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Practical   /prˈæktəkəl/  /prˈæktɪkəl/   Listen
Practical

adjective
1.
Concerned with actual use or practice.  "The idea had no practical application" , "A practical knowledge of Japanese" , "Woodworking is a practical art"
2.
Guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory.  Synonyms: hard-nosed, hardheaded, pragmatic.  "A hard-nosed labor leader" , "Completely practical in his approach to business" , "Not ideology but pragmatic politics"
3.
Being actually such in almost every respect.  Synonym: virtual.  "The once elegant temple lay in virtual ruin"
4.
Having or put to a practical purpose or use.  "Practical applications of calculus"



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"Practical" Quotes from Famous Books



... as a practical shearer, that no man could shear 321 sheep in eight hours, although I will admit he might do what we shearers call 'mullock over' that number; and what is more, no manager or overseer who knows his work would allow a shearer to do that number ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... staircases: In France the intermural, or spiral, staircase was considered quite splendid enough for all human needs, and in the finest chateaux of the French Renaissance one finds these practical staircases. Possibly in those troublous times the French architects planned for an aristocracy living under the influence of an inherited tradition of treachery and violence, they felt more secure in the isolation and ready command of a small, narrow staircase where one man well nigh single-handed ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... faces, nor make themselves disagreeable by dragging religion into every subject that becomes the topic of conversation. On the contrary, they are cheerful, moderately social, and to my own knowledge, with all their pleasantry, are active exponents of much practical benevolence to the poor. Come, man, take your ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Epistle of St. James is entirely practical, and exceedingly fine; you cannot study it too much. It seems particularly designed to guard Christians against misunderstanding some things in St. Paul's writings, which have been fatally perverted to the encouragement of a dependence on faith ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... fighting to be done, but the cavalry was not wholly idle. Raids had to be intercepted, and the enemy was not to be allowed to vaunt himself too much; so that I gained some experience of the hardships of that arm of the service, and found out by practical participation what is meant by a cavalry charge. To a looker-on nothing can be finer. To the one who charges, or is supposed to charge,—for the horse seemed to me mainly responsible,—the details are somewhat ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... the story. It was very much what I had heard before and what I said it was. The argument is, that so long as there is no law, or no law put in force, every man will do what he likes—which is unanswerably true. I am also afraid that there is no practical answer to the logical deduction from this, that so long as bad men can do what they like good men must do the same or "get left". Good, bad and indifferent, all alike, are squandering the capital of the wild life as fast as they can, though the legitimate interest of it would soon ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood

... for the very bread was like no bread she had ever seen before. Diana sipped her tea gratefully; all this novelty was the most welcome thing in the world to her overstrained nerves. She sipped her tea as in a dream; the old lady studied her with eyes wide awake and practical. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... Betty Nelson looked at trouble that same trouble seemed to melt away—to flee as though it had no right to exist. And this not only as regarded her own troubles, but those of her friends as well. Intensely practical was Betty, yet there was a shade of romance in her character that few suspected. Perhaps the other girls had so often taken their little troubles to Betty, listening to her advice and sympathy, that they forgot she might have some of her own. But, under it all, Betty had a romantic nature, ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... the snow, through the burnt lands that lie on the Peribonka's high bank above the fall. Lorenzo had used no wile to secure Maria's company, he simply invited her before them all, and now he told of his love, in the same straightforward practical way. ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... of intemperance. In the neighbourhood of Lichfield, the sportsmen of the party appeared in the Highland taste of variegated drapery; and their zeal descending to a very extraordinary exhibition of practical ridicule, they hunted, with hounds clothed in plaid, a fox dressed in a red uniform. Even the females at their assembly, and the gentlemen at the races, affected to wear the chequered stuff by which the prince-pretender and his followers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... since the time of Plato, (and Cicero ranks even him among those philosophers who denied the certainty of any kind of knowledge,) had gradually fallen into a degree of scepticism that seemed to strike at the root of all truth, theoretical and practical. But Antiochus professed to revive the doctrines of the old Academy, maintaining, in opposition to Carneades and Philo, that the intellect had in itself a test by which it could distinguish between what was real and what existed only in the imagination. ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... "According to practical maxims of life, I ought to boast of my birth, since I owe it to pure love, without marriage; but this I know, it was scarce possible to inherit a stronger propensity to that cause of my being than I did. I was the rare production of the first essay of a journeyman ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... came out in 1832, as a clerk, and has risen to be Governor, with the military rank of lieutenant-colonel. All the civil officers have military titles, and wear the corresponding uniforms, for effect upon the natives; but the Dutch evince their shrewdness by placing practical men of business, rather than soldiers, at the head of their colonial establishments. The only officer of the regular army is a lieutenant, commanding the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... choir-boys, errorless order in church service—these auxiliaries influence them so strongly in their sense of the beautiful that they think, "Surely I love God. Why, of course I love God." But to love God involves something practical. It means something more than mere profession. It means rugged self-denial, Spartan heroism, perhaps the loss of an "arm" or the "plucking out of an eye." Base must have been the soul which was not attracted ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... lessened the force of each other's attraction, he took this opportunity of enjoying some respite, and for the present detached his sentiments from both, resolving to indulge himself in the exercise of that practical satire which was so agreeable and peculiar in his disposition. In this laudable determination he was confirmed by the repeated suggestions of his friend Cadwallader, who taxed him with letting his talents rust ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he repeated his dithyramb in praise of existence, the philosopher concluded his statement with a sort of practical demonstration, a bow to the Duchess, which seemed to say, 'How can a man think ill of life in the presence of such beauty ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... the Saints' is a practical treatise on the principal Christian virtues, abundantly illustrated with interesting examples from Holy Scripture as well as from the Lives of the Saints. Written chiefly for devout souls such as are trying to live an interior and supernatural life by following ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies

... my best," says Mr. De Kay. "Of course I was not a practical railroad man. I'd been somewhat of a figurehead, you understand. But in this emergency I was called back from Europe and at the urgent request of the directors I assumed active charge. My first step was to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... phantasmal foundations of their future lives. Perhaps the chief thing to be said of their intercourse was that it was to each a mental stimulant as well as an emotional delight. Eugenia's quick, untutored mind, which had run to seed like an uncultivated garden, blossomed from contact with his practical, unpolished intellect. He taught her logic and a little law; she taught him poetry and passion. He argued his cases to her and swept her back into the days of his old political dreams—dreams from ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... romantic period quaintly described as "causing the same effects as lightning and quicksilver," was his most dependable support. Together they landed at the Indian village of Calamari, and, after putting the pacific inhabitants to the sword—a manner of disposal most satisfactory to the practical Juan—laid the foundations of the present city of Cartagena, later destined to become the "Queen of the Indies," the pride, as it was the despair, of the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... answers a variety of needs in practical manipulation very satisfactorily. Changes in adjustment are easily and quickly made, in regard to intensity, interval and absolute rate. If desired, the gradation of intensities here employed may be refined to the threshold of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... its having been spun, as any one can ascertain for oneself. As regards the same point on the Lake Dwellers looms, Cohausen was the first to surmise that the warp threads were bunched to receive the weight, and Messikommer proved it by practical experiment.[G] ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth

... was nowhere to be seen, and a shadow of disappointment clouded his face as he halted the only too willing beast and clambered down between the spidery wheels. Nor did he wait to secure his faithful servitor, or to think of anything practical at all. He hustled up to the open doorway, and, pushing his head in through it, called till the echoes of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... the standpoint of practical politics, one of the greatest needs of our time is for an intelligent and public- spirited handling of tariff problems. The tariff is a technical and highly complex question, upon which politicians have heretofore had ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... good there is in marriage, connections formed by either party beyond the marriage-bed, are agents of confusion to the undoing of all that good and the practical ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... this is how one of the most eminent French socialists, M. Albert Thomas, a man who has given abundant proof of his practical experience and actual talents, formerly the French Minister of Munitions, depicts the ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... the members of the bar, notwithstanding the fact that they had but just escaped from the condition of colonists. Common sense was the divinity of both the courts and the profession. The learning was not extensive or profound, but practical knowledge, sound principles, and shrewd management were conspicuous. Jeremiah Smith, the Chief Justice, a man of humor and cultivation, was a well read and able judge; George Sullivan was ready of speech and fertile in expedients; and Parsons and Dexter of ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... but it has practical drawbacks. In dealing with an Isosceles, if a rascal pleads that he cannot help stealing because of his unevenness, you reply that for that very reason, because he cannot help being a nuisance to his neighbours, you, the Magistrate, cannot help sentencing him to be consumed—and ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... unbounded curiosity; a general whose iron will and superhuman energy seldom failed in leading his soldiers through difficulties and reverses to ultimate victory; a dreamer whose imagination kindled whenever he came into contact with the great ideas, Christian or pagan, of an older world; a practical statesman whose innate love of order and respect for justice were coupled with a gift for organisation and the power of extracting their best work from his subordinates, it is not for any want of natural qualifications that his claim to rank with the great world-heroes can ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... PRACTICAL, STANDARD WORK, and may be described as a complete system of the principles and practice of Phrenology. Besides important remarks on the Temperaments, it contains a description of all the primary mental powers, in seven different degrees of development, together with the combinations ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... advances in the means of intercommunication between peoples over the past generation offer a practical method of advancing the mutual understanding upon which peace and the institutions of peace must rest, and it is our policy and purpose to use these great technological achievements for the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... poisonous gas may have developed, either from a fissure in the earth's crust, or otherwise. Other hypotheses are possible, but of what practical value are they now? ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... not so very long ago, when the humanists enjoyed a practical monopoly in the domain of English education, and, by doing so, exercised a considerable, perhaps even a predominant, influence not only over the social life but also over the policy, both external and internal, adopted by ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... at representing madness throughout the whole range of dramatic literature, with the single exception of Lear, it is mere lightheadedness, as especially in Otway. In Edgar's ravings Shakespeare all the while lets you see a fixed purpose, a practical end in view;—in Lear's, there is only the brooding of the one anguish, an ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... few months, there had been many more bears and deer than human beings. For it was in Venango, Pennsylvania, that the oil-wells were situated, and Mr. Lea judged it advisable that I should first visit them and learn something of the method of working, the geology of the region, and other practical matters. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... constitutes MUBARAK's potentially most significant political opposition; MUBARAK tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, but moved more aggressively since then to block its influence; civic society groups are sanctioned, but constrained in practical terms; trade unions and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... gymnasium, and in response to his friendly remark that "Hull-House was spreading out," I replied that "Perhaps we were spreading out too fast." "Oh, no," he rejoined, "you can afford to spread out wide, you are so well planted in the mud," giving the compliment, however, a practical turn, as he glanced at the deep mire on the then unpaved street. It was this same condition of Polk Street which had caused the crown prince of Belgium when he was brought upon a visit to Hull-House to shake his head and meditatively ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... eugenics during the last few years, and to explain my own views upon its aims and methods, which often have been, and still sometimes are, absurdly misrepresented. The practice of eugenics has already obtained a considerable hold on popular estimation, and is steadily acquiring the status of a practical question, and not that of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... is now the privileged companion of their majesties, in their seclusion for the rest of the evening. His cheerful face, in its full evening disguise of wig and tie, his invariable good humour, his frank manners, his wonderful sense, his views, more practical than elevated, sufficiently account for the influence which this celebrated minister obtained over Queen Caroline, and the readiness of King George to submit to the tie. But Sir Robert's great source of ascendancy was his temper. Never was there in the annals of our country a minister so ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... young gentlemen have been in a gale of wind, and a pretty stiff one too, but except the little blow we had the other day, you, Mr Gogles, have no practical experience of what a real downright hurricane is," he continued. "Why, I once was in a ship where, after we had carried away our masts, we were obliged to run under a marlinespike stuck up in the bows, but even that was too much for her, and ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... exclaimed Lady Biddy, 'it kills all the best part of one. You know I've tried time after time to strike out on my own individual self, but I've always been brought back again by my hopeless, hopeless lack of practical knowledge of how to earn a livelihood. The one gift I'd inherited wasn't good enough to be of any use—If my mother had only left me the whole of her voice, I'd have been an opera-singer. But I don't ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... interested in subjects that lay for the most part entirely out of the range of her husband's sympathies; while he was becoming more deeply absorbed in a profession that required close application of thought, intellectual force and clearness, and cold, practical modes of looking at all questions that came up for consideration. The consequence was that they were, in all their common interests, modes of thinking and habits of regarding the affairs of life, steadily receding from each other. Their evenings were now less frequently spent together. If home ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur

... by nature with a vigorous and mighty organization, bodily as well as mental: and though he may appear to have been losing much valuable time in the elegant frivolities of the drawing-room, he was not less industrious at this period of his career in amassing a store of observation derived from a practical study of human character, than successful in filling up—in the short intervals of ball and festival—the poetical outlines which he had roughly sketched at the Lyceum. He worked in the morning at his poem, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... that the townspeople did not know. They did not know that, though the Wheelers had a motor-car, they had almost nothing else; no new clothes, except dust coats and goggles; no new books and magazines, except such as dealt with "the practical upkeep and operation of a car"; no leisure, for the car must be kept repaired and shining; no fresh vegetables to eat, for the garden had died long ago from want of care, and they could buy only gasoline. ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I did, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes. You see, he was of an argumentative disposition. Therefore it took him but a little time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with everything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the students of Columbia College enjoyed playing practical jokes upon its dignified professors. As an illustration, I remember once seeing the death of Professor Renwick fictitiously published in one of the daily journals, much to the sorrow and subsequently the indignation of a large circle of friends. Professor Anthon, too, although a confirmed ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... to that is that the English language was safeguarded in the Legislature of Quebec simply because our English friends were on that occasion, as usual, a little more practical than we are. They wanted the English language to be official in the Legislature of Quebec, and asked to have it stated in the Act. That was a concession to the Protestant, or rather to the English-speaking minority in the Province of Quebec. Section 133 is not limitative. Some people are apt to ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt

... resumption of her old footing as a scholar. A few ill-natured elders of her own sex, and naturally exempt from the discriminating retort of Mr. McKinstry's "shot-gun," alleged that the Seminary at Sacramento had declined to receive her, but the majority accepted her return with local pride as a practical compliment to the educational facilities of Indian Spring. The Tuolumne "Star," with a breadth and eloquence touchingly disproportionate to its actual size and quality of type and paper, referred to the possible ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... commenced, there was a man named Maury, a lieutenant in the United States service, and who was connected with the National Observatory in Washington. He was thought to be a scientific, practical man. He had been educated by the government, had received great pay, and was in a high position; but he forgot all that, and joined the Rebels. He imitated General Floyd, and stole public property, carrying off from the National Observatory valuable ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... to actual practitioners; but is intended to enunciate the principles of those who, in the true spirit of Art, enforce a rigid adherence to the simplicity of Nature either in Art or Poetry, and consequently regardless whether emanating from practical Artists, or from those who have studied nature ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... naturally, and she coloured a trifle, but Sheila did not appear to notice. They breakfasted together, and later sat on the veranda enjoying the perfect morning after the storm. Naturally, they spoke of the events of the preceding day and night. Sheila took a practical view. ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... all, when you have gathered all the hints you can from nature or the past, and collected your resources from however varied fields, resolves itself at last into one question—"How shall I do it in glass?" And the practical solving of this problem is in the handling of the actual bits of coloured glass which are the tools of your craft. And for manipulating these I have found nothing so good as that old-fashioned toy—still my own delight when a sick-bed enforces idleness—the kaleidoscope. ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... book just issued from the press of Messrs. Scribner & Welford, New York, a large number of practical, though novel, receipts are given for making cakes of various kinds, from the informal griddle-cake to the stately bride-cake, without eggs, by the use of Royal Baking Powder. Experienced housekeepers inform us that this custom has already obtained large precedence ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... following suit until he got a chance to trump; but he was beginning to have a discouraged feeling that the game was hers, and that he might as well lay down his hand and be done with it. Which, when he brought the simile back to practical affairs, meant that he was thinking seriously of leaving the ranch and the country just ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... issue is: Shall we have a practical, spiritual Christianity, with its healing power, or shall we have material medicine and superficial religion? The advancing hope of the race, craving health and holiness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whose life-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must answer the ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... practical man's contempt for mere ideas. The man of affairs, be he statesman or worker, is always apt to think that things are more than thoughts. Gallio, proconsul in Corinth, and his brother official, Pilate, in Jerusalem, both believed in powers that they could ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... liked. Late in life (for such an imprudent man as he, was one of a class who generally wed, trusting to chance and luck for the provision for a family), farmer Robson married a woman whose only want of practical wisdom consisted in taking him for a husband. She was Philip Hepburn's aunt, and had had the charge of him until she married from her widowed brother's house. He it was who had let her know when Haytersbank Farm had been to let; ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the truths of God's Word is to be a light in the world. To disbelieve any part, to come short of any part in practical life, is to be to the same extent in darkness. Christ was a light because he was the Word. The early church and apostles were a light because they believed, experienced and practised in life the whole ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... 