffused, A tender hazy brightness; Mild dawn of promise! that excludes All profitless dejection; Though not unwilling here to admit A ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... state of mind is clearly evidenced by the present division and perplexity of Christian thought concerning the Christian miracles. Many seem to regard further discussion as profitless, and are ready to shelve the subject. But this attitude of weariness is also transitional. There must be some thoroughfare to firm ground and clear vision. It must be found in agreement, first of all, on the real meaning ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... the fruits of it with his children. Those who left the Indies, avoiding the toils consequent upon the enterprise, and speaking evil of it and me, have since returned with official appointments,—such is the case now in Veragua: it is an evil example, and profitless both as regards the business in which we are embarked, and as respects the general maintenance of justice. The fear of this, with other sufficient considerations, which I clearly foresaw, caused me to beg your ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... a dazed state, asking unanswerable questions and making profitless guesses. But Asaph's final remark seemed ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... for him to do in Paris. His intended attempt in England was given up, for Kollontaj received a broad hint from the British representative in Saxony that Kosciuszko's presence would be both unwelcome to George III and profitless to the Polish cause. Kosciuszko may then have gone on from France to Brussels, but in the summer of 1793 he was back in Leipzig in ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... arisen a profitless discussion as to which of these two phases came first. No evidence can possibly exist upon either side, but one may take it that with the first traditions and records, as at the present time, the two systems existed side by side, and that either was determined by geographical ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... to those for whose benefit philosophy was designed; and those are the whole human race. But I hold it to be the most unphilosophical thing in the world to call away men from useful occupations and mutual help, to profitless speculations and acrid controversies. Censurable enough, and contemptible, too, is that supercilious philosopher, sneeringly sedate, who narrates in full and flowing periods the persecutions and tortures of a fellow-man, led astray by ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... years, her beauty, and the wholesome ignorance so confidently acknowledged, what man could remain unconcerned, uninterested in the development of such possibilities? Not Siward, amused by her sagacious and impulsive prudence, worldliness, and innocence in accepting Quarrier; and touched by her profitless, frank, and ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... peering at me through a flood of moonlight. The effect was ghastly, and for hours I could not sleep, imagining that face still staring down upon me, illuminated with the unnatural light and worn with a profitless ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... bamboo pole, floating on the surface several hundred feet away, suddenly up-end and start a very devil's dance. This was a diversion from the profitless discussion, and Kohokumu and I dipped our paddles and raced the little outrigger canoe to the dancing pole. Kohokumu caught the line that was fast to the butt of the pole and under-handed it in until a two-foot ukikiki, battling fiercely ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... between wide banks. It flowed actually for a day just after General Botha landed at Swakopmund—the first and last time, apparently, within the memory of man. But it has water in it nevertheless; and at fixed and charted spots are to be found bore-holes and wells for the convenience of dwellers in the profitless wilderness. The principal wells and holes are at the places marked on the diagram. General Botha's principal task was to take an army right across the Namib Desert, and to do that he had to capture every ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie

... of the father whom she had always passionately admired, when she made the mistake of her life. Urged by her father, she accepted a position at court as Second Keeper of the Queen's Robes. There she spent five pleasureless and worse than profitless years. In her 'Diary and Letters,' the most readable to-day of all her works, she has told the story of wretched discomfort, of stupidly uncongenial companionship, of arduous tasks made worse by ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... a profitless business sitting there alone in the mill, listening to the fall the whole night through. Isak had done no wrong; he had no cause to hide himself away. He left the mill, went up over the fields, and home—into ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... provoking methods of the experienced detective. If jealousy can inspire hatred, then Ward must feel toward his successful rival all the ferocious hatred of a man resenting a great deprivation. And that vengeful passion must not be permitted to expend itself in profitless inward torture. It was a potent force for Britz's dexterous hands to manipulate, a destructive fury that should annihilate Beard—if Beard was the ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... therein Full measure and set her to take her wreak of the favours she did show. For know that her blows fall sudden and swift and unawares, though long The time of forbearance be and halt the coming of fate and slow. So look to thyself, lest life in the world pass idle and profitless by, And see that thou fail not of taking thought to the end of all below. Cast loose from the chains of the love and the wish of the world and thou shalt find Guidance and help unto righteousness and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... realized its significance. The look was there on the second night, and on the third, but after that it faded, vanished, and never came again. Mizzi had tasted of the golden fruit and found it dry and profitless, without ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... who are nighest unto the throne of the Most High, it is not for me, the worm, as I stand before you, to presume to measure which is the greater, which is the less. Rather than spending our time in profitless weighing and measuring, let me beseech you to bow your heads in awe and gratitude, praising God for the mercy which sendeth now and then unto men the living voice, the ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... this suggestion of Anaxagoras with all his peculiar earnestness, and devoted himself to its fuller development. It were a vain and profitless theory, which, whilst it assumed the existence of a Supreme Mind, did not represent that mind as operating in the universe by design, and as exhibiting his intelligence, and justice, and goodness, as well as his power, in every thing. If it be granted that there is ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... and Abyssinia; and to whom were alike tributary the Ethiop Maharaj and the Roman Kaysar. He was distinguished above all monarchs for his virtue clemency, and justice. But although he was the refuge of the Khalifate, he was not blessed with an heir: life and the world appeared profitless to him, because he