'if General Grant, a man of singularly practical character, was among the prophets, I am quite content ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... of a supernatural regeneration. In another, the essential thing is set forth as being not an outward act, but an inward principle, which produces appropriate effects on the whole being. In yet another the essential thing is conceived as being not a mere ceremonial, but practical obedience, the consequence of the active principle of faith, and the sign of the new life. There is an evident sequence in the three sayings. They begin with the deepest, the divine act of a new creation—and end with the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... is that which, by your own experience, you have found you cannot do without. As a bit of practical advice, however, the following system of elimination may be recommended. When you return from a trip, turn your duffel bag upside down on the floor. Of the contents make three piles—three piles conscientiously ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... Count Rumford, was a very singular character—- a compound of experimental philosopher, practical philanthropist, soldier and statesman. He was born at Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1753. A Tory during the struggle for American independence, he embarked for England before the close of the war. There he was well ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... which, after all, had to be got through; whereupon for the first time the impetuous musicians broke out into rebellion against the excessive rehearsals. At this stage I noticed that the guarantee of my practical control given by the general management was not altogether made in good faith, and in the face of the growing complaint on all sides against being overfatigued I decided 'to demand the return of my score' as they called it; that is to say, to dispense with ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for which a representation of the people can be desired or devised. I defy the enemies of our constitution to show the contrary. To detail the particulars in which it is found so well to promote its ends, would demand a treatise on our practical constitution. I state here the doctrine of the revolutionists, only that you and others may see, what an opinion these gentlemen entertain of the constitution of their country, and why they seem to think that some great ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... was laid down. These digressions of fancy were yet more frequent when she was endeavouring to fix her attention to drawing, needle-work, or to any other sedentary employment. Exercise she found useful. She spent more time than usual in planting and in gardening—a simple remedy; but practical philosophy frequently finds those simple remedies the best which Providence has put within ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... Soverio, "at any other moment it would be my dearest privilege to listen to your eloquence. But time passes. I came here on a practical errand. I desire to take back some definite answer to Adone and Clelia Alba. Am I to understand from you that the municipality, on behalf of these foreign companies, desires to purchase his land, and even insists upon ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... to the eventfulness of Saturday; the Boers continued to display the same ominous energy, digging trenches, erecting forts, and making themselves generally comfortable—pending our submission to the inevitable like practical men. To emphasise the wisdom of surrender on our part, it was freely stated that the town was to be bombarded from Kamfers Dam. There was a feeling—it was in the air—that mischief was brewing. In obedience to a sudden order, the women and children of Otto's Kopje and the West End ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... head, but he said it was all a "jolly lark;" and then for want of something else to say to express how he was enjoying himself, he made the same remark again, and then laughed aloud. But it was the same sort of laugh as would be uttered by the victim of a practical joke who has suddenly sat down upon a tin-tack or ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... most practical thing that you ever did in your life would be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles—even Professor Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals, to ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... down for the second or third time thoroughly beaten, the time has arrived for teaching him a few more of the practical parts of horse-training. ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... suppose," said Cora cautiously, "that they are scouring Breakwater for things to decorate the machines with. I am glad that I entrusted the Whirlwind to Tillie - she is so artistically practical that she will be sure to avoid making holes in the car to ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... sentimentalists—far from it. Always practical, they are very quick to perceive the futility of nursing grief, and especially the unreasonableness of wishing people back in the world who were no longer able to do their share of its work. A young man came into the village ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... a commonplace and practical though an important, one—to "impeach" a convoy of wheat and barley, butter, cheese, and beef—but the names of those noble and knightly volunteers, familiar throughout Christendom, sound like the roll-call for some chivalrous tournament. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... for a monthly magazine. Many, indeed most, of the foremost magazine contributors are men and women who have never passed through a college except by going in at the front door and emerging from the back one. However, for the most part, they are individuals of wide experience who know the practical side of life as distinguished ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... was observed from Doorsha?" Dorita inquired, more concerned about the practical aspects of the situation. "The ship, I mean. After all, we have no means of communication, of ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... of his success, for she had always been his truest friend, the only human being who had never been jealous or envious. Now he missed this loyal companion on whose approval he could count as a matter of course; never once had she contradicted him, for since he never told her more than the practical result of his researches, there was no room for argument. For a moment the thought occurred to him that he might make friends with his son; but they knew each other too little; their relationship was that of officer and private soldier. His superior rank did ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... your friends as easily as a book. Now, the problem of what to give is a hard one at any time, but the problem of what to give for a five hundredth birthday is even harder. A monogrammed ash tray? I do not receive cigars often enough to make that practical. A hand-knitted sweater? It would not fit (they never do). A gold-plated watch chain? I have no watch. No, the best idea would be to get me something which ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... Iris's wild foreboding that the ship was intended to be lost, Philip did not give it other than a