had no fruit of the heart in the garden of his soul. One night, while reclining on his couch, sad and thoughtful, consumed with grief like a morning taper, he heaved a deep sigh upon which one of his favourite wives (he had ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... hope that had made them bearable. And when he shut his eyes upon them, it was only to travel in fancy down the steep mountain side that he had trodden so often to the dreary claim on the overflowed river, to the heaps of "tailings" that encumbered it, like empty shells of the hollow, profitless days spent there, which they were always waiting for the stroke of good fortune to clear away. He saw again the rotten "sluicing," through whose hopeless rifts and holes even their scant daily earnings had become ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... repeating their stirring watchwords of endeavour. We are told that no word spoken ever dies, but goes reverberating through space for ever. It is my fancy that only evil words escape into the outer void, which eternally engulfs their profitless message, while words of hope and helpfulness are not thus lightly sundered from the world that needs them, but hover still near above us, descending with every lull of the tumult into those ears which are strained towards them. The laden air of towns carries not the rumour of the battle only, ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... cases they are discovered to be in effect living for the sake of their leisure and regarding their daily work as uninteresting drudgery, with the result that life as a whole comes to be for them dreary and profitless and stale. A Christian man's life-work ought not to have the character of drudgery, but of ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... ringing, soul-stirring cheer, as they sprang into view, and then were silent, the exertion of pressing up that steep acclivity leaving them no breath to waste in profitless noise. The distance to be traversed was not more than 200 yards—no great matter upon level ground—but the hill rose so abruptly that, after the first fifty yards, our pace was reduced to something between a walk and a climb. The French, too, had evidently expected and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good at Bowling, had any skill ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens

... played cards," said William, "for while there is nothing intrinsically wrong in them, they are the vehicle of much that is injurious, and at the very least, they cause one to fritter away valuable time in profitless amusement." ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... parsonage was. He knew its location with reference to the outer portal of the tunnel, to be sure, but he had come to that underground. However, he remembered where the sun had been when he had emerged into the open air before, and, after some profitless scouting about, a passing motorcycle set him on the right track. It set ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... pre-eminently conspicuous, would far surpass, in genuine grandeur, perhaps, and certainly in rational and philosophical contemplation, the loftiest and most stupendous pillar or pyramid ever raised by human art and industry, for little other purpose than to attract the gaze of profitless admiration, with the vain attempt of mocking the powers of tempests and of time, by which the proudest of these trophied monuments must necessarily be bowed to subjection, and finally crumbled into dust. The solitary hermitage, which shelters a single hoary head, is more interesting ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... the policy of Roman warfare was that the first step in subduing a rebellious province was to starve it. The vineyards had suffered the same end. The enriched soil of these inclosures, made one now with the wild at the leveling of their hedges, produced acres of profitless weeds, green against the rising brown bosom of the hill-fronts. Here and there were the fallen walls of isolated homes—wastes of masonry already losing all domestic signs. There were no gardens; it had been two seasons since the wheat and the barley had been reaped last, and the ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... mental condition of indifference which made conversation extremely difficult as well as profitless, he began to consider her physical condition. I knew him well enough to gather from his manner alone as he went on that what had seemed at the start to be merely a curious case, because it concerned the Athertons, was looming up in his mind as unusual ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... and he was quite as happy on this occasion as though he had made five dollars by the trip. The next morning there were no mackerel off the ledges, or if there were, they would not bite; and the No-Name made a profitless trip. When she returned, Leopold found two gentlemen at the hotel who wished to sail over to Rockland, as there was no steamer that day. While the skipper was making his trade with them, Harvey Barth entered ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... boldest by the assurance of victory. They had never come into contact with the enemy but to defeat them, and the conviction of their invincibility was so powerful, that it required the utmost efforts of their officers to prevent their rushing into profitless peril. The past and the present were triumphant; while, to many a mind of the higher cast, the future was, perhaps, more glittering than either. In the same imperishable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... profitless reverie she had paused to listen to a singular sound that came from a dense group of willows not far from the spot where she sat, and now it grew louder, swelling into a measured cry, as of a ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... there were the women-atheists,—creatures who had voluntarily crushed all the sweetness of the sex within them—foolish human flowers without fragrance, that persistently turned away their faces from the sunlight and denied its existence, preferring to wither, profitless, on the dry stalk of their own theory;—there were the "platform-women," unnatural products of an unnatural age,—there were the great ladies of the aristocracy who turned with scorn from a case of real necessity, and yet spent hundreds of pounds on private ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... the day in Hill's Corners upon the quest of any information which might tell him who the man was who had run off his father's cattle. Having learned nothing, and being a wise young man after his fashion, he had determined not to go home entirely profitless, and so came ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... the things of flesh and spirit they desired with every life-beat in them and yet did not take. Was this terrible denial which, for reasons beyond their incomplete brains, they imposed upon themselves, a meaningless, profitless business? The bland interne was dead and unfortunately beyond their punishment. Yet the fact that he had lived at all called for a protest—some definitely framed expression which would throw a halo about their own submission ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... which the river ran were useless to the farmer. Are there not some whom we know who might be thus described—perhaps someone who reads these lines among the number? First the schoolboy, then the youth, and now the man, profitless and sour, so that all cultivation has been wasted. ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... divides, Our ladder reaches even to that clime, And so at giddy distance mocks thy view. Thither the Patriarch Jacob saw it stretch Its topmost round, when it appear'd to him With angels laden. But to mount it now None lifts his foot from earth: and hence my rule Is left a profitless stain upon the leaves; The walls, for abbey rear'd, turned into dens, The cowls to sacks choak'd up with musty meal. Foul usury doth not more lift itself Against God's pleasure, than that fruit which makes The hearts of monks so wanton: for whate'er Is in the church's keeping, all pertains. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... merits, the battle had the important strategic effect of putting the Dutch out of the war. The remnants of their fleet were destroyed in harbor during an otherwise profitless expedition into Holland led by the Duke of York in 1799. By this time, when naval requirements and expanding trade had exhausted England's supply of seamen, and forced her to relax her navigation laws, it is estimated that no less than 20,000 ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... direct the life; and an extraordinary amount of original verse; for from the first she appears to have adopted the practice of putting her thoughts into rhyme,—a practice which when unaccompanied by true genius is generally a profitless waste of time; but which in her case was made a valuable means of personal edification, as well as of administering counsel, consolation or admonition to others. Few events of public or private interest, in her own family ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... agree on this point. Mr. Howells writes: "There are too many things brought together in which the reader can and should have no interest. The thousand and one petty incidents of the various casualties of life that are grouped together in newspaper columns are profitless expenditure of money ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... in their anxiety to arrive at the ore itself. A keen old man turned their impatience to account by shamming lameness, and pretending that in his weakly state he was not equal to the toil of mining, and was thus compelled to resort to the poor and profitless branch of gathering the black sand, which he sold as a substitute for emery. He used to go about of an evening with a large bag and a tin tray, requesting the miners to blow their black sand upon it, and returning with it to his hut. By the aid of quick-silver he was able to ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... sound of a spinning wheel. The idea of its sucking goats, or any other milky creature, has long been set at rest; and science, intolerant of legends in which there is any use or beauty, cannot be allowed to ratify in its dog or pig-Latin those which are eternally vulgar and profitless. I had first thought of calling it Hirundo Nocturna; but this would be too broad massing; for although the creature is more swallow than owl, living wholly on insects, it must be properly held as a distinct species ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... of doing something in the world other than what I am doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated audiences to preach to, and I want to have leisure to write more and to make a name.... It is merely a vulgar disease—a form of Potterism. One has to face it and ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... than ever. He had no heart to go about his daily concerns, which appeared so paltry and profitless; but sat all day long in the chimney-corner, picturing to himself ingots and heaps of gold in the fire. The next night his dream was repeated. He was again in his garden, digging, and laying open stores of hidden wealth. There ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... master instead of its slave. You have many times been told that the overuse of slang disfigures one's speech and hampers his standing with cultivated people. You have also been told that slang constantly changes, so that one's accumulations of it today will be a profitless clutter tomorrow. These things are true, but an even more cogent objection remains. Slang is detrimental to the formation of good intellectual habits. From its very nature it cannot be precise, cannot ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... winsome personality; and really to know him was to love him. His nature was keenly sympathetic; his conversation ready and charming, quickly responsive to suggestion, illuminated by gentle humor and occasionally a flash of playful satire. He disliked controversy, with its waste of energy in profitless discussion, and jestingly averred that if there were any reformers living in his neighborhood he ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty years of age. An agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about the mouth and the deep lines in the forehead; it could light up, too, upon occasion, as I was soon to discover. For the present I did not bother myself with profitless conjectures; that entrancing filet, displayed in a massive silver cover, stood before him; I could not take my ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... Transatlantic booksellers in the way of money has been some L80 (three thousand dollars) which Herman Hooker of Philadelphia gave me for the exclusive privilege—so far as I could grant it—of being my publisher. For aught else, I have nothing to complain of in the way of praise, however profitless, of kindliness, however well appreciated, and of boundless hospitality, however fairly reimbursed at the time by the valuable presence of a foreign celebrity. No doubt the public are benefited by the cheapness of books unprotected by copyright, and the author, if he wins no royalty, gains by fame ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new" experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the "social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River. Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake. The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house. He was to get twenty-five per cent. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... raised this house from the first foundation even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of his most just hire; and as rest from labour is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... profession. I can bring forth arguments and proofs to support this conviction; but I fail utterly to see why I should do so. To people who have a sense of that which is sincere and fresh in fiction, these facts will be apparent. To them my arguments and illustrations would be profitless. As for those honest persons to whom the excellencies of Merrick are not apparent, I can only think that nothing which I or any other man could say would render them obvious. "Happiness is in ourselves," as the Vicar remarked to the donkey ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... gayety about them, in consequence of which short-sighted critics extend the tongue of animadversion, saying: It is not the occupation of sensible men to solicit marrow from a shrivelled brain, or to digest the smoke of a profitless lamp. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed from the enlightened judgment of the holy and good, to whom these discourses are specially addressed, that the pearls of salutary admonition are threaded on the cord of an elegance of language, and the bitter potion ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... true that it would require a surgical operation to get a joke into some particular Scotchman's head. But we have some persons of the sort even in our own country. Many of the British humorists have been either Scotch or Irish, and it is rather profitless to attempt distinctions as to the humorous sense of these as contrasted with the English. Usually, stories of thrift and penuriousness are told of the Scotch without doing them much injustice, while bulls are designated Irish with sufficient reasonableness. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... by again disregarding all precedent in Virginian campaigns, and saying that the promptness with which reinforcements had been forwarded had contributed largely to the promising situation! But almost immediately after this the North shuddered at the enormous and profitless carnage at Cold Harbor. Concurrently with all this bloodshed, there also took place the famous and ill-starred movement of General Butler upon Richmond, which ended in securely shutting up him and his forces at Bermuda Hundred, "as ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... the little frequented sea in which the "Rover" lay, was a cry that quickened every dull pulsation in the bosoms of her crew. Many weeks had now, according to their method of calculation, been entirely lost in the visionary and profitless plans of their chief. They were not of a temper to reason on the fatality which had forced the Bristol trader from their toils; it was enough, for their rough natures, that the rich spoil had escaped them. Without examining for the causes of this loss, as has been already seen, they had been ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... than ever. He had no heart to go about his daily concerns, which appeared so paltry and profitless, but sat all day long in the chimney corner, picturing to himself ingots and heaps of gold in the fire. The next night his dream was repeated. He was again in his garden digging, and laying open stores of hidden wealth. There was something very singular in this repetition. He passed another ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum. Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt. Ciphers the total confronts me. Oh, Death, with thy moistened thumb, Stoop like a petulant ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... heart, But never yet did I endure such pain. All else I bore with set soul patiently; But now—alack, alack!—Orestes dear, The day and night-long travail of my soul! Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child, I clasped and cherished! Many a time and oft Toilsome and profitless my service was, When his shrill outcry called me from my couch! For the young child, before the sense is born, Hath but a dumb thing's life, must needs be nursed As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... things besides poverty that freeze the genial current of the soul, as the poet of the Elegy calls it. Fire can stand any wind, but is easily blown out, and then come smouldering and smoke, and profitless, slow combustion without the cheerful blaze which sheds light all round it. The one Reader's hand may shelter the flame; the one blessed ministering spirit with the vessel of oil may keep it bright in spite of the stream of cold water on the other ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... body. His wretchedness grew and increased daily till it burst all bounds and overwhelmed him utterly. Despair lay in wait for him at every turn. The mere flight of time became an intolerable burden. His regrets were less for the happy days gone by than for those that were passing all profitless for love. Those, at least, had left him a memory, these nothing but profoundest regret—nay, almost remorse. His life was preying upon itself, consumed in secret by the inextinguishable flame of one desire, by the unconquerable distaste to any other form of pleasure. Of all the fiery ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... Futurity is certain in relation to God, uncertain in relation to us—probable or improbable in relation to us, neither in relation to God; but neither the certainty nor the probability exists in future non-existent fact, therefore I take it they do not influence the fact. This, perhaps, is profitless; but I am glad to find that thought on this point always tends to confirm what I believe is the true scriptural doctrine in opposition to Calvinism. This was a natural reaction on the minds of reformers from the Romish doctrine ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... day When the wild March sunset, gone almost ere come, By glacial shower was hustled out of life, Under a blighted ash tree, near his house, Thus mused the man: "Believe, or Disbelieve! The will does both; Then idiot who would be For profitless belief to sell himself? Yet disbelief not less might work our bane! For, I remember, once a sickly slave Ill shepherded my flock: I spake him plain; 'When next, through fault of thine, the midnight wolf Worries my sheep, on yonder tree you hang:' ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... fibre, and yet there as factors in the problem no man has yet solved. If this was civilization, better barbarism with its chance of sunshine and air, free movement and natural growth. What barbarism at its worst could hold such joyless, hopeless, profitless labor, or doom its victims to more lingering deaths? Admitting the almost impossibility of making them over, incased as they are in ignorance and prejudice, this is simply another count against the social order which has accepted such results as part of its story, and now looks ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain! O Liberty! with profitless endeavor Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee), ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles, and wear the name Of freedom, graven on a heavier chain! O Liberty! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's train, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee,) Alike from priestcraft's harpy minions, And ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... not come alone. The development of all the particulars connected with the transaction will disgrace you for ever, and drive you from the community. Even were I to take part with you, I do not see that it would change the aspect of affairs. So far from your sharing with me the reputation of being profitless in the affair, the public would more naturally suspect that I had shared with you—now, if not before—and the whole amount involved would not seduce me to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... It were tedious and profitless to detail all the painful circumstances which intervened betwixt the time now referred to and that of the minister's embarkation. He experienced, on the one hand, all the petty vexations which the earl's sycophants could devise for his annoyance—and, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... clear flame, to stand erect In natural honour, not to bend the knee In profitless prostrations whose effect Is by itself condemned, what alchemy Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed Will bring the unexultant peace of ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... to this district—which is fairly hardy and can be grown in the open as far north as Tuscany, so that