passing thought. Coke was navigating the Andromeda with exceeding care and no little skill. He was a first-rate practical sailor, and it was an education to the younger man to watch his handling of the vessel throughout the worst part of the blow. About midnight the weather moderated. It improved steadily until a troubled dawn heralded some fitful ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... nature; he passed from promises to threats, from flatteries to outbursts of wrath, until he met with compliance. His administration at home witnesses to a noble conception of his mission and to a practical understanding; from his lion-like visage shone forth a pair of quiet eyes, but how suddenly did they flame up with wild fire, if the passion was roused that slumbered in the depths of his soul! It was the passion of unlimited power; an ambition for which, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... from the positions established by his predecessors. To my mind, though I cannot now dwell upon the point, the philosophy of an age is in itself determined to a very great extent by the social position. It gives the solutions of the problems forced upon the reasoner by the practical conditions of his time. To understand why certain ideas become current, we have to consider not merely the ostensible logic but all the motives which led men to investigate the most pressing difficulties suggested by the social development. Obvious principles are always ready, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... this memorial and the joint resolutions to you I am not prepared to say more than that the subject is one of great practical importance and that I hope it will receive ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... the stress and change of politics lead a statesman into apparently inconsistent utterances than from the professional scholar who subjects these utterances to the severest logica1 scrutiny, without the illumination of practical experience. ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... of sound practical sense, and had no intention of risking her happiness by falling a victim to her imagination. She pressed the electric-button and wrote a letter to her former lover—a friendly letter, without sentimental allusion, asking for news of him. The sight of the ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... myself, if that's what you mean. It is my business to help hammer out an empire in this Northland. If I let my work be cluttered up by all the little rules made by little men for other little ones, my plans would come to a standstill. I am a practical man, but I keep sight of the vision. No need for me to brag. What I have done speaks for me as a guidepost to what ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... earnestness in Catherine's voice, as she spoke, that might have convinced many. But Mr. Morton was a man of facts, a practical man—a man who believed that law was always right, and that the improbable ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Cosmogonists, Pessimists, Optimists, and so on. A clean sweep was accordingly made, so far as it was possible and practicable, of all literature, with the exception (amongst old books) of the Changes, and of practical modern or ancient books on astronomy, medicine, and agriculture. At the same time copies of the proscribed Odes and Book were kept on record at court for the use of the learned in the service of the Emperor. All "histories," except that of Ts'in, were utterly ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... closed fire-places in so general use. Moreover, the women and girls who spend most of their lives in the house, will be expected to show the evil effects more than the men and boys, who do not. The practical suggestions on this point are ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... teaches us there is a cure for sin. The divine Son of God saves us from our sins, cleanses and purifies our natures, and fits us for happiness and service in both worlds. Jesus offers the only practical plan of salvation from sin. The Bible plan of redemption is the only ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... a great deserted quay. The silence struck me curiously. I had imagined a scene of tumult and bustle on the spot where troops in thousands had been landing continuously for so long. We soon realized that we were to supply all the bustle, and that practical work had at last begun, civilian assistance dispensed with, and the Battery a self-sufficient unit. There was not even a crane to help us, and we spent the day in shoving, levering, and lifting on to trucks and waggons our guns, carriages, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... last," grumbled Trenchard. "But I misdoubt me he'll turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?" he asked. He could be very practical at times. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... perfumery!' Lyric: 'Is this a conch?. . .a Triton you?' Simple: 'When is the monument on view?' Rustic: 'That thing a nose? Marry-come-up! 'Tis a dwarf pumpkin, or a prize turnip!' Military: 'Point against cavalry!' Practical: 'Put it in a lottery! Assuredly 'twould be the biggest prize!' Or. . .parodying Pyramus' sighs. . . 'Behold the nose that mars the harmony Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!' —Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said, Had you of wit or letters the least jot: ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... risked death in the demon's honor got iron crosses and bronze crosses, but any one who dared to call it by its true name, if a man, received the decoration of the white feather; if a woman, was regarded as a sentimentalist and merely a woman, and told that she did not understand practical ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... only that the plants exhibited should be nicer and finer than those possessed by her neighbours. On the other hand, her moral life had from the first shown capacity of expansion; it held at its service an intellect, of no very fine quality indeed, but acute and energetic. In all practical affairs she was greatly superior to the average woman, adding to woman's meticulous sense of interest and persistent diplomacy a breadth of view found only in exceptional males; this faculty the circumstances of her life richly fostered, and, by anomaly, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... India. Their role is similar to that performed in the open ports of