every aranciaria ought to possess a nursery of flourishing young sweet-orange shoots, ready in case of necessity. For eight long years the grafted tree remains as a rule profitless, but having survived and thriven so long, it then becomes a valuable asset to its proprietor for an indefinite period;—as a proof of the longevity of the orange under normal conditions we may cite ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... vanity touched to the quick—all that laboriously constructed edifice of art and chicane which yesterday had seemed so substantial, so impregnable a wall between the Lone Wolf and the World, to-day rent, torn asunder, and cast down in ruins about his feet—Lanyard wasted time neither in profitless lamentation or any other sort ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... of beaver pelts which it enabled New France to send home, was a curse to the colony. It drew from husbandry the best blood of the land, the young men of strength, initiative, and perseverance. It wrecked the health and character of thousands. It drew the Church and the civil government into profitless quarrels. The bishop flayed the governor for letting this trade go on. The governor could not, dared not, and sometimes did not want to stop it. At any rate it was a great obstacle to agricultural progress. With it and other distractions in existence ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... metals by one half; and those imports thus became inadequate to the ordinary expenses of government. Greater efforts were then made to obtain them from the mines. Still, as the more that was obtained the less was the general value, the operation became more profitless still; and at length both Spain and Portugal were reduced to borrow money, which they had no means to pay—in other words, were bankrupt. And this is the true solution of the problem—why have the gold ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... hidden from him. If only she could be safely married before he heard of her again—all, she thought, might yet be well with her. Of what use, then, would be his vengeance? for she did not think it likely he could be so cruel as to wreak an idle and profitless revenge upon her after she herself and her fortune were ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... his vessels to profitless danger, the Vice-Admiral ordered the torpedo-boats to retire from the front, and the whole line of them proceeded to a point north of the ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... speed was clearly something of an achievement, attainable only by incessant halting to take breath—for ten or fifteen minutes—at embryo stations: a platform, a shelter, and a few unhappy-looking out-buildings set down in a land of death and silence—a profitless desert, hard as the nether millstone ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... endless and likely profitless discussion has been indulged in as to the proper way to guide a slide rest, and different opinions exist. It is a question that, so far as principle is concerned, there ought to be some way to settle which should not only govern the question in regard to the slide ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various

... a handsome sum from the rich woman whose only possession had been love when he first knew her. If the secret of Jane's origin still remained locked up in her heart, the effort would be an easy one. He learned enough of David Cable, however, to know that if he shared the secret, the plan would be profitless and dangerous. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... than Flamineo. Pure and simple ambition of the Napoleonic order is the motive which impels into infamy the aspiring parasite of Brachiano: a savage melancholy inflames the baffled greed of Bosola to a pitch of wickedness not unqualified by relenting touches of profitless remorse, which come always either too early or too late to bear any serviceable fruit of compassion or redemption. There is no deeper or more Shakespearean stroke of tragic humor in all Webster's writings ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... aces and spades, and cards with the likenesses of Dr. Busby's son and servant, Doll the dairymaid, and the like. When it comes to a question of profit, one is an amusement involving a good deal of healthy, mental exertion, while the other is about as silly and profitless a way of spending an evening as can well be imagined. Youth must not dance, but they may march to music in company, and go through calisthenic exercises, involving a good deal more motion than dancing. But if people may march to ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... combated—roughly or gracefully, as suited the tilt or the field. She vailed to Lord Berners; while she felt it was here necessary to understand old French, and then to write it in old English.[76] During these profitless labours hope seemed to be whispering in her lonely study. Her comedies had been in possession of the managers of the theatres during several years. They had too much merit to be rejected, perhaps too little to be acted. Year passed over year, and the last still repeated the treacherous promise of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... June and July, 1915, that the Germans displayed their main efforts in the Argonne. Their three great attacks were made with greater forces than ever before (two or three divisions), but the results were as profitless as their predecessors. The heroism of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... capabilities of the region.... Yes, he had spoken of it once in talking of the world's area of cotton production. But what impulse had sent him off on such an exploration? Mere unrest, perhaps—the intolerable burden of his useless life? The questions spun round and round in her head, weary, profitless, yet persistent.... ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... considerable time had passed. What did concern him particularly was the absence of the Malay when the barkentine was weighing anchor and giving a line for a tow out to sea. The Malay was a valuable sailor; to replace him adequately was clearly so impossible a task that Freeman decided, after a profitless and delaying search of hours, to leave port without him or another in his place. It was with a heavy heart, somewhat lightened by a confident assumption that the amulet was safe in his possession, that Freeman headed down the channel ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... French cavalry and infantry, ill-fed and uncomfortable, were diminishing daily. Especially the Walloons, Flemings, and other Netherlanders of Parma's army, took advantage of their proximity to the borders and escaped in large numbers to their own homes. It was but meagre and profitless campaigning on both sides during those wretched months of winter and early spring, although there was again an opportunity for Sir Roger Williams, at the head of two hundred musketeers and one hundred and fifty pikemen, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... maintained its ancient aspect. He had bought lands, and engaged in trade, and made sundry efforts in various and honorable ways, but without success. Vocation after vocation had with him a common and certain termination, and after many years of profitless experiment, the ways of prosperity were as far remote from his knowledge and as perplexing to his pursuit, as at the first hour of his enterprise. In worldly concerns he stood just where he had started fifteen ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... here. I only offer a few suggestions. The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there into political exile. The whole struggle for Tennessee will have been profitless to both State and nation if it so ends that Governor Johnson is put down and Governor Harris put up. It must not be so. You must have it otherwise. Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union. Exclude all others, and trust that your government so organized ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... search through the intricacies of the apparatus. For a time Jack followed him about, but after a while wearied of so profitless an occupation, and so took to smoking on the window-ledge. Darrow extended his investigations to the bookcase, and to a drawer in the deal table. For over two hours he sorted notes, compared, and ruminated, his brows ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White

... old Wilcox said. And of all unwarranted things! He said it was in poor taste, utterly profitless, anyway, and not in harmony with university traditions and policy. He said much more of the same vague sort, and I couldn't pin him down to anything specific. I made it pretty awkward for him, and he could ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... his kingdom would arrive after his execution. But after seeing him on the cross, and having waited in vain for the resurrection of Jesus, which he expected to immediately take place, Judas, not able to bear the pain by which his heart was torn, committed suicide by hanging himself. It would be profitless to dwell upon this ingenious product of a ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... its lack of convincing power, and those parts of it which are, like Phases of Faith, painful reading and profitless—to Christians—there are here and again striking passages such as this, whose beauty cannot fail to appeal to us: "None can enter the kingdom of Heaven without becoming a little child. But behind and after this there is a mystery revealed to but few; namely, if the Soul is to go on into higher ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... deny this, and she was glad enough to drop the argument. She had too many pleasant things to do to care to waste time in profitless discussion. For it was spring term. Nobody but a Harding girl knows exactly what that means. The freshman is very likely to consider the much heralded event only a pretty myth, until having started from home on a cold, bleak day that is springtime only by the calendar, she arrives ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... and accent rather hard to follow, a difficulty not shared by the strong Jewish element in an audience that was extremely quick to appreciate the humour that kept one always on the alert. It is profitless to ask how much of the fun was due to the things said and how much to the manner of saying them. The essential matter is that actors and author between them gave us an unusually good time, and I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various

... out to the succeeding—and a fast-succeeding generation it is! as a disappointed old maid—passe belle, who squandered her capital of fascinations, and has become a pauper upon public toleration, while my mother, sisters, and brothers are growing impatient at my many and profitless flirtations, and anxious to see me 'settled.' My mother's pet text, since I was sixteen, has been her prayerful desire that I, the last of her nestlings, should make choice of a tenable bough and helpful partner, and set up a separate establishment before she dies. When ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... the wonder and admiration of the whole place, many were the unthrifty hours spent in such profitless discourse by the wives and daughters of the townsfolk, to the great discomfort and discredit of their liege lords. He was at present abiding in the college, where John Dee had apartments distinct from the warden's house, along with his former coadjutor and seer, Edward ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... natives to the faith, and even, if they should not receive baptism, to make peace and alliance with them. This did not succeed. It is probable that the captains found negotiation of any kind exceedingly tame and apparently profitless in comparison with the pleasant forays made by their predecessors. The attempt, however, shows much intelligence and humanity on the part of those in power in Portugal. That the instructions were sincere is proved by the fact of this expedition ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... been a sanguinary, fruitless, cruel campaign; it had availed nothing except to drive the Arabs away from some hundred leagues of useless and profitless soil; hundreds of French soldiers had fallen by disease, and drought, and dysentery, as well as by shot and sabre, and were unrecorded save on the books of the bureaus, unlamented save, perhaps, in some little nestling hamlet among the great green woods of Normandy, or some wooden hut ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... in the face of a thousand defeats and desolations still to reclaim, with the eternal faith that for you the wastes shall blossom like the rose. Work, no matter how brokenly, how futilely. To build houses of sand is better than to sit in profitless dreams and live in ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... connoisseurs. A metal colander or simple scale enables him to know to the fraction of a grain the weight of a pearl, and experience and the trader's instinct tell him everything further that may possibly be known of a gem. It would be as profitless to assume to instruct an Egyptian desert sheikh upon the merits of a horse as to try to contribute information to the pearl-dealer of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... home by her mother or by her virtuous, bigoted, amiable or cross-grained old aunt; a young girl, whose steps have never crossed the home threshold without being surrounded by chaperons, whose laborious childhood has been wearied by tasks, albeit they were profitless, to whom in short everything is a mystery, even the Seraphin puppet show, is one of those treasures which are met with, here and there in the world, like woodland flowers surrounded by brambles so thick ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... left off that profitless employment and threw himself down the stairs, descending in great bounds from landing to landing, more like a tennis ball than a fairly intelligent specimen of mature humanity in control of his ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... and gory, was, as the old chroniclers tell us, thrown over a horse and carried by a faithful herald to be buried at Leicester. It is in vain that modern writers try to prove that Richard was gentle and accomplished, that this murder attributed to him was profitless and impossible; his name will still remain in history blackened and accursed by charges that the great poet has turned into truth, and which, indeed, are difficult to refute. That Richard might have become a great, and wise, and powerful king, is possible; but that he hesitated to commit ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... lone and shunned than ever, and the boldest heart in the whole country-side would quail to be in its vicinity, even in the day-time. To such a