Japan by the compradores and the Chinese agents into whose hands nearly all business passes. This activity is due to the efforts of their co-religionists in India, for in spite of their recognised probity and practical intelligence, the Guebres have long been exposed to the most ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... set in operation between Frankfort and Offenbach furnishes an occasion for studying the question of such roads anew and from a practical standpoint. For elevated railways Messrs. Siemens and Halske a long time ago chose rails as current conductors. The electric railway from Berlin to Lichterfelde and the one at Vienna are in reality only elevated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... that the women are wretched and despised soothes his conscience, and he remembers if he has not been able to abolish prostitution, he has at all events divested it of all "glamour." It would appear that practical morality consists in making the meeting of men and women as casual as that of animals. "But what do you wish—you would not have vice respected, would you?" "What you call vice was once respected and honored, ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... that if it be so," replied Durtal, "we are very far from the Catholicism that is taught us? It is so practical, so benign, so gentle, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... that it must be nice to have an original wife; and he retorted that the word original hardly described me, and that the word eccentric was the one required. Very well, I suppose I am eccentric, since even my husband says so; but if my eccentricities are of such a practical nature as to result later in the biggest cauliflowers and tenderest lettuce in Prussia, why then he ought to be the first to rise ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp

... selfish as his immediate train of thought might imply; nor were they by any means confined to the probable cost in dollars and cents of his associate's death. Hammon and he had been friends for many years; they shared a mutual respect and affection, and, although Merkle was eminently practical and unemotional, he prayed now as best he could that this alarm might be false, and that Hammon might not be grievously injured. Meanwhile he wedged himself into the cushions of the reeling car and urged ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... her first acts as trustee was a practical one for the girls. "Spent entire day at State Industrial School," she wrote in her diary, "getting the laundry girls—who had always washed for the entire institution by hand and ironed that old way—transferred to the boys' laundry ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... the extinction of the practical art-power evolved from the master-minds of Greece and Rome, though rudely shattered by the northern tribes, it failed not to enforce from them an admission of its grandeur. Loving, as all rude nations do, so much ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... in 1741, leaving him one son, born in 1733. That he had attached himself strongly to her two daughters by her former marriage, there is better evidence in the report, mentioned by Mrs. Montagu, of his practical kindness and liberality to the younger, than in his lamentations over the elder as the "Narcissa" of the "Night Thoughts." "Narcissa" had died in 1735, shortly after marriage to Mr. Temple, the son of Lord Palmerston; and Mr. Temple himself, after a second marriage, died in 1740, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... limping back up the hillside one eventful morning; but the turn that the conversation had taken had its effect on her, and that effect was to have its result. Like others born in the newer lands, she believed first of all in practical efficiency, and she had learned during journeys made with her father that the man with few wants and many abilities, or indeed the man with only one of the latter strenuously applied to a useful purpose, is the type in most favor in western ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... automatic before we are safe with it. While we are fumbling for the grounds of our conviction, our conviction is prone to fall, as Peter for lack of faith sinking into the waves of Galilee; so that the very power to prove at all is an a priori argument against the truth—or at any rate the practical importance to the vast majority of mankind—of all that is supported by demonstration. For the power to prove implies a sense of the need of proof, and things which the majority of mankind find practically important are in ninety-nine ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... practical, friends," he said, "the feeling among the peasants is the question. In this country side, Monsieur de la Mariniere ought to know pretty well what it is. And I fear he will tell us that a good deal of ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... they do," said practical Jose, who never liked to be carried back. "They look beautifully light ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets'? They make the world laugh, and his friends rather sorry for him. But that is because people will still look for practical measures from him: one must be content with him as a great satirist who can make us feel when we are wrong though he cannot set us right. There is a bottom of truth in Carlyle's wildest rhapsodies. I have no news to tell you of books or ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald

... The practical result, at all events, of John Shakspeare's various pursuits, does not appear permanently to have met the demands of his establishment, and in his maturer years there are indications still surviving that he ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... was of different kind,' said the Iron Pot, which stood next to the Matches. 