pitch the panic rose, that an extensive farm which encircled it, and belonged to the old usurer who made the seizure, fell into a profitless state from the impossibility of men being found to work upon it. It was useless even as pasture, for no one could be found to herd cattle upon it; altogether it was a serious loss to the money-grubber; and so far the incident of the burnt barn, and the tradition it gave rise to, acted ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... that of the Olympiad of Koroibos, B. C. 776. There is no doubt that the Homeric poems were written before this date, and that Homer is therefore strictly prehistoric. Had this fact been duly realized by those scholars who have not attempted to deny it, a vast amount of profitless discussion might have been avoided. Sooner or later, as Grote says, "the lesson must be learnt, hard and painful though it be, that no imaginable reach of critical acumen will of itself enable us to discriminate ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... vicissitudes of this aimless struggle. Philip, although he was superior to each one of his opponents and repelled their attacks on all sides with energy and personal valour, yet consumed his time and strength in that profitless defensive. Now he had to turn against the Aetolians, who in concert with the Roman fleet annihilated the unfortunate Acarnanians and threatened Locris and Thessaly; now an invasion of barbarians summoned him to the northern ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... a mystery waiting to be solved, Grom could not long rest idle. Had she not known well it would be a waste of breath, A-ya would have tried to dissuade him from the perilous, and to her mind profitless, adventure. It was one she shrank from in spite of her tried courage and her unwavering trust in Grom's prowess. The mystery of it daunted her. She feared it in the same way that she feared the dark. But she kept her fears to herself, and claimed her long-established right to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... experience," he said, long afterward, "watching there in the dark among those piles of freight; not a sound, not a living creature astir. But it was not a profitless one: I used to have inspirations as I sat there alone those nights. I used to imagine all sorts of situations and possibilities. Those things got into my books by and by and furnished me with many a chapter. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... been left a prey to their own faults in order that their unworthy mistress might plead their disorders as an excuse for her tyranny. Agriculture languished, and the minute subdivision of arable land finally rendered its tillage almost profitless. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... points of view, unluckily—she was the recipient of an allowance of three hundred a year from a wealthy and benevolent uncle. Without this, the two girls might have found it difficult to weather the profitless intervals which punctuated their professional engagements. But with this addition to their income they rubbed along pretty well, and contrived to find a fair amount of amusement in life through the medium of their many ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... readers who have been unfortunate enough to interest themselves in that most profitless of studies—the philosophy of art —have been at various times teased or amused by disputes respecting the relative dignity of the contemplative ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... landing in anything but fine weather. Those who might have sunk their money in airship building thereupon patted themselves upon the back and rejoiced that they had been so far-seeing as to avoid being engaged upon such a profitless industry. ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... rareness of the occurrence with the mass of mankind, we cannot regard as a very practical inquiry. We well remember our disappointment, when, at the usual stage in the college curriculum, we were promised "metaphysics" and were set to grind in Stewart's profitless mill, where so few problems of either practical or theoretical importance are brought to the hopper, and where, in fact, the object is rather to show how the upper mill-stone revolves upon the nether, (reflection upon sensation,) and how the grist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... no reasonable man can now desire to cloud his eyes and clog his lungs. It is, indeed, one of the cheerful signs of our times, that there is a growing relish for clear air and open skies, a growing indisposition to mingle in old and profitless controversies. It commonly happens in such controversies, as it undoubtedly has happened in the dispute about free-will, that both parties have been trying to pull up Life or Spirit by the roots, and make a show, a la Barnum, of all its secrets. The enterprise was zealously prosecuted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... mostly expert ski-runners. They were contemplating an early summer journey to the Pole and not proposing to attempt serious scientific work of any sort. Further, to our chagrin, the eastern party had not effected a landing, for Campbell realised that it would be profitless to set up his base ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... you can ... for I cannot even faintly indicate to you ... our excitement when Nelse begins to look about him for a wife. In the first place, we are saved by our enforced closeness to real people from wasting our energies in the profitless outcry of economists that people like Nelse should be prohibited from having children. It occurs to us that perhaps the handsome fellow's immense good-humor and generosity are as good inheritance as the selfishness and cold avarice of priggish young Horace Gallatin, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... in reply, "I would be indeed content, if he be a good master, and if in his house it snoweth wherewithal to eat and drink. But tell me what unfortunate may have the masterage of so profitless ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... would be married six months thence. It did not, however, trouble her that she had heard of this through a servant; she never looked for anything else. Had she been addicted (which, fortunately for her, she was not) to that most profitless of all manufactures, grievance-making,—she might have wept over this little incident. But except for one reason, the news of her sister's approaching marriage was rather agreeable to Philippa. She would have another tyrant the less; though it was true that Alesia had ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt

... Ruy Blas, then quite new. It was during the two busy days spent on this occasion in Leipzig that I first came into close contact with him, all my previous knowledge of him having been limited to a few rare and altogether profitless visits. At the house of my brother-in-law, Fritz Brockhaus, he and Devrient gave us a good deal of music, he playing her accompaniment to a number of Schubert's songs. I here became conscious of the peculiar unrest and excitement with which ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... of the orchestra from Haydn to Berlioz, his harmony is as daring and original as Bach's, and his melody is as beautiful as it is different from Beethoven's or Mozart's. (These names are used not in order to institute profitless comparisons, but as convenient standards; therefore even a qualification of the statement ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... plainly hesitating between dignified retreat and another profitless argument with Mary V. Another, because his acquaintance with her had been one long series of arguments, it seemed to him; and profitless, because Mary V simply would not be logical, or ever stick to one contention, but instead would change ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... the invitation, tossed it, together with a note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of his entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surly gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora borealis of superior hopes:—no, something infinitely more substantial than any ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... therefore, your promotion is safe enough, even if there were not a field open for every man who seeks the path to eminence. The great point, however, is to get service with the army of Italy. These campaigns here are as barren and profitless as the soil they are fought over; but, in the south, Maurice, in the land of dark eyes and tresses, under the blue skies, or beneath the trelliced vines, there are rewards of victory more glorious than a grateful country, as they call it, ever bestowed. Never forget, my boy, that you or I have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... compensate for the absence of advantages he had heard named, without fully comprehending either their import or their influence upon the chances of victory. The event painfully undeceived him, and although his generous heart warmed with the same love for him whose valour, profitless even though it proved, was sufficiently attested by the shattered condition of almost every vessel of his little Squadron, he read in the downfall of him in whose aid he had so much confided, the annihilation ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... antelope I stalked on the mountainside was a stone. Of course wives should believe their husbands. The economy of State and Church would collapse otherwise. However, the appearance of a large band of antelope, a sight now very rare even in the Rockies, caused the profitless discussion to be engulfed in the pursuit of ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... to be alone, was evident enough, but I resented being excluded from his confidence, even temporarily. It would seem that he had formed a theory in the prosecution of which my cooeperation was not needed. And what with profitless conjectures concerning its nature, and memories of Val Beverley's pathetic parting glance as we had bade one another good- night, sleep seemed to be out of the question, and I stood for a long time staring ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... the enlargement of the foreign debt and the consequent increase of interest must be the decrease of the import trade. In lieu of the comforts which it now brings us we might have our. gigantic banking institutions and splendid, but in many instances profitless, railroads and canals absorbing to a great extent in interest upon the capital borrowed to construct them the surplus fruits of national industry for years to come, and securing to posterity no adequate return for the comforts which the labors ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren

... be eident, fleet time rushes on, Be eident, be eident, bricht day will be gone; To stand idle by is a profitless sin: The mair that ye work, aye ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... and even these sweet, sad visions of the night came to me less often. Thus life became a weary round, in which month followed month, season followed season, year followed year, and brought always the same eternal profitless-work. And yet the work was merciful, for it dulled the biting edge of thought, and the unchanging evenness of life gave wings ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... length reaped their reward.'[32] The Radical version of the history is different. The great men, it said, who had left the cause to be supported by agitators so long as the defence was dangerous and profitless, stepped forward now that it was clearly winning, and received both the reward and the credit. Mill and Place could not find words to express their contempt for the trimming, shuffling Whigs. They were probably unjust enough in detail; but they had a strong case in some respects. The Utilitarians ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... month of September. The passenger-list of the Aquila had comparatively few names inscribed on it. In the autumn season, the voyage from America to England, but for the remunerative value of the cargo, would prove to be for the most part a profitless voyage to shipowners. The flow of passengers, at that time of year, sets steadily the other way. Americans are returning from Europe to their own country. Tourists have delayed the voyage until the fierce August heat of the United States has subsided, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... was one of those men who arouse strong friendships and strong animosities. These have been dealt with only where they seemed to have a bearing upon history, as in the case of Sir John A. Macdonald and of the Roman Catholic Church. It seems to be a profitless task for a biographer to take up and fight over again quarrels which had no public importance and did not affect the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... called him and some of them entertained serious doubts as to whether they had done wisely in choosing the less glorious paths of peace. And Arthur Agar settled down into the old profitless life, with this difference—that he could not dine out, that he used blackedged notepaper, and that his delicate heliotrope neckties were folded away in a drawer until such time as his grief should be assuaged into that state of resignation ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... tendency to profitless and hurtful "skylarking," he had far too much of the Berserker blood of his ancestors—those rough old vikings who "despised mail and helmet and went into battle unharnessed"—to become altogether gentle in manners ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... years, was a practical fighter, having been trained not to attack but to harass. The systematic and steady way in which they advanced before the bear, and retired, right and left, leading her into a profitless pursuit, was very interesting to witness. Another volley from the hunters caused them to make off more rapidly, and wounded the cub severely, so much so that in a few minutes it began to flag. Seeing this, the mother placed it in front of her, ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... It is profitless to discuss here which of them has been chiefly responsible for the disturbances whose recital occupies so large a space upon the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... the prairie I could see them apparently engaged in the silly and quite profitless occupation of putting down a post-hole where it wasn't in the least needed, and then clustering about this hole like a bunch of professorial bigwigs about a new specimen on a microscope slide. Then they moved on and made another hole, and still another, until I got tired of watching them. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer



Words linked to "Profitless" :   unrewarding



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