'From the beginning, ever since I came into the world, there has been a great deal of scouring and cooking done in me. I look after the practical part, and am the first here in the house. My only pleasure is to sit in my place after dinner, very clean and neat, and to carry on a sensible conversation with my comrades. But except the Waterpot, which is sometimes taken down ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... reports for 1903 and 1904, which, while showing no practical, tangible results of the efforts of that earnest pioneer worker, are interesting as evidences of the backward, unprogressive spirit against which the women of Alabama have had to contend. These reports mark the end of the first period of suffrage activity in the State, which had been maintained ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... as its centre, and it was to this end that he bent all his energies. While he was not able to realize this fond hope, he was remarkably successful; and not a little of his success must be attributed to his lack of sentiment and his practical ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... capture and she several times was on the point of being taken, but always escaped by her quick wit, or by 'warnings' from Heaven—for it is time to notice one singular trait in her character. She is the most shrewd and practical person in the world, yet she is a firm believer in omens, dreams, and warnings. She declares that before her escape from slavery, she used to dream of flying over fields and towns, and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them 'like a bird,' and reaching at last a great ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... of the attitude, not only of Voltaire himself, but of the whole host of his followers in the later eighteenth century, towards the actual problems of politics. They turned away in disgust from the 'gloomy labyrinth' of practical fact to take refuge in those charming 'general Reflexions' so dear to their hearts, 'the Cast of which was entirely new'—and the conclusion of which was also entirely new, for it ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... look at European aggressions in, say, Africa as incidents of a colonization movement. But no foreign policy in Asia can shelter itself behind any colonization plea. For continental Asia is, for practical purposes, India and China, representing two of the oldest civilizations of the globe and presenting two of its densest populations. If there is any such thing in truth as a philosophy of history with its own inner and inevitable ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey

... blessings inherent in Righteousness and Universal Love, and on the inevitable evil consequences of Self Love or Covetousness, he indicates the practical steps by which these evils might be removed, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... must always be set to the credit of Christopher Columbus. From the age of fourteen he had been upon the sea, and his keen mind was stored with all the nautical science afforded by the awakened spirit of the time. To this practical equipment he added a romantic temperament and a habit of reflection which carried him to greater certainty in his convictions than even that attained by his correspondent, the learned Toscanelli. Assuming that the world was round—no ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... however, there was a strong ecclesiastical atmosphere; but while practical parish detail was thoroughly kept up, there was a wider outlook, and constant conversation and discussion among superior men, such as the Harewood brothers, Lancelot Underwood, Mr. Grinstead, and Dr. May, on the great principles and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... done," continued Sir Seymour, in a practical way, rather like a competent man at a board ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... ground, and the plants that bear it require ventilation and lopping. Were this not to be done in thy garden, every walk and alley, every {110} plot and border, would be covered with runners and roots, with boughs and suckers. We want no poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us: we want practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men, fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to betray one. Experimentalists may be the best philosophers; they are always the worst politicians. Teach people their ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... the most part, yet intensely observant and keenly alive to every action. She seemed to have the faculty of divination, knowing when to be silent and when to join her mood with his, and she gave him valuable help; for she possessed a practical mind and a masculine aptitude for details that surprised both him and George. But, rapidly as the work progressed, it seemed that good-fortune would never smile upon them for long. One day, when ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... Majorca, marquis of Tenerife, and son of a German doctor; becomes governor, 1888; said to have purchased office from minister's wife; school of agriculture established in Manila, 1889; practical school of arts and trades established, 1890; telephone system established in Philippines, 1890; Dominican secondary school established in Dagupan, 1891; said to have received money from religious orders for armed support against their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... for every time an Englishman hears it. But the younger generation of Manx folk do not speak Manx, and very often do not understand it. This is a rapid change on the condition of things in my own boyhood. Manx is to me, for all practical uses, an unknown tongue. I cannot speak it, I cannot follow it when spoken, I have only a sort of nodding acquaintance with it out of door, and yet among my earliest recollections is that of a household where nothing but Manx was ever spoken except to me. A very old woman, almost bent double ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine

... Europeans to plant their womankind upon a pedestal exposed as butts to every possible temptation: and, if they fall, as must often be expected, to assail them with obloquy and contempt for succumbing to trials imposed upon them by the stronger and less sensitive sex. Far more sensible and practical, by the side of these high idealists, shows the Moslem who guards his jewel with jealous care and who, if his "honour," despite every precaution, insist upon disgracing him, draws the sabre and cuts her down with the general approbation ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... was with her father. As she became adolescent, thirteen, fourteen, she set more and more against her mother's practical indifference. To Ursula, there was something callous, almost wicked in her mother's attitude. What did Anna Brangwen, in these years, care for God or Jesus or Angels? She was the immediate life of to-day. Children were still being born to her, she was throng with all the little